not broken just reflective

The Standard is broken says the voice of reason (trp).

I've had my issues with some authors on The Standard - namely voice himself and I have visited a lot less over the last 3 months because of those issues. I have had time to reflect on The Standard and myself as a commenter, a contributer, an activist and a person.

I've come to some conclusions. These are 2 to consider.

time online is just a little bit better than watching tv - the map is not the territory

the world continues to spin even when we don't contribute - a painful realisation for sure

So to voice's assertion - No The Standard is not broken in the sense that that means because it actually does reflect a wider society - slanting left and progressive. The Standard is not broken, our society is broken, our values are broken, our communities are broken. Yes The Standard is not safe for women, neither is society - ffs women still get blamed for being abused, women still earn less for the same role - the Patriarchy is alive and well - in society and at The Standard.

voice says

My suggestion is that we need to look again at the structures of the Standard, from the ‘owners’, through the moderators and onto the authors. The undemocratic, male dominated and authoritarian ownership structure of the Standard is fundamentally wrong for a left blog. There are moderators who do little or no blog writing, don’t contribute much in the comments, but hang on grimly to their tools of power and control. There are authors who are bigots, authors who hate the left, authors who hate women. One author is all of the above. Why are they here on a left wing blog?

I think voice needs to be more honest here - this is a power play by him to take over The Standard and wrestle it towards his vision of what he thinks it should or maybe could be. That in itself is not necessarily a bad thing but dressing it up as some sort of defense of women is disingenuous and insulting imo.

Please understand I cannot stand and in fact oppose the gender politics and sad defenses offered by the likes of cv or redlogix and over the years I've commented many times about what I, as a man, think about other men who have these ideas.

So what to do?

nothing

What?

Yep - do nothing, change nothing, get rid of no one - anything that is done is just hiding the issues and not dealing with them.

But what about offensive and horrible comments?

delete and ban them

But what about making The Standard safer for women?

It won't be, not without changing attitudes and that won't happen anytime soon - especially with fundamentalist views and attitudes.

But The Standard might whither and die?

So does everything. If you want to change that then contribute, be an author, be a commenter, be involved.