Sez Ez (about a different subject altogether),

One nice thing about blogs is you can say the same thing over and over again without any editors getting pissed at you. When you’re coming up with story ideas, “what’s new” is always the first question you’re asked. But on a blog, by making the same arguments in response to different news pegs and events, you’re actually much more effective at conveying your points. Few writers are so persuasive, and few arguments so instantly convincing, that one bite at the apple will transform the thinking of your audience.

I just wanted to highlight this, because it’s something I’ve been chewing on for awhile re: my growing radicalism over the last several years. On my introduction to feminism, I was, initially, repulsed by a good many arguments even as there was something at the core of the community I felt drawn-to. As time went on, through the repetition of arguments in different ways, in response to different events, I began to understand those arguments better. That is, without a context, the arguments offended my status-quo sensibilities. But as I came to understand the context — as I saw how seriously rampant harassment and assault are — as casual misogyny in so many different places was pointed out to me, over and over again — I began to understand where those arguments came from.

Conditioned blindness is what I called it in conversation with a friend today. We are conditioned from birth to deliberately not see the evidence of oppression in our society. Recognition of it leads to a dangerous place, after all. But if a person has a notion to de-condition hirself, even if not everything is tasteful to hir at the beginning, sie will eventually come to understand where those speakers are coming from.

That’s really at the heart of the mainstream’s rejection of feminism. They don’t understand it, and they have been told from day one that understanding it leads you to want to change it, and that’s an extreme position to take, and mostly it just annoys the hell out of your peers. So hey, be cool, don’t get on us for shit, just go with the flow. Wouldn’t want to put a damper on the mood.

Anyway, I think there’s a reason blogs are at the center of a growing feminist community these days. Well, one of many reasons, anyway.