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: 2016-01-23 03:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-23 04:22 pm (UTC)Anyhow. Back to the first thought. YOU. ARE. AMAZING.
no subject
Date: 2016-01-23 04:25 pm (UTC)The issue with blocking Igor the Troll isn't just "losing". It's the consequences of losing: your detractors will think you're being a coward, that Igor was right after all, that you can't stand up to facts. It's a lose/lose situation.
Plus, Igor the Troll & his friends can create a ton of sock puppet accounts to keep trolling you even if you block them, so blocking one single person won't necessarily make the issue go away. And sure, in lots of platforms you can make your content visible only to a chosen few, but what if you want it to be public or if it's part of your work or something to speak out publicly?
I'm pretty sure that if Igor sent you a letter containing these threats, he'd be viewed a lot differently... because the ridiculousness of saying "why do you have a house with an address that people can send you letters to?" would be blatant, and because this form of misogyny is stuck in the same past where sending letters is not just a quaint thing.
no subject
Date: 2016-01-23 04:38 pm (UTC)Now don't me wrong. There AREN'T two sides to the issue you've been posting about specifically. There ARE over-privileged men on the internet (and even in real life) who don't understand the nuances of these issues. There are ALSO trolls on the internet who harass and insult with no interest in discussing issues in a reasonable way. This issue, at least, is clear cut for me.
However, based on my experience over the past several months, I have to conclude with more certainty than ever that the backlash against SJWs is warranted.
Now, on the one hand, there are cases where people are sometimes misidentified as trolls by reasonable internet users. So similarly there are also cases where people simply arguing for feminism are misidentified as SJWs by reasonable internet users. But I don't accept that the SJW term is unwarranted and is simply a way to shout down feminists.
I have seen several ridiculous items reblogged on tumblr:
- An article claiming that ISIS members have never read the Qu'ran. (It's based on a claim by a hostage that they had no Qu'rans for them to read. The hostage would have needed one written in French or possibly English. It should be entirely unsurprising the ISIS only had Qu'rans written in Arabic.)
- A petition asking for Mark Duggan's case to be re-opened because the police could potentially have arrested the guy who sold him the gun before the incident. (Mark Duggan was, unfortunately, shot by UK police while no longer armed. His gun was found near the scene of the crime. He tossed it beforehand after sending a text to his friend saying that the anti gun crime unit were onto him.)
- Apparently criticising "radical Islam" is bigoted. Apparently calling ISIS an Islamist terrorist group is also bigoted. *shrugs*
- Apparently the feminist statement "I'd rather be a rebel than a slave" is racist.
- Apparently setting an American movie in Japan and using a lot of actual Japanese actors in the cast is racist.
- I was enjoying blogs concentrated on opposing fatphobia. But when I was told that it was fatphobic to make a personal decision to lose weight for health reasons, I found myself becoming rather less supportive. (The tumblr blog The Exercist is still very cool though. Focusses on the importance of exercise for fun, no matter who you are, at a level that suits you. Very opposed to pressure to have a particular body type and very against the view of exercise as a mandate or punishment.)
- I am so tired of people using the term problematic to refer to issues which they are apparently not sufficiently familiar with to state openly and specifically. One tumblr blogger was happily reblogging a comment that Laci Green (the one with sex education vlog on Youtube) should have never been born. When I messaged her about this she removed the reblog, but she also gave me this link. I haven't checked out most of it (I do actually have a life to live), but I clicked on the "I know lesbians don't know much about penises" one to check whether it was a joke - and it was so obviously a joke that I wonder whether the person who wrote the post even has a sense of humour.
Now you may not agree with me on everything and that's fine. But there is a kind of feedback loop with certain issues with many users keenly slapping each other on the back over any criticism of sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, etc. One tumblr blog says "I'm bored with all these posts about David Bowie" and another says "Exactly! He's just a white dude. Who cares?" These bloggers are quick to prop each other up - and I guess that's human nature, but often they are quick to jump on tirades seemingly without taking any time to consider the logic, never mind considering whether what they've been told is true.
Continued....
no subject
Date: 2016-01-23 04:39 pm (UTC)That's how polarising things have become now: That the left will support the right in opposing the moderate.
Perhaps we don't want speech to completely free, but we do want the truth to be accessible. You can't have missed the recent news about Cologne, where coordinated abuse against women (including two rapes) was covered up out of fear that announcing the attacks by mostly North African and Arab men would be perceived as racist. That is madness! So I can't entirely disagree with the claim that "you can't say anything without being called a racist or a sexist" since that's how the ridiculous decision to cover-up the events in Cologne came about.
Anyway, that's my two cents. What do you reckon?
no subject
Date: 2016-01-23 04:48 pm (UTC)"ignore the bully and he'll go away," means "Ignore the bully and I'll be able to ignore you." It is a thing I think authority figures needed to say.
no subject
Date: 2016-01-23 05:03 pm (UTC)I wonder if the same people who are so concerned for the women of Cologne in this situation give the same amount of fucks about sexual assault in every other situation... because somehow, I don't think so.
no subject
Date: 2016-01-23 05:26 pm (UTC)Learn more about LiveJournal Ratings in FAQ (https://www.dreamwidth.org/support/faqbrowse?faqid=303).
no subject
Date: 2016-01-23 06:15 pm (UTC)Surely the sexual assault in Cologne matters. I'm not sure I understand your response to this. I'm informed that when the events in Cologne were not being reported, far right sources spread not entirely trustworthy information. All the more reason why it is important for trustworthy media sources to report on information when it happens to establish the truth, rather than censoring themselves about stories that are clearly in the public interest.
no subject
Date: 2016-01-23 06:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-23 07:08 pm (UTC)I'm informed that when the events in Cologne were not being reported, far right sources spread not entirely trustworthy information.
Far right sources tend to do that in every single event, regardless of reporting. The same thing happened when passports were found during the Paris attacks, even though there was actually no official information yet (who the passports belonged to, whether they were fake, etc. were still things being investigated) and some outlets were urging people to not jump to conclusions. Surprise, surprise, it turned out that the Egyptian passport belonged to a victim.
Surely the sexual assault in Cologne matters. I'm not sure I understand your response to this.
I didn't say it didn't matter. Please read the second paragraph of my post as many times as you need to understand.
no subject
Date: 2016-01-23 07:15 pm (UTC)Because someone (foolishly) called your decision concerning your own body to lose weight fat phobic, 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? Or for one of the teachers at the school I used to work at to recommend against admitting a student with excellent grades and musical talents because she was fat?
Does it have any bearing on "I'd rather be a rebel than a slave" to point out that in US history the rebels were fighting to keep the slaves enslaved, and that the slaves didn't choose slavery, or is the issue that race has no intersection with or influence on feminism and more specifically that Black women should learn to "leave behind" being Black in order to understand feminism "properly"?
It is atrocious that men of Arab descent committed rapes in Cologne. Is rape only wrong when the victims are considered White or of European descent? I ask because I have seen multiple examples of people being vocally upset about attacks on people they consider White turn around and dismiss sexual assaults of various groups of nonWhites.
All of these questions are related to the "perfect victim" concept Sabs referenced above. Because some people use social justice as an excuse for bullying, or have half-baked ideas, or otherwise are fallible and human, many people, such as you here, argue that their concepts are false and the bigotry they claim to fight against simply doesn't exist. I don't think that's the accurate conclusion to draw from this situation.
no subject
Date: 2016-01-23 07:17 pm (UTC)Also, re: my comment above: am now trying not to have lied. :)
no subject
Date: 2016-01-23 08:18 pm (UTC)But yes, right wing reports on events are likely to be dodgy, which is why it makes sense to have trustworthy reports to refute them. As opposed to providing no official report on the incident for 4 days.
If you think the Cologne attacks matter then I'm not at all clear what we are disagreeing on here.
I'm also not sure why you think an Egyptian victim is some kind of refutation. What do you think we are discussing and why do you think we are on opposite sides of the discussion? I am honestly unsure of what stance you are taking on this topic or what stance you think I am taking.
no subject
Date: 2016-01-23 08:39 pm (UTC)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.
no subject
Date: 2016-01-23 09:04 pm (UTC)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.)
no subject
Date: 2016-01-23 09:37 pm (UTC)I love borscht, although it ideally involves sour cream, so not so much vegan. I've made it and it's a rampant pain-in-the-ass, plus I've had the Best Borscht Ever in Russia, where it is commonly made with black cherry, and I just can't compete with that.
no subject
Date: 2016-01-23 09:38 pm (UTC)Thanks, though.
no subject
Date: 2016-01-23 09:41 pm (UTC)Sadly, twenty years ago a letter might have been considered harassment or hate speech, but in my experience, the tolerance of both of these has grown. I regularly get a hate newspaper delivered—unsolicited, naturally—to my door with terrible things about women and Jews, and advertising Nazi-style book burnings, but the authorities won't shut it down.
no subject
Date: 2016-01-23 09:57 pm (UTC)First of all, I disagree that the term SJW has any real meaning. It attributes a level of cohesion and organization that, in almost three decades of involvement with left-wing activism, I am unconvinced exists. But if we're taking SJW to mean "broadly involved in various progressive causes," it's a meaningless term but I guess it's one we're stuck with. There's a big difference between a 17-year-old Tumblrista who's just discovered intersectionality and, say, a long-term labour organizer. One hopes that the former one day evolves into the latter. We were all stupid and dramatic at 17, were we not?
Let's exclude Cologne for a moment, as it's kind of a separate thing and I see
Let's talk about the areas in which reactionaries (a term nearly as broad and meaningless as SJWs, but for the purpose of discussion people who are interested in either maintaining the status quo or going backwards to a time when marginalized people had fewer rights) have control: Government, law enforcement, military, financial institutions, corporations, educational institutions, and media. Now, there are certainly left-wing professors—probably even most professors—but how many left-wing university chancellors or boards of directors? Leftish governments, but still beholden to a set of corporate influences and bureaucracy. Journalists, certainly, but not the owners of papers and networks.
There is also power and control at a personal level, but I'll put that aside for a bit.
Let's talk about the areas in which SJWs have control. Tumblr. Certain parts of Twitter. Campus groups. Unions.
In almost every incident you mention, the worst consequence of SJWs going too far is hurt feelings. Maybe a cancelled or disrupted speaking engagement. Maybe traffic is a little slow because of a protest. They may have some silly ideas and overuse the term problematic, but none of them are picking up guns and shooting people. Or making decisions about who lives and who gets sent back to Syria to die. Or even costing people jobs and livelihoods.
The debate is framed as one of two equal sides, with moderation being the ideal, but in fact there is nothing equal about it. On one side, someone gets called a bad name and has their feelings hurt. On the other side, someone gets killed.
SJWs may have opinions I disagree with (though not most) but the consequences of their actions are nonexistent. Therefore, I don't bother with them much when they're wrong beyond a gentle correction, as they have no influence, no power, and will likely grow out of the sillier things. To take the "calling ISIS an Islamic terrorist group is bigoted," that is obviously a stupid statement, but no one sensible is going to be paying attention to it.
Or, to paraphrase Atwood: "Reactionaries (and moderates) are afraid that SJWs will laugh at them. SJWs are afraid that reactionaries (and moderates) are destroying the entire world."
no subject
Date: 2016-01-23 10:03 pm (UTC)Whenever a white person guns down a bunch of innocent kids at a school, which happens alarmingly frequently, or a white man beats his white wife to death, which happens even more frequently, no collective punishment is visited on white men in general. Which is good, because they had nothing to do with it.
Whenever a brown person does a similar act of violence, white people turn on brown people, and in particular Sikhs for some reason, even though it's pretty much never a Sikh responsible for terrorist acts. When the Paris attacks happened, whites rioted and burned down refugee camps, even though the refugees had nothing to do with it. Even in Canada, an ocean away, whites violently assaulted anyone they suspected of being Muslim.
So if I'm in a position of authority, like government or media, I would be inclined to wait until I know exactly what's going on before I panicked people. Of course, this is stupid because with something as big as Cologne, rumours are going to get out via Twitter, and it'll look like a cover-up. This isn't the 60s; we all have the internet on our phones. But I don't think the intention was political correctness; I think the intention was not compounding the fog of war and maintaining public order and safety. It backfired, but it backfired because the authorities don't understand how social media works, not because they were trying to avoid offending brown people.
no subject
Date: 2016-01-23 10:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-23 10:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-23 10:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-23 10:08 pm (UTC)It's the same flaw as rape prevention tips that are aimed at potential victims. If you're clever enough not to wear the short skirt or walk down that street, he's just gonna rape some other girl.