Now, I'm a (male) feminist myself. I believe in equal rights for women, and I do my best to try to stop violence towards women. This is a very opinionated person that, naturally, do not represent the Feminist movement at large, nor even a significant portion of feminists. However, I do want to analyze, from what I perceive, to be the problems I have with the person's approach in condemning Goblins, and then attempt an analysis of what went into those perceptions (more or less).
From my perspective, the woman in question here committed many actions that cannot lead to an honest discussion. First of all, she drew an assumption on the meanings of words in the comic itself. Second of all, she assumed that a webcomic is reprehensibly misogynist if it includes a villainous demon that rapes, enjoys raping, or looks forward to rape. Third of all, she refused to admit that she was wrong, instead putting the blame on the author as much as she could (the "I was wrong, EXCEPT..." kind of mindset, where you do anything but admit you were wrong).
The first mistake you cannot hold someone too accountable for; it was a bizarre way to interpret the page in question (seen here: http://www.goblinscomic.com/02242012/), but many people misread song lyrics, comics, books, or even other people completely when they come into it or an argument in the middle and without context. That, in and of itself, was not the problem here.
The second was assuming that a comic is innately misogynist when it involves a villain that rapes. This is the truly bizarre part; true, she claims later she had other reasons for considering the comic misogynistic, but the gangrape issue did seem to be forefront on her mind. See, now, I can see why someone would be disturbed if rape were to be brought up too lightly. I could also see if someone we were to be considered a hero committed an act of rape. I could even see the argument that a major villain could still be brought up as being a rapist in a better way, but really, I feel that demons specifically are about a lack of subtlety unless they're the manipulative sorts, simply because they're supposed to (on the whole) represent the evil humans are capable of when we have no masks, conscience, or subtlety. Showing a demon as reveling in rape or future rape would not be a bad representation of a demon that glorifies the violence it does against humans.
The third mistake was how she refused to admit she was wrong, and hid behind semantics (more on that in a moment) in doing so. I just want to say that calling someone's work of fiction as glorifying rape IS implying that the AUTHOR is glorifying rape; calling his works misogynistic does imply that he's a misogynist. Saying "I didn't call you a misogynist, I just called the comic you've been working on for months out of your life misogynist" doesn't amount to much of a defense. This is a very human instinct; to fight and fight against the admittance of doing a wrong. Politicians excel at this, partly because politicians have to. Furthermore, she pits the blame on the author; she didn't read it wrongly, it was wrongly written in such a way that it was easy to come away with that assumption. It wasn't her fault, it was the author's. This is a big step to overcome that every human being encounters; when to admit that you're wrong, assume responsibility for being wrong, and then make amends. "I'm sorry, I was wrong, I did not realize the word 'dogpile' had other meanings, and I was wrong to make such a rash post about how your comic promoted rape. I still do not like your comic, and I still think that it has problems, but I was still wrong." Furthermore, she lays blame on the author for the actions of his fans, as if he has direct authority and control over them, claiming that he has done "nothing at all" to stop them, even though as you see in my link, he said that they should not insult or attack her in response. I'm not sure what else he's supposed to do.
Her actual final post was close enough to this that I could accept it as an apology, but giving someone criticism about their comic after you just claimed that they made light of rape isn't going to go over well. She gives a very "Yes... but," sort of argument. "Yes, I was wrong, but you're still wrong."
As for semantics, this is an important thing to note. There's a lot involved with the use of the word "semantics". In the way I use it here, it's the use of terminology to try to draw a line between one claim and another to keep oneself free from criticism, even when that line really is flimsy. In short, "rhetorical trivia", the focus on minor differences in major claims. This is not a note on the overall educational field of semantics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantics).
As for semantics, this is an important thing to note. There's a lot involved with the use of the word "semantics". In the way I use it here, it's the use of terminology to try to draw a line between one claim and another to keep oneself free from criticism, even when that line really is flimsy. In short, "rhetorical trivia", the focus on minor differences in major claims. This is not a note on the overall educational field of semantics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantics).
Now, why do I mention all this? Why this analysis? Well, I've seen it crop up quite a few times.
Take, for instance, a long rant about how Joss Whedon's Firefly is about rape and misogyny: http://users.livejournal.com/_allecto_/34718.html
A lot of these arguments are just as spurious as the previous one. Why these spurious arguments? Well, a lot of this reminds me of a lecture I saw once by a feminist speaker; I forget her name, but her message wasn't a bad one.
Her message was that misogyny is all around us; it's in advertisements, it's in magazine ads, it's in movies, it's in television, it's in books, it's in comics, it's everywhere. Violence or implied violence towards women is a common theme. She even goes so far as to say that showing an African woman painted to look like a leopard for attractiveness makes her "an animal", and to be treated as such (personally, I highly disagree on that point, but not on all her points).
Taken to its extremes (and only when taken to its extremes) this leads, unfortunately, to demon-hunting attitudes, and it has demon-hunting logic involved (see the second blog post I made to see what I'm talking about). See, if you see something you FEEL is misogynist or FEEL promotes rape, then it does, and its author is held accountable for that. HE promotes rape, HE is misogynist. Anything the author says can therefore be dismissed; he's a misogynist, after all, he's a word that carry with it implications, and anyone that defends him therefore is also a misogynist. In this case, the woman in question did keep from accusing the author, but she does make him responsible for her own feelings and the feelings of his fans. She also validates her own feelings about the comic through the fans; if a minority of the fans call her names, then the comic itself represents what she feels about that. If a few fans act misogynistic, then the comic they share a liking of must be as well.
This is flawed logic and will never lead to anything constructive. Joss Whedon's Firefly is given the same treatment, but has a much larger twisting of logic, that I may analyze later if I feel I could say more than I did in this post.
You can consider this post incomplete as I rather rushed it, and may edit it later on to include or rearrange ideas that I felt I did not adequately express or could have expressed.
Take, for instance, a long rant about how Joss Whedon's Firefly is about rape and misogyny: http://users.livejournal.com/_allecto_/34718.html
A lot of these arguments are just as spurious as the previous one. Why these spurious arguments? Well, a lot of this reminds me of a lecture I saw once by a feminist speaker; I forget her name, but her message wasn't a bad one.
Her message was that misogyny is all around us; it's in advertisements, it's in magazine ads, it's in movies, it's in television, it's in books, it's in comics, it's everywhere. Violence or implied violence towards women is a common theme. She even goes so far as to say that showing an African woman painted to look like a leopard for attractiveness makes her "an animal", and to be treated as such (personally, I highly disagree on that point, but not on all her points).
Taken to its extremes (and only when taken to its extremes) this leads, unfortunately, to demon-hunting attitudes, and it has demon-hunting logic involved (see the second blog post I made to see what I'm talking about). See, if you see something you FEEL is misogynist or FEEL promotes rape, then it does, and its author is held accountable for that. HE promotes rape, HE is misogynist. Anything the author says can therefore be dismissed; he's a misogynist, after all, he's a word that carry with it implications, and anyone that defends him therefore is also a misogynist. In this case, the woman in question did keep from accusing the author, but she does make him responsible for her own feelings and the feelings of his fans. She also validates her own feelings about the comic through the fans; if a minority of the fans call her names, then the comic itself represents what she feels about that. If a few fans act misogynistic, then the comic they share a liking of must be as well.
This is flawed logic and will never lead to anything constructive. Joss Whedon's Firefly is given the same treatment, but has a much larger twisting of logic, that I may analyze later if I feel I could say more than I did in this post.
You can consider this post incomplete as I rather rushed it, and may edit it later on to include or rearrange ideas that I felt I did not adequately express or could have expressed.
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