It’s been a sad season for feminist blogging: first Bitch Ph.D. closed shop, and now Kate Harding’s Shapely Prose. Click through for her archives, which are excellent resources for both fat acceptance/HAES and feminism. Kate Harding has a gift for handing people’s asses to them, on a skewer, with a vicious yet hilarious rage. It’s no secret that I think Shapely Prose is awesome (and have linked to there before), so this is where I pay tribute.
Did I ever tell you that I once saw Kate in person? June 2009, I was in Chicago for a friend’s birthday and we went to Cleo’s. I looked over at the next table and saw a blonde woman who was familiar but not someone I knew - and then it hit me: that’s Kate Harding. I whispered to my friend THAT’S KATE HARDING SHE’S LIKE A BIG DEAL. I was too shy to say anything, but I emailed her to tell her that I enjoyed her writing and that I saw her at Cleo’s (cue: stalker warning!). She sent me back a very gracious email telling me that I should have come over and said hello.
Here is where she explains her absence from blogging. Some good points: first, too much of her work became feminism 101 + “fat people are people too” + “would it kill you to be a decent person?” which is helpful but really, someone as talented as Kate should not be doing that. Secondly, the trolls. The trolls: concern trolls, know-it-alls, losers, angry misogynists, racists, righteous crusaders - all that shit wears a person down. Combine those factors with the fact that the other Shapely Prose writers were unable to contribute, and yeah, it was bound to end. She makes it clear that she’s still going to be addressing feminist and fat acceptance issues, but that point in her life - when she felt the need for the website and when it was a vital/important/sustaining community - is over.
If there’s a lesson to be learned from the shuttering of Bitch Ph.D. and Shapely Prose, it’s that this shit - feminism, activism- gets tired. Hell, I get tired telling people on ladyblog to stop being racist on random posts about Mad Men and Thai Brides, and I’m not even trying to run a website, I’m just a volunteer with a digital star who gets sick and tired of people’s shit. It feels like an uphill battle and I don’t blame someone for wanting to start anew and close that chapter of their life. Both Bitch Ph.D. and Shapely Prose address this notion that blogs aren’t forever, that even if you have a mission and Important Shit People Need To Pay Attention To, you can’t just can’t keep doing it. That’s what the next cycle/season/round/generation of blogs need to do: have the guts and intuition to identify a hole in the discourse, and run with it.
(I mean, not me, this is just a place where I can post pictures of my dogs and be a bitch.)
In honor, just a few of my fav Kate Harding posts:
Sadface.
But I totally get her reasons. Cuz seriously, this shit does burn you out.
Kate Harding and Shapely Prose have helped me so much over the years, even though I never commented. I totally understand why, but I’m still super sad to see it go.
I wanna thank Kate and the Shapely Prose team for challenging me and helping me think about a buttload of my unhelpful shit. I doubt I’d be blogging the way I do without the influence of this site.