Repercussions are still unfolding from last week’s cover story in The Nation, “Feminism’s Toxic Twitter Wars.” Many thought it unfairly targeted a few popular online women of color—but the battle lines don’t break that neatly along the race line. Catch up on the debate and the latest with yesterday’s “Tell Me More” segment, featuring writer Michelle Goldberg and her article’s representative “mean girl,” Mikki Kendall. Later, Kendall started the #LessToxicFeminism hashtag on Twitter, which inspired hundreds of replies over a 15-hour period. Check it out and per Kendall’s original direction, add your understanding of how less toxic feminism would work.

Today, fresh discussion continues. Jennifer Pan, in Jacobin Magazine, looks at the unpaid labor of producing social media and says:

“…it should similarly concern us that that black women and other women of color could likely have the monopoly on doing the hard work of social justice organizing on Twitter without remuneration, sometimes literally for hours a day.”

Matt Bruenig often blogs about class and he goes further with Pan’s focus on opportunities for remuneration, or lack thereof. It’s “overdetermined,” he writes, that poor kids will not make it into media jobs. They’re locked out not only by unpaid internships, but by a lack of credentials. So when it comes to platform and big microphones, rich kids stay winning.

What’s your take?

 

 

---