Talking to white dudes about feminism

[sabotabby]

I just had a bunch of surprisingly productive discussions around feminism and harassment, spurred by the stupid verdict in the case of Gregory Alan Elliott, the latest Tropes vs. Women video, and the overall imbalance in what we mean when we talk about freedom of speech.

Both of these cases have a lot to do with how the law is unwilling (I almost typed "unable," but this isn't true—they're perfectly capable of understanding Twitter threats against cops) to take into account both gender dynamics and internet culture. Elliott was acquitted (and may go on to sue his victims) because they didn't act like perfect victims. Why, one might ask—and the judge did—would they block him and continue to respond to his tweets?

This is a fundamental misunderstanding of how these things work. I know, because I've had stalkers and trolls. There is no perfect way to engage with them. Your mother might have said, "ignore the bully and he'll go away," but you knew even as a child that this wasn't true.

Internet discussion is largely public. This means that if I am telling the truth and Igor the Troll is telling a lie, our discussion is witnessed by outsiders. A typical exchange might go something like this:

Igor: Obvious falsehood nevertheless believed by those who have an interest in maintaining the status quo.
Sabs: Bunch of facts in rebuttal.
Igor: Shut up you cunt bitch ill rape your eyesocket.

(If you think I'm exaggerating, you're naïve af. This is mild by comparison to some of the things I've seen.)

Now, a logical judge, not taking gender or power into account, is going to think, "well, she can block him, why doesn't she just block him?" But Igor is not going to shut up. And to an audience—because this is the internet, and there is always an audience—if I shut up, Igor looks like the winner.

This is something that just won't make sense unless you spend a lot of time around kids, which I do. If you show kids a political debate and ask them who won, the kids will not identify the person who said the most accurate facts. They will identify the person who was the loudest and who, preferably, spouted the most insults. The primary reason, I'd argue, why Trump is popular is because most Americans haven't progressed past the developmental stage that my kids are in.

So my choosing to block and ignore may be, to me (and the judge) a sensible move of self-preservation, to Igor the Troll, and everyone watching, it looks like he won. Now, I can choose to ignore this, and I probably would, but it will be galling. It will sit under my skin. Igor the Troll will not stop talking because I've stopped talking. He may go on to talk about me, to spread rumours and lies, and he's less likely to be challenged because sensible people don't bother.

I fully understand why Guthrie and Reilly wouldn't, in this circumstance, act like perfect victims and just ignore the scum harassing them. Why should they? Why does Elliott get freedom of speech and they do not? Why is it always down to the woman to run away, to withdraw, to not go out at that time of night wearing that skirt?

Anyway, one dude messaged me and said he didn't get feminists. Did we want equality or supremacy? He compared feminism to vegans, and how there are some vegans who just are, and some vegans who reminded you that they were vegan every five minutes.

I used to draw this distinction too, before I saw what was happening to a vegan friend of mine on Tumblr. She'd post a vegan recipe and immediately get anon hate. Was it any wonder that rather than be intimidated into silence, she'd get louder in response? That got me thinking to just how often omnivores remind us that they're omnivores—bacon memes, posting jokes about vegetarians murdering carrots—but this stridency is entirely invisible, because most people are omnivores. Vegans are perceived as more obnoxious about their dietary choices not because they are (I'm firmly convinced they're not) but because it's Other, and thus marked as a political statement, while eating meat is neutral and unmarked.

Dude admitted he was afraid of women, so I unpacked that. It's the old Margaret Atwood quote: "Men are afraid women will laugh at them; women are afraid men will kill them." We went back and forth for about 45 minutes, at the end of which I think he got it a bit more.

I had a similar conversation with another young man who'd posted a "political correctness has gone too far; you can't say anything without being called a racist or a sexist, FREEZED PEACH"-type rant. Now, it's probably not a secret that I don't believe in freedom of speech—as in I don't believe that it exists, period, or can exist—but I questioned him on his consistency. Did he believe, for example, that ISIS sympathizers on Twitter should have free speech? Was he vigorously defending their rights to say what they liked? Of course, he wasn't, so I walked him through his own flawed assumptions about what was violent and what was peaceful. I don't think he agreed with me by the end—I wouldn't expect him to, as he's not the sharpest chisel in the toolbox—but he remained remarkably civil throughout and thanked me.

I don't always have the time or patience to educate people about power dynamics or feminism or anti-racism, and I tend towards the hairtrigger emotional at the best of times, but I'm kinda pleased with how these various discussions went. I mean, it stresses me out that we still gotta fight these stupid battles, but what else can you do?

Comments

[fatpie42.livejournal.com]

"Does it then follow that you no longer think it's wrong for a random man to smack an ice-cream cone out of my hand and lecture me on my weight until I pretty much ran away from him?"

Of course not. I'm sorry if it sounded like I was no longer opposed to fatphobia. I'm simply no longer willing to follow a tumblr blog of someone who says daft things. I will always support fat-acceptance. :)

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The phrase "I'd rather be a rebel than a slave" has its origins in the UK in the early 20th Century. It simply doesn't have US 'rebels' in mind. It was also stated at a time when slavery had been illegal in Britain for 100 years. To connect the term "rebels" specifically with the civil war and "slave" specifically with African Americans is to ignore the context of the phrase. In that phrase the rebels are suffragettes, women seeking equality and opposing gender roles, while the slaves are women, who were still treated as if they were the property of their husbands.

I actually heard recently that after slavery was ended in the US, free black men were allowed to vote long before free black women were. I wonder whether it might not be argued that the positioning of women women as subservient to men is a more insidious and wide-reaching kind of slavery, and certainly more long lasting, even if the levels of poor treatment involved were not often so harsh.

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Is rape only wrong when the victims are considered White or of European descent?

Of course not. As I understood it, the concern about Cologne was the decision not to inform the public. Naturally I would say assault on women was always a cause for upset regardless of race. And similarly the need to report on major dangers to the public is important regardless of race.

many people, such as you here, argue that their concepts are false and the bigotry they claim to fight against simply doesn't exist.

Such as me? I haven't argued that sexism and racism is false. Simply that the terms are sometimes applied too hurriedly, sometimes without examining the facts, by people who, as you say, are using them as an excuse for bullying or (and I like to be charitable and presume these latter two are far more common) because they have half-baked ideas or have been misled.

I consider myself a firm defender of feminist ideals and I'm a strong supporter of equality. I hope nothing I've said here suggests otherwise.

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

And thus it is demonstrated I do not have Sabs' aptitudes. Because I was going to thank you for clarifying your stances and get out, but then there was this:

I actually heard recently that after slavery was ended in the US, free black men were allowed to vote long before free black women were. I wonder whether it might not be argued that the positioning of women women as subservient to men is a more insidious and wide-reaching kind of slavery, and certainly more long lasting, even if the levels of poor treatment involved were not often so harsh.

Debating whether or not racism isn't as bad as sexism is a sucker's game for a woman of color such as me -- I am forced to argue against my own experiences of oppression. And it is definitely a victory for those who seek to downplay and disbelieve in racism, in a precisely analogous way to how "disproving" the existence of sexism is a victory for those who benefit from sexism.

I think that people who do not suffer from an oppression are not qualified to determine its severity and tell those who do suffer from it how bad it actually is, or, put more baldly, one struggle I have as a Black woman with being feminist are the White women who want to tell me to minimize racism, in exactly an analogous way to how one of my difficulties in fighting for civil rights are the Black men who want me to accept sexism. The very question supports the cause of bigotry by pitting two kinds of bigotry against each other in a contest to see which should be addressed and crushing those of us who have to deal with both in between.

So no, I'm not going to argue that, pro or con. The entire framing of the question is wrong.

(Sorry, Sabs. Shutting up now for reals. I've lost my temper anyway.)

[sabotabby]

You never need to shut up or apologize for debating on my blog. I hope you know that!

[fatpie42.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry if I upset you. I never intended to even suggest that racism and sexism needed to be balanced with one worse than the other and I'm very sorry that I have come across that way.

All I was really trying to say was that sexism is a separate problem from racism. That the phrase "better to be a rebel than a slave" is entirely focussed on supporting women's rights, not on dismissing or downplaying black rights (or the rights of any other ethnic groups). At least that is how I see it.

[princealberic.livejournal.com]

All I was really trying to say was that sexism is a separate problem from racism.

This and your other comment in which you say you're being accused of downplaying racism but can't understand why... I give up, seriously. It's pointless trying to debate with you, because at this point it's pretty clear that it's going to accomplish exactly nothing, no matter how many people disagree with you and explain why.

[princealberic.livejournal.com]

The phrase "I'd rather be a rebel than a slave" has its origins in the UK in the early 20th Century. It simply doesn't have US 'rebels' in mind. It was also stated at a time when slavery had been illegal in Britain for 100 years. To connect the term "rebels" specifically with the civil war and "slave" specifically with African Americans is to ignore the context of the phrase. In that phrase the rebels are suffragettes, women seeking equality and opposing gender roles, while the slaves are women, who were still treated as if they were the property of their husbands.

And this right here is the problem with that phrase

[fatpie42.livejournal.com]

That it's a phrase supporting women's rights? That's a problem?

[princealberic.livejournal.com]

The problem is not that it's supporting women's rights, it's that it's tone-deaf.

Let me summarise it for you. We (by "we" I mean people in the 21st century in general) view the suffrage movement in a way that's often extremely simplistic: the activists were great feminists, everyone else was misogynistic and terrible. The more common way of thinking of it is incredibly specific. Ask anyone to name important activists, and the women they'll think of will likely fit this profile: white, middle/upper class, educated. The way we think of it not only ignores that were WOC involved in the movement as well (example), but also the fact that racist and colonialist arguments and agendas were a part of it. Just like there were activists whose arguments were incredibly misogynistic, like "women are beings of incorruptible pure purity, we're in touch with ~feelings and convention, so we're the right people to uphold morality!".

That slogan was pretty tone deaf because the women we associate with it were not slaves. Keep in mind that slavery was not such a distant past, and neither was identured labour (common in the British Empire once slavery was abolished but there was still a demand for basically free work). Hell, it was even still a part of "pop culture" in the UK and Europe, not just in the US.

The controversy right now isn't just about the slogan in general, but about the t-shirts made to promote the movie:



None of these women are slaves.

I realise that there's an argument to be made about the entitlement to women's bodies, the lack of rights and voices that was a big problem during the time the movie is set and is often an issue now, etc.. Put it any way you like, it's not the same in any way as experiencing slavery. It's not the same as experiencing the slavery that used to exist or the slavery (human trafficking) that exists now.

It's not surprising that people are feeling like that movie and its promotion are throwing a large number of women under the bus and completely ignoring them and their issues. I don't know about you, but I like my feminism to consider all women and not just a select few.