There’s been another one of those big Internet shit-storms in the feminist blogosphere lately and it’s the Hugo Schwyzer shit-storm. Or you could say it is the debate about men with abusive pasts taking on positions of leadership in feminism (as if ‘men in leadership positions’ wasn’t controversial enough).You always see some crapola behaviour in a big Internet fight but when it happens in feminism you also get to learn a lot from it because some of the meatier stuff about our movement and philosophy gets discussed and seriously debated.
If you don’t read the big sites you might have missed it, so here’s the journey.
Sex, Drugs, Theology, Men and Feminism: Interview with Hugo Schwyzer by Clarisse Thorn.
On Change and Accountability by Clarisse Thorn.
A Different Take on Accountability by Caperton.
On Change and Accountability: A Response to Clarisse Thorn by Maia.
Hugo Schwyzer by No, Seriously, What About Teh Menz?
Herding Sluts: The Paternalistic Feminism of Hugo Schwyzer by Angus Johnston.
blue milk 
Thanks for this, I don’t do much reading of the larger sites and there is a lot of interesting reading in there I would otherwise have missed – Maia’s post (I had happened upon that one previously) is especially good.
Another one:
Hugo Schwyzer!
Thanks, amended the post to include that link, it is a good one.
I’ve spent the last few weeks/days reading & digesting all of these various posts from the GMP fiasco to the Feministe to Hugo’s own explanatory posts. And to be frank…it all just hurts my head. I’m still not sure what to think. I certainly appreciate the larger lessons to be learned from this, but I’m still muddled about forming any firm opinions on the personal ones just yet…
I’m not sure exactly how I feel about all this either. Some things he writes are interesting, some are not. Is there a way to appreciate someone’s contributions to a movement without liking or trusting them? I’ve known men who were super committed to certain activist causes and did hard work to further that cause, but were underneath it all really just crappy human beings especially in regards to women. It’s such an important discussion to be having.
Why on earth do we, as a movement, keep doing this?
Why not just QUIT handing truckloads of cookies to men who unilaterally decide they have something to add to feminist discussion? Who in the hell decided this guy got a voice anyway? He just sort of decided that he was an authority on feminism and, lo and behold, women started fawning over him.
This cock-in-the-henhouse dynamic gets so. old. Men can talk, sure. But we don’t have to HAND THEM the keys and let them drive any aspect of feminist discussion.
Cara, you speak the song of my heart.
This man doesn’t deserve to be the voice he is. It enrages me to see him held aloft by his supporters when there are so many brilliant minds out there trying to get their ideas into the broader public. Where are their book deals? Where are their slick websites? Why are we not listening to the voices that will really help us, that really count? It’s tragic.
[…] ago, and has since sparked considerable controversy regarding Schwyzer’s position in the feminist […]
[…] weeks ago, and has since sparked considerable controversy regarding Schwyzer’s position in the feminist […]
This has been out for a while, but I thought it was a good (albeit lengthy) read relating to this and misogyny in progressive movements http://inciteblog.wordpress.com/2010/07/15/why-misogynists-make-great-informants-how-gender-violence-on-the-left-enables-state-violence-in-radical-movements/
[…] is a brilliantly thoughtful piece by La Lubu on a way forward for Feministe (related to this). There are some tough questions here, but also, some solid suggestions on what can be done to […]
Other significant posts: http://studentactivism.net/2012/01/07/was-hugo-schwyzers-confession-embellished/ and http://studentactivism.net/2012/01/07/was-hugo-schwyzers-confession-embellished/
[…] This is a brilliantly thoughtful piece by La Lubu on a way forward for Feministe (related to this). There are some tough questions here, but also, some solid suggestions on what can be done to […]
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