As many of you may know, just less than a week ago some earnest questions were asked – to the Horde generally – about gender by morgan (frequent, though apparently not current, epitheter of metaphors). morgan’s questions reduced to a more fundamental one: “Why is constructively engaging gender so damn hard?”
This is something about which I’ve often written and spoken. It runs through my critiques of a number of disciplines/specialties, most notably the pedagogy of gender itself. It’s long been my thinking that we can teach gender much better than we do, and one important aspect of that is to encourage self-exploration rather than using idiographic studies of various exotic species: trans* folks and intersex kids and survivors of testicular, ovarian, or breast cancer. To encourage that self-exploration, I’ve developed workshops in the past that attempted to reveal to the participants’ view the transsexual analogous and transgender analogous portions of their own psyches. It occurred to me that morgan might find better answers through something like the workshops I’ve led than through simply reading a recommended book or a fantastically intelligent comment (to which, ahem, I might link). And so I offered to create an online workshop, though I’d never done one before.
Quickly others spoke up to express interest, and noted that weaving the workshop into the Lounge’s already multi-threaded complexity simply wouldn’t work. It would compromise the Lounge’s comfortable directionlessness, perhaps making idle chat feel less welcome in the exact space set aside for it. Likewise, it might make it very difficult for people to find, and follow, the workshop itself. So it was suggested that we ask PZ for a separate thread for our experimental conversation.
And how you responded! With more than 50 people – if I’ve counted correctly – jumping in during the introduction period, it became quickly apparent that even with our own thread people were bound to get lost. The solution? More threads! (Good for these cotton workers, if no one else.) I took to PZ the suggestion that he open a new thread for each set of exercises. His counter-offer has given me the power to make my own OPs on Pharyngula, under my own byline.
This will take work off PZ’s plate, permitting me to create separate threads on my own initiative, when my posts are ready. Also, it eases worries about posting times, as starting a new thread will not interrupt a conversation in an old thread. All in all, I think it’s a good idea.
But it only happened because 1) the Horde appeared to want it, and 2) it suited PZ’s whim. It will continue only so long as both are true. I have no aspiration to pepper Pharyngula’s headlines or to change the character of this blog: it is absolutely and always PZ’s house. I just got a spare key. I don’t have any plans at this point to post anything other than the this introduction and my planned workshop posts, although if it seems particularly relevant I might blog about a current event that allows me to make a point useful to the exciting gender discussion happening here.
When the workshop is over, I may hand the spare key back to PZ or, if he prefers, just keep it in my key bowl in case it’s needed. But for whatever duration, a few posts under my byline will, I hope, change nothing about my relationship to the Horde. I expect to be corrected when I make mistakes, challenged when I make an argument, and called out when something I do or say enacts or reinforces oppression. On every single thread not in the workshop series, I hope I continue to be no more and no less than I have been: a member of a very special group of people who enjoy learning from each other.
Rum, chocolate, and confetti (if you feel compelled to eat, throw, and drink these things in despair and/or celebration at this Crip Dyke-has-a-byline development) should be available in the Lounge. Afterparty with the scum and villainy will be in the ThunderDome, per usual. The third exercise set will appear sometime a little after midnight Blog Standard Time as the second OP in the workshop series [given that the second exercise set was posted under the first OP before this development].
In the meantime, thanks PZ, for creating this space. Thanks to the Horde for doing all the heavy-lifting in the workshop thread. I owe it all to… Oh, who am I kidding?
Power! Absolute power!
CD:
What does intoxicating power taste like?
TBH? A lot like Ms Crip Dyke.
Or, wait, should that have been “TMI”? I get those two confused.
Whoa, you even get overlord comments!
The way the site is set up (or perhaps its a fundamental setting on WordPress, I don’t know) the person with the byline on the thread (the one who created the OP) gets overlord comments, but no one else does. So when I comment elsewhere – say, the lounge – my comments will look just like those of anyone else. If and when PZ comments in a thread I created, I assume his comments will be non-overlordy just for those threads.
It’s actually good for the workshop threads that my comments will be overlordy. There are times when I will want those comments to be especially noticeable. But I’m quite relieved that elsewhere on the site I will be the same Crip Dyke I have always been.
http://serenityinchina.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/squire3.png
Ah, this explains your comments over at the Lounge.
Grats on the spare keys, I’m looking forward to the rest of the workshop.
Congratulations on your ascension to co-blogger! I may not be posting, but I read your first post and found much food for thought, so I’ll be lurking in the shadows, thinking.
This will make things much easier. I hadn’t realized the next set had been posted, so I posted my responses in the other thread.
The previous thread was about death music.
This thread is about a subtle(?) power-grab with a “maybe” as to whether the new Co(?)-Leader will relinquish power when the time comes.
Is it a coincidence? IS IT A COINCIDENCE?!
OMGWTF
Seedy has keys?
.
.
.
Groovy.
half electricity, half Tom Cruise apparently….
@ chigau
. . .
Keys…
…to the CD?
Awesome! You even have squidly comments!
#8
Wait, what, the next set has been posted? I mean, next after the four videos plus associated exercises? Where?? Or did I misunderstand? (probably)
Incidentally, CD, I have a Big and Terrible Awful Very Bad Major Complaint: thanks to you I have been severely earwormed with the godsawful abomination that is the song in video 4 That Shall Not Be Named in case anyone is late to the party. You do realise that this is a Fate Worse than Some Other Fates, don’t you? Srsly, suffering here. Arg.
Very cool arrangement for the workshop. Many internetz to you.
@opposable thumbs, #15:
you misunderstood. At this moment, I’m a few minutes away from posting the exercises that come after the video exercises.
Hahahahaha. The conquest of the world begins!
@draconius, #9:
About this, draconius, I can only say:
when do we get our helmets with the white hand print?
Yeah, we’ve been meaning to talk to you about that. Admitting you have a problem with intoxicating power is the first step toward recovery.
I just noticed that’s almost a tongue twister in German: Schlüsselschüssel :-)
Exactly; there’s precedent, for instance when Sastra wrote a post or three.
Please explain – Google doesn’t find any other occurrences of the third sentence.
@David Marjanović, 20:
It’s a quote from Tolkien, spoken by Saruman. Only I’ve changed “elves” and “men” as things in which we can’t have hope to religions. Don’t think it’s otherwise modified.
“Just remember to only use your powers for good.”
…
“No”