considering to write a zine about the german feminist commandment that "one may never question another persons feelings".
The reason being: I have witnessed the use of phrases such as "i feel unsafe because of this person" or "i am uncomfortable with this person", used as a way to hide bigotry while getting what they want. This has been used in my experience to exclude minorities: poc, trans femmes, and neuroatypical people, from mostly white german afab lefty structures. I think it should be ok to ask why someone feels unsafe with a trans woman of colour living in their collective house. Why someone's callout makes you uncomfortable.
@phryk well i only speak towards germany since that's what i know and i dont want to say the other european countries are the same.
im not saying its a loud minority tho, im saying this is the majority. im not just talking about your obvious terf.
@eribloodlust Thanks for sharing your perspective. Always hard to get some feeling for communities you're not part of, so it's appreciated. :)
@eribloodlust I think we should look way more at the poly scene's handling of feelings. Which is: your feelings are yours to own and deal with.
Of course that shouldn't mean "tough luck, we won't help you" but rather "Hey, what can we do to help YOU deal with YOUR feelings? How can YOU cope?" etc.
And that EVEN goes for when said feelings come from trauma, btw. Still not okay to push responsibility on third parties.
@natanji i think the thing is that a lot of the time its not even about feelings, itsbusing the language of feelings to manipulate an outcome. because white/cis feelings are more important than oppression of minorities, the people in power positions can use this language to get their way and block any questioning. maybe sometimes it has to do with feelings, but then in political space i think feelings that lead to exclusion should be questioned. ex) in a plenum
@eribloodlust The difficult thing is that "feelings should be taken seriously" is also quite important, and sometimes exclusion is important because it otherwise leads to the exclusion of the hurt person. How many women have left hacker spaces because some dudes didn't take their feelings seriously?
But you really can't make this simple. It's a very case-by-case matter.
@natanji no for sure im talking about a specific case where in a plenum where trans women, autistic ppl, and poc are often excluding using this language, and then ppl say "what makes u uncomfortable?" and the majority says "u cant question their feelings", i think ppl should be able to question. in that case. not talking abt other cases. also these are ppl who say outright bigoted things. the feelings of oppressed mean nithing to them. double standards
@natanji also my experience in germany is the expectation that oppressed ppl cimmunicate with no emotion (tone policing) and to give logical, not emotional appeals to the people in power. but the ppl in power do not have that expectation of themselves. so they claim to not question feelings but invalidate them if its from someone who is giving a critique of a power structure they benefit from.
@natanji i guess i realize the issue isnt abt oppressed people not hearing the feelings of the oppressor, but the other way around. would be nice if those ppl did more work rather than all the focus being put on the oppressed ppl who ppl claim arent caring about feelings. seems like misdirection to me, when that happens...
@natanji but that being said yup i think that is a good idea, but i dont see it working so well politically since the issue isnt actually about protecting boundaries or feeeelings but maintaining power structures
@eribloodlust That might well be, but the same goes for relationships. The poly scene has a lot of knowledge and best practices about dealing with harmful power dynamics in relationships, and I see a lot of potential in harnessing this for the (non-romantic) relationships inside an activist group.
@natanji i would like that some of these practices were in use in these spaces yep :)
@eribloodlust
Is this somehow specific to the German community?
Always thought it was just a very loud minority of feminists everywhere…
How do other feminist communities differ?