Quote of the day
From commenter violet in a thread at PunkAssBlog (about Sex 2.0, coincidentally enough!)
The thing about staring / oogling is that yes, it’s mostly part of the background, but it’s part of a substantially violent background. We live in a culture where women are constantly told, “be vigilant! he might be a rapist!,” and however problematic we think those exhortations are, they’re in the water, and getting stared at or ogled, particularly by strange men, carries this low-level implicit threat of violence, particularly if you’re a trans woman or a woman of color.
I know this feeling all too well and it’s something that’s damn near impossible to describe to a man in a way that they will really understand, if they are not already operating from a pro-feminist or feminist-allied (a.k.a., non-asshole) stance.
This really gets to the crux of experiential vs. vicarious appreciation of a social movement. Because the feeling violet describes above, the social context in which ogling/staring occurs, and wherein men will complain, “What, I was just looking!” – it’s something that most men just don’t get. And they can’t get it, in that first-person way, because they haven’t experienced it. What they can do is listen to women, believe us and not try to discount our lived experiences. In other words, they can not be That Guy.
Quote of the day…
…and yet somehow it feels wrong to call it that, as if it’s something awesome.
Because it’s not awesome. It’s sad and it’s true and it’s important for all men to get this shit through their heads.
This is from commenter Elle, on a vitally important, very difficult, possibly triggering thread at The Curvature.
It’s hard for me to believe that every woman has not at least experienced that “mild” form of sexual assault–being groped in public or having a man go too far, and keep going too far even after she’s said no. I hope there are women who haven’t experienced that, but I haven’t met any. Realizing this makes me realize how very far we have to go. Because even as feminist as I like to think of myself as being, my urge is to minimize this stuff, at least when it happens to me, not to rock the boat or “make a big deal out of nothing.”
Been there. So true. And I, too, hope there are women who haven’t experienced anything like this, ever. Because none of us should.
Quote of the day
From mythago, commenting on an otherwise deeply disturbing thread on Hugo Schwyzer’s blog where some commenters are actually defending Chris Brown.
We justify battering by pretending that grown men are like two-year-olds; aw, he can’t use his words, so he gets frustrated and takes a swing. And anyway she probably goaded him into it. In a previous era entire sitcoms were built around jokes about this.
Hugo’s post was excellent, but the comments are just scary. Not that I’m really surprised, though; anyone who says we live in a “post-feminist” world is full of it.
Quote of the day
From Derek, who, I see, has subsequently password-protected his entire blog.
At IDEAfest, I presented “Putting an End to Rape Culture: Challenging Attitudes and Misinformation.” I didn’t expect to get much of an audience (only about 100 people dropped by throughout the day), but I did end up getting between twenty to thirty people, which was an average turnout.
The problem, then? Only four men showed up.
Let me repeat: There were only four men who showed up because they gave at least a bit of a damn about strategies to end the sexual violation of women, at an event dominated by men—over 20 presenters were men and less than 10 were women. The attendees were somewhat more balanced, from what I saw.
I want to make it clear that I’m not phased by the size of my audience, but the gender imbalance. When men don’t pay attention to or ignore information on what they can do to help end rape, especially when it’s practically handed to them, they reinforce the idea that’s it’s up to women to stop rape. Additionally, and perhaps more importantly, it demonstrates that the majority of men just don’t care.
And:
The fact that most of the men in attendance were “decent men” does nothing to discount the fact that their gender politics are fucked.
I’ve repeated variations on that particular line so many times that I couldn’t even begin to enumerate them all.
More on a recurring theme
Callie Simms has a post made of WIN:
I don’t know why men (yes, it is men only – never women) think because we write about sex, marketing sex, sex & society et al., that we are available. I was astonished to find how many mainstream, social media/SEO men would contact me via Twitter or Facebook to see if we could have “drinks”. I was excited at first, “Wow – mainstream people take note of my work and wanting to meet!”
Uh, I realized that “coffee” was not their intention, it was can I get a free piece of ass and someone to support me. This progressed into another interesting phenomena: When I would attend webinar as “Callie” that I would receive emails from employees of the companies that hosted the webinar. Again, I thought it was about the company itself, but it wasn’t. The only thing it was about was their employee’s side adult businesses, or should I say – wanna be businesses. It prompted the series I wrote on being an ethical marketer. I’ve learned some valuable lessons.
So now I can say – No, you will not fuck me and no, I am not gonna teach you to be an adult marketer for free. You will PAY ME – for marketing consulting, not for sex that is.
Yep, I know the feeling well
Renee is right on with this:
I am sure that for most women this is an experience that we all communally share. The silencing can come in many forms, direct interruption, or criticism of our tone. How many times has a powerful woman been told that her voice has a nagging or whining quality to it? This reduces us to our biology and renders our opinions irrelevant.
Many women have become jaded and simply accepted this silencing without further thought. This is a mistake. When we allow men to control the conversation we are granting them power to control our social discourse. If men can always decide what is and isn’t relevant conversation our issues will never be significantly addressed.
Fear of being disciplined is not an excuse to become subservient. It takes courage to speak truth to power, but when we consider what is at stake, it is an act of gender annihilation to remain silent. Men will not engage about the harms of domestic violence, rape, pay inequity, childcare, femicide, and sexual harassment; these are womens issues. Even when we are speaking about benign subjects their interruption is a co option of our space and an expression of male privilege. It has far reaching implications because it infers (sic) that womens needs and concerns are secondary to their thought processes. The man that does not value your mind, views you as a fuckable object, or a mother replacement.
The next time you are interrupted look at the man who had the temerity to think that his words somehow were more important than yours and let him know that you were speaking. What you have to say matters and no amount of chest thumping testosterone should ever make you feel small.
Women in (or not in) tech
I know I should be glad men are writing about sexism in tech (and I am) but stuff like this always kinds of annoys me too. The person who marked it for me in del.cio.us (btw, I can’t remember who this person actually is; their del.icio.us handle isn’t one they use elsewhere, apparently!) said this:
Hmm. Good article, but I find myself not wanting to link to Yet Another Man Discovering the Issue (sigh). Still, the code-of-conduct proposed seems pretty good, and at least he links out to women in his post.
It is a good post, and I’m not annoyed at the post itself (because as I’ve said before, it’s vitally important for men to talk to other men about sexism), but rather the culture around such posts, I guess is what you would call it. It’s like, it’s only taken seriously when a man writes about it; when a woman does, we’re just whiny bitches. Which is the whole point, but irony is lost.
What sex-positivity is not
Busy today, and if I’m going to be blogging, I want to get back to writing personal stuff; but I made the mistake of going back to that thread (which has exploded), and I saw this comment from Emilie Dice and it irritated me:
Because men are already “sex positive” by cultural default. It’s not an issue for them. Of course they want women making the right choice to cater to their sexist demands. It’s a given.
That really annoys me because it is so NOT what being sex-positive is about. It reminds me of non-sex-positive feminists who say, “I like sex! So how can I be sex-negative?” Because it’s not about whether you personally like sex. It’s about so much more than that. And the traditional patriarchal construct of how male and female heteronormative sexuality is played out is NOT sex-positive. So a guy not being afraid to say he likes to fuck isn’t necessarily sex-positive, either. Does he subscribe to the virgin/whore dichotomy? How does he view women who are openly, actively, unabashedly sexual? Does he speak in denigrating terms about some women and/or some types of consensual sex? Does he think “gay” is an insult? Does he use gendered insults? On and on and on. And of course, anything that is sexist (see Emilie’s comment) is by definition NOT sex-positive.
A few weeks ago I collected some sex-positive links to serve as reference for explaining what I mean, since I seem to be so often repeating myself.
How to be a (male) feminist ally
Taken from an email I wrote this morning… thought it was worth posting.
- DON’T “stay out of it” just because you don’t get it. Inaction is complicity. If you’re not part of the solution then you’re part of the problem.
- DON’T expect a cookie/hug/pat on the back simply for not being a total asshole. Don’t expect women to just accept it when you say you’re a feminist ally. Expect to have to work hard, and understand that this is not an unreasonable expectation. Understand, too, that it’s vitally important and necessary, and resist the urge to just throw up your hands and say fuck it.
- Expanding on the above about not expecting a pat on the back: Congrats, all you did was what should be default expected behavior. Part of a sexist society is the fact that it holds men to a ridiculously low standard. Hold men to a higher standard and call out your male friends/colleagues/associates when they’re being assholes. It’s not easy but things that really matter seldom are. Again, silence is complicity.
- DON’T make it all about you. E.g., in a feminist forum, don’t make comments such as, “Not all men do [x]!”, “Men can be raped too!”, “Patriarchy hurts men too!” etc. WE KNOW. But at the moment, we really don’t need you taking the focus away from women again.
- This is the most important one: LISTEN. Read, re-read, and re-read again. Think and process. Take time to really think before you speak/type. Ask questions, but be mindful of the space in which you are asking. Some spaces are not appropriate for some questions, and remember that feminists are not here to do your homework for you. Do your due diligence. Educate yourself on the basics of feminism by (here it comes again!) listening. Then, ask specific and thoughtful questions in venues that are appropriate for it.
Here are some blogs of male feminist allies. Read them, as well as the blogs of feminist women. I don’t agree w/ everything they write, but I shouldn’t have to say that, because I rarely agree with all of what anyone writes. However, unfortunately w/ feminism, for outsiders sometimes there seems to be this expectation of groupthink and that we all agree 100% on every issue. This could not be further from the truth.
- http://doingfeminism.com
- http://realadultsex.com
- http://nocookiesforme.blogspot.com
- http://feministallies.blogspot.com
For another object lesson on what NOT to do, pay attention to how that guy Jeffrey Deutsch addressed me in the comments on Derek’s post about sex worker’s rights. Big ol’ FAIL stamp there.
So yeah, I thought this was a pretty good outline. If you’re not doing this stuff, you definitely should not claim the label “feminist ally,” and certainly not “feminist.” And on a personal level? If you’re not doing this stuff, I probably don’t like you very much and feel uncomfortable being around you.
Feminist allies
Yay! I am absolutely loving this post from the F-Word Blog. An excerpt:
If you want to be an ally, you have to stop focusing on people just like you. You have to realise that some people just like you will do very bad things, and many people like you will do all manner of small but significant things that harm women (and other people, but we’re focusing on feminism here). If you don’t interrupt the boys’ club mentality, where you are willing to first defend other men, without examining whether they may be responsible for inflicting harm, you are perpetuating it and defending misogyny. Also, do not derail the topic to defend the poor men who are innocent, when the topic is not about innocent men who don’t perpetrate whatever crime against women. We’re not talking about innocent men, and you don’t need to remind us every five minutes that they do exist, particularly when we need to worry about all the men who do harm women. Men who walk free and make us fear for our lives. I cannot emphasise this enough. Talk about innocent men has no place in a thread about men responsible for misogyny.
The problem is, as a privileged group which isn’t used to hostility, it feels as if any criticism is personal. That anything directed at men means that we are criticising all men, no matter how wonderful they are. We are not, and every time you think this is the case, check yourself. Feminists have brothers, fathers, boyfriends and male friends and are sometimes even men. We know perfectly well that not all men are responsible for a problem. But we also know that if men don’t own their role in this, things won’t get better.
And as for men who want to throw up their hands and not bother, because it’s too much work to have to “prove themselves?”* I say, WTF; and, I do not want to be around you. Any movement for positive social change needs allies in order to grow, thrive, and function more effectively, for precisely the reason that there are a lot of privileged people out there who won’t listen to members of the group in question. The part of the post that talks about how misogynists are immune to feminist criticism is spot-on; because they don’t care. They don’t take us seriously. They don’t see us as being on the same level as them, or even worth considering. We might as well be talking to a brick wall (and yeah, some of ‘em are just as thick!). At best they will laugh at us, at worst they will physically harm us.
So it’s essential for men to talk to other men about feminism. Even if it’s uncomfortable. Even if you don’t wanna. See, you have the privilege of being able to opt-out. Women don’t. We live with this shit every day of our lives. So you’ll forgive us if we just can’t get too worked up about how it feels weird for you to call out your friends on their shitty behavior.
* Yes, that very phrase was used recently on a blog, but now I can’t find the thread in question; boooo.