“We give our pain meaning, and that meaning alters our experience.”
March 6, 2015 5:19 PM Subscribe
Wounded Women by Jessa Crispin [Boston Review] The assumption of female vulnerability threatens to invigorate the sexist evils it aims to combat.
And when an observer pointed out that the most visible tweets were from white women, even though minority women face a disproportionate amount of the world’s violence, some of the white women tweeted to critics to shut up already, all women’s experiences are valid, stop trying to silence me.
This response to criticism should be no surprise. The #yesallwomen hashtag was created out of an impulse to make men listen to women’s version of what happens to them, to hear women’s stories, to have women’s reality validated. But its stridency shut down avenues of communication, especially for those who said: “Not all men do these things.”
I find this pair of statements fascinating - because the issue of the centering of cis, straight, able bodied, middle class, white women and the marginalization of women who are disadvantaged along two or more axis is an enormous issue for feminists and feminism in general - I'd argue a lot of what "mainstream" feminism is doing now is white women grappling with the fact we have in many instances marginalized other women the way we were marginalized ourselves, and trying to negotiate power dynamics when the reality is a lot more complicated than that - but the way the dismissal of women of color was itself dismissed in favor of focusing on how men weren't centered is fascinating to me.
It would have been reasonable at this point in the essay to divert into a discussion of race and feminism, or sexuality and feminism, or the enormous divides between women who believe trans women are women and those who don't, but the focus makes an abrupt right turn to men as if drawn.
In online essays about the harm that comes to women, comment sections follow a predictable pattern. A few critics question the validity of the essay or the writer’s actions. If, for example, a woman is writing about an abusive relationship, some guy inevitably asks, “Well, why didn’t you just leave?” Then other commenters, a clique that follows the Website’s every post, will go on the attack, accusing the first of X-shaming (slut-, victim-, etc.) the writer. She has exposed herself to the world and must be supported for being so “brave.” Usually the writer will make an appearance too, thanking her readers for defending her against attack.
Again, the language and what is dismissed is very interesting here; with a single hand-wave, the concepts of victim blaming and slut shaming are dismissed as something done by "cliques" (note the language use - cliques are usually associated with high school, not adult women; note the diminution of women's objections to predictable patterns of blaming women for being assaulted by the men they might love) and any hope of those ideas being engaged with are gone. Now, there is a lot of conversation around slut shaming I'd like to see done - the language reclamation being an issue, the centering of white women in particular and de-centering of black and latina women who have a different history with being sexualized, the entire mystique of the white-woman-in-danger which shows up in mainstream media coverage - but again the language use has dismissed these concepts and the arenas for critiquing how it's been playing out within feminism is completely dismissed, this time in favor of an anecdote about an experience she had with critiquing a book and receiving a strong response from fans of the book (it's own issue, and I'm not entirely sure it's gendered, but I haven't looked at the numbers of authors flaming out on the internet and responding poorly to public critique).
If you are wounded, everything you do is brave and beyond reproach. If you are wounded, you get to say that any portrayal of a woman as lying or manipulative is harmful to the culture and all of the future wounded women. If you are wounded, you get to control what is said and thought about you, and you get to try to create a criticism-free world.
I think there is a power in being wounded and defended-by-men, and it's a sort of power women receive less censure for utilizing even within traditional and patriarchal contexts, but I find the claim of "criticism free" to be strange because she just outlined the enormous amount of criticism these women have received - so much so that they reflexively critique themselves. That power itself is an interesting thing because of the way it's hinged on the approval of men, and how it's often not only appearance-based but also age and race based (people are much more likely to present young, blond, thin, attractive, wealthy white women as worthy of defense/muses/etc... and ignore what happens to women if any of those characteristics slip). Ironically, to me, she seems to be blaming the women for the men's reactions entirely, and ignoring how freezing women out from having direct power and agency drives women who can into using subterfuge and often becoming warped as a result of said subterfuge.
I am a fan of examining how we view ourselves and the role that takes in how we are in the world, but I'm also not sure many women exist who haven't been steeped in critique - often serious critique - and to pretend it is otherwise, to pretend that the "hurmorless feminist" caricatures don't date back to before Suffrage for Women is to loose some valuable history. These stereotypes persist not because feminists react to them, but because anti-feminists and traditionalists continue to use them reflexively, just as woman-as-victim and woman-as-muse are often the result of male created and driven media, that women then self-objectify ourselves into if we fit enough of the desired characteristics.
The thru-line of the essay is some words about Melzack's experiments on dogs, which I'm not as familiar with; it sounds like his focus was on studying phantom limb pain and he helped to discover endorphins and enkephalins (as well as contribute to the understanding of the kinesthetic sense of the body, which Oliver Sacks also wrote a bit about - fascinating stuff; the stories of people who lose the sense that their various body parts belong to them are horrifying). One mention of him stood out for me, though:
He isolated young dogs from birth, protecting them from any painful stimuli until he began to expose them to burns or pricks. He found none of the expected vocalizations, and the dogs did not seem to understand the source of the sensations.
This idea - the idea that the dogs didn't understand the sensations and so didn't respond in the expected manner to them - was fascinating to me because of the context and my understanding of my rape.
All of the stories about rape that I grew up with were either "he attacked her in an alley/her bed/at the bus stop" variety, or the "she was drinking at a party" variety. Understanding that "she went to his room because she trusted him and he raped her" was also a rape story took me hearing about a woman with a similar experience of her boyfriend raping her while she slept, but refusing to have sex with her when she was awake. (I also want to note here that women can rape - and women can rape men; clear consent began as something driven by society's expectation that women are sex and sexual gatekeepers, but the assumptions that men must always want sex or they are not "really" men is incredibly harmful as well.)
I agree with Crispin that having stories - having a social context to our pain - is an important thing, but I think we disagree in what is the cause and what is the effect. I only started trying to repair my ability to trust men once I learned why I distrusted them - someone I loved and trusted raped me and both I and my at-the-time boyfriend blamed me for it because of the false belief that entering my ex-boyfriend's room was consenting to whatever he chose to do to me in there. Once I could name it as rape, once I could acknowledge my fear of men was both rationally based and on a broader sense misplaced, once I could see how profoundly being told I was responsible for preventing rape cause me to not recognize I was raped, I could begin healing.
I think her dismissal of "victim-blaming" above informs the point of our disagreement - but I think her points about the centering of white (etc...) women is a good one, and I think her point about being wary of having pain be a shibboleth for feminist groups is a good one. I disagree that the telling of stories and the understanding of how we were victims - that is how what happened to us was explicitly not our fault - is a harmful activity, though. I think it could be harmful if it were all we were doing, but I think more that what we're doing is contextualizing our pain in words so we can discuss it, and eventually heal it and change society through our healing. I also think we're getting in touch with deep senses of rage, betrayal, and fury which will fuel the world we want to make; recognizing one is not at fault, that rape is something that someone else chooses to do to us can be, in and of itself, a healing thing.
posted by Deoridhe at 6:29 PM on March 6, 2015 [23 favorites]
This response to criticism should be no surprise. The #yesallwomen hashtag was created out of an impulse to make men listen to women’s version of what happens to them, to hear women’s stories, to have women’s reality validated. But its stridency shut down avenues of communication, especially for those who said: “Not all men do these things.”
I find this pair of statements fascinating - because the issue of the centering of cis, straight, able bodied, middle class, white women and the marginalization of women who are disadvantaged along two or more axis is an enormous issue for feminists and feminism in general - I'd argue a lot of what "mainstream" feminism is doing now is white women grappling with the fact we have in many instances marginalized other women the way we were marginalized ourselves, and trying to negotiate power dynamics when the reality is a lot more complicated than that - but the way the dismissal of women of color was itself dismissed in favor of focusing on how men weren't centered is fascinating to me.
It would have been reasonable at this point in the essay to divert into a discussion of race and feminism, or sexuality and feminism, or the enormous divides between women who believe trans women are women and those who don't, but the focus makes an abrupt right turn to men as if drawn.
In online essays about the harm that comes to women, comment sections follow a predictable pattern. A few critics question the validity of the essay or the writer’s actions. If, for example, a woman is writing about an abusive relationship, some guy inevitably asks, “Well, why didn’t you just leave?” Then other commenters, a clique that follows the Website’s every post, will go on the attack, accusing the first of X-shaming (slut-, victim-, etc.) the writer. She has exposed herself to the world and must be supported for being so “brave.” Usually the writer will make an appearance too, thanking her readers for defending her against attack.
Again, the language and what is dismissed is very interesting here; with a single hand-wave, the concepts of victim blaming and slut shaming are dismissed as something done by "cliques" (note the language use - cliques are usually associated with high school, not adult women; note the diminution of women's objections to predictable patterns of blaming women for being assaulted by the men they might love) and any hope of those ideas being engaged with are gone. Now, there is a lot of conversation around slut shaming I'd like to see done - the language reclamation being an issue, the centering of white women in particular and de-centering of black and latina women who have a different history with being sexualized, the entire mystique of the white-woman-in-danger which shows up in mainstream media coverage - but again the language use has dismissed these concepts and the arenas for critiquing how it's been playing out within feminism is completely dismissed, this time in favor of an anecdote about an experience she had with critiquing a book and receiving a strong response from fans of the book (it's own issue, and I'm not entirely sure it's gendered, but I haven't looked at the numbers of authors flaming out on the internet and responding poorly to public critique).
If you are wounded, everything you do is brave and beyond reproach. If you are wounded, you get to say that any portrayal of a woman as lying or manipulative is harmful to the culture and all of the future wounded women. If you are wounded, you get to control what is said and thought about you, and you get to try to create a criticism-free world.
I think there is a power in being wounded and defended-by-men, and it's a sort of power women receive less censure for utilizing even within traditional and patriarchal contexts, but I find the claim of "criticism free" to be strange because she just outlined the enormous amount of criticism these women have received - so much so that they reflexively critique themselves. That power itself is an interesting thing because of the way it's hinged on the approval of men, and how it's often not only appearance-based but also age and race based (people are much more likely to present young, blond, thin, attractive, wealthy white women as worthy of defense/muses/etc... and ignore what happens to women if any of those characteristics slip). Ironically, to me, she seems to be blaming the women for the men's reactions entirely, and ignoring how freezing women out from having direct power and agency drives women who can into using subterfuge and often becoming warped as a result of said subterfuge.
I am a fan of examining how we view ourselves and the role that takes in how we are in the world, but I'm also not sure many women exist who haven't been steeped in critique - often serious critique - and to pretend it is otherwise, to pretend that the "hurmorless feminist" caricatures don't date back to before Suffrage for Women is to loose some valuable history. These stereotypes persist not because feminists react to them, but because anti-feminists and traditionalists continue to use them reflexively, just as woman-as-victim and woman-as-muse are often the result of male created and driven media, that women then self-objectify ourselves into if we fit enough of the desired characteristics.
The thru-line of the essay is some words about Melzack's experiments on dogs, which I'm not as familiar with; it sounds like his focus was on studying phantom limb pain and he helped to discover endorphins and enkephalins (as well as contribute to the understanding of the kinesthetic sense of the body, which Oliver Sacks also wrote a bit about - fascinating stuff; the stories of people who lose the sense that their various body parts belong to them are horrifying). One mention of him stood out for me, though:
He isolated young dogs from birth, protecting them from any painful stimuli until he began to expose them to burns or pricks. He found none of the expected vocalizations, and the dogs did not seem to understand the source of the sensations.
This idea - the idea that the dogs didn't understand the sensations and so didn't respond in the expected manner to them - was fascinating to me because of the context and my understanding of my rape.
All of the stories about rape that I grew up with were either "he attacked her in an alley/her bed/at the bus stop" variety, or the "she was drinking at a party" variety. Understanding that "she went to his room because she trusted him and he raped her" was also a rape story took me hearing about a woman with a similar experience of her boyfriend raping her while she slept, but refusing to have sex with her when she was awake. (I also want to note here that women can rape - and women can rape men; clear consent began as something driven by society's expectation that women are sex and sexual gatekeepers, but the assumptions that men must always want sex or they are not "really" men is incredibly harmful as well.)
I agree with Crispin that having stories - having a social context to our pain - is an important thing, but I think we disagree in what is the cause and what is the effect. I only started trying to repair my ability to trust men once I learned why I distrusted them - someone I loved and trusted raped me and both I and my at-the-time boyfriend blamed me for it because of the false belief that entering my ex-boyfriend's room was consenting to whatever he chose to do to me in there. Once I could name it as rape, once I could acknowledge my fear of men was both rationally based and on a broader sense misplaced, once I could see how profoundly being told I was responsible for preventing rape cause me to not recognize I was raped, I could begin healing.
I think her dismissal of "victim-blaming" above informs the point of our disagreement - but I think her points about the centering of white (etc...) women is a good one, and I think her point about being wary of having pain be a shibboleth for feminist groups is a good one. I disagree that the telling of stories and the understanding of how we were victims - that is how what happened to us was explicitly not our fault - is a harmful activity, though. I think it could be harmful if it were all we were doing, but I think more that what we're doing is contextualizing our pain in words so we can discuss it, and eventually heal it and change society through our healing. I also think we're getting in touch with deep senses of rage, betrayal, and fury which will fuel the world we want to make; recognizing one is not at fault, that rape is something that someone else chooses to do to us can be, in and of itself, a healing thing.
posted by Deoridhe at 6:29 PM on March 6, 2015 [23 favorites]
I'm not sure your analysis of the piece is any more or less convincing than the piece itself,* Deoridhe, but it does make a nice counterpoint, and reading both provided a lot of food for thought.
*To take one example rather than "fisking" your entire comment, you say that the concepts of victim blaming and slut shaming are dismissed as something done by "cliques" (note the language use - cliques are usually associated with high school, not adult women[...]). While it's true that "clique" *is* most frequently used in the context of high school, it still seems to me a perfectly cromulent word for what she's describing (whether accurately or not); nor did I read her as *dismissing* the concepts of victim-blaming and slut-shaming -- I wouldn't have said that "any hope of those ideas being engaged with are gone".
I read this essay as objecting to people seizing on perfectly valid concepts and going overboard with them -- the second section, for example, takes Leslie Jamison to task for imposing a narrative of "male-on-female violence" on what Crispin clearly regards as an incident of a first-world tourist getting assaulted and mugged in a poor country.
posted by uosuaq at 7:54 PM on March 6, 2015
*To take one example rather than "fisking" your entire comment, you say that the concepts of victim blaming and slut shaming are dismissed as something done by "cliques" (note the language use - cliques are usually associated with high school, not adult women[...]). While it's true that "clique" *is* most frequently used in the context of high school, it still seems to me a perfectly cromulent word for what she's describing (whether accurately or not); nor did I read her as *dismissing* the concepts of victim-blaming and slut-shaming -- I wouldn't have said that "any hope of those ideas being engaged with are gone".
I read this essay as objecting to people seizing on perfectly valid concepts and going overboard with them -- the second section, for example, takes Leslie Jamison to task for imposing a narrative of "male-on-female violence" on what Crispin clearly regards as an incident of a first-world tourist getting assaulted and mugged in a poor country.
posted by uosuaq at 7:54 PM on March 6, 2015
I was excited to read this article, because it seemed like it would put into words something that bothered me about #yesallwomen that I couldn't articulate myself. But as Avenger and Deoridhe point out, this article is kind of all over the place.
I'll try to articulate my own feelings on the matter. At the time that #yesallwomen was dominating my social networking feeds, I started to feel excluded from femininity. Because... no, I don't live my life in fear of men. I've never been raped; I've been catcalled maybe four or five times in my entire life; I'm not afraid to walk alone at night, and in fact, nothing bad has ever happened to me while walking alone at night. I didn't think this was particularly unusual, because none of my female friends or family members ever talked about experiences like this. (With one exception: my mother told me that back in the '60s, all the girls in her school were harassed on the subway daily. But no one I know, with the exception of mostly-online friends who are extremely involved in feminism, has told me stories dating from the past decade.)
I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but #yesallwomen's insistence on universality kind of baffled me because all this was so far from my experience. I kept reading about secret networks of women who subtly warn each other about creeps, and felt kind of hurt, like, "Why has no one ever warned me about anyone?" I kept reading about women who get catcalled 100 times a day and started wondering if I was ugly or something. Most disturbing was a tweet my husband read, addressed to cis men, saying that you definitely know at least one woman who has been raped, and if they haven't told you about it, it's because they're afraid of you. That freaked him out so much, because he didn't know any women who told him they had been raped, and he certainly didn't want to scare anybody. I could only make him feel better by reassuring him that nobody had ever told me they'd been raped either. Then I started to wonder if other women were afraid of me. #yesallwomen made me feel like suffering at the hands of men is a universal female experience, therefore I'm not a real woman.
When I tell feminists stuff like this, best-case scenario tends to be shock, worst-case scenario is aggression. The implication always seems to be that either I'm lying, or in denial about the enormous amount of oppression I must have faced because come on, I'm a woman. Womanhood is pain. Sometimes I'm told I'm just ridiculously, absurdly lucky and should just be quiet about my good luck and support the huge majority of women who live in constant fear and torment. And yeah, my vague feelings of exclusion are nothing compared to being raped or sexually harassed. So I largely do keep quiet. But it unnerves me. I've considered myself a feminist my entire life because it seems so obvious. Of course there should be gender equality. Of course women should work any job they want, and get paid the same as the men who do those jobs. Of course women should be able to decide for themselves whether or when to have kids. Those things I understand. "All women everywhere live in constant terror of male violence"? That I do not understand.
posted by Anyamatopoeia at 7:30 AM on March 7, 2015 [11 favorites]
I'll try to articulate my own feelings on the matter. At the time that #yesallwomen was dominating my social networking feeds, I started to feel excluded from femininity. Because... no, I don't live my life in fear of men. I've never been raped; I've been catcalled maybe four or five times in my entire life; I'm not afraid to walk alone at night, and in fact, nothing bad has ever happened to me while walking alone at night. I didn't think this was particularly unusual, because none of my female friends or family members ever talked about experiences like this. (With one exception: my mother told me that back in the '60s, all the girls in her school were harassed on the subway daily. But no one I know, with the exception of mostly-online friends who are extremely involved in feminism, has told me stories dating from the past decade.)
I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but #yesallwomen's insistence on universality kind of baffled me because all this was so far from my experience. I kept reading about secret networks of women who subtly warn each other about creeps, and felt kind of hurt, like, "Why has no one ever warned me about anyone?" I kept reading about women who get catcalled 100 times a day and started wondering if I was ugly or something. Most disturbing was a tweet my husband read, addressed to cis men, saying that you definitely know at least one woman who has been raped, and if they haven't told you about it, it's because they're afraid of you. That freaked him out so much, because he didn't know any women who told him they had been raped, and he certainly didn't want to scare anybody. I could only make him feel better by reassuring him that nobody had ever told me they'd been raped either. Then I started to wonder if other women were afraid of me. #yesallwomen made me feel like suffering at the hands of men is a universal female experience, therefore I'm not a real woman.
When I tell feminists stuff like this, best-case scenario tends to be shock, worst-case scenario is aggression. The implication always seems to be that either I'm lying, or in denial about the enormous amount of oppression I must have faced because come on, I'm a woman. Womanhood is pain. Sometimes I'm told I'm just ridiculously, absurdly lucky and should just be quiet about my good luck and support the huge majority of women who live in constant fear and torment. And yeah, my vague feelings of exclusion are nothing compared to being raped or sexually harassed. So I largely do keep quiet. But it unnerves me. I've considered myself a feminist my entire life because it seems so obvious. Of course there should be gender equality. Of course women should work any job they want, and get paid the same as the men who do those jobs. Of course women should be able to decide for themselves whether or when to have kids. Those things I understand. "All women everywhere live in constant terror of male violence"? That I do not understand.
posted by Anyamatopoeia at 7:30 AM on March 7, 2015 [11 favorites]
"All women everywhere live in constant terror of male violence"? That I do not understand.
I think terror is really the wrong word - it's an exaggerated word for effect, but it does run the risk of leaving ladies like you out of the conversation.
A better question is: have you ever altered your behavior in any way because of anticipated reaction from men or to avoid reaction from men? I'm including shit here from "I would really like to sunbathe in my yard, but I don't want dudes looking at me" to "When I went out on a date, I shaved my legs because I didn't want them to look at me funny" to "I decided not to get blackout drunk in front of a bunch of strange guys I don't know, because, you know, I didn't know them."
posted by corb at 9:27 AM on March 7, 2015
I think terror is really the wrong word - it's an exaggerated word for effect, but it does run the risk of leaving ladies like you out of the conversation.
A better question is: have you ever altered your behavior in any way because of anticipated reaction from men or to avoid reaction from men? I'm including shit here from "I would really like to sunbathe in my yard, but I don't want dudes looking at me" to "When I went out on a date, I shaved my legs because I didn't want them to look at me funny" to "I decided not to get blackout drunk in front of a bunch of strange guys I don't know, because, you know, I didn't know them."
posted by corb at 9:27 AM on March 7, 2015
I had mixed feelings about the topic in general as well, but the article didn't address my concerns either.
I have experienced a lot of street harassment due to a number of issues, probably, but partly because I have commuted on public transportation a lot, and because for a long time, I worked in an area that is lousy with it--one of those places that people call good for 'people watching'--and there would be groups of men who would sit outside and harass people recreationally. "Yes all women" really did apply there, in that I knew some of the guys who literally played it like a game--scoring or commenting on any person they perceived as female who passed. "Yes, all women" was an explicit rule of that game, and unharassed women would cost them points or something.
However, when I tell those stories, it's not to convey that I'm damaged or helpless. Pretty much the opposite, in fact. I'm almost never actually afraid to go places and do things. I'm less afraid than most people, including most men. Yes, there are dangers, but I know much more about those than men who are oblivious to them because they have been part of my existence since just about forever.
Not going to lie, there have been times that harassment has to some extent informed my plans and schedule. It has. But it's either been a response to a specific situation or person (I had a stalker once and a proto-stalking coworker also), or it's been an annoyance thing. It's not a generalized fear for my safety, but more an "Ugh, I just don't want to run that gauntlet right now" thing. And that is the thing that bugs me a little bit about these awareness campaigns. I don't want women who see stories about street harassment to be afraid. I'm not afraid. I want them to be mad.
I don't like seeing women cloistering themselves out of fear of being harassed by strangers, and I see that a lot. I know women who don't even walk down the street without an escort, and who seem to spend their lives being shuttled from one brightly-lit, secure venue to the next. Not going to shows, not wandering around their city, not doing any of the things that have made my life fun and interesting and cool. I really hate seeing that. It's not worth it.
But we do need to talk about it. People--men and women--do need to know. And we need to address those things now, on an individual and a cultural level.
But when I tell stories about this sort of thing, don't you dare assume I'm saying I'm helpless and damaged because of it. Far from it.
posted by ernielundquist at 9:50 AM on March 7, 2015 [6 favorites]
I have experienced a lot of street harassment due to a number of issues, probably, but partly because I have commuted on public transportation a lot, and because for a long time, I worked in an area that is lousy with it--one of those places that people call good for 'people watching'--and there would be groups of men who would sit outside and harass people recreationally. "Yes all women" really did apply there, in that I knew some of the guys who literally played it like a game--scoring or commenting on any person they perceived as female who passed. "Yes, all women" was an explicit rule of that game, and unharassed women would cost them points or something.
However, when I tell those stories, it's not to convey that I'm damaged or helpless. Pretty much the opposite, in fact. I'm almost never actually afraid to go places and do things. I'm less afraid than most people, including most men. Yes, there are dangers, but I know much more about those than men who are oblivious to them because they have been part of my existence since just about forever.
Not going to lie, there have been times that harassment has to some extent informed my plans and schedule. It has. But it's either been a response to a specific situation or person (I had a stalker once and a proto-stalking coworker also), or it's been an annoyance thing. It's not a generalized fear for my safety, but more an "Ugh, I just don't want to run that gauntlet right now" thing. And that is the thing that bugs me a little bit about these awareness campaigns. I don't want women who see stories about street harassment to be afraid. I'm not afraid. I want them to be mad.
I don't like seeing women cloistering themselves out of fear of being harassed by strangers, and I see that a lot. I know women who don't even walk down the street without an escort, and who seem to spend their lives being shuttled from one brightly-lit, secure venue to the next. Not going to shows, not wandering around their city, not doing any of the things that have made my life fun and interesting and cool. I really hate seeing that. It's not worth it.
But we do need to talk about it. People--men and women--do need to know. And we need to address those things now, on an individual and a cultural level.
But when I tell stories about this sort of thing, don't you dare assume I'm saying I'm helpless and damaged because of it. Far from it.
posted by ernielundquist at 9:50 AM on March 7, 2015 [6 favorites]
A better question is: have you ever altered your behavior in any way because of anticipated reaction from men or to avoid reaction from men? I'm including shit here from "I would really like to sunbathe in my yard, but I don't want dudes looking at me" to "When I went out on a date, I shaved my legs because I didn't want them to look at me funny" to "I decided not to get blackout drunk in front of a bunch of strange guys I don't know, because, you know, I didn't know them."
I've changed my behavior because I'm afraid of how people would judge me, but not men in particular. Like, I married a guy who doesn't care if I wear makeup and has said over and over again that I don't have to shave my legs or shape my eyebrows. But I do it because I'm afraid of how other people - both men and women - will judge me. I don't show much skin because I'm insecure about my weight, not because I expect to attract sexual attention from men. When I dated, of course I shaved my legs - but it wasn't like I showed any women my unshaved legs either. In my experience, women have been the ones who've criticized me for not shaving my legs or looking beautiful/fashionable enough. Men don't generally notice - or if they do, they tend not to say anything.
I generally don't expect sexual attention from men. Most of them seem not to see me as a sexual object. Even when boys bullied me in school, the taunts were never sexual in nature. (Though I did get "lesbian" a lot.) Maybe it's because I wear t-shirts and jeans instead of skirts and high heels, but before I got married I had a lot of trouble attracting any guys to me at all - much less having to fend off unwanted attention. I wonder how much of my reaction to #yesallwomen stems from the fact that I've already spent my entire life being told I'm not a real woman, or I'm somehow doing it wrong, and feminism was supposed to be the one place where I didn't get that message.
During #yesallwomen I sometimes wondered if there was a geographical element to street harassment - because a lot of the street harassment complaints seemed to be coming from New York City, and I'd never really seen that happen in Pittsburgh. But then a local friend complained on FB that men bothered her everytime she got on the bus, and she's no more attractive or stereotypically feminine than I am. I told her I always listened to my iPod and looked out the window whenever I was on the bus, and nobody bothered me. (Or maybe they're constantly trying to bother me and I just can't hear them!) Maybe I just scare street harassers away with my stand-offishness? I seriously have no idea. I've spent a long time wondering if a lot of online feminists are exaggerating, or if I really am a unicorn, or really just what the hell is going on that I've never experienced this. It's very confusing.
posted by Anyamatopoeia at 11:28 AM on March 7, 2015 [2 favorites]
I've changed my behavior because I'm afraid of how people would judge me, but not men in particular. Like, I married a guy who doesn't care if I wear makeup and has said over and over again that I don't have to shave my legs or shape my eyebrows. But I do it because I'm afraid of how other people - both men and women - will judge me. I don't show much skin because I'm insecure about my weight, not because I expect to attract sexual attention from men. When I dated, of course I shaved my legs - but it wasn't like I showed any women my unshaved legs either. In my experience, women have been the ones who've criticized me for not shaving my legs or looking beautiful/fashionable enough. Men don't generally notice - or if they do, they tend not to say anything.
I generally don't expect sexual attention from men. Most of them seem not to see me as a sexual object. Even when boys bullied me in school, the taunts were never sexual in nature. (Though I did get "lesbian" a lot.) Maybe it's because I wear t-shirts and jeans instead of skirts and high heels, but before I got married I had a lot of trouble attracting any guys to me at all - much less having to fend off unwanted attention. I wonder how much of my reaction to #yesallwomen stems from the fact that I've already spent my entire life being told I'm not a real woman, or I'm somehow doing it wrong, and feminism was supposed to be the one place where I didn't get that message.
During #yesallwomen I sometimes wondered if there was a geographical element to street harassment - because a lot of the street harassment complaints seemed to be coming from New York City, and I'd never really seen that happen in Pittsburgh. But then a local friend complained on FB that men bothered her everytime she got on the bus, and she's no more attractive or stereotypically feminine than I am. I told her I always listened to my iPod and looked out the window whenever I was on the bus, and nobody bothered me. (Or maybe they're constantly trying to bother me and I just can't hear them!) Maybe I just scare street harassers away with my stand-offishness? I seriously have no idea. I've spent a long time wondering if a lot of online feminists are exaggerating, or if I really am a unicorn, or really just what the hell is going on that I've never experienced this. It's very confusing.
posted by Anyamatopoeia at 11:28 AM on March 7, 2015 [2 favorites]
corb, I understand your examples, and I think they may even be illuminating to some people so I'm really not trying to nitpick them, but I'd like to address why they don't work for me personally.
I think terror is really the wrong word - it's an exaggerated word for effect
But women really do say things like this without exaggeration. A while back in a thread about street harassment I wryly suggested there should be a national "shut out" day where every woman would wear headphones/ear buds/ear muffs/anything to send a message to street harassers. Someone (who presumably thought I was a man) dismissed the idea, saying it would never work because no woman would ever wear headphones in public, lest she not hear a potential attacker coming.
I really see this explanation as you (and the more general 'you') kind of saying that my perception of these arguments isn't really valid because I'm misunderstanding the words, not because my lived experience says differently.
A better question is: have you ever altered your behavior in any way because of anticipated reaction from men or to avoid reaction from men?
Well...yes? But also women. Using the leg-shaving example, I think that's much more of a societal problem then about men specifically because I think I can honestly say that in my younger days I was probably more concerned about how girls/women would react than men, and to me this is much better example of the insidiousness of the harm patriarchy does in general. But I wasn't afraid of the reaction, other than maybe a fear of rejection.
Being an apartment or condo dweller my whole life I can't totally relate to the sunbathing example, but I can say I value my privacy. I've never been one to leave windows bare that closely faced a neighbor's, and I imagine if I was in my own backyard I'd feel the same way. But at the beach, or at the Y, where I swim? Like the leg-shaving, I think any concerns I have are way more related to body image and are a result of the patriarchy in general and the media more specifically. And I say this as someone who spent most of her life around the beach so I have a lot of lived experience in this area.
Obviously the reaction to unshaved legs is not at all like being catcalled or worse, but that's why asking if I have altered my behavior in any way is just as broad a brush as using the word terror to describe how all women feel around men.
"I decided not to get blackout drunk in front of a bunch of strange guys I don't know, because, you know, I didn't know them."
This I don't really get. Of course I don't want to get blackout-drunk with a bunch of strange men, but I don't want to get blackout-drunk at all. I didn't even know women really wanted to get blackout drunk on purpose; even "just" passing out was always more of a night-ender than an actual goal. If this is a thing women want to do these days then I guess I just disagree on the whole concept. If I'm misreading you and this is about a fear of just having one drink too many because men will possibly/probably/always hurt you, then this is another (extensively) lived experience that is just different than some women's. To be honest, when it comes to the fallout of being drunk or high, I've always been my worst enemy.
it does run the risk of leaving ladies like you out of the conversation.
It does not “run the risk” of leaving women (ladies?!) out of the conversation, it does leave women out of the conversation. This has been delicately broached in MeTas, where it often gets quickly and firmly shut down, sometimes even as being anti-women. It gets said in threads on the Blue, where it often is inexplicably misread as calling other women liars. And it was said very plainly by Anyamatopoeia, where it was dismissively acknowledged by you as a hypothetical cause for concern. Well I’m saying it, too. Making blanket statements about how women feel is always going to leave some women out of the conversation. I believe that 99% of us all have the same goals and more active voices with those goals will mean achieving them more quickly.
Again, I'm not disputing your specific examples as not being perfect or good enough, I'm saying that your examples seem to be designed to explain why I'm wrong about how or if my lived experiences should have made me more afraid.
And finally, to address something from the article:
The world is not a safe place. It harms us, jostles us, exposes us to burns and pricks. So we tell ourselves and each other stories to help us understand the what and the why.
The problem with shutting out stories like mine is that it shuts out the hope and possibility that the world isn't always an unsafe place that and it doesn't always have to be like that. Even worse, it prevents a discussion about why some women have better experiences, and what we can all do to see to it that more -- if not all -- women can have better experiences, too. (On preview, I see Anyamatopoeia addressed this in the latest comment)
posted by Room 641-A at 1:17 PM on March 7, 2015 [8 favorites]
I think terror is really the wrong word - it's an exaggerated word for effect
But women really do say things like this without exaggeration. A while back in a thread about street harassment I wryly suggested there should be a national "shut out" day where every woman would wear headphones/ear buds/ear muffs/anything to send a message to street harassers. Someone (who presumably thought I was a man) dismissed the idea, saying it would never work because no woman would ever wear headphones in public, lest she not hear a potential attacker coming.
I really see this explanation as you (and the more general 'you') kind of saying that my perception of these arguments isn't really valid because I'm misunderstanding the words, not because my lived experience says differently.
A better question is: have you ever altered your behavior in any way because of anticipated reaction from men or to avoid reaction from men?
Well...yes? But also women. Using the leg-shaving example, I think that's much more of a societal problem then about men specifically because I think I can honestly say that in my younger days I was probably more concerned about how girls/women would react than men, and to me this is much better example of the insidiousness of the harm patriarchy does in general. But I wasn't afraid of the reaction, other than maybe a fear of rejection.
Being an apartment or condo dweller my whole life I can't totally relate to the sunbathing example, but I can say I value my privacy. I've never been one to leave windows bare that closely faced a neighbor's, and I imagine if I was in my own backyard I'd feel the same way. But at the beach, or at the Y, where I swim? Like the leg-shaving, I think any concerns I have are way more related to body image and are a result of the patriarchy in general and the media more specifically. And I say this as someone who spent most of her life around the beach so I have a lot of lived experience in this area.
Obviously the reaction to unshaved legs is not at all like being catcalled or worse, but that's why asking if I have altered my behavior in any way is just as broad a brush as using the word terror to describe how all women feel around men.
"I decided not to get blackout drunk in front of a bunch of strange guys I don't know, because, you know, I didn't know them."
This I don't really get. Of course I don't want to get blackout-drunk with a bunch of strange men, but I don't want to get blackout-drunk at all. I didn't even know women really wanted to get blackout drunk on purpose; even "just" passing out was always more of a night-ender than an actual goal. If this is a thing women want to do these days then I guess I just disagree on the whole concept. If I'm misreading you and this is about a fear of just having one drink too many because men will possibly/probably/always hurt you, then this is another (extensively) lived experience that is just different than some women's. To be honest, when it comes to the fallout of being drunk or high, I've always been my worst enemy.
it does run the risk of leaving ladies like you out of the conversation.
It does not “run the risk” of leaving women (ladies?!) out of the conversation, it does leave women out of the conversation. This has been delicately broached in MeTas, where it often gets quickly and firmly shut down, sometimes even as being anti-women. It gets said in threads on the Blue, where it often is inexplicably misread as calling other women liars. And it was said very plainly by Anyamatopoeia, where it was dismissively acknowledged by you as a hypothetical cause for concern. Well I’m saying it, too. Making blanket statements about how women feel is always going to leave some women out of the conversation. I believe that 99% of us all have the same goals and more active voices with those goals will mean achieving them more quickly.
Again, I'm not disputing your specific examples as not being perfect or good enough, I'm saying that your examples seem to be designed to explain why I'm wrong about how or if my lived experiences should have made me more afraid.
And finally, to address something from the article:
The world is not a safe place. It harms us, jostles us, exposes us to burns and pricks. So we tell ourselves and each other stories to help us understand the what and the why.
The problem with shutting out stories like mine is that it shuts out the hope and possibility that the world isn't always an unsafe place that and it doesn't always have to be like that. Even worse, it prevents a discussion about why some women have better experiences, and what we can all do to see to it that more -- if not all -- women can have better experiences, too. (On preview, I see Anyamatopoeia addressed this in the latest comment)
posted by Room 641-A at 1:17 PM on March 7, 2015 [8 favorites]
Being a frequent target for street harassment isn't about being attractive to men. It's about being attractive to predators.
Some of the worst, most egregious harassment I've gotten was when I was literally a child. Like, a skinny dopey kid, just out walking around. I was not even a woman at all yet. I was a scrawny kid walking around by myself, probably with my hair hanging in my face, looking at my feet. It's vulnerability they're after. I've always spent a lot of time just wandering around by myself, and that's a big part of the reason that I've gotten more of it. It's not that I am or was attractive in any sense that matters, it's that I looked like easy pickings.
No woman should ever judge herself harshly for not being attractive to predators. The opinions and predilections of the types of people who harass women aren't of any value, and nobody should let that affect how they feel about themselves.
(Now, by the same token, I am going to reiterate that this does not mean that I should have changed anything about my habits or presentation, and anyone who advises me about that can bite me. I was and am not willing to make many sacrifices to what I do or wear or how I walk or where I go. Many of my fondest memories have come from experiences I had out doing things that people often warn women not to do.)
posted by ernielundquist at 1:37 PM on March 7, 2015 [2 favorites]
Some of the worst, most egregious harassment I've gotten was when I was literally a child. Like, a skinny dopey kid, just out walking around. I was not even a woman at all yet. I was a scrawny kid walking around by myself, probably with my hair hanging in my face, looking at my feet. It's vulnerability they're after. I've always spent a lot of time just wandering around by myself, and that's a big part of the reason that I've gotten more of it. It's not that I am or was attractive in any sense that matters, it's that I looked like easy pickings.
No woman should ever judge herself harshly for not being attractive to predators. The opinions and predilections of the types of people who harass women aren't of any value, and nobody should let that affect how they feel about themselves.
(Now, by the same token, I am going to reiterate that this does not mean that I should have changed anything about my habits or presentation, and anyone who advises me about that can bite me. I was and am not willing to make many sacrifices to what I do or wear or how I walk or where I go. Many of my fondest memories have come from experiences I had out doing things that people often warn women not to do.)
posted by ernielundquist at 1:37 PM on March 7, 2015 [2 favorites]
I kept reading about secret networks of women who subtly warn each other about creeps, and felt kind of hurt, like, "Why has no one ever warned me about anyone?" I kept reading about women who get catcalled 100 times a day and started wondering if I was ugly or something.
I think there are age, class, race, level of adherence to traditional norms of beauty, prevalence of women in a given community, and other characteristics which affect our experiences in the world, and with some semi-common experiences like the ones you mentioned above. One of the side conversations I've seen a few times in the discussion of catcalling is how the lack of catcalling can be itself a mixed bag - the valuation of women in the eyes of men means that a lack of said valuation can be painful even if one really doesn't want the valuation in the first place. Some women experience "going invisible" as a blessing, others as a pain, and still others always were "invisible" and have to grapple with that feedback from other members of society; 'if women are valuable for appearance, and if appearance is signaled by men, what does it mean if men never signal?'.
I don't think these are questions that have easy answers, and I think a lot of our work right now is just to ask the questions and build spaces in which we can discuss and try to process both the contradictory external feedback we get (as women, as people, as members of other groups) and the contradictory internal experiences of that feedback. I really appreciate you bringing this up, especially since you've had bad experiences in the past; it's a valuable experience some women have in the context of "women as public property".
I knew a man who literally said to me that he didn't feel he needed to pay attention to anything I said unless my appearance was one he found personally attractive (he did not, at the time, find me attractive; he wanted me to change how I dressed). I was struck in that moment by the sudden impulse to try to change to please him; clearly I dismissed it and cultivated instead a vast dislike of him, but I can't deny that initial flush of "If I'm not attractive, what am I?" that was part of my fury and disdain. A lot of the psychological effects of these sociological dynamics are complicated and mixed.
Most disturbing was a tweet my husband read, addressed to cis men, saying that you definitely know at least one woman who has been raped, and if they haven't told you about it, it's because they're afraid of you. That freaked him out so much, because he didn't know any women who told him they had been raped, and he certainly didn't want to scare anybody. I could only make him feel better by reassuring him that nobody had ever told me they'd been raped either. Then I started to wonder if other women were afraid of me.
I would quibble with the word afraid, but I think it's highly likely that everyone knows someone who was raped, and if you don't know they were raped there's a reason they haven't talked about it - which might or might not have anything to do with you in particular. Lots of people know me; a handful offline contacts know I was raped, and only one knows because I honestly told her in a moment of emotional connection - I told my brother I was raped because of his claim that there weren't as many rape victims as the statistics said, and that after the second or so rape the rape victim really needed to rethink her or his culpability in being raped; it was meant to be a shock to his system, but it did not make us closer.
Admitting to someone that one was raped is a tricky sort of thing - at least if one has a personal relationship, as opposed to the discussion here where I'm essentially using myself as an object lesson. I haven't mentioned it to a lot of people because of my fear of how they will react and what they will think of me. A lot of that is projection; I judge myself and have blamed myself for so long for the fact someone else chose to rape me that it is very easy for me to get shaken back into that mindset with even the mild, typical questioning ('are you safe,' my brother asked; 'it happened years ago' I answer, 'i'm not sure what safe is anymore'). The one person I told was someone I was 95% sure would not as any questions and not do any judging, and it proved to be the case, but in the context of "I want this person to like me", talking about having been raped will always be fraught. I group it in with telling people if I'm suicidal (I am not currently suicidal); most people will react poorly and in a way which makes my situation worse instead of better, and so I'm chary of talking about it.
If I were to get to know someone, and want them to like me, and eventually want to tell them the things that make me afraid they won't like be because they might end up liking me more if I do, there are some things I look for; make use of these characteristics however you wish. I look for a general lack of judgment in other areas; when I confess more minor things, is the reaction one of support and joining, is it examination, is it dismissal? How does this person react to other emotionally fraught situations; will a particularly strong emotional response shock them, make them angry, make them afraid, flood them so they can't remain engaged with me? How gender essentialist are they; do the phrases, 'men are just like that' or 'women are just like that' or 'I don't usually like women but you're different' things that I hear them say in other contexts? (All examples paraphrased from life.) How have they reacted to my general social justicey weirdness; when I bring up ableism, or transphobia, or health at every size, do they listen even if they disagree or do they dismiss what I have to say? All of these things effect how much of myself I share for the purpose of connection (for the purpose of a rhetorical win, all bets are off - I play fair, but I play ruthless).
posted by Deoridhe at 4:57 PM on March 7, 2015 [6 favorites]
I think there are age, class, race, level of adherence to traditional norms of beauty, prevalence of women in a given community, and other characteristics which affect our experiences in the world, and with some semi-common experiences like the ones you mentioned above. One of the side conversations I've seen a few times in the discussion of catcalling is how the lack of catcalling can be itself a mixed bag - the valuation of women in the eyes of men means that a lack of said valuation can be painful even if one really doesn't want the valuation in the first place. Some women experience "going invisible" as a blessing, others as a pain, and still others always were "invisible" and have to grapple with that feedback from other members of society; 'if women are valuable for appearance, and if appearance is signaled by men, what does it mean if men never signal?'.
I don't think these are questions that have easy answers, and I think a lot of our work right now is just to ask the questions and build spaces in which we can discuss and try to process both the contradictory external feedback we get (as women, as people, as members of other groups) and the contradictory internal experiences of that feedback. I really appreciate you bringing this up, especially since you've had bad experiences in the past; it's a valuable experience some women have in the context of "women as public property".
I knew a man who literally said to me that he didn't feel he needed to pay attention to anything I said unless my appearance was one he found personally attractive (he did not, at the time, find me attractive; he wanted me to change how I dressed). I was struck in that moment by the sudden impulse to try to change to please him; clearly I dismissed it and cultivated instead a vast dislike of him, but I can't deny that initial flush of "If I'm not attractive, what am I?" that was part of my fury and disdain. A lot of the psychological effects of these sociological dynamics are complicated and mixed.
Most disturbing was a tweet my husband read, addressed to cis men, saying that you definitely know at least one woman who has been raped, and if they haven't told you about it, it's because they're afraid of you. That freaked him out so much, because he didn't know any women who told him they had been raped, and he certainly didn't want to scare anybody. I could only make him feel better by reassuring him that nobody had ever told me they'd been raped either. Then I started to wonder if other women were afraid of me.
I would quibble with the word afraid, but I think it's highly likely that everyone knows someone who was raped, and if you don't know they were raped there's a reason they haven't talked about it - which might or might not have anything to do with you in particular. Lots of people know me; a handful offline contacts know I was raped, and only one knows because I honestly told her in a moment of emotional connection - I told my brother I was raped because of his claim that there weren't as many rape victims as the statistics said, and that after the second or so rape the rape victim really needed to rethink her or his culpability in being raped; it was meant to be a shock to his system, but it did not make us closer.
Admitting to someone that one was raped is a tricky sort of thing - at least if one has a personal relationship, as opposed to the discussion here where I'm essentially using myself as an object lesson. I haven't mentioned it to a lot of people because of my fear of how they will react and what they will think of me. A lot of that is projection; I judge myself and have blamed myself for so long for the fact someone else chose to rape me that it is very easy for me to get shaken back into that mindset with even the mild, typical questioning ('are you safe,' my brother asked; 'it happened years ago' I answer, 'i'm not sure what safe is anymore'). The one person I told was someone I was 95% sure would not as any questions and not do any judging, and it proved to be the case, but in the context of "I want this person to like me", talking about having been raped will always be fraught. I group it in with telling people if I'm suicidal (I am not currently suicidal); most people will react poorly and in a way which makes my situation worse instead of better, and so I'm chary of talking about it.
If I were to get to know someone, and want them to like me, and eventually want to tell them the things that make me afraid they won't like be because they might end up liking me more if I do, there are some things I look for; make use of these characteristics however you wish. I look for a general lack of judgment in other areas; when I confess more minor things, is the reaction one of support and joining, is it examination, is it dismissal? How does this person react to other emotionally fraught situations; will a particularly strong emotional response shock them, make them angry, make them afraid, flood them so they can't remain engaged with me? How gender essentialist are they; do the phrases, 'men are just like that' or 'women are just like that' or 'I don't usually like women but you're different' things that I hear them say in other contexts? (All examples paraphrased from life.) How have they reacted to my general social justicey weirdness; when I bring up ableism, or transphobia, or health at every size, do they listen even if they disagree or do they dismiss what I have to say? All of these things effect how much of myself I share for the purpose of connection (for the purpose of a rhetorical win, all bets are off - I play fair, but I play ruthless).
posted by Deoridhe at 4:57 PM on March 7, 2015 [6 favorites]
I largely agree with the essay, although I don't think it was so well articulated.
What has really bothered me about the #yesallwomen hashtag is the assumed universalism of women's experiences, the same assumptions that allow white women and educated, well-off women in industrialized countries to talk over and above all other women's experiences - because "all women can relate to X experience", right? And all women can empathize as a result, right? But patriarchal power is not distributed evenly. Some women get the brunt of it. Others are hardly affected by it. But we're increasingly turning to a politics where the ticket to having a political voice is having (and sharing, over and over) a personal narrative of trauma and victimhood. It's good that these voices are heard, but it's starting to turn into the only language through which we talk about gender. And, usually, it's not the women who are most affected by patriarchy - the women maquiladora workers, the women housekeepers who clean up after the women who "lean in", etc - they don't have time to tweet or write trend pieces about these things.
Like a few others on here, I've never really experienced sexual harassment. I've been catcalled maybe five times in my life, and I found those experiences more funny than scary. I've never felt physically, or even emotionally, threatened around men. Certainly, I worry about getting mugged at night, but rape has never really crossed my mind. And I'm young, thin, wear make-up and dress up, look reasonably well, and have lived in major cities for at least half my life. The times in my life where I felt most victimized was at the hands of other bullying girls. Even as an adult, I always felt more comfortable around guys (and it has taken a lot of work to reverse this internalized prejudice).
But just in the way that I don't believe that capitalism works simply because I live a good life, I don't doubt the existence of patriarchal power because I've done well. We should be able discuss feminism without having the arrogance of pretending that all women share, or can even understand each other's experiences, or that that experiences is essentially rooted in being wounded.
posted by adso at 6:54 PM on March 7, 2015 [2 favorites]
What has really bothered me about the #yesallwomen hashtag is the assumed universalism of women's experiences, the same assumptions that allow white women and educated, well-off women in industrialized countries to talk over and above all other women's experiences - because "all women can relate to X experience", right? And all women can empathize as a result, right? But patriarchal power is not distributed evenly. Some women get the brunt of it. Others are hardly affected by it. But we're increasingly turning to a politics where the ticket to having a political voice is having (and sharing, over and over) a personal narrative of trauma and victimhood. It's good that these voices are heard, but it's starting to turn into the only language through which we talk about gender. And, usually, it's not the women who are most affected by patriarchy - the women maquiladora workers, the women housekeepers who clean up after the women who "lean in", etc - they don't have time to tweet or write trend pieces about these things.
Like a few others on here, I've never really experienced sexual harassment. I've been catcalled maybe five times in my life, and I found those experiences more funny than scary. I've never felt physically, or even emotionally, threatened around men. Certainly, I worry about getting mugged at night, but rape has never really crossed my mind. And I'm young, thin, wear make-up and dress up, look reasonably well, and have lived in major cities for at least half my life. The times in my life where I felt most victimized was at the hands of other bullying girls. Even as an adult, I always felt more comfortable around guys (and it has taken a lot of work to reverse this internalized prejudice).
But just in the way that I don't believe that capitalism works simply because I live a good life, I don't doubt the existence of patriarchal power because I've done well. We should be able discuss feminism without having the arrogance of pretending that all women share, or can even understand each other's experiences, or that that experiences is essentially rooted in being wounded.
posted by adso at 6:54 PM on March 7, 2015 [2 favorites]
All women are effected by patriarchy, though, even if we don't all have the same experiences of how. Here are a handful of ways this can be experienced:
posted by NoraReed at 11:38 PM on March 7, 2015 [3 favorites]
- Being taken less seriously because of being a woman in any situation
- Having to decide exactly how femininely to dress to be taken seriously, where if you aren't a certain level of "dressy" you might be looked down on but overdressing is taken as trying too hard (this is especially bad for fat women); there's also a lot of policing regarding heels that tends to go on
- Being expected to politely deal with people who believe they are entitled to our time and/or attention and/or wearing headphones/reading a book/avoiding making eye contact so as not to "provoke" an unwelcome interaction
- Being expected to be the correct amount of hairless at all and being judged for not being hairless if we choose not to do this (it's still patriarchy when women are policing your behavior)
- Office housework
- Getting taken less seriously by doctors than men with the same symptoms
posted by NoraReed at 11:38 PM on March 7, 2015 [3 favorites]
This I don't really get. Of course I don't want to get blackout-drunk with a bunch of strange men, but I don't want to get blackout-drunk at all.
Yeah, I didn't even touch that one because it didn't really apply to me. I hate both the taste of alcohol and the feeling of getting buzzed (it's like nausea, but in my brain), so I'll have maybe one super-sugary drink per night, usually more like per month. I've never even gotten drunk, much less blackout-drunk, much less gone out to bars with the express purpose of drinking a lot and blacking out. I guess a lot of people do this in college, but I've never really understood the appeal.
corb, I think you - and NoraReed at the bottom of the thread - are expanding the meaning of #yesallwomen well beyond what most people have. I remember at the height of it reading blog post after update after tweet directed at men, saying, over and over again, "You are a man so you have no idea the unbelivable amount of fear EVERY woman lives with. Just believe us when we say that EVERY woman is catcalled EVERY SINGLE DAY. EVERY woman lives in fear of male violence. Yes, ALL women. EVERY SINGLE ONE. Not one exception. Anywhere. Ever. Ask any woman you know. Literally any one. We all have thousands of stories of being harassed all the time. You just don't see it because your male privilege blinds you, but all women everywhere know this to be true." (Yes, I'm exaggerating. Slightly.) Only when I started responding to these posts with, "Well, actually, this hasn't been my experience..." did the message start to shift to, "Well, but you've changed your behavior because of the patriarchy, right?" Which... yeah, I live under the patriarchy, obviously it's affected me in a lot of subtle ways, but that's not what this discussion was about before I started disagreeing with it. And then the message changed right back in the next post.
Being a frequent target for street harassment isn't about being attractive to men. It's about being attractive to predators. ... Some of the worst, most egregious harassment I've gotten was when I was literally a child. Like, a skinny dopey kid, just out walking around. I was not even a woman at all yet. I was a scrawny kid walking around by myself, probably with my hair hanging in my face, looking at my feet. It's vulnerability they're after.
You make a good point; the small handful of times I've been harassed happened when I was 11-18. But I don't feel like that falls into the narrative of "huge numbers of men catcall, and they need to be taught to respect women!" which has dominated the discussion on catcalling. (Also dominating: the perspective of adult women.) Like you said, those are predators. Anyone who would sexually harass a child is not a normal man. He's not going to be like, "What? 12-year-old girls don't like that? Well then, I guess I'd better stop!" If this constitutes most harassment against women, I'd consider that less a problem of misogyny and more a problem of pedophilia/child abuse.
Deoridhe, I am so sorry. I understand why it would be something you wouldn't tell someone about for a lot of reasons. I did eventually come to the conclusion that I probably did know a rape survivor, and her/him not telling me about it was probably not because of anything I personally did. But... the tweet was addressed to men, and its suggestion was that if a woman hasn't told you she was raped, you must be doing something to threaten her or otherwise make her feel unsafe. There wasn't really any room for nuance.
But we're increasingly turning to a politics where the ticket to having a political voice is having (and sharing, over and over) a personal narrative of trauma and victimhood. It's good that these voices are heard, but it's starting to turn into the only language through which we talk about gender. And, usually, it's not the women who are most affected by patriarchy - the women maquiladora workers, the women housekeepers who clean up after the women who "lean in", etc - they don't have time to tweet or write trend pieces about these things.
YES! I find that's not just true of gender, but of liberalism in general, lately. And I have been explicitly told in internet debates (by very well-meaning liberal white men who are terrified of being called out) that they will listen to my opinions on modern feminism because I'm a woman, but they will not listen to the man who agrees with me about everything and also makes a lot of excellent points I failed to make, because he's a man and therefore is probably too blinded by his male privilege to understand... basically anything in the world. That's bullshit. I'm really sick of this obsessive focus on "personal experience," to the detriment of logical arguments. No one has a right to represent all women everywhere in debate, but that's ultimately what this emphasis on "personal experience" leads to.
posted by Anyamatopoeia at 7:58 AM on March 8, 2015 [6 favorites]
Yeah, I didn't even touch that one because it didn't really apply to me. I hate both the taste of alcohol and the feeling of getting buzzed (it's like nausea, but in my brain), so I'll have maybe one super-sugary drink per night, usually more like per month. I've never even gotten drunk, much less blackout-drunk, much less gone out to bars with the express purpose of drinking a lot and blacking out. I guess a lot of people do this in college, but I've never really understood the appeal.
corb, I think you - and NoraReed at the bottom of the thread - are expanding the meaning of #yesallwomen well beyond what most people have. I remember at the height of it reading blog post after update after tweet directed at men, saying, over and over again, "You are a man so you have no idea the unbelivable amount of fear EVERY woman lives with. Just believe us when we say that EVERY woman is catcalled EVERY SINGLE DAY. EVERY woman lives in fear of male violence. Yes, ALL women. EVERY SINGLE ONE. Not one exception. Anywhere. Ever. Ask any woman you know. Literally any one. We all have thousands of stories of being harassed all the time. You just don't see it because your male privilege blinds you, but all women everywhere know this to be true." (Yes, I'm exaggerating. Slightly.) Only when I started responding to these posts with, "Well, actually, this hasn't been my experience..." did the message start to shift to, "Well, but you've changed your behavior because of the patriarchy, right?" Which... yeah, I live under the patriarchy, obviously it's affected me in a lot of subtle ways, but that's not what this discussion was about before I started disagreeing with it. And then the message changed right back in the next post.
Being a frequent target for street harassment isn't about being attractive to men. It's about being attractive to predators. ... Some of the worst, most egregious harassment I've gotten was when I was literally a child. Like, a skinny dopey kid, just out walking around. I was not even a woman at all yet. I was a scrawny kid walking around by myself, probably with my hair hanging in my face, looking at my feet. It's vulnerability they're after.
You make a good point; the small handful of times I've been harassed happened when I was 11-18. But I don't feel like that falls into the narrative of "huge numbers of men catcall, and they need to be taught to respect women!" which has dominated the discussion on catcalling. (Also dominating: the perspective of adult women.) Like you said, those are predators. Anyone who would sexually harass a child is not a normal man. He's not going to be like, "What? 12-year-old girls don't like that? Well then, I guess I'd better stop!" If this constitutes most harassment against women, I'd consider that less a problem of misogyny and more a problem of pedophilia/child abuse.
Deoridhe, I am so sorry. I understand why it would be something you wouldn't tell someone about for a lot of reasons. I did eventually come to the conclusion that I probably did know a rape survivor, and her/him not telling me about it was probably not because of anything I personally did. But... the tweet was addressed to men, and its suggestion was that if a woman hasn't told you she was raped, you must be doing something to threaten her or otherwise make her feel unsafe. There wasn't really any room for nuance.
But we're increasingly turning to a politics where the ticket to having a political voice is having (and sharing, over and over) a personal narrative of trauma and victimhood. It's good that these voices are heard, but it's starting to turn into the only language through which we talk about gender. And, usually, it's not the women who are most affected by patriarchy - the women maquiladora workers, the women housekeepers who clean up after the women who "lean in", etc - they don't have time to tweet or write trend pieces about these things.
YES! I find that's not just true of gender, but of liberalism in general, lately. And I have been explicitly told in internet debates (by very well-meaning liberal white men who are terrified of being called out) that they will listen to my opinions on modern feminism because I'm a woman, but they will not listen to the man who agrees with me about everything and also makes a lot of excellent points I failed to make, because he's a man and therefore is probably too blinded by his male privilege to understand... basically anything in the world. That's bullshit. I'm really sick of this obsessive focus on "personal experience," to the detriment of logical arguments. No one has a right to represent all women everywhere in debate, but that's ultimately what this emphasis on "personal experience" leads to.
posted by Anyamatopoeia at 7:58 AM on March 8, 2015 [6 favorites]
corb, I think you - and NoraReed at the bottom of the thread - are expanding the meaning of #yesallwomen well beyond what most people have. I remember at the height of it reading blog post after update after tweet directed at men, saying, over and over again, "You are a man so you have no idea the unbelivable amount of fear EVERY woman lives with. Just believe us when we say that EVERY woman is catcalled EVERY SINGLE DAY. EVERY woman lives in fear of male violence. Yes, ALL women. EVERY SINGLE ONE. Not one exception. Anywhere. Ever. Ask any woman you know. Literally any one. We all have thousands of stories of being harassed all the time. You just don't see it because your male privilege blinds you, but all women everywhere know this to be true." (Yes, I'm exaggerating. Slightly.)
You're exaggerating a lot. When #yesallwomen was trending, it read to me (and to many others) the way that corb and NoraReed describe: yes, all women understand that this is the water we swim in being alive and female. Okay, so who's showing confirmation bias in their interpretation? No way to know. But the fact that three people have spoken up in this thread so far to say "no, #yesallwomen does not mean 'all women WILL be raped, all women ARE harassed EVERY DAY, all women LIVE IN FEAR EVERY MOMENT'" should prompt you to consider that your interpretation may not be the only one.
posted by Lexica at 9:38 AM on March 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
You're exaggerating a lot. When #yesallwomen was trending, it read to me (and to many others) the way that corb and NoraReed describe: yes, all women understand that this is the water we swim in being alive and female. Okay, so who's showing confirmation bias in their interpretation? No way to know. But the fact that three people have spoken up in this thread so far to say "no, #yesallwomen does not mean 'all women WILL be raped, all women ARE harassed EVERY DAY, all women LIVE IN FEAR EVERY MOMENT'" should prompt you to consider that your interpretation may not be the only one.
posted by Lexica at 9:38 AM on March 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
I've had some experiences of harassment and catcalling but the majority of my "patriarchy, you're swimming in it" outrage-bait stories are from school and the workplace. I did post to #yesallwomen about the first time a man touched me for his own sexual gratification (I was 12!). But the guy who spanked me in public was arrested and charged for it because he did it in front of two cops, and the most upsetting thing about the incident to me was that my mother didn't believe me when I said I'd been spanked, at least not until the cops backed me up.
I don't live in terror and I don't think of myself as a victim or wounded. But I posted to #yesallwomen and it did happen to me.
posted by immlass at 10:11 AM on March 8, 2015
I don't live in terror and I don't think of myself as a victim or wounded. But I posted to #yesallwomen and it did happen to me.
posted by immlass at 10:11 AM on March 8, 2015
I participated in #yesallwomen, for the record.
I think that if I was acquainted with a dude who managed to, based on one tweet, make the realization of the statistical prevalence of rape all about his feelings, though, it'd make me a lot less likely to tell him about my experiences with sexual coercion.
posted by NoraReed at 10:33 AM on March 8, 2015 [3 favorites]
I think that if I was acquainted with a dude who managed to, based on one tweet, make the realization of the statistical prevalence of rape all about his feelings, though, it'd make me a lot less likely to tell him about my experiences with sexual coercion.
posted by NoraReed at 10:33 AM on March 8, 2015 [3 favorites]
But the fact that three people have spoken up in this thread so far to say "no, #yesallwomen does not mean 'all women WILL be raped, all women ARE harassed EVERY DAY, all women LIVE IN FEAR EVERY MOMENT'" should prompt you to consider that your interpretation may not be the only one.
And three other women in this thread have spoken up to say that that is exactly how they interpreted #yesallwomen, so maybe that should prompt you to consider that your interpretation may not be the only one.
I think that if I was acquainted with a dude who managed to, based on one tweet, make the realization of the statistical prevalence of rape all about his feelings, though, it'd make me a lot less likely to tell him about my experiences with sexual coercion.
You realize you're talking about my husband, right? You know nothing about him. You know nothing about his reaction to this tweet or any other, or how often he "makes [things] all about his feelings." You are being stunningly dismissive, and frankly, insulting.
I will say this exactly one more time and then leave the thread because I'm getting too emotional to continue. That tweet was not about "the statistical prevalence of rape." I can't find it anymore, because tweets are ephemeral and this was a long time ago. But it flat-out said that if you're a man, and a woman hasn't told you she was raped, it must be because she's scared of you specifically. How is a male reader not supposed to react emotionally to that? It's accusing any man in whom a rape survivor has not happened to confide of threatening every woman he comes across.
posted by Anyamatopoeia at 10:59 AM on March 8, 2015 [7 favorites]
And three other women in this thread have spoken up to say that that is exactly how they interpreted #yesallwomen, so maybe that should prompt you to consider that your interpretation may not be the only one.
I think that if I was acquainted with a dude who managed to, based on one tweet, make the realization of the statistical prevalence of rape all about his feelings, though, it'd make me a lot less likely to tell him about my experiences with sexual coercion.
You realize you're talking about my husband, right? You know nothing about him. You know nothing about his reaction to this tweet or any other, or how often he "makes [things] all about his feelings." You are being stunningly dismissive, and frankly, insulting.
I will say this exactly one more time and then leave the thread because I'm getting too emotional to continue. That tweet was not about "the statistical prevalence of rape." I can't find it anymore, because tweets are ephemeral and this was a long time ago. But it flat-out said that if you're a man, and a woman hasn't told you she was raped, it must be because she's scared of you specifically. How is a male reader not supposed to react emotionally to that? It's accusing any man in whom a rape survivor has not happened to confide of threatening every woman he comes across.
posted by Anyamatopoeia at 10:59 AM on March 8, 2015 [7 favorites]
And three other women in this thread have spoken up to say that that is exactly how they interpreted #yesallwomen, so maybe that should prompt you to consider that your interpretation may not be the only one.
Considering my comment was saying "there's more than one possible interpretation of the hashtag, and we can't know for sure which interpretation is correct", I think this is less of a zinger than you think it is. You're trying to nail me for a definitive statement I didn't make.
posted by Lexica at 12:03 PM on March 8, 2015
Considering my comment was saying "there's more than one possible interpretation of the hashtag, and we can't know for sure which interpretation is correct", I think this is less of a zinger than you think it is. You're trying to nail me for a definitive statement I didn't make.
posted by Lexica at 12:03 PM on March 8, 2015
You know nothing about him. You know nothing about his reaction to this tweet or any other, or how often he "makes [things] all about his feelings."
Men who choose to focus on one single tweet from a hashtag movement tend to also behave in other ways that center their own experiences and ignore what women are telling them. Given the information about your husband that you have voluntarily provided in this thread, publicly, on the internet, he fits into a narrative I've seen a thousand times where women who are talking about their experiences are expected to take a break in order to protect some dude's delicate man-feelings and reassure him instead of continuing to talk about these nearly ubiquitous experiences of being oppressed by patriarchy.
You're accusing me of characterizing your husband based on one thing he did while characterizing all of #yesallwomen based on one half-remembered tweet, basically.
posted by NoraReed at 1:12 PM on March 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
Men who choose to focus on one single tweet from a hashtag movement tend to also behave in other ways that center their own experiences and ignore what women are telling them. Given the information about your husband that you have voluntarily provided in this thread, publicly, on the internet, he fits into a narrative I've seen a thousand times where women who are talking about their experiences are expected to take a break in order to protect some dude's delicate man-feelings and reassure him instead of continuing to talk about these nearly ubiquitous experiences of being oppressed by patriarchy.
You're accusing me of characterizing your husband based on one thing he did while characterizing all of #yesallwomen based on one half-remembered tweet, basically.
posted by NoraReed at 1:12 PM on March 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
NoraReed, I don't think anyone here is arguing that there's one definitive meaning and mission to #yesallwomen. Obviously it's a decentralized movement powered by women with differing and nuanced interpretations of its goals. But just because it's done some good doesn't mean that it's immune to critique.
One unfortunate side effect of the fact that feminism is always being attacked on all sides is that feminists then become scared of ever being critical about their own movement for fear of creating more fodder for the sexists out there who are just waiting for a weak point to attack. But the only way to get stronger is to be self-reflexive, to acknowledge that there are problematic aspects even within the movement.
What Anyamatopoeia is pointing out is that there IS a contingent that has taken it too far by making excessive claims about how ALL women's experiences involve constant harassment from and fear of men, and that it's something men could never possibly understand. I've followed the hashtag. I've seen these kinds of claims being made. And I've seen women tell other women that they're delusional or have Stockholm Syndrome because they deny that they've ever seriously suffered at the hands of men. And it's insulting to women who do have to live in constant fear of men, by dint of their environment. But you don't and you shouldn't have to take on the identity position of "victim" in order to be a feminist.
One of the excesses of #yesallwomen is that some voices are starting to turn victimhood into a kind of shibboleth for inclusion into womanhood. And it ignores all kinds of other power dynamics at play, neglecting many levels of nuance. It is like the example of the Boston Review article linked here, with the anecdote about the man who stole Jamison's camera, which she interpreted as a gendered sort of violence. She reads it as a man robbing a woman, and enacting a physical and symbolic violence on her subjectivity as a woman, but ignores the interpretation of her as a wealthy, privileged Western tourist being mugged by an impoverished man who saw her expensive camera and maybe saw an opportunity for feeding his children. Would Jamison have been able to truly relate to the experience and life of that man's sister, because #yesallwomen? I don't think so. Mainstream feminism has often been terrible about understanding intersectionality and how race, class, and culture drastically affects how one experiences being a women across time and place.
posted by adso at 1:50 PM on March 8, 2015 [3 favorites]
One unfortunate side effect of the fact that feminism is always being attacked on all sides is that feminists then become scared of ever being critical about their own movement for fear of creating more fodder for the sexists out there who are just waiting for a weak point to attack. But the only way to get stronger is to be self-reflexive, to acknowledge that there are problematic aspects even within the movement.
What Anyamatopoeia is pointing out is that there IS a contingent that has taken it too far by making excessive claims about how ALL women's experiences involve constant harassment from and fear of men, and that it's something men could never possibly understand. I've followed the hashtag. I've seen these kinds of claims being made. And I've seen women tell other women that they're delusional or have Stockholm Syndrome because they deny that they've ever seriously suffered at the hands of men. And it's insulting to women who do have to live in constant fear of men, by dint of their environment. But you don't and you shouldn't have to take on the identity position of "victim" in order to be a feminist.
One of the excesses of #yesallwomen is that some voices are starting to turn victimhood into a kind of shibboleth for inclusion into womanhood. And it ignores all kinds of other power dynamics at play, neglecting many levels of nuance. It is like the example of the Boston Review article linked here, with the anecdote about the man who stole Jamison's camera, which she interpreted as a gendered sort of violence. She reads it as a man robbing a woman, and enacting a physical and symbolic violence on her subjectivity as a woman, but ignores the interpretation of her as a wealthy, privileged Western tourist being mugged by an impoverished man who saw her expensive camera and maybe saw an opportunity for feeding his children. Would Jamison have been able to truly relate to the experience and life of that man's sister, because #yesallwomen? I don't think so. Mainstream feminism has often been terrible about understanding intersectionality and how race, class, and culture drastically affects how one experiences being a women across time and place.
posted by adso at 1:50 PM on March 8, 2015 [3 favorites]
She reads it as a man robbing a woman, and enacting a physical and symbolic violence on her subjectivity as a woman, but ignores the interpretation of her as a wealthy, privileged Western tourist being mugged by an impoverished man who saw her expensive camera and maybe saw an opportunity for feeding his children.
But for some of us, the first read is always there - yes, the man robbed a wealthy Western tourist, but he chose to rob the female Western tourist that he was relatively sure he could enact violence upon without fear of serious retribution. He was exploiting her socialized lack of violence in order to perform a patriarchal role of "being the one to feed his children." And some of us are honestly fed up with the whole "Well, she was Western and privileged, so she kind of deserved it" sort of implications that are in that latter read. It's like when the video about catcalling came out, and some people came out with "Well, if the women are gentrifying, then they deserve it."
posted by corb at 5:00 PM on March 8, 2015 [3 favorites]
But for some of us, the first read is always there - yes, the man robbed a wealthy Western tourist, but he chose to rob the female Western tourist that he was relatively sure he could enact violence upon without fear of serious retribution. He was exploiting her socialized lack of violence in order to perform a patriarchal role of "being the one to feed his children." And some of us are honestly fed up with the whole "Well, she was Western and privileged, so she kind of deserved it" sort of implications that are in that latter read. It's like when the video about catcalling came out, and some people came out with "Well, if the women are gentrifying, then they deserve it."
posted by corb at 5:00 PM on March 8, 2015 [3 favorites]
It does not “run the risk” of leaving women (ladies?!) out of the conversation, it does leave women out of the conversation.
Yeah.
I have mixed feelings about #yesallwomen... I believe it's entirely true in the more general sense that NoraReed and Lexica are talking about (and hugely important and necessary). But I do see specific experiences, too, discussed in totalizing ways that can shut out some women's dissenting voices.
I find it frustrating when this happens on Metafilter. This is just to say I'm happy it didn't really happen in this thread, and I'm glad Anyamatopoeia, adso, and Room 641-A were courageous enough to speak up.
I do think it takes courage. I don't even like to wade in, but the fact is that, although at age 44 I've experienced sexism in many ways large and small, my overall outlook is closer to what A, A, and R have described and I appreciate their perspective.
posted by torticat at 6:52 PM on March 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
Yeah.
I have mixed feelings about #yesallwomen... I believe it's entirely true in the more general sense that NoraReed and Lexica are talking about (and hugely important and necessary). But I do see specific experiences, too, discussed in totalizing ways that can shut out some women's dissenting voices.
I find it frustrating when this happens on Metafilter. This is just to say I'm happy it didn't really happen in this thread, and I'm glad Anyamatopoeia, adso, and Room 641-A were courageous enough to speak up.
I do think it takes courage. I don't even like to wade in, but the fact is that, although at age 44 I've experienced sexism in many ways large and small, my overall outlook is closer to what A, A, and R have described and I appreciate their perspective.
posted by torticat at 6:52 PM on March 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
And some of us are honestly fed up with the whole "Well, she was Western and privileged, so she kind of deserved it" sort of implications that are in that latter read. It's like when the video about catcalling came out, and some people came out with "Well, if the women are gentrifying, then they deserve it."
I'm certainly not implying that she in any way deserved it, and I don't think that assumption is inherent in the act of acknowledging the latter power dynamics (although you're right; it does, unfortunately, get thrown around sometimes). But there is a tendency to act as if these positions of privilege don't exist, and that all women worldwide share some kind of psychic and spiritual unity. This has been on my mind lately since yesterday for International Women's Day, one of my wealthy, liberal but very clueless acquaintances kept posting cheesy links to Facebook with pictures of "third world" women and praising them in a highly infantilizing, exoticising and patronizing manner while at the same time talking about how proud she was to call them her "sisters". Within this context, I too would be wary of a #yesallwomen hashtag.
Solidarity has to be built on the acknowledgement of very different lives, very different subjectivities, and very different cultural definitions of womanhood - all women do not experience patriarchy in the same way or to the same degree. Her struggle is not interchangeable with my struggle and vice versa. Attempts to bulldoze all these differences into the "experience of being a woman" are doing a kind of violence, even as all women should fight to end unfair systems of power.
posted by adso at 7:12 PM on March 9, 2015 [2 favorites]
I'm certainly not implying that she in any way deserved it, and I don't think that assumption is inherent in the act of acknowledging the latter power dynamics (although you're right; it does, unfortunately, get thrown around sometimes). But there is a tendency to act as if these positions of privilege don't exist, and that all women worldwide share some kind of psychic and spiritual unity. This has been on my mind lately since yesterday for International Women's Day, one of my wealthy, liberal but very clueless acquaintances kept posting cheesy links to Facebook with pictures of "third world" women and praising them in a highly infantilizing, exoticising and patronizing manner while at the same time talking about how proud she was to call them her "sisters". Within this context, I too would be wary of a #yesallwomen hashtag.
Solidarity has to be built on the acknowledgement of very different lives, very different subjectivities, and very different cultural definitions of womanhood - all women do not experience patriarchy in the same way or to the same degree. Her struggle is not interchangeable with my struggle and vice versa. Attempts to bulldoze all these differences into the "experience of being a woman" are doing a kind of violence, even as all women should fight to end unfair systems of power.
posted by adso at 7:12 PM on March 9, 2015 [2 favorites]
If you are wounded, everything you do is brave and beyond reproach. If you are wounded, you get to say that any portrayal of a woman as lying or manipulative is harmful to the culture and all of the future wounded women. If you are wounded, you get to control what is said and thought about you, and you get to try to create a criticism-free world.This characterization of women’s motives in speaking about their own pain seems at odds with observed facts. While women who speak up about gendered violence may receive some support from other women, they also become the targets for further harassment, especially online and especially on Twitter.
posted by Coda at 8:01 AM on March 10, 2015 [2 favorites]
In some contexts, I think being "wounded", which I would define as "having a succinct example of a personal experience with being abused/diminished/harmed by another person", can be a rhetorical strength. Though we tend to not talk about it, there is a solidity and a value placed on first person, emotionally potent experiences expressed with sufficient linguistic skill. Context matters, though; I mostly deploy this skill in one-on-one offline conversations and very carefully in online discussions specifically on MetaFilter - rarely but sometimes on my blog.
I view it as similar to how Non-violent Protest is a contextual sort of power - of you have a context where people want to diminish you as a human being and will ignore everything they have to in order to do so, it holds no power, but if you're in a context where you are imitating enough of the "polite" "intelligent" "articulate" "analytical" style of Western Philosophy and those viewing value those qualities emotionally, the power of your emotional resonance can have an effect.
posted by Deoridhe at 12:42 PM on March 10, 2015
I view it as similar to how Non-violent Protest is a contextual sort of power - of you have a context where people want to diminish you as a human being and will ignore everything they have to in order to do so, it holds no power, but if you're in a context where you are imitating enough of the "polite" "intelligent" "articulate" "analytical" style of Western Philosophy and those viewing value those qualities emotionally, the power of your emotional resonance can have an effect.
posted by Deoridhe at 12:42 PM on March 10, 2015
I have mixed feelings about #yesallwomen... ....But I do see specific experiences, too, discussed in totalizing ways that can shut out some women's dissenting voices.
Whenever I express an opinion that goes against the Generally Accepted Women's Experiences, I'm ignored or accused of denying that the Generally Accepted Women's Experiences exist.
So usually I just give up saying anything.
posted by Lucinda at 10:34 AM on March 12, 2015 [2 favorites]
Whenever I express an opinion that goes against the Generally Accepted Women's Experiences, I'm ignored or accused of denying that the Generally Accepted Women's Experiences exist.
So usually I just give up saying anything.
posted by Lucinda at 10:34 AM on March 12, 2015 [2 favorites]
Although not directly concerned with Crispin's piece, Laura Kipnis echoes some of the same concerns, "Sexual Paranoia Strikes Academe.
If this is feminism, it’s feminism hijacked by melodrama. The melodramatic imagination’s obsession with helpless victims and powerful predators is what’s shaping the conversation of the moment, to the detriment of those whose interests are supposedly being protected, namely students. The result? Students’ sense of vulnerability is skyrocketing.posted by gladly at 5:56 PM on March 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
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This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
1) that call-out culture (on twitter, specifically) is getting way out of hand -- this is true.
2) that women are going out of their way to make themselves uniquely vulnerable -- not true.
Women are uniquely vulnerable not because they choose to be so, but because male-dominated society singles out women for unique kinds of violence. Women in our society (in most societies, actually) are victimized in unique, terrible ways.
I can't really wrap my head around the idea of a woman who would play up being a victim because nothing says "Awesome, happy life" like being victimized by virtually every man you've ever known.
posted by Avenger at 6:27 PM on March 6, 2015 [8 favorites]