Re: <nettime> Direction of Travel

On Jun 14, 2023 at 12:57 PM -0400, Joseph Rabie via Nettime-tmp <[email protected]>, wrote:

I wonder how many people here who were willing and able to moderate, and who have the qualities, but on reading this list and not having confidence in their own credentials, fearing the opprobrium of those believed to be dominant, prefer to exclude themselves rather than taking the risk of participating.
I would say that the only essential quality for a moderator is beneficence. What is important is that all the people who join the moderation group work together to fix the standards organically when dealing with particular potentially problematic content.

I sat down to read Audrey Golden’s new book, _I Thought I Heard You Speak: Women at Factory Records_, just released in ebook format. From the foreword by DJ Paulette:

It is impossible to have a fair analysis of any situation without taking the full picture into account. In recent years, much has been made of unearthing, acknowledging and crediting women’s contribution to world history. In the real world it matters who gets the credit; yet from academia to art, astronomy to science, politics to fashion, religion to radio and from music to management, it is a disheartening statistical fact that women’s input in our professions or organisations has been consistently unreported or our credits have been misdirected. How has this happened? Type ‘has women’s contribution to history been overlooked’ into your browser to find Google’s enlightening top answer.
‘The statistics for the lack of women’s history being taught can be attributed to the documentation of events throughout history. Not only is the white male narrative still prevalent in modern history classes, but sources being provided to schools are typically the work of white men as well.’
Silence is our confinement, and the gatekeepers hold the key. Since popular authors are overwhelmingly male, it is no surprise that women are overshadowed in history. When a man is commissioned to write a book about what he knows best, we can only expect him to write about the loud, active parts of the machinery he immediately sees – not the smoothly oiled cogs purring away in the background. Never mind that with our direction and with our intelligence and ingenuity, women have regularly saved the day and made others shine. While we have been content to busy ourselves in their shadow or shy away from the spotlight, our humility and lack of ego has made us disappear. Our silent acceptance of the lack of private or public recognition of our achievements simply perpetuates this cycle. Our assumption that people will naturally notice and give us the credit for the time and effort we put in is naïve. The systemic repression and social conditioning of women in the workplace is a tale as old as time. The suppression of our stories is thus a wrong in need of righting and a book in need of writing.
When documenting history, stacking the evidence is essential in its authentication. In basic statistical terms, every employee experience and each piece of data – small or large – is relevant to proving diversity, inclusion and equality. In analysing data, we must temper it with the question ‘who says?’. Who and how have they decided what’s relevant and what isn’t, or who is relevant and who isn’t? We must reserve the right to question and to step up with other views and other voices that can equally corroborate and expand on the story. We have the right to show and tell it as it happened for us. We too have the right to be proud of what we represent, of what we have contributed and achieved. As composer, scholar and social activist Bernice Reagon states, ‘each one of us is here because somebody before us did something to make it possible.’
Commissioning books written by female historians remains a radical and disruptive act, tasked with addressing and redressing the imbalance and restoring the legacy. Producing and presenting these books is a remedy that counteracts the misrepresentation, as does such speaking out against the mansplaining of history. Writing is a gesture of peaceful, direct action that forces us to confront the issues and dramatises that which can no longer be ignored. It resurrects what is a very significant ‘other’ from the ‘never heard of them’ dead zone. It proves our value and worth.

I can think of a half-dozen ways this relates to nettime, and others could probably think of a dozen more.

Cheers,
Ted