This is How "Liberal" Men Silence Feminists

Or, Why I Walked Away from My TEDx Talk

Since I started the Burned Haystack Dating® Project, I’ve dreamed of giving a TEDx talk about it; TED’s whole mission is “spreading ideas,” and I wanted to use that platform to share the ideas that underlie the project. Specifically, I wanted to talk about the feminist revolution it’s now become and the group of women and nonbinary people driving that revolution.

As the social media engines continued to fire, and as the numbers kept growing, I sensed that the movement might soon be big enough to justify a TEDx talk, and I added “apply to TEDx” to my to-do list for some point in the near future.

As it turned out, though, a TEDx organizer reached out to me. The event he co-organizes is a large one by midwestern standards, and it’s well-established. The venue is appealing, the video-production quality high, and there’s a lot of energy behind the event in the city in which it’s hosted.

I was delighted; I was going to get to give the “Burned Haystack” TEDx talk.

The first step was to submit a proposed title to the whole organizing team. I proposed “Burning the Haystack: The Next Feminist Revolution is Happening on the Dating Apps.” The organizing team said they’d prefer: “A New Swipe on Dating Apps: Burning the Haystack.”

There’s nothing wrong with that title, but I specifically wanted to focus on the feminist angle of the Method, and I had made that clear from the first conversation I had with the organizer when he originally contacted me; that’s the whole reason I wanted to give a TEDx talk. I wanted to use that stage to celebrate the grassroots and collective efforts of the women who had turned my late-night idea into an international movement.

The organizing team, however, wasn’t interested in that. The lead organizers (both middle-aged white men) didn’t want to hear about feminism or the ideological foundations of the group; they just wanted me to give the how-to, to go over the rules. Again, there’s nothing terribly “wrong,” with that, but it doesn’t need to be done; it also doesn’t fit the mission of TED (I have been a TEDx organizer myself in a different city for the past several years, so I’m familiar with the guidelines).

I wrote back and said,

“The how-to on burned haystack is already out there, a lot. The Method has dedicated facebook, instagram, tiktok, youtube, and substack forums, plus a whole bunch of podcasts, articles, and interviews. I don't want my TEDx talk to simply summarize what's already totally findable and accessible through so many different channels.”

I again reiterated that I wanted the talk to focus on the “feminist revolution on the dating apps” angle, and explained,

“I think the dynamics behind the method are actually far more interesting and important and in keeping with the ‘spreading ideas’ mission of TED.”

The organizer responded with this:

“Good morning Jennie,

By all means, we certainly respect your perspective on the feminist revolution angle. Respectfully, I don’t think changing horses in mid-stream on this works very well.”

But I hadn’t changed horses. This is what I’d wanted to talk about all along. My literal proposed title had been about feminism. Was I being gaslit by the TEDx organizers? We were still communicating in the same e-mail thread that contained my original proposal—which centered on feminism.

I responded:

“My original title centered the talk on Burned Haystack Method's contribution to a feminist revolution on the dating apps ("Burning the Haystack: The Next Feminist Revolution is Happening on the Dating Apps"). This was also my response to your original inquiry when you and I first met at the coffee shop.

I have always been focused on the big idea behind the Method, which you can see by scrolling down in this e-mail and I suspect by consulting the notes you took at our initial meeting.

I can't untangle the method from its feminist positioning, nor do I want to; it's my primary interest and mission. To say that the organizers "respect my perspective on the feminist revolution angle" while insisting I not focus on the feminist revolution angle strikes me as a specious claim.

It's important to me that a TEDx talk foreground feminism and supporting women; I don't want it to simply be promotion. TEDx is supposed to be about "big ideas," and this is the big idea behind Burned Haystack.

Please don't misinterpret my response as an indication that I do not want to give a TEDx talk about this; I very much do. However, it sounds like TEDx [city name] is uncomfortable with the content most central to my work. I think it makes the most sense for me to withdraw from the program.”

So we seemed to be at an impasse: two people with radically different ideas of what my TEDx talk on Burned Haystack should be about. We were also in a literal “he said/she said” scenario regarding what we’d already agreed I would address, despite the fact that my original title about feminism remained sitting at the bottom of the very e-mail thread we were still using.

His next response departed from the debate about the facts entirely. Suddenly, we were talking about . . . . . . . . . his feelings.

He wrote back:

Hello Jennie,

As mentioned, I am away, without easy ability to be free of meetings or a way to email comprehensively until Wednesday.

I am compelled, however, to provide a brief, immediate response to one statement you made, "However, it sounds like TEDx [city name] is uncomfortable with the content most central to my work."

My response to you from an organizational basis, is to share strongly and unambiguously, that is not, has not been, and would not be the case. On a personal level, I am more than a little troubled by your assumption. It is undeserved.”

Was it undeserved, though? I had responded to words on a page and pointed out the textual discrepancy. Why were we even talking about how my pointing out facts “troubled” him, about whether or not he “deserved” for me to question him.

In rhetorical studies we might call this a red herring; it avoids the actual topic at hand (in this case whether I will or will not talk about feminism) by introducing a seemingly-related-but-actually-irrelevant factor (his feelings).

I didn’t respond to that message because I prefer to not argue about basic demonstrable reality, but he wrote again to tell me that “this message thread has left me dispirited.”

Why were we STILL talking about his feelings?

He continued:

“In our communications before, I’d enjoyed talking with you and learning about your work, as well as your passion for it. Although life does come with disagreement from time-to-time, it doesn’t make me happy by any means, and saddened is where I stand now.”

Quick pause here to recognize the mansplaining nature of this guy explaining to me that “life does come with disagreement from time-to-time.”

🙄

Back to his words:

“I also feel it is important to restate without ambiguity that our speaker selection team and I completely respect your core focus on feminism. That stands alone, on its own two feet, and remains one hundred percent sincere. It is far from a specious statement, especially from a group of people like our team; each of them thoughtful, open-minded, and kind. We find no discomfort in your focus on feminism, and in any case, it wouldn’t matter if we did. TED and TEDx teams center on willingness to examine a full universe of ideas, even if they do create personal discomfort; such an approach is an important part of the TED ecosystem.”

Translation:

We LOVE feminism.

We are LIBERAL men.

We just don’t want you talk about it.

His words continued . . .

“We know, understand, and respect that the dating app method is just a part of the feminist focus of your work . . .

I stress: in selecting the dating app focus for a talk at TEDx[city name], there is no feeling expressed, nor implied, that your other foci are not worthy of merit or a focus in their own right. It is simply that we didn’t select them as a specific focal point for TEDx[city name] 2024. Nothing more; nothing less.”

“Nothing more; nothing less” in this sentence is what rhetoricians call a “thought-terminating cliche.” (See this reel for an explanation on that term.)

I wrote back and said,

”I still very much want to give a TEDx talk about Burned Haystack, but I'm not interested in giving the talk you want me to give.

I disagree with the history you're describing; I have always been focused on the big idea behind the Method, which you can see by scrolling down in this e-mail and I suspect by consulting the notes you took at our initial meeting.

The TED stage is an important one, and if I have the opportunity to stand on it I need to deliver the talk I know is most important for people to hear and share.

Thank you,

Jennie”

His final e-mail to me:

“In the course of life, thoughtful people can see things differently; it happens at times.”

That’s a true statement, but it’s not relevant in this case. This was not a case of two thoughtful people disagreeing about some nuanced interpretation of something. This was a case of two English-speaking people looking at the English word “feminism,” which had been the focus of the conversation from Day One.

The e-mail continues:

“We respect your clarification that you don’t want to deliver a talk specifically focused on the dating app method, which is the focus that we selected for TEDx[city name] 2024. Given that separation, I agree with you that there’s not an apparent way to move forward, yet thank you very much for your time, passion, and energy in describing your work as we proceeded through the discovery and selection process.”

Clearly, this is written in some sort of weird “legal defense/reframing the position mode” language (which seems unnecessary, as I’d already taken myself out at this point).

At this point I was beginning to doubt myself, so I forwarded the entire e-mail thread to a male colleague whose opinion I trust and respect. This was his response:

“They came to you because of your following and they wanted to use you for their success. They wanted you for the talk right up until they found out you wanted to be bold. They silenced you (and in the process tried to gaslight you and make it about their feelings). So, it's a couple of old white men trying to exploit a woman's success for their own gain, finding out they can't and then shutting her down.”

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Final analysis:

In addition to everything else, there’s also a huge logic problem in this guy’s argument.

The organizers contacted me (strictly based upon numbers, I now assume, or he’d have been more familiar with what I’m actually doing), and essentially said, “Your work is resonating with people. We’d like TEDx to serve as a vehicle for disseminating those ideas.”

And then upon seeing my draft, they turned that claim right around into something that sounded a lot more like, “You don’t know what people are interested in about your own work. We know better.”

But that doesn’t make any sense, right? Clearly I must know something, or the project wouldn’t have grown to the numbers it has. The position the organizers were taking wouldn’t even serve them. If I’m the one who knows what’s resonating with people within the arena of my work (this was their own position, and the reason they contacted me), then why not just let me speak to it?

I think I know why: Men are really uncomfortable with what we’re doing in Burned Haystack. It de-centers them, evens the playing field, and empowers women to work together and to collectively shift a balance of power that’s existed for centuries.

I can see how that would feel threatening. Moreover, this particular event is in a city that leans conservative, and I know they were worried about how their local audience and community would respond to a talk that was unapologetically feminist.

And of course it’s their right to make the decision to maintain that status quo. I just wish they would have chosen differently.