TigTog Talks Feminism January 3, 2012 Jill Our tech goddess TigTog is talking feminism and technology over at We Are Skeptixx. Check out her interview and see why we love her so.
aw shucks etc. Thanks for linking to the interview, and to SkeptiXX (where I don’t blog – Kylie who interviewed me blogs there) – as a new blog for women interested in the skeptical movement, it needs some word of mouth.
Great interview, tigtog! As someone who’s just starting out in the blogging world, there’s definitely some cool stuff for me there.
Thanks Jo. There’s a lot of stuff to grok when beginning to run your own blog, and much of it has been mused on at length somewhere or other by folks, so I like to remind people about reinventing wheels not being required. Just a quick note for others, in case the XX in Skeptixx looked exclusionary at all in its view of who is regarded as a woman, they are trans-welcoming and have posted about the title of the blog.
Just a quick note for others, in case the XX in Skeptixx looked exclusionary at all in its view of who is regarded as a woman, they are trans-welcoming and have posted about the title of the blog. It sounds awfully like “sorry if you’re offended” to me, actually. I’ve commented there on why that is in further detail on that link there if it gets through moderation.
@z, that’s certainly possible. I was unaware of the existence of WeAreSkeptiXX unti I saw today’s trackbacks, so my knowledge of the site is quite limited. I’m on board with the goal is all.
Hello! Thanks for noticing the transcript (and thanks again to TigTog for the original podcast interview too!) – I’ll see about letting your comment through moderation if it’s stuck, “z”? It’s not unusual with WordPress to be daft that way.
Just popping out of hibernation, to recommend listening to the podcast itself to anyone who just read the interview (admittedly, most people are unlikely as daft/unobservant as I am- on first reading I missed the player and assumed the interview was just a written one- fortunately I am also lazy, so having left the page open, noticed it yesterday.) In addition to being a cracking listen in terms of content, the sound quality is awesome for a non-professional (i.e. not done a pro studio) podcast- with skype (or similar program) based interviews. I look forward to trawling through the previous 87 episodes.! Now back to my vow of silence…
I enjoyed reading the interview, but like Z I’m just not really impressed by either the blog title or the fairly inadequate justification. Whether or not it’s perfect symbolism–and yeah, I’d vote for “not” too–XX chromosomes are symbolic of womanhood in much the same way that Venus’s astronomical symbol is. And I would argue—seeing how XX chromosomes representing femalehood is at least based in the natural sciences rather than something like Roman mythology—that it is a truer symbol of womanhood than the latter. This part is particularly egregious, since it prioritises the supposedly ‘scientific’ nature of the XX symbolism over the fact that it’s fantastically cissexist. It’s also cissexist in a fairly predictable way; the number of times I’ve seen ciswomen argue that of course they didn’t literally mean that trans women aren’t women after they dropped a couple of essentialist and exclusionary remarks… I mean, I think this is one of those things that we cis kids just have to give up if we claim to be truly trans inclusive. It’s not enough to engage in cissexism and then disclaim it, and I don’t think that avoiding using clever references to XX chromosomes is a particularly high cost compared to what trans* women face under cissupremacy.
Dear “Fat Steve” – thank you! I really needed that today (just one of those days). I’d recommend Episode 60 and 100 if you’re after a ‘best of’ summary, but you might also like: #95 – On Skeptical Women Online – Julia Lavarnway, Susan Gerbic and Desiree Schell #45 – On Women, Myths, Feminism and Skepticism – Live Dragon*Con Panel Thanks again! Kylie S.