Teaspoons for Shakesville, Continued

Thank you to everyone who has donated in response to my post yesterday. I am hugely appreciative for every donation, no matter the amount—and I want to reiterate once again that if you've got nothing to spare, don't worry about it. The whole point of the fundraiser is so Iain and I don't have to struggle on behalf on the blog, and the absolute last thing I want is for anyone to beggar themselves because of a donation. That's just exchanging one unfairness for another.

I also want to say this about the fundraising: Asking for money is incredibly hard for me. I hate doing it. I hate doing it so much, in fact, that there are times I'd actually rather be shit-broke. Part of it is just an innate aversion to asking for anything; part of it is that those threads always end up being extremely upsetting, for reasons that I imagine are evident to anyone who's read any of them.

But fundraising is also one of the most feminist acts I do here. Women's service work, whether it's mothering, elder care, volunteering, philanthropy, social work, employment in any "pink collar" profession, or social advocacy, is gravely devalued, frequently to the point where it is unpaid work altogether.*

And when I don't ask that my work be valued by the community, I'm feeding that narrative; I'm implicitly saying, "It's okay to expect this from me. It's okay to feel entitled to the product of a woman's work for nothing in return."—and that makes me feel even worse than asking for money does, because it's counterproductive to the work we do here every day. It's antifeminist.

This blog started as a hobby, a part-time interest into which I could put as much or as little time as I wanted. It's not a hobby anymore; it's a job. And regarding it thus is a feminist act.

Every donation is a feminist act, every donation a teaspoon.

Thank you.

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* A reality also faced by every man who engages in this work, because it is seen as "women's work."