Liz at badgerbag is looking for information on the history of the feminist blogosphere.

Here’s what she’s looking for:

- When did you start finding feminist blogs?
- What were the first ones you became aware of?
- Which ones did you read, and how did you think of them? How would you describe the character of the blog, its evolution, and the evolution of your thought about it?
- Which feminist blogs are part of your regular, or sporadic, reading now?
- What were the top 10 , or top whatever, or most important, feminist blogs of 2005? What are the most important now?
- If you would like: what is a feminist blog? what makes it feminist?
- What issues are/were important on feminist blogs (and, if you can remember, when were they important)
- What controversies, surges of discussion, did you see begin/continue?
- How have feminist blogging and anti-racist blogging combined, enhanced each other, or not done well enough, in your view?
- How about forums, wikis, mailing lists?

You can answer there, via e-mail (see the original thread), or in the comments here. Liz and I are in touch on the matter, so anything you say will be used to great purpose. Great purpose, I say!

Anyway, please participate even if you consider yourself to be a feminist blogging newbie. The more data we have, the better of a picture we can form of how the blogosphere has grown and changed over the years.

I think the video says it all. But, if not, then go read this deconstruction of the site being advertised: Chickipedia. For Guys That Never Get Laid.

The backstory: Assassin’s Creed is one of the most anticipated games of the year. When Yahoo! is talking about your game on the front-page, you know the buzz is pretty significant. The producer for this game is Jade Raymond who, like the lead-producer of every other game created in the modern age, gives a good portion of the interviews with the press. That is, if you’re a producer of a game and you’re noticeably articulate, you’re the one talking about it, you don’t tell the advertising executive or the intern to do that. As the game is being released, a comic/drawing surfaces, most infamously on the Something Awful forums depicting Jade performing fellatio on male fanboys (not to be confused with the photoshopped nude photos of Jade that are floating around). This comic is seen and shared by members of the SA forums at which point Richard “Lowtax” Kyanka of SA receives a cease and desist/threat of lawsuit letter from the legal representation of Ubisoft telling them to shut it all down and to let them know everything about where they get the image, who drew it, etc. At this point, the story becomes popular outside of SA and other blogs start picking it up, forming their own opinions (yes, just like me and just like this one). The story appears on digg and with it a rash of the most sexist comments (and some countering the sexist comments) appear.

Read the rest…

All text from the Pretty Bird Woman House blog.

In May of this year, the progressive netroots pulled together to save a tiny women’s shelter on a Lakota Sioux reservation in South Dakota. Thanks to over 680 strangers who donated a combined $27,000, Pretty Bird Woman House was able to keep its doors open for the duration and provide emergency shelter for 188 women and 132 children.

But just last month thieves broke into Pretty Bird Woman House - literally smashing holes through the walls. They stole the computers, teh television, clothing, toiletries - all donated. Then arsonists set fire to the building.

Pretty Bird Woman House remains open, without a house, in an unheated, donated office. The tribal council has done all it can afford to do. Without a house, this sanctuary will die.

Pretty Bird Woman House needs another netroots miracle to survive. There is so much in the world we are powerless over. For Pretty Bird Woman House you can make a difference, make the world a better place, right here, right now, today.

Read the rest…

So, the Angry Black Woman posts about an experience she had with a troll who, when banned, continued to harass her. The post itself is worth a read, but (oh so predictably) another troll shows up in her comments to start telling her how bad and wrong she was for informing the guy’s company of his actions online.

Now, I’m not here to talk about that, but rather to highlight two of the comments that came out of it because I think that they make very important points about the kind of harassment that occurs on anti-oppression blogs and why it’s important to not lie down and accept it in the name of “free speech” or “tolerance” that shouldn’t be just a footnote of another post.

The first one is by Nora about the difference between a normal troll and the racist, sexist, etc trolls that come to harass us:

Here is the crux of the issue: I just don’t think that initiating arguments with a troll is actually helping the social problems-
Wait, wait, wait. ABW does not go to these people’s blogs and make anti-racism speeches. They come here and start shit. So please remember — she’s not “initiating arguments” by any means.

The thing you need to remember is that this blog does not operate in a vacuum. Look at the links along the right side sometime. ABW is part of a vast and growing network of anti-sexism, anti-racism, anti-other-oppression blog sites, and she’s only the latest in a long line of textual crusaders. There have been many others since the internet was popularized. Quite a few of the pioneering sites have died — enough that we’ve learned a few things about the tactics of racists on the ‘net. For example,
a) Racists are not ordinary trollers, any more than stalkers are ordinary annoyances. Racists aren’t just out to have some fun by pissing people off; harassment is not an end in itself for them. They’re trying to disempower others, using harassment as a weapon. This distinction is important, because it gives them great incentive to persist long past the time when a troll would’ve gotten bored and moved on.
b) Like harassment, persistence is also a racist weapon. Racists do not go away. When they realize they have free reign, they usually take encouragement from the silence. There are never as many of them as they want you to believe, but to make up for their small numbers, they never shut the fuck up.

c) Racists act out of fear. They fear the loss of their power; some fear the loss of their “racial purity”, some just fear change. Regardless, frightened people are irrational people, and irrational people are dangerous. Would you ignore an irrational person who was coming after you over and over again, and getting worse each time? I don’t care how Zen you are; that’s not smart.
d) All this has the side-effect of silencing the non-racists, who get tired/frightened by the ugliness.
And of course, d) is what kills blogs.

Then there’s ABW’s response, which talks about why taking steps to stop harassment is, you know, a good thing not a bad one:

One of the things we learn as children is that actions have consequences. the fewer consequences a child is subjected to in their early years, the more they get the impression that they can do whatever they want. Same works for adults. If a person spends their day being a racist troll and nothing comes of it, they learn that being a racist troll has no consequences and continue doing so. For minor trolls, the mere act of banning them is consequence enough. They go “Oh, no one likes it when I do that. Ah well, I’ll go away.” Hopefully they go away to be a better person, but my instinct says they go away to be a racist troll somewhere else. If so, my hope is that others will ban them and, finally, the consequences will mount up and either change that behavior or drive them into a small hole where they have no one to talk to but other racist assholes.

The bigger the entitlement, the harsher consequences must be. The guy who replied to my banning him with “I’ll just keep trying to harass her until I get to do it again” was obviously in need of harsher consequences. because he believed it was his right to continue being an asshole on my blog. Well, it wasn’t. This is why I took things to another level. not because I enjoy calling people’s workplaces and informing on them, but because otherwise, they won’t get the message that what they are doing is not okay. Consequences are important.
Sometimes the mere threat of consequences is enough to make people realize where they are in the wrong. or, at least, get them to back off. Michael sent me a note very soon after this post went up to say that he would not darken our doorstep again. He tried his own version of consequences by implying that I had threatened to expose his name and daughter’s name and address publicly (which I did not). He wanted me to take this post down. Maybe he was afraid his employers would see it. He was definitely afraid of me going to his HR department, that was clear.
In the end, I didn’t have to do any such thing. I just had to let him know that I meant business. Hopefully this post will serve as a similar deterrent to others. Now that they know the consequences, they won’t be so quick to think “I can just keep on doing what I’m doing.” That’s the problem with Internet trolling. people think they can do it without any consequences. I’m here to say: you can’t.

Not Michael, this may offend your Zen sensibilities and I’m sorry for that. But it’s not as if I’ve actually physically hurt someone here. Also, even MLK and Ghandi brought consequences. they didn’t just stand around and yell that they wanted equal rights or a free India. they *did* something about it. that something was not war, that something was not physically fighting, but that something was NOT just turning the other cheek. It was refusing to meet violence with violence but instead with protecting one’s self and showing the futility of violence.
I could respond to trolls by just being nasty back at them and that would be the equivalent of meeting violence with violence. Instead, I show them the consequences of their actions. for MLK, it was to bring hundreds or thousands of people to the government’s workplace and to show them that injustice would NOT be met with silence and would NOT be patiently endured. That they were prepared to take action 9though that action would not have been violent). I’m doing the same (though not comparing myself to MLK or anything). Harassment will NOT be met with silence. I won’t come to your house and beat you up or anything, but I will use the resources available to me.

If you’re expecting some deep and thoughtful commentary, I’ll have to disappoint. I’m still technically on blog break. But, really, I think the comments above speak for themselves. Harassment is not okay, and cyberstalking — what Micheal was starting to do — is a crime, people. You don’t have the right to systematically harass another human being, whether offline or on. One would think that this would be common sense, but the 84 responses that the original thread has gotten would say otherwise.

So, in summary, stay in school and don’t harass people because there will one day be consequences that you probably won’t like.

So, I’m taking a class on Iranian Society this semester, and our major assessment item is a small selected-sample study on outsider (ie, people not in Iran) perceptions of Iranian society. Given my postgraduate study plans (whilst being somewhat uncertain at the moment given the state of my university department) involve exploring feminist blogging and community, I thought I’d take the opportunity to actually explore that area to some extent.

To that end, I’d be most appreciative if the feminist bloggers among you would help me out by completing a short survey. The questionnaire has been provided by my lecturers, but if you have any concerns that come up in completing the survey, I’ll be happy to hear about them.

Whilst I don’t really want to get into credential-checking, I’ve agreed with my lecturer that asking those who wish to participate to include a link to their blog is, though imperfect, a good screening mechanism. I know that cuts out regular commenters, but for the sake of simplicity, I want to stick with those who have their own blogs or participate in groupblogs which have a significant focus on feminist issues.

Of course, all identifying information, including links to blogs, will be kept confidential, and whilst the research is for assessment purposes only, I’d be happy to e-mail the final assessment to those participants who are interested, once it’s been submitted.

If you are interested in participating, please e-mail me at ariella.drake@gmail.com with the subject “Iran Study”, including a link to your blog, and I’ll forward a copy of the questionnaire. I’m running on a bit of a timeline, so I’ll need completed questionnaires back by May 14th.

PS. Anyone who feels like passing this along to others who might be interested in participating, I’d be most appreciative.

I just wanted to do a quick follow-up on my Harassment, silencing, and gaming communities, posting some relevant links.

First up is Lake Desire with her thoughts on my piece. My favourite part is where she says this:

I want to be able to speak up in mainstream places without being ignored, having my character attacked, or called names. But I’m not willing to grow a thicker skin, to censor myself, to have to constantly, preemptively watch my back. I’m not asking for special treatment, just to be treated with respect owed to all human beings. Until the mainstream is ready for that, I’ll continue to blog from the margins where I can call some shots.

Next is something not related to gaming, but related to the incident that spawned my post. Apparently my reference to Something Awful was closer to the truth than I knew. Richie over at Criticisms has the scoop on Lowtax’s misogynistic and downright hateful response to the Kathy Sierra incident (warning: reading through that entire thread is downright depressing).

And so as not to end on too much of a downer, I just wanted to highlight a post by m of my grown-up life, i love being a woman, to remind us why it’s so darn important to not let women’s voices be silenced:

and in the end, i am happy to be a woman. i’m happy to know women who are happy being women. i’m happy to know men who really love women. but most of all, i’m happy that there are folks out there with voices, who can teach girls and women of all ages, my little girl included, that it is a beautiful thing to be born without a y chromosome.

Brian Crecente of Kotaku has tried to take credit for the inception of The IRIS Network. I’m not even joking:

In my caveman like attempts at prodding talented, strong-voiced women into writing more vocally about gaming I have stirred the ire of several feminist gaming writers who recently banded together to launch the IRIS Network a group, which will strive to bring women’s perspectives into the mainstream.

And if you don’t think that’s an obvious enough attempt to steal credit, then please review this exchange in which Crecente uses second-hand information in order to rebut Brinstar for saying that TIN wasn’t a direct response to Crecente’s post.

First, Brinstar says this:

However, Kotaku’s reporting isn’t completely accurate. The creation of the IRIS Network wasn’t in direct response to Crecente’s blogging. From what I understand, it has been in the works for a while now. This just seemed to be the opportune moment for the creator to launch.

To which Crecente responds:

@brinstar: To quote the Guilded Lillies post:
Their resolve to make this happen was fueled in part by a recent post on Kotaku which asked the question - Why aren’t there more female gaming bloggers? - written by editor Brian Crecente.

To which Guilded Lily responds that he was misconstruing what she said. Which, really, isn’t surprising given the amount of lazy journalism on Kotaku. Crecente not only puts GL’s banner up to promote TIN (ignoring the button that is being used elsewhere for that purpose), but then he also quotes someone who wasn’t even one of the founders of the group in order to “prove” that he deserves the credit for the inspiration of the organization. Even after his mistakes were pointed out to him several times he has not taken the time to correct his post.

Mia from Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney has something to say about that (thanks, Revena!). As do the awesome bloggers at Feminist Gamers.

If you want to know the real story behind how TIN was launched and conceived, go here.

Well, it’s official, Kotaku blogger Crecente has done his homework and decided that women just don’t blog about video games! This, of course, on the wake of Kotaku link blogging Guilded Lily’s post on covers she wants to see without giving any sort of nod to the meme that inspired it, or the other female video game bloggers who participated. Guilded Lily was not one of the women video game bloggers mentioned, by the way.

Of course, when Kotaku regularly inserts sexist turns of phrase into their posts, especially in ones that have little or nothing to do with gender, I am not exactly at a loss for an explanation as to why they would overlook resources like Women Gamers (the first hit when you google “women gamers”, just so you know) or Killer Betties. But, I mean, it’s us “gamer chicks” who have the “treat me better because I am a girl gamer attitude” according to one Kotaku commenter.

Let me put it another way. When bloggers like Faith, who put up with a lot of sexist shit being flung at them every time they post, say you’ve gone too far, your chances for getting a woman to blog for you, even if you find them with your severely lacking internet searching skills, is probably pretty low.

You want diversity at Kotaku? You want to add a woman to your staff? Then take down your damn “White Boys Only” sign and, at the very least, stop shoving your contempt for women down our throats in any post that even remotely can relate to women.

We are not your “whores”.

We are not your “bitches”.

And we are not going to sit down and kiss your feet for your half-assed attempts at including us.

This is the first post in the newly created category, Privilege in Action. Posts in this category will be devoted to highlighting and analyzing small bits of privilege that crop up in everyday life. This category is part catharsis and part evidence gathering for the people who say that they can’t see how their group is privileged.

Background: Two women-only mailing lists for wiki editors were advertised on the foundation-l mailing list. As is typical for discussions of gender inequality, the thread exploded.

Today’s Privilege in Action example [emphasis mine]:

Since women have the ability to contribute here the same as men, I really don’t see why this is needed. Surely the scepticism being shown to this idea from many men is proof positive of the fact that no-one is being opressed. How ironic to have women in this day and age proposing their own seperate mailing list from men, since so many feminists fought so hard for gender equality. This looks to me like a step backward.

[From [Foundation-l] Introducing a new mailing list by Corum O’ Fallamhain, message from Tue Dec 5 00:29:23 UTC 2006]

On the surface, what Corum is saying seems supportive of women. He takes for granted that women “have the same ability as men” and because of this he sees a women-only mailing list as working against gender equality.

Now take another look at the bolded part. What’s being assumed there? That men, not women are the appropriate sounding rods for whether or not women experience oppression. According to his argument, men’s opinion of women as having the “same ability as men” is more important than women’s perceived experience in deciding whether or not a mailing list for women to feel safe giving their opinions is needed or not.

Given that he was assuming women to be equal to men, I don’t think anyone would call Corum an anti-feminist or otherwise think that he was actively working against women. But that’s exactly the point.

Privilege isn’t about hating non-privileged groups.

Privilege isn’t about thinking that those non-privileged people are less than you.

Privilege is about not thinking about how your actions and opinions don’t give non-privileged people equal weight to those of privileged groups. Even in cases, like this one, where the issue is one that primarily affects the non-privileged group.

I do not hate Faith or gamers like Faith. Indeed I have tried to be respectful in my limited dealings with her and I even openly expressed support of her personally when she was being abused by the Kotaku goons for calling a boycott of the site. I disagree with some of her politics, as she obviously disagrees with some of mine. I have never attacked her personally, and if I have attacked the women who subscribe to the politics that I disagree with rather than the politics themselves then I apologize.

For the record, I do not appreciate or agree with the brush she paints my blog with. It’s one thing to disagree with and critique what is put forth here and another to accuse me of “hating” gamers like her, or believing that they represent everything that’s wrong with girl gamers.

I think that female gamers deal with enough hatred as it is without any of us heaping it on each other. I do not, and never will, support hating a woman for the choices that she’s made in life, even if I am critical of those reasons. That includes all female gamers; gamers like Faith, gamers like myself, gamers who don’t care either way about gender issues… it doesn’t matter, none of us deserve to be crapped on for the way we view gaming.

Faith, if you read this, please know that I certainly do not hate you and I do not wish there to be bad blood between us simply because our gaming politics differ.

I’ve been busy lately, so I haven’t posted on this. Mostly because I didn’t have the time to do it justice. Not that I’m going to do it justice here, ’cause I’m just so pissed off about the whole thing. But I’ll include a link lineup at the bottom so you can read people who say it better than me.

I’m sure most people in the feminist blogsphere have heard about the Althouse incident (the roundup done on this blog can be found here). Well, what some of you may not know is that the lack of people of colour (POC) in the lineup also brought some criticism. How, pray tell, does the liberal blogsphere respond? By supporting the POC who, having seen this kind of thing countless times, have raised this issue? Of course not.

One blog, Firedoglake, put up a post that personally attacked one blogger, Liza, for daring to question her “betters” (yes they did go there).

As far as I can tell, the only basis for their “jealousy defense” (proof that we never truly leave elementary school behind, I suppose, that presumably respected bloggers could think that calling Liza jealous was appropriate for a blog post) is this quote:

I am just shocked at the glee with which Peter Daou has shown his disrespect for Pam Spaulding, Steve Gilliard, Louis Pagan, Chris Rabb, Earl Dunovant and me when he decided to not invite neither of us, or for that matter, any other black or latino bloggers.

[From To Peter Daou and the DailyKos crowd, there are no black bloggers in New York City or Harlem by Liza]

Sure, one reading of that is that she’s miffed that she — and other POC weren’t invited — but that misses the point. The point, of course, being that there weren’t any POC on the panel because the effort to reach out to them was non-existent (and, no, sorry, but no cookie is given for “effort” because the person set up to be the “token minority” declined the invite). And, no, it’s not because there aren’t excellent political bloggers who aren’t white, either. Yet again, the privileged section of the blogsphere was given a chance to examine their privilege and go, “Huh. That is unfortunate. Next time we gotta do better,” and, yet again, they passed it up and instead went with the familiar comfort of racism.

According to Kai at Zuky the “good intentions” monster reared its ugly head (reminding me that I need to add that to the list of things I need to post about). I’ve gotten to the point where I just don’t buy the “good intentions” line anymore because it’s so often used to silence dissent from the minority group or person in question. Hey, dissenters, if your intentions are so good, put your money where your mouth is and actually listen to what the POC bloggers are saying! Seriously, how hard it is it to translate good intentions into good actions? And I’ll give you a tip: personally attacking a POC blogger for speaking out isn’t the way to prove to the world the purity of your intentions. Neither is de-linking them, as seems to have happened over at Kos’ blog.

Not to mention that Liza also gets the “women are just attention whores” attack in the comments section:

Then Jane Hamsher (another Firedoglake blogger) said in comments: “[Liza’s] exploitation of a very real problem for personal gain is quite shameless.”

[From Bill Clinton Lunches With Whites. Also, Firedoglake sucks. by Ampersand]

Apparently these “very real problems” only exist in theory, because every time an actual person brings up actual incidents like these they are just “exploiting” the issue for “personal gain.” Right. Not to mention that this is a pretty common theme in minority discussions — especially when women are involved; I hear this all the time from people trying to discredit women who bring up sexual harassment suits and I’ve seen it around sometimes when people are talking about rape.

If people want to know why racism won’t die, it’s because of crap like this. Seriously. Too many white people seem to live in some fantasy where “good intentions” are more important than the results of actions, and where it’s okay to use ad homs on POC who dissent.

Dear liberal blogsphere: Check your fucking privilege already. This is just embarassing.

Links

• Culturekitchen: To Peter Daou and the DailyKos crowd, there are no black bloggers in New York City or Harlem
• Zuky: The Color Line and the Perceptual Gulf and A Chasm Illuminated
• Women of Color: the internet, racism and women of color and White feminists re-center themselves.
• Pen-Elayne: Would I Be In Dutch…, Two More (Plus Two More), and The Klinton Kerfuffle Kount
• Alas, a Blog: Bill Clinton Lunches With Whites. Also, Firedoglake sucks.

(This is only a small representation of what is out there — most of the links have links to other great posts on this matter, and I urge people to read them, too.)

What do you do when someone makes a claim of personal experience that just isn’t believable? Specifically, do you accuse them of fabricating the claim?

I’m sure many of you have heard by now about the anti-choice blogger who mistook an Onion article for a serious editorial. In a response to that article, he made the claim that the reason he thought the article was genuine was because he would “meet people like her in the field all the time.” Most readers of feminist discussion forums have encountered other experiences of dubious veracity, such as the tale of the poor man harangued for opening a door, or the malicious women’s studies professor who lowers the grades of her male students.

Read the rest…

With the popularity and availability of screen printing and selling t-shirts over the internet, seems like everybody’s got some idea, phrase or illustration they want to market in t-shirt form. So for anywhere from $7-25 bucks, you get to wear not only a piece of clothing but something that says something to everyone else. It’s what you want other people to read or notice or learn about. For that moment, whether it’s a wayward glance on the subway or the start-up of a conversation in line from a deep gaze, the t-shirt and its modern storytelling (oh, lets say in the past couple years) reveals another form of violent backlash and aggression by men to women.

Read the rest…

I want one month in the feminist blogsphere in which none of us attack each other because someone engages in an activity that we personally don’t like. I want one month in which feminists who have differing views on porn, BDSM, and other sexual practices can come together and have a civil conversation that examines the patriarchy’s role in all this instead of flinging shit at each other. I want one month in which we don’t privilege one set of oppression over another, but rather realize that the dynamics of oppression creates a complex and interconnecting web that needs to be tackled both as a whole as well as one thread at a time. I want one month in which the need to be the sole arbiter of Truth is less important than creating a community in which we listen to each other and realize that every person takes a different path to happiness. I want one month for us to celebrate our differences instead of using them to divide us.

For one month. Just one. Fucking. Month. I want us to blame the patriarchy instead of blaming women.

Why isn’t that possible?

Update: I’ve been in touch with Tian (which was basically why I was waiting to make a final decision… which I meant to mention in the original post and totally forgot). Apparently “moderated” doesn’t necessarily mean the same thing on Blogger than it does here — as it was set up to filter spam. Since he agrees with me that the comment was inappropriate, he has removed it. I’m keeping the original post below, although I no longer have any question on whether or not to keep it on my blogroll. Thank you all for your replies.

I’ve had a few qualms with Hanzi Smatter in the past when it’s come to women’s issues, but they were always minor enough to be outweighed by the good I see it as doing. You see, the purpose of the blog is to poke fun at the (mis)appropriation of Asian language (specifically Chinese and Japanese) for tatoos, products, and other items. It’s not exactly the hotbed for critical analysis of race relations or oppression, but I see it as fluff for a good cause.

Except, a recent post has made me rethink whether or not I want it on my blogroll. It’s not what Tian says, but rather what he has approved in the comments. For the link-phobic, the picture in question is of a woman who has a lower back tatoo.

The first one is from Pappi:

It reminded me of 貞 when I first saw it, maybe she’s aiming for “unfaithful” (as in “player” or “cheater”)? The location of the tattoo and the picture certainly don’t contradict that guess O.o

Although I wince at the stereotype that a lower back tatoo on a woman (it’s always a woman, you see) is slutty, that one itself wouldn’t be enough to cause a strong reaction from me. After all, it can be argued that the argument, while tasteless, is based on the tatoo and isn’t attacking the woman herself.

Emily’s comment, however, makes me wonder what Tian’s criteria is for moderation:

I can’t believe people are still getting tramp stamps. In addition to simply being ugly and skanky, having one is like wearing a sign around your neck that says I DO WHATEVER’S TRENDY.

Gendered slurs like “tramp stamp” and “skanky” are specifically attacking the woman herself, not commenting on the tatoo quality. In fact, they have nothing to do with the tatoo hanzi smatter at all, but are instead making a moral judgement on the woman in question, shaming her for being (assumedly) slutty, which of course is bad because good girls don’t enjoy sex.

I fail to see why this is an acceptable comment, and because Tian believes it is, I’m wondering if it’s worth my time (and my link space) to endorse his site anymore. Gender is not the only important issue, but I would be no more accepting of a feminist who allowed racist comments to be published unquestioned on her site. I don’t believe that you can fight one type of oppression and ignore the other one — even if the expressions differ, oppression is oppression and I don’t think you can rightfully battle one while endorsing another.

So, what do you think, folks? I’ve taken people off of my blogroll for less. In my position, what would you do?