I'm basing my impressions on what I read linked via When Fangirls Attack. It's a *neutral* link-blog that collects links to feminists, anti-feminists, and everybody in between.
They've linked to me once or twice, so I know they don't collect only pro-feminist links. And, granted, the site's fairly new to me.
Buuuut, I think calling the site "neutral" is inaccurate. One can present things without comment and still show bias in the things which are shown. The site itself may not actually enter the battle, but my sense is that the majority of their links are pro-feminist. The site name itself suggests an affinity with feminism, and the people listed as the curators are, judging by what I have read of their writings, fairly pro-feminist.
The reason I would take issue with using a selection of WFA posts as representing the larger population in general is that how WFA collects its links is not taken into account. Just to illustrate my own experience: Not everything I've written on comics and feminism has been linked to on WFA. I'm not complaining, mind you, but it does demonstrate that there is some sort of discrimination going on, whether that's overt or unconscious. It could be that some of my writing wasn't interesting enough, or was already covered by someone else, or maybe nobody bothered to report my blog that day. (I have never submitted my own writings (or anything else) to WFA, any links to me happen without my direct participation.) But those writings were not linked to, the opinions weren't made part of the WFA experience, and thus the total WFA experience skewed slightly away from my own viewpoints. You didn't get to see my thoughts on some matters, even though I wrote and made them available to the public. To WFA's credit, they do tend to link to only reasonably articulate blog posts on their various subjects, which means that I (thankfully) don't click many links to pointless "OMG I HATE GREASY SEXIST FANBOYS AND MARVEL ARG" blather - but that does seem to indicate that WFA skews towards a more rational, smarter viewpoint. Even a good bias is still a bias.
I'm not ascribing any malice to all this, mind you, but it illustrates why basing one's view of popular opinion on one community's collective gestalt is a dicey proposition at best. Assuming that WFA's selection process is automatically unbiased and even-handed is a leap of faith I personally can't make. Would it be unreasonable to assume that the majority of WFA's regular readers are feminists to some degree? Would it be out of line to further suppose that those people are the ones who send in most of the links featured on the site? And wouldn't that make one think that some bias is inevitable?
I mean, a site like 4chan.org lets anyone with differing viewpoints post, but that hardly makes it either neutral or a fair representation of what the world at large thinks... even if 4chan posters outnumber WFA-linked blogs by a factor of about seventeen billion.
To quote Sam Jackson, "the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence".
Re: Fangirls - I wasn't trying to imply that only girls object to the cover, but it is my impression that females were the first to voice objection, and are likely in the majority when taking the objection as a whole.
If I actually thought a girl's opinions were automatically not worth addressing, there'd be 100% less posts by me in your Comments section...
But let me say that the idea that just because a child has been exposed to tentacle rape once makes all subsequent exposures moot is... Really, really off the wall. Seriously, that's not how it works.
Let me rephrase, then: Once a child does understand tentacle porn (whether it's though a single exposure, repeated viewings, or however), what further harm could the cover do - and if a child does not understand tentacle porn, what harm could the cover do? The principle remains - the HfH cover could not "teach" anyone anything more about "tentacle porn" than they already know.
no subject
They've linked to me once or twice, so I know they don't collect only pro-feminist links. And, granted, the site's fairly new to me.
Buuuut, I think calling the site "neutral" is inaccurate. One can present things without comment and still show bias in the things which are shown. The site itself may not actually enter the battle, but my sense is that the majority of their links are pro-feminist. The site name itself suggests an affinity with feminism, and the people listed as the curators are, judging by what I have read of their writings, fairly pro-feminist.
The reason I would take issue with using a selection of WFA posts as representing the larger population in general is that how WFA collects its links is not taken into account. Just to illustrate my own experience: Not everything I've written on comics and feminism has been linked to on WFA. I'm not complaining, mind you, but it does demonstrate that there is some sort of discrimination going on, whether that's overt or unconscious. It could be that some of my writing wasn't interesting enough, or was already covered by someone else, or maybe nobody bothered to report my blog that day. (I have never submitted my own writings (or anything else) to WFA, any links to me happen without my direct participation.) But those writings were not linked to, the opinions weren't made part of the WFA experience, and thus the total WFA experience skewed slightly away from my own viewpoints. You didn't get to see my thoughts on some matters, even though I wrote and made them available to the public. To WFA's credit, they do tend to link to only reasonably articulate blog posts on their various subjects, which means that I (thankfully) don't click many links to pointless "OMG I HATE GREASY SEXIST FANBOYS AND MARVEL ARG" blather - but that does seem to indicate that WFA skews towards a more rational, smarter viewpoint. Even a good bias is still a bias.
I'm not ascribing any malice to all this, mind you, but it illustrates why basing one's view of popular opinion on one community's collective gestalt is a dicey proposition at best. Assuming that WFA's selection process is automatically unbiased and even-handed is a leap of faith I personally can't make. Would it be unreasonable to assume that the majority of WFA's regular readers are feminists to some degree? Would it be out of line to further suppose that those people are the ones who send in most of the links featured on the site? And wouldn't that make one think that some bias is inevitable?
I mean, a site like 4chan.org lets anyone with differing viewpoints post, but that hardly makes it either neutral or a fair representation of what the world at large thinks... even if 4chan posters outnumber WFA-linked blogs by a factor of about seventeen billion.
To quote Sam Jackson, "the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence".
Re: Fangirls - I wasn't trying to imply that only girls object to the cover, but it is my impression that females were the first to voice objection, and are likely in the majority when taking the objection as a whole.
If I actually thought a girl's opinions were automatically not worth addressing, there'd be 100% less posts by me in your Comments section...
But let me say that the idea that just because a child has been exposed to tentacle rape once makes all subsequent exposures moot is... Really, really off the wall. Seriously, that's not how it works.
Let me rephrase, then: Once a child does understand tentacle porn (whether it's though a single exposure, repeated viewings, or however), what further harm could the cover do - and if a child does not understand tentacle porn, what harm could the cover do? The principle remains - the HfH cover could not "teach" anyone anything more about "tentacle porn" than they already know.