2014-03-23
Pirate Feminism Burnout
Be careful of reading health books, you might die of a misprint.
-- Mark Twain
Yes yes. It's a lazy Sunday.
Yesterday was a day of Mailpile and low hanging fruit, a day of drinking with friends and watching life go on, a day of spicy midnight tacos and police cars and brushing up on logarithms.
A day of smiling at e-mail from my girl...
Today is a day of writing and apartments and maybe, just maybe, some code. Or maybe drinks with Smári, if he lands early enough.
Yarr?
Today is also a day of not bothering to join the Pirates debates on how feminist or unfeminist or antifeminist the party policy should be.
It just doesn't feel worth my time, this time around.
Gender policy is a very tricky issue for the Pirates, because it's not easy to strike a balance between the individualistic/libertarian tendencies of Pirates, and the very real need to protect and improve equality on all fronts. In my opinion, a hands-off approach to government will never be able to address entrenched, systemic prejudice. It just doesn't work. Many refuse to recognize this basic fact or even admit that prejudice and inequality still exist, but even those that do will disagree on where to draw the line and how. So the whole issue is and always will be hotly debated.
Me and a bunch of others put lots of effort into trying to bring balance and consensus to this last year, only to have Birgitta (one of our MPs) and others shit all over our work in public a couple of weeks ago. Some were claiming the policy fails on some technicalities, others claimed it was some sort of rush job. Neither of which are true.
As far as I can tell, a bunch of people read the policy, disagreed with what they found in it and got all worked up. Disagreement is fine. Wanting to discuss and iterate and improve, is also fine. But! They decided to pull politics and try to discredit the hard work of a bunch of dedicated volunteers - which is really not fine at all.
So fuck 'em. I don't play with people who don't play nice.
I'm sure a bunch of folks there are well meaning - even the ones I disagree with mean well. They're good people. But I'm annoyed enough with how this whole discussion was revived and brought back to the forefront, that I don't want to lend what little credibility I have to the current revision efforts.
They can do it without me this time, it'll be fine.
Maybe.
