Talking to white dudes about feminism
Jan. 23rd, 2016 10:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sabotabbyI 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?
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?
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no subject
Date: 2016-01-24 04:52 pm (UTC)It seems to me like that phrase is being re-interpreted in a specifically American context i.e. out of context. That is precisely my problem with it.
No, it's not. Do you think that America is the only country that has ever had slavery and racism?
The American movie set in Japan is "The Forest".
Ah, I see. I haven't watched it but I just did a quick search on it to see what might be the problem, and again, you're not presenting the context.
The movie is about how Natalie Dormer's sister disappears in a haunted forest and she has to go look for her. In case you (or someone else reading this) doesn't know, the forest in question is Aokigahara Forest. It exists in real life and it's a place notorious for the sheer number of people who go there to commit suicide.
A lot of the criticism of the movie isn't about racism but about a lack of sensitivity towards mental health issues. I know that the horror genre will often include suicides and murders (including real ones) as background stories for haunted settings, but this isn't a very distant or obscure tragedy. It's something that is still in people's minds.
The racism part centres on the fact that, not only is the main character a white woman in a ~hostile foreign country (and it seems like some of the other main characters are white as well), but about the above. It's taking a place that is associated with tragedy in a certain country and using its beliefs as a source of horror. Many people seem to be asking whether a movie featuring a place with similar characteristics -- tragic history, has affected a large number of people, recent enough that is still on people's minds -- in a Western country would be considered acceptable.
But the failure of this one was being celebrated as a win for human rights and as a fan of the horror genre in general, I found that really sad.
I'm a fan of horror too, it doesn't mean I should like or care about every horror movie out there. Just like I can be a fan of horror and still be critical of sexist tropes that pop up a lot in it.
It feels like there should be deep sadness that they didn't release a really GOOD Stonewall movie, not celebration that there was a bad one failing at the box office. Coz you know the studios' reactions will be "I guess pro-gay-rights movies don't sell".
There is deep sadness and indignation about the lack of a good Stonewall movie.
Your remarks about movies flopping makes it sound as though everyone who is interested in a genre, cause, etc. should throw their money at movies that are related to it, even if those movies are bad or if they find them offensive.
no subject
Date: 2016-01-25 04:18 am (UTC)>> precisely my problem with it.
> No, it's not. Do you think that America is the only country that has ever had slavery and racism?
The statement is one part slave, one part rebel.
As I understand it, the statement is problematic to Americans because Rebels were pro-slavery thus creating a dichotomy. Most everywhere else that I can think of, the rebellious position was against slavery.
For example, if the women wearing those shirts Haitian, would it be a problematic statement?
I admit that I don't know who the women wearing the shirts are, but assuming they are British, wearing them in Britain to promote a British film about a British event then non-British interpretations can fuck right off.
no subject
Date: 2016-01-25 12:33 pm (UTC)>> precisely my problem with it.
> No, it's not. Do you think that America is the only country that has ever had slavery and racism?
The statement is one part slave, one part rebel.
As I understand it, the statement is problematic to Americans because Rebels were pro-slavery thus creating a dichotomy. Most everywhere else that I can think of, the rebellious position was against slavery.
For example, if the women wearing those shirts Haitian, would it be a problematic statement?
I admit that I don't know who the women wearing the shirts are, but assuming they are British, wearing them in Britain to promote a British film about a British event then non-British interpretations can fuck right off.
no subject
Date: 2016-01-25 04:36 pm (UTC)The issue is that in the context of this movie and this promotional campaign (for the reasons I've pointed out), the phrase comes across as tone-deaf -- the British empire had issues with slavery and after that, with identured labour (both of which were associated with racism and colonialism).
This article does a good job of explaining in a simple way that while anti-slavery activism was an early platform for women activists, a lot of the language and imagery used wasn't free from crappy power dynamics and also appropriated the experience of slavery to talk about the experiences of women who weren't slaves.
Quote from that:
Simply put, freedom for the enslaved woman is not the same as freedom for the white, British woman. It was defined differently, and relied on different conditions. It seems very obvious, or it should be obvious, that enslaved women dealt with oppression and sexism very differently. You don’t need to pick up The History of Mary Prince to know that, but maybe we should send the Suffragette actresses a copy.
For Pankhurst or Streep to call themselves slaves is incredibly tone-deaf to this history. The feminist language of Pankhurst’s time had a troubling tendency to appropriate the language of slavery. As another example, look at Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, a narrative with themes of female empowerment that features a protagonist whose voice uses elements of the slave narrative. White women did not experience slavery, and their use of the word “slave” is incredibly offensive to those who were enslaved.
Even if we give the early activists a "pass" on the grounds that there was less awareness, etc. etc., I don't think that really applies to the 21st century.
EDIT: To clarify, I don't really have a dog in this fight since I'm not very invested in that movie either way (and I'm not American or British), but I can see where people who have issues with that phrase within a British context are coming from, and I think they have a good point.