“You Give Feminists a Bad Name”

More than a year ago, I wrote a post about the “Competitive Wine Tasting” episode of Community, where Troy pretended to have been molested as a child to a) pass his acting class and b) keep Britta interested in him. This post was written and published on April 15, 2011.

Earlier this week, I received this comment:

“You all really need to pick your battles better, and lightening the fuck up wouldn’t hurt. I was molested as a child, and I don’t find this episode offensive. It’s people like those who’ve commented on this article, as well as its author, who give feminists a bad name.”

For reasons that I hope are obvious to everyone, I’m not categorizing this comment as a troll dropping to put in my LULZ Gallery of Trolls. Now, I have no idea if this person is even telling the truth or not – the email address attached to the comment looks suspicious and spammy, and in this big wide world of the Internet, this person was so extremely annoyed to comment on a post that’s over a year old? Not to mention that the aggressive language is very similar to the aggressive language that I’ve seen from many a troll in the past. The word choice and tone is remarkably similar.

Also, an accusation that “you give feminists a bad name” is a classic silencing technique, trying to shame me into not expressing my opinion. “Trying” being the key word here, because all it actually does is get a Bon Jovi song stuck in my head, replacing the Gotye song that’s been in there for months.

At the same time, real-life molestation and assault victims have a history of not being believed, and I don’t want to have a knee-jerk reaction thinking that this person can’t possibly be telling the truth. Maybe this person read my post and thought that I was wasting my time writing about a silly sitcom episode when actual people are getting molested in real life, and I was trivializing an important issue by getting all upset about something that was “just a joke.”

Or maybe this person is an irate Community fan who can’t handle any minor criticism of the show, and overreacted to this post criticizing an episode while completely disregarding the many, many posts I’ve written gushing over this program and saying I like it more than Arrested Development. *shrug*

Anyway, because I think there’s a chance this person was telling the truth, I’m not going to automatically dismiss her as a troll, but I am going to address a few of the points she brought up.

1. “Lighten the fuck up.” I’ve heard this a lot. Many people have commented on blog posts angrily telling me to “lighten the fuck up” or “take a fucking joke.” They’re always really angry that I don’t find something funny, and they never notice the irony in getting angry offended by my (supposed) offense to something. Why am I the one who needs to “lighten the fuck up” when my post that criticizes something they like is ruining their day to the point where they need to leave an aggressive comment on my blog?

2. “Pick your battles better.” Nope – my blog, my rules, and I get to write about whatever I want. And I want to write about jokes and comedy.

3. “I had this experience happen to me, and a joke on this issue didn’t offend me.”

This topic is one that I want to respond to delicately, because the last thing I want to do is dismiss or trivialize the opinion of someone who went through a traumatic experience, but here’s the thing: sexual abuse victims aren’t a monolith, and one victim does not speak for the experiences of all others.

If a sexual abuse victim watched “Competitive Wine Tasting” and wasn’t triggered or upset by a storyline that had a character pretend to be abused, then fine. But another sexual abuse victim might have watched that same episode, seen a traumatic experience played for comedy, and been upset.

My objective in writing is not to tell my readers, “This is how I feel about this issue and you must feel this way too, and if you disagree with me, you’re a bad person.” My objective is to get people thinking about the way comedy and media reflect and shape social norms and ideas. People are free to disagree with me, but if I provoke thought and discussion, I feel like I’ve succeeded.

Similarly, feminists are not a monolithic group, and when I write, I’m speaking for myself, not for everyone. Am I giving feminists a bad name? No, because if someone reads my blog, doesn’t like what I have to say, and decides to judge all feminists negatively as a result, the problem is with them, not me.