See, the problem with the "screaming allies," as I shall call them, is that they often use their voices to drown out those of the people they're trying to help. Their privilege in being part of the non-marginalized group often gives them a bigger platform than the marginalized, and rather than use it to elevate the concerns of the marginalized (who are, don't get me wrong, NOT monolithic and shouldn't be treated as such), they use it to spread their own "take" on the problems of the oppressed.
The Freddie DeBoer blow-up on Tiger Beatdown illustrates this issue. Tiger Beatdown is a witty, frequently caustic feminist blog run by the indomitable Sady Doyle. Freddie is a screaming ally of the man-feminist (manifest?) variety. He commented on a recent "sexist beatdown" (TM) post that he thought Sady's jokes were um, interfering with her intellectual rigor. Or something. Anyway, Sady was not having any of that BS, and so she beat Freddie down in a very long and very explicative-filled post, because that is what she does on Tiger Beatdown. Freddie's feelings were hurt because he is a feminist and he is trying to help! I don't know if I would have gone to the lengths Sady went to to make it, but she had an extremely valuable point. If you want to be a feminist, the first thing you should probably not do is tell women what to do, how to fight their battles, and why they're doing it wrong, according to you. From Sady [NSFW language]:
