Follow up to this hot mess!

While I was enraged about the bi-phobic garbage presented in the infamous Casey Johnson/Tila Tequila article posted on Bitch Magazine, I made a sarcastic comment about how begging readers to donate money was a much better use of time than actually fixing the problem.  And what do you know?  A few days later, the Bitch Facebook page linked here in an attempt to beg for subscriptions.

My response to this (on Facebook) pretty much sums up my feelings on the whole matter:

LOL. THANK YOU FOR PROVING MY POINT.

This magazine is a fucking joke. See the handling of the Casey Johnson “article” if you don’t understand why. Hey Kelsey Wallace, thank you so much for ignoring my email after giving us the bullshit, pissy “you can email me if you have issues with Bitch” comment on that thread.

If this magazine’s interpretation of feminism has become posting homo/bi-phobic and misogynistic articles, all but ignoring complaints about them, and then begging readers to subscribe to this hot mess of a publication, then count me out. I’ll be removing myself as a fan and publishing my email to Kelsey on my website as a follow-up to my criticisms about the horrendous “Tila Tequila” post.

I’m certainly doing more for feminism there than reading this nonstop crapfest.

It’s beyond frustrating.  Web editor Kelsey Wallace spouted off a talking point about giving a crap and then completely ignored my email.  I gave her two business days to respond and watched her ignore my email in favor of putting up two posts on the website (one on the 9th and another yesterday, the 11th).  I’m so glad to see where Bitch Magazine’s priorities lie.

Here’s the content of the email that Ms. Wallace couldn’t bother to respond to:

Kelsey,

I think I’ve pretty much covered all of my complaints with the content.  In my opinion, Bitch’s online content has been steadily declining over the past six months.  Many of the pieces I have caught online have bordered on insipid, even when I do agree with the point.  Take the South Park piece, for example.  (Located here: http://bitchmagazine.org/post/come-on-down-to-south-park-and-watch-some-feminist-episodes)  I agree that Trey Parker & Matt Stone have presented a feminist (or at least feminist friendly) perspective in quite a few episodes of the show and – as both a radical feminist and a libertarian – would have loved to read a much more in-depth essay about the subject.  Instead, readers were treated to a shallow piece that barely scratched the surface or incorporated feminist theory into the discussion.  I copied & pasted the piece into Word and did a word count on it; it was 390 words and came in at around 1 page.  There is no reason why Juliana Tringali couldn’t have incorporated examples, criticism, and a little bit of feminist theory into a tight, polished essay instead of something that reads worse than most blog posts.

I used to be able to count on Bitch for making me think about things a little bit differently, but now I can only really count on Intro to Women’s Studies-esque discussions.  Natalie Stein wrote the type of article you expect to see in an Intro to WMST course just before the author gets schooled.  I’d really love to not be subjected to this crap from a “feminist” publication.  Bisexuals take shit from lesbians who think we aren’t gay enough or who want to label us as “dykes.”  Straight men either automatically assume you’re into threesomes or are so intimidated that you might know how to get a woman off better than them.  Straight women are often convinced you’re going to want to lez out with them or are threatened because you’re so much more exotic than they are.

All of this shit that we take is dismissive of the many facets of our sexuality, objectifies us, and is just bad news bears in general; these ideas are based – at least in part – by ill-formed stereotypes of bisexuality.  Instead of tearing down these stereotypes and misconceptions, Natalie focused more on tearing down the unlikable women attached to these stereotypes (to paraphrase a Facebook user: the unstable, exhibitionist bisexual and the fallen blonde heiress).  What could have been a powerful critique on the media circus surrounding this very sad, very real story turned into an excuse to say “HAHA BI = BAD IDEA!”  Geeze, there were so many different, feminist ways this discussion could have gone.  Y’all could have even used the Perez Hilton/Tila Tequila Twitter war (over Casey Johnson’s death) to talk about sexism within the LGBTQA community and stereotypes about LGBTQA women instead of this tripe.

Hiding behind a disclaimer means nothing, especially when it’s used to justify misogynist and homophobic crap.  As I mentioned in one of my Facebook comments, it’s not like unpopular feminist perspectives will be read in Bitch anytime soon – which is the reason newspapers, magazines, websites, etc. have a version of that disclaimer.  It’s downright shitty when – instead of being used for it’s intended purposes – the web editor hides behind such a disclaimer to justify a piece such as this one.  As a member of the LGBTQA community, it really feels like I’m being told that my complaints, issues, struggles, and oppression don’t matter, as long as no one’s feelings get hurt by Patty Heaton.  Honestly, if you can’t see how this is a problem, then I don’t know what to tell you.

In a similar vein, passing all the blame off onto the author is irresponsible of both you and Bitch Magazine, and your miffed tone when you first began receiving criticism is bullshit.  You came across as more annoyed than anything else because those uppity lesbos threw a shit fit; I’m sure this wasn’t your intention, but to be honest, your tone in your initial comment really pissed me off.  It really struck me as typical dismissive breeder bullshit.  Furthermore, before you can even attempt to defend an article about the LGBTQA community, you need to check your privilege and try to understand why so many of us took issues.

It’s fairly obvious that neither you nor Natalie even attempted to see where we were coming from here.  The “solution” was an apology posted way down in a Facebook comment thread that came across as an “I’m sorry if you got offended” styled “apology” and the title of the article was changed.  This was despite the fact that many commenters complained about the CONTENT of the article, myself included.  I really think you missed the point on this, considering you didn’t get that the title was only PART of the problem.  I’m not going to go through point by point and tell you everything that was sexist, homo/bi-phobic, and/or generally fucked up because – frankly – as a gender studies major, you should know better.  These are the reasons I said that I probably would not be restarting my subscription to the magazine; I don’t really want to pay money to be dismissed and have it defended.  I’m very disappointed with the Casey Johnson piece, and even more disappointed with the way it was handled; seriously, Kelsey, we didn’t even get a response from a Bitch Magazine rep until I mentioned I likely would not restart a subscription.

With all that being said, I do appreciate you opening your inbox for comments on Bitch, as well as coming online to facilitate a discussion.  Personally, I hope that this entire debacle can be used as a learning experience.  In the future, I deeply hope that Bitch will take a bit more responsibility when selecting pieces to run in print or online editions, that future authors will be a bit more sensitive to marginalized groups, and that the dreaded “opinion disclaimer” will be used for its intended purpose (instead of a way to deflect criticism from the magazine and its contributors).  As far as right now, I think the least that Bitch could do is put up a public apology on the main page from both Natalie and you; both of you have already apologized once in the infamous Facebook thread and we have every right to expect a formal, written apology on the main page.  I’m not saying that it will fix everything, but I think that it will go much further than you might think.

Thank you for letting me sound off to you.

Sincerely,
Vicki Moore

I don’t understand why this email – along with the suggestions in it – was ignored.  I guess that the Bitch staff has a huge case of butthurt when it comes to criticism directed at the magazine, which is pretty disappointing.  You would think that a magazine billing itself as an alternative to mainstream media might actually function in an alternative manner.

‘Magine that.

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If you’re reading this from my Facebook notes, please go to the original blog post (located here) to comment.

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