1. Blamers must exhibit advanced patriarchy-blaming skills. Don’t post here until you know what this means. The degree of advancement expressed by any given comment is to be determined by me, entirely subjectively.
2. Blamers should strive for excellence. Everyone dislikes reading un-excellent comments.
3. Blamers should make as many jokes as possible.
4. Your comments appear on my blog at my pleasure. I have not solicited your participation. I don’t care if you disagree with my ideas. I don’t care if you approve of my ideas. I am not obligated to publish opposing viewpoints. You don’t have a “right” to be heard on this or any other blog. Neither do I “owe” you the slightest respect, courtesy or explanation. I may delete any of your comments I choose, for whatever reason I choose. I may delete comments that
a. do not exhibit sufficient patriarchy-blaming chops
b. do not exhibit philosophic value
c. are off-topic
d. are unintelligible
e. are spam
f. are antifeminist
g. are godbaggy
h. are creepy
i. mansplain
j. are “what about the men?”
k. annoy me in some way that I can’t quite put my finger on
l. suck
1. A unique screen name is required. To prevent confusion and misattribution, it is helpful if you spell it the same way each time you post. Comments with screen names like these will auto-delete: anon, anonymous, none, nobody, noone, anybody, anyone, fuckyou, someone, a man, a dude, a Nigel, Chad, The Patriarch, etc.
2. In the interest of intelligibility, please use words. Random typing is no substitute. Here are a few examples of random typing:
a. IMHO
b. b/c
c. ROTFL
d. FTMFW!!!!
e. :)
f. womyn
g. definately
2. Please endeavor to employ decent grammar, syntax, punctuation, and spelling, both when commenting, and during the course of your daily life.
3. Blamers should avoid being annoying in a way that I can put my finger on. I may edit you, or I may delete you. Some examples of annoying commentarianism are
a. ignoring the Guidelines for Commenters
b. blaming women for their own oppression
c. using the old “how dare you discuss [this frivolous topic] when people are dying in Transylvania?” gambit
d. self-righteousism (see above)
e. shameonyouism (see above)
f. commenter feuds
g. beginning your remarks with the word “I” (or the word “i”)
h. engaging in the so-called ‘oppression olympics’
i. baby talk (e.g. “teh widdle menz”)
j. spelling it “womyn”
k. dudes paraphrasing their girlfriends’ supposed opinions
l. a single long, poorly punctuated paragraph
m. many long, poorly punctuated paragraphs
n. many long paragraphs, period
o. any number of paragraphs describing your personal heterosexual sex life
p. using an ellipsis
q. using an ellipsis in the middle
r. using an ellipsis at the end
s. using an ellipsis in the middle and another at the end
t. using two or four or eight dots instead of an ellipsis
u. using two dots here, four dots there instead of two ellipses
v. plagiarism
w. Uncited sources. I Blame the Patriarchy isn’t a scholarly work, so you don’t have to do a formal footnote, but if you’re going to make some remark like “1 in 4 Indonesian women are addicted to Cool Whip,” we’re gonna need that link.
x. responses to trolls
1. Blamers should know the difference between ideas, opinion, and experience, and between analysis and anecdote. When commenting on this blog, analysis and argumentation are preferable to unsupported opinion and anecdote.
2. The anecdote (and its poor relation, the synopsis of an acquaintance’s views) can have entertainment value, but is rarely, if ever, effective as evidence in an argument, cf. “some of my best friends are strippers, and they are rich, happy, and empowerfulized, therefore your views on porn are wrong.” This means: don’t use anecdotes to prove stuff.
3. Particularly, commenters should carefully consider whether a description of their personal sex lives is in fact absolutely vital to their analysis. Because it isn’t.
4. The exception to the anti-anecdote rule is the memoir-esque comment with universal resonance and a pithy connection to the discussion. For example, if the topic is Harmful Beauty Practices, a recollection detailing that time bootleg botox injections killed off all the women in your village would likely add to the discussion, whereas a remark announcing that, say, you personally choose to use lipstick is insubstantial, and nobody gives a flip.
1. Be brief. One or two short paragraphs should about cover it. Is your comment longer than my post? Get your own blog.
2. Post no abusive language. ‘Abusive language’ means racist, sexist, classist, misogynist, ableist, anti-straight, anti-fat, anti-thin, anti-gay, anti-trans, anti-mother, anti-kid, or antifeminist language.
3. Kindly note that when feminists of whiteness exercise white feminist privilege, even when unintended, it is experienced by feminists of color as racism. One thing I have learned from doing this blog lo these past 6 years is that when a reasonable person tells you you’re oppressin’em, you’re oppressin’em. The only rational course of action is a) to stop being defensive and b) to cop to it, already. Because if you’re white, it is a foregone conclusion that your whiteness accrues benefits not offered to anyone else, and that these benefits will often be invisible to you. A foregone conclusion, I tell you.
4. Comments proceeding from TUMP (the unique male perspective) will be deleted. If you don’t know what this means, do not post here.
5. I have not forced you to read this blog against your will. If you can’t stand me, feel free to biff off.
6. These essays reflect my personal views. They are ideas. They are not doctrine or settled fact. I am not in charge of all the feminists. I can’t change anybody’s mind. I can’t “outlaw” anything. I cannot “censor” anyone. I don’t lead a cult.
7. Occasionally my real life prevents me from spending 24 hours a day monitoring the blog. Sometimes I don’t read it at all. While I do make a half-assed effort to ensure that the comments precisely mirror my own unassailable views, sometimes offensive crap sneaks by while I’m out doing the butt-dance down Congress Ave. This is too bad, but cut me some slack. I’m not responsible for the unsolicited asinine remarks that happen to show up on the blog when I’m not looking. You get what you pay for here at I Blame the Patriarchy. Shoddy customer service is to be expected.
8. If you find yourself commenting more than 2 or 3 times on a given post, please consider shutting the old piehole.
9. Once in a while I actually put a little work into these posts. Kindly do me the favor of refraining from derailing the discussion with off-topicality. This is my personal blog, not a message board.
10. While you’re at it, you might as well avoid clichés, too.
11. Emoticons: is anything sadder? :(
1 comment
Veganrampage
June 9, 2014 at 6:52 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
Whenever I feel sad and dejected from inhaling too much patriarchy, or hearing about 12 and 14 year old sisters in India (or in the great U S of A) being raped and then hung and how nobody will do a fucking thing about it, I re-read this page. I have read it over 50 times, and that was just last week.