proof of shallowness

[egypturnash]

So I chased a link to this site that claims to be about "questioning transgender politics" but is mostly about claiming that all MtFs horrible evil MEN who want to SUBVERT FEMINISM and INVADE WOMYN-ONLY SPACES. And, okay, this is an attitude that vaguely pisses me off, because I'm not one, and I don't want to, and that's just silly. If I wanted to be all exclusionist and go hang out with nothing but women, except that my definition includes womyn-born-morlocksmen, I'd, like, try and start a better girls-only club that's, you know, cooler, instead of trying to change minds by yelling at crusty old lesbians who think A Penis Is Forever.

But anyway. That's not the point I'm going to make here. The point is that this site's design was aggressively horrible - I don't know if it works right on Explorer, but on both Camino and Safari, it was utterly broken, and most of the black body text ran off the tiny little pixel-specified box into the black background. It was so aggressively bad that the combination of the 'zap presentational HTML' and 'zap CSS' bookmarklets still had the text squeezed into tiny little columns. I think that if it worked "right" the text would've been squeezed into a tiny little box, far too tiny to read.

And I'd have been annoyed at the content no matter what it was, because I had to fight to read the thing. Yeah, call me evil and make finding out exactly what kind of evil you're pinning on me utter pain and suffering, thanks, miss "radical feminist".

Presentation matters. Aggressively bad presentation doesn't win you any friends.

Comments

[radd.livejournal.com]

To be fair, they're bigots, not web designers.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

True. I think I've seen more legible neo-Nazi and Christian fundie hate sites, though. I probably wouldn't have written anything about this if not for the actively-terrible Dreamweaver (I think; the source refers to '.dwt' files in comments, and has a "MM_" Javascript function in it) layout.

I was offended as much as a design geek as a dickgirl. Maybe more. And the amusement of that fact is why I wrote about it.

I sent 'em an e-mail politely pointing them to alistapart and the css-discuss wiki. n.n

[queenofstripes.livejournal.com]

Keeping in mind that "psychoceramics" is one of my big hobbies, color me unsurprised. Extremist viewpoints that depend on argument-by-definition and huge generalizations just spawn bad graphic design, and that's that. Some college psych textpuddle hundreds of years in the future will have a whole chapter about the connection between bad ideas and bad UI.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

The Light of the Pure Truth will overcome the bad layout. I guess. Or something. More like anyone who's going to go on and on and on like that doesn't know anything about graphic design, and is unlikely to be able to get anyone who does to do anything for them.

Unless it's as some kind of weird art missionary thing. Pro bono work. "Normally I charge $50/h for a site like this, but I'm doing my part to make the kook sites of the world more visually compelling. You've gotta give something back, you know?"

[dv-girl.livejournal.com]

We already trashed that website on feminist_rage :)

http://www.livejournal.com/community/feminist_rage/329680.html

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Peggy: always late to the party.

At least my annoyance with it was amusingly different!

[(Anonymous)]

Man, that is a hell of a lot of work to go through in order to subvert the whole feminism deal.

Riki Wilchins briefly covers some run-ins with the feminists to both good and bad effect, sometimes very poorly received, sometimes received with open arms and fascination. In Read My Lips ( http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1563410907 ) there was a point where Ricki let a bunch of curious feminists check out the new gear. I could understand that. I was more than a little baffled at points where Ricki wasn't so well received however. I mean, I'd think for a group so focused on the supremacy of the stink blossom (feminism isn't about equality, folks -- seriously) the whole gender-crossing thing would be received as a compliment at worst.

I think I liked that Riki treated the whole deal in every case with humor and a little emotional detachment when things got weird, instead of the bad CSS.

-- McGroarty

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Yeah, really. I I'm an agent of the Patriarchy out to subvert feminism from within, why isn't the Man paying for my hormones? Where's my spy-cam and tranquilizer gun cunningly designed to do double duty as a pocket mirror and a vibrator?

Mostly I just brush this kind of stuff off as part of the fact that TGs are the New Queers.Gays are getting married and getting societal acceptance, now they want to take their turn jumping up and down on the freaks too. *shrug*

I try to not let this kind of thing get to me. I'm sure I'll get more of it, to my face, as I start spending more time out socializing, too...

[queenofstripes.livejournal.com]

"Repressive desublimation."

OK, we'll let you people in. But it's getting awfully crowded. Just guard the door for us, 'kay? Atta girls.

[dsch.livejournal.com]

One can hope that, because the site design is so awful, nobody will take the views within the bad layout seriously...

I have to wonder, though, what those twits think of FtMs...

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Oh, I think they're non-persons, except when one gets killed... and then they're a woman who's been killed by Agents of the Patriarchy.

Kinda like the way I'm a man in the eyes of the Catholic church, except in the event of me wanting to marry a woman. Then, and only then, am I a woman.

Woo. Ain't dogma grand?

[dsch.livejournal.com]

Either that or we're already victims of the Patriarchy, having been somehow brainwashed into becoming one of Them physically...

Oh, and the site looks just as bad in IE as anything else.

[queenofstripes.livejournal.com]

Who was it who said something along the lines of we won't truly have a humane society until there's no more need for irony?

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Probably Lennon. It sounds like a John Lennon kinda line.

[ex-coyotesda457.livejournal.com]

ignore them. they're just a couple of old guard feminists from the michigan womyn's music festival who refuse to see how irrelevant their politics have become. i tangle with these women regularly.

hello. my name's emily. and i'm from camp trans.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Ah. Rusty old SMOFs of the lesbian world. Writing anonymously to make it look like more people agree with 'em. Looking at stuff like this makes me kinda wonder how many people might be picking these kinds of beliefs up, though it seems like most folks are perfectly happy to treat me as "woman with funky body history".

I do ignore them. Just trying to make sense of the random babbling on that website was about the most attention I've given that sort of person. If I start running into people like this in the flesh I'll probably end up arguing, but only because I'll start calling them by the wrong pronoun until they call me by the right one.

[amarafox.livejournal.com]

I've run into the old guard of Lesbian feminists as well, because I don't hold a label. it's like I'm diseased because I've had boyfriends before. As such, I'm wary and single. :/