Responding to the mainstream feminist blogosphere on Feminism FOR REAL
By Special Correspondent Jessica Yee
So while I was out in the real world yesterday working up north in Nunavik (which is not Nunavut – for those of you who think you’re bad ass having heard about Nunavut before – Nunavik is a completely different Inuit region) this happened in the feminist blogosphere regarding the lack of mainstream feminist coverage of Feminism FOR REAL – Deconstructing the Academic Industrial Complex of Feminism.
Yes it’s true I edited Feminism FOR REAL and have since been sussing out various reactions and mentions of the book. I don’t consider myself a writer at all – I work 24/7 leading the Native Youth Sexual Health Network across North America (the first book I put together Sex Ed and Youth: Colonization, Sexuality, and Communities of Color was my initial attempt in entering book world) so I’m new to all this you need to do A, B, and C to get a book out there because I often struggle with what books and blogs mean when shit goes down in real life (which is also why my online writing has stopped as of late)
The publisher of the book was the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives but the book is by no means a “Canadian” book only. Several of the contributors live in both the US and Canada, I myself live in the US part-time, work in the US part-time, and being Indigenous don’t identify as either US or Canadian. But people telling me that I need to sell my soul to Amazon or a bigger name publication and not stick with an independent, small-house, union printed publisher so we can be “known” isn’t something I want to do (and is honestly counter-productive to what the book is about anyways).
However I strongly believe in the contributors and creators of Feminism FOR REAL and what we’re saying so I’m going to address some major points of clarification here about what we always wish the mainstream feminist blogosphere and world(s) in general would own up to/change/or just do but as time and actions prove yet again, rarely happens:
1) The mainstream feminist blogosphere and organizational world in the US and Canada is dominated by white girls with a long history attached to how that came to be. Let’s come to terms with that and stop derailing with “but this one guest blogger of color did this” or “but we’re looking to change one day/hopefully/soon/eventually”. How about we save some time and effort and just be honest about what’s going on in reality and that this is absolutely influencing in small or large degrees who is talking about the book and why. So when the white girls at these mainstream feminist blogs are saying they didn’t know about the book, or need to be educated about it, or can’t be expected to be bothered to know about its existence – I believe them.
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