Which made me realize the extent to which we have been *defensive* about vidding, treating it as a toy that can be taken away if we don't behave, rather than being assertive about our right to do it.

Yes. I started thinking about this after reading cupidsbow's How Fanfiction Makes Us Poor (http://cupidsbow.livejournal.com/239587.html) which challenged my concepts of fandom quite a bit.

Bartow adds another layer to that idea of fan works as "women's work" and how we understand what we do.