Babble about Babble, and a controversial Controversial award

So there’s this site, Babble.com (Parenting for hipsters is how I’ve heard it explained, in a nutshell), and they, a fan of lists, came out with a new one this week: Top 50 Twitter Moms. And yours truly is on it. And not only on it, but #1 for the category Most Controversial.

I gotta say, I SQUEEd when I first heard I was on the list at all (via a pre-release email from an editor, asking for a photo to go with the story). And then didn’t believe it. And then checked into it some, and squeed and hyperventilated some more. And then sent a photo and tried to breathe. And then, as the days wore on, started to become completely convinced it was all some elaborate hoax and/or prank. Because as hard as that was to believe (who goes phishing for publicity photographs??), even harder was that I — not exactly a high-follower, heavy-hitter on Twitter, and annoyingly high volume — would actually be on a list like that. Truly, I could not believe it. (Thanks, paranoid crazy brain.)

But it was true. And as I looked at the list when it finally came out, it became more clear.

Because this list? It is white. It is very, very white. It is not only white (there are at least a few women of color on it that I know of — I don’t want to make the mistake of saying there are no black people there –, and some I may call white at first glance might in fact be nonwhite women I am misracializing), but there are no women of color among the ten Most Controversial of us.

Really?

I mean… really??

‘Cause I could name a few major bigger-than-me nonwhite players in the Controversial category off the top of my head, without even pausing to take a breath first (PhD in Parenting, also on Babble’s list, came up with nearly 30 in less than 24 hours). And I? Don’t even follow Big Names. I don’t know who’s-who on Twitter, and I don’t even particularly care. And yet I can quickly and conclusively prove that popular moms + opinionated + twitter =/= exclusively white.

And while we’re on the subject, let’s think about who else was left off the list, or was underrepresented. What about woman-partnered moms? Trans moms¹? Non-custodial moms? Moms with disabilities? There are some of at least the last (hey, I’m on there), and not knowing all fifty women I can’t say for sure there were none of the others. But it’s a pretty damn homogeneous list in a lot of ways.

It’s not that I didn’t in any way earn this honor (despite what my “you’ll never be any good” crazy-brain says) but that it is inarguable that I and many others are on here in no small part due to our completely unearned privilege. This list would be damn different in a non-racist, non-cissexist, non-kyriarchal society. Would I still be on it? Maybe, maybe not. But a lot more people would see themselves reflected in it, whether they themselves made it on, and that is the far more important point.

Screen capture from Babble.com September 10, 2010

There’s also this: in the bio written for me (y’know, the person named Most Controversial), nowhere are these words: (anti-)sexism; (anti-)racism; (anti-)heterosexism / homophobia; kyriarchy; privilege; feminism / feminist²; not even patriarchy.

Here instead is what it says about me:

The Who, What, Why?
Arwyn hails from Portland and is bipolar, bisexual, pro-choice and anti-anything that smacks of hypocrisy. So in a nutshell she’s lovely — provided you agree with her, but even then she won’t hold it against you. She’s all about moms banding together to fight the big boys (big money, big pharma, big brother). Amen to that!

Yea, ok, most people still go “huh?” at kyriarchy and privilege, and roll their eyes at patriarchy, but… hypocrisy³? Are even the words “racism” and “sexism” and “homophobia” (skipping right on over “biphobia” or “cissexism” as “advanced” topics, and just contemplate why that is for a moment) — and stating that one works against same — too controversial for a Most Controversial list? How can we eradicate these things if we can’t even talk about talking about them (which is sort of What I Do and, I imagine, why I’m on a list like this)?

I’m trying to walk a line here between not being ungracious and not fawning because someone said Nice Things About Me. The thing is, I am honored. When the list came out, I forwarded it to all my family, because look! proof that I’m not just sitting on my butt all day. Or, rather, I am, but I’m Doing Something while sitting (or bending over my iPhone, thumbs flicking), and people are noticing. And that feels really good. Who doesn’t love validation, especially for work done without any sort of tangible pay?

But the knowledge that the list is so skewed — so racist, so cissexist, so entrenched in raising up already-privileged bodies (with intent or not hardly matters, because the result is the same) — poisons my enjoyment. It turns my sweet success sour in my mouth, sourer still in digestion. Did I really earn this? Or am I here only because so many deemed unworthy — because their bodies and beings and lives are “wrong” — are not? This is the least of reasons to protest whitewashed lists like these, but it serves as a reminder: white (cis, class, hetero-partnered) privilege isn’t “good”. It taints everything those of us with this privilege receive. It dulls every award, flattens every accolade. Because we didn’t — wholly — earn them. Others were passed by, passed over, pissed on that we could have our moments. Is it worth it? Hardly seems so to me.

I am controversial? Fine, Babble, have controversy: do better. In this list, in all lists, as long as you insist on making them: do better. If any category be monochrome, you’re doing it wrong: go back to the selection process, and try again. Because it’s not that worthy women representing greater diversity aren’t out there, it’s not that you’d have to “hunt” for an unworthy “token” to “get the numbers right” — no, it’s that you aren’t paying attention. What, exactly, does that say about you?

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This is hardly the only problem to be had with Babble. Please do read the post at PhD in Parenting, and check out her links, which talk about issues Babble has had with violating copyright and trademark as well as their willingness to put corporate profit above infant and maternal health. Also please read Womanist Musing’s take — if I were making a list of opinionated or “controversial” Twitter moms, she’d be on the top.

And as a side peeve, while I am ensuring that I never get promoted by them again anyway, Babble re-directs everyone in Australia (and elsewhere outside the USA/Canada?) to an alternate site, making the list nigh-impossible to view for hundreds of my Twitter followers. I have, however, been told that going via an anonymizer such as anonymouse.org will allow one to view the main US Babble.com site.