I am writing in response to your article “The Myth Myanmar can Afford to Ditch”. This is not intended to be a direct rebuttal to the
argument put forth by Brandon Aung Moe, as I understand there are plenty of
those in the works, including one forthcoming for Tea Circle itself – rather I
want to ask why a platform hosted by an Oxford University programme would
publish such a piece in the first place.
Based on your affiliation and the academic credentials of
your editorial team, I assume you have the critical thinking and analysis
skills necessary to realise that this piece is garbage[1],
even under the guise of an “opinion”. The author himself calls into
question his credentials early on, but like so many men before him, this does
not appear to have bestowed the necessary self-awareness or humility to conduct
basic research into the factual relevance of his opinion on before plunging in.
The piece shows minimal understanding of the meaning of the word “empowerment”,
central to the argument, and makes unfounded blanket generalisations about a
diverse country from a position of male and (apparently) Burmese ethnic
privilege. Most disturbing is the inflammatory turn taken in the middle, where
Brandon Aung Moe decides to label feminist activism which targets
representation of women in male-dominated areas as “a virus”. In a country
where open political discourse is fragile and contentious, suggesting that
women who fight for representation in areas like politics and media are
suffering from, or a symptom of, a deadly sickness, is a rhetorical turn which
skirts dangerously close to hate speech.
Assuming your editorial staff are familiar with the qualities
of a well-researched, intelligent article, this limits the likely explanations
for your publishing a piece which is neither. Perhaps you believe that this
opinion piece is justified under the terms you set out on your website of “offer[ing
a] unique perspective”, in which case I regret to be the one to inform you that
unexamined male privilege is extremely common, and Brandon Aung Moe is far from
the first man to use this many words to describe his own. You may also be
justifying the publication of this piece under the umbrella of platforming
Myanmar voices, but suggesting that one has to throw basic integrity to the
wind in order to include Myanmar people – even those without traditional
academic backgrounds – in a debate is frankly offensive to the millions of
intelligent, thoughtful people in this country who are capable writing of interesting
and well-supported arguments. I also can’t discount the theory that you were
aiming to provoke a strong negative reaction and in doing so “spark a debate”
on gender in Myanmar, either for lofty academic purposes or to draw attention
to your site (or both). Starting on the controversial side, pushing back
against feminism, I guess gives you a better claim to cutting edge independent
thinking, as well as giving you the convenient opportunity to suggest that
anyone who passionately disagrees with your argument or its quality is just
“offended” and needs to calm down and get into the proper spirit of rational
debate.
Here’s the sorry truth, though: it’s a waste of everyone’s
time to engage with the ideas as presented in this garbage article. By offering
your prestigious platform to a man with no qualifications on gender theory or
social science beyond “being from Myanmar and having a mother”, you disrespect
the entire pool of talented, knowledgeable writers from Myanmar who do
have the skills to write intelligently and sensitively from a range of
positions on this subject. And you insult the intelligence of everyone with a
passing knowledge of these topics by presuming that the debate we should be
having is the one in which activists need to fight, over and over again, for
the most basic recognition and acceptance of their work. Inevitably, this takes
time away from the work itself – which, as has been well documented and is
inevitably about to be demonstrated to you in exquisite detail, is real and
pressing, and has the potential to save and transform the lives of millions[2].
If this utterly basic debate is truly the one you believe is
most worth having – rather than, say, platforming a conversation with actual
ground-breaking potential on the state of structural gender inequalities in
Myanmar and the challenges inherent in tackling them – then you could at least
have done your readers the courtesy of publishing an intelligent piece on the
subject[3].
You have instead chosen to contribute to the rich patriarchal tradition of reducing
the debate on inequality and diversity to its absolute lowest form, erasing the
contributions of anyone in Myanmar who might have wanted to go beyond “Gender
Awareness Kindergarten” and setting us back at square one, in which women must
once again carve out the basic space to articulate the inequalities and
barriers they face, against rhetorical opponents who are enabled in using
fallacious, puerile and inconsistent arguments to slow them down. It’s exhausting
at best, destructive and idiotic at worst.
I understand that you have your own response piece to this
article in the works, but I am not particularly excited to read it, or anything
else published on your platform, for as long as this piece remains an
indication of what you consider acceptable quality for your site. You can
clearly do better, and your failure to do so in this context is insulting and
damaging to this debate, and to your own integrity as a source of analysis on
Myanmar.
Yours in solidarity,
Adrienne
[1] I
have a personal stake in this assumption, as my own undergraduate degree is
from Oxford, and I like to think that’s worth writing on my CV.
[2] Of women
and men, of course.
[3]
Admittedly, from my perspective, a well-argued anti-feminist work would be just
as infuriating, but I accept that in theory it’s not an oxymoron.
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