This is a fantastic thread and I’d like to note something about it, going back to my earlier thread— Courtney is vividly describing a type of care system. One I’d define more specifically as a CARE HIERARCHY. Part of caring is tolerating discomfort so others can feel better. 🧵 - ThreadSky

goddessblade.bsky.social • 130 days ago

This is a fantastic thread and I’d like to note something about it, going back to my earlier thread—

Courtney is vividly describing a type of care system. One I’d define more specifically as a CARE HIERARCHY.

Part of caring is tolerating discomfort so others can feel better. 🧵

Reposted from Courtney Milan

I had a walk today and thought about the relationship between civility, discomfort, and abuse.

Some of you know that “civility” is one of my hard “ugh” triggers. This thread will explain why.

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unsnake.bsky.social•128 days ago

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furblescout.bsky.social•130 days ago

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carolyngriffiths.bsky.social•130 days ago

Excellent and important t thread. Thank you

deadlyflowers.bsky.social•130 days ago

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moderndaybartleby.bsky.social•129 days ago

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oranmath.bsky.social•130 days ago

This opens up a lot for me about being transmasculine and our common discourse trauma triggers. Thank you

kintarius.bsky.social•129 days ago

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lavender-daydream.bsky.social•130 days ago

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spanishspy.bsky.social•130 days ago

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lucindacatchlove.bsky.social•130 days ago

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lucindacatchlove.bsky.social•130 days ago

This is also a fantastic thread on care. I appreciate you sharing your caring thoughts on care, particularly since we are in a crisis of care (for each other, our planet, for care as a systemic necessity....healthcare, childcare, eldercare, etc).

goddessblade.bsky.social•130 days ago

The way most care hierarchies work is that they enforce a flow: care flows from the bottom toward the top. The lower you are in the care hierarchy, the more you have to prioritize the needs and feelings of those above you.

ladyaranea.bsky.social•129 days ago

Oh.

goddessblade.bsky.social•130 days ago

Remember that care is a resource, and it’s as vital as food or shelter. But more importantly, care can generally only come from other people.

Care hierarchies are designed to “mine” that resource.

goddessblade.bsky.social•130 days ago

We all have to adapt to whatever systems we’re part of, but we do so first and foremost emotionally, by getting used to the water around us. We probably don’t know intellectually that we’re in a system or that we’re adapting to it.

goddessblade.bsky.social•130 days ago

Those closer to the top of a care hierarchy do actually still need care, because remember that care is a vital resource.

So if there’s any challenge to them continuing to get that care, they tend to feel primally under threat, as if their safety is being attacked.

goddessblade.bsky.social•130 days ago

And those toward the bottom of the care hierarchy have been tolerating all this time not only discomfort, not only lack of safety, but the trauma of adaptation—they’ve had to learn to identify with being sources of care rather than recipients.

goddessblade.bsky.social•130 days ago

You see signs of this a lot in people: people who are uncomfortable accepting praise, who struggle to assert their authentic points of view, who are chronically fearful, etc.

cowbellemoo.lets.abolish.family•130 days ago

Thank you for this great thread!

I've read short pieces on care ethics and I'm interested in the overlap of this analysis with how care is discussed in family abolition theory (scarcity, coercion, commodification). Do you think they're roughly compatible or are there features that are in tension?

metroplex.bsky.social•128 days ago

I find in LGBT+ spaces, care heirarchies manifest in their simplest form as a kind of dichotomy between "givers" and "takers." Those who give care and those who receive it. It's so omnipresent that reciprocity and mutual care becomes treated as a kind of unspoken myth and proof of "childishness."

metroplex.bsky.social•128 days ago

Those not used to being taken care of over-correct, which isn't bad (that's natural for somebody not used to something, it's how we test new-to-us things). However that becomes seen as the sole way care can be provided in any way, and oftentimes "givers" are reduced to "resources."

metroplex.bsky.social•128 days ago

"Givers" for their part often burn out and develop an aversion to asking for care of any kind, lest they inflict the pain that slowly destroyed them on to another. And thus people slowly abandon community spaces or lose faith in care at all.

metroplex.bsky.social•128 days ago

A quiet but extreme quality shift has undergone community spaces as a result, where the very premise of emotional support systems is being quietly undone. The very concept of community is changing to where a need for care has been quietly re-framed as an act of micro-abuse.

metroplex.bsky.social•128 days ago

(Sorry for threading mentions and this infodump, but resolving this situation and coming up with a mature [in the software sense], workable, battle-tested care system that our spaces can adopt and sustain is a major passion of mine).

sorblaze.bsky.social•130 days ago

Going to try to remember to read this later when I have time

mav.wtf•128 days ago

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sakeriver.com•130 days ago

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gdnightsweetme.bsky.social•129 days ago

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