I DO NOT UNDERSTAND YOUR MEAT NOISES
June 9, 2015 9:10 AM   Subscribe

Math edutainer and MeFi favorite Vi Hart reflects on how her beliefs about gender, personal expression, "political correctness," diversity, and sincerity have matured over the years.
posted by overeducated_alligator (31 comments total) 25 users marked this as a favorite
 
Excellent journey there, excellently documented.
posted by Quasirandom at 9:19 AM on June 9, 2015


This is great!
posted by kmz at 9:22 AM on June 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


Some variation of “I do not understand your meat noises” comes up in my mind on a near daily basis. She articulated well the thinking process of those who don’t identify as anything (even “human” seems a stretch at times), and who assume, at least early in one’s life, that deviations from this personal understanding of the world are… mere noisy annoyances.
posted by scamper at 9:38 AM on June 9, 2015 [2 favorites]


She must have hated Spiderman and Batman.
posted by symbioid at 9:47 AM on June 9, 2015


Maturity: the realization that the world is not, in fact, populated entirely with less-awesome copies of one's self.

Thanks for posting this - it's neat.
posted by Mooski at 9:51 AM on June 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


I find her thoughts on this embarrassing and a great example of the barrage of patronizing cisplainy not-getting-its that have broken from Dam Jenner, but I hesitate to go into greater detail or even say that because I don't want to come across like I'm always The Angry Political One and because the musical component of her written piece that covers this is really beautiful.

But you should probably keep erring more on the side of Janet Mock and take "cis woman declares she has no gender identity" with a grain of salt, because that happens all the time. Somehow, the socialization women endure includes this component of believing you have to embrace and embody stereotypical femininity to be a woman or identify as one. I don't make judgments on anyone's gender or identity or lack thereof of course, but I've had so many cis women confide that they don't have a gender identity because they don't like pink, or weddings, or babies, or whatever--and, likewise, so many cis people claim not to have a gender identity because they're totally immersed in it and manage to be normal human beings in spite of that, and imagine trans people to be obsessives about gender or otherwise failing to achieve normal human being status while mindfully navigating gender. There are other cis people who want to coopt trans, agender, etc. identities without losing their cis privilege--almost every thread here on agender stuff includes a lot of that.

I've just heard this too many times before, and it comes with too many thorns for me to want to hold. But, again, the music is beautiful and says infinitely more than her words.
posted by byanyothername at 9:53 AM on June 9, 2015 [19 favorites]


I think this is interesting, seriously, though.

I am a man, I have privilege, I certainly acted as a boy for many years. I also don't fully identify as "man". I don't particularly feel like a male. I think I was talking with my roommate the other day how I don't particularly feel any gender. I mean, I have girly traits but I'm not trans. So in some sense I can relate. Maybe that's because I generally dislike typical "guy energy". I just saw it as "privilege" (i.e. the default is "man" in our society, so ergo, if I don't feel anything that's just because I'm in the social privilege of being a guy).
posted by symbioid at 9:55 AM on June 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


so many cis people claim not to have a gender identity because they're totally immersed in it

I am rereading The Classics, and am reminded of this:
"Slave is an Ephebian word. In Om we have no word for slave," said Vorbis. "So I understand," said the Tyrant. "I imagine that fish have no word for water."
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:59 AM on June 9, 2015 [14 favorites]


I want to add, I don't doubt Hart when she says gender identity isn't important to her; there are probably loads of people who could wake up as a different gender than they went to bed as and awkwardly roll with it. It's just there are a lot of problematic components to these sorts of lightbulb moments; you do not understand it as fully as you think you do if all you have is a sudden flash. This is a much more complex topic, and stuff like this doesn't actually help as much as it makes you feel like it does.
posted by byanyothername at 10:02 AM on June 9, 2015 [5 favorites]


I found the broader message of the video to be more significant, with gender as not the primary, fully-explored topic but rather as an example of a phenomenon she talks about struggling with in several different ways: assuming everyone in the world is "really" just like yourself, but won't admit it. It's a first step and not a last step; but it's still a first step that we all need to take at some point, and not everyone has.
posted by overeducated_alligator at 10:05 AM on June 9, 2015 [5 favorites]


"Somehow, the socialization women endure includes this component of believing you have to embrace and embody stereotypical femininity to be a woman or identify as one." Thanks for putting so succinctly an important part of the female experience. This encapsulates the internalized misogyny of teen girls claiming they "don't like girls" and Gone Girl's "cool girl" rant and the pressure of expectations of femininity and the impossibility of being a person first before someone notices what "kind" of woman you are or how successful you are at being a woman. People forget how much there is to unpack in the mere process of existing and this is part of it.
posted by crush-onastick at 10:06 AM on June 9, 2015 [5 favorites]


I remember very clearly a key point in my adolescence where I had the realization Hart talks about here (re: people actually being different, not the gender thing specifically). I struggled to articulate and internalize it then and I like how Hart does it here. It really was a revelation, probably later than it should have been. It did make the world make a lot more sense.
posted by Wretch729 at 10:10 AM on June 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


the socialization women endure includes this component of believing you have to embrace and embody stereotypical femininity to be a woman or identify as one.

This is the reason I didn't see myself as a woman for the longest time. Seems to me many people confuse "I don't identify with socially constructed definitions of femininity/masculinity" with "I don't care what gender I am".

Many white people are not aware of their whiteness on a day-to-day basis. This does not mean they are "aracial", it is a byproduct of white privilege because whiteness is defined as the norm. Being cisgender is the same thing. I think few cis people think about how their gender shapes their identity; they are existing as the norm and thus have no reason to assume it shapes them. But not thinking about how your gender all the time or not being conscious of one's whiteness is not the same as not having (or reaping the privileges of) that identity. I think it is very difficult to grow up in our culture and not have your identity shaped by the forces of sexism. If you're a guy who's never worn skirts or a woman who feels anxious walking home alone at night, congratulations, part of who you are has been shaped by your gender.

Elucidating the point "Oh, people are not like me" is a good one, though it saddens me that grown adults might need to watch a video to realize it.
posted by Anonymous at 10:20 AM on June 9, 2015


Waking up as the opposite gender, whether biologically or mentally or some combination thereof, is an interesting thought. I can definitely relate in not being aware of the various ways my image/projection affects myself and others; this also means my though experiments are pretty crude. Still of the opinion that gender is a construct, but there's nothing wrong with that and it's helpful and respectful to be mindful of how others relate to it.
posted by halifix at 11:04 AM on June 9, 2015


I think it's funny how closely this coincided with this xkcd about the same topic, but handled much less maturely. Monroe does a lot of great stuff, but he isn't always on the money, I suppose.
posted by brecc at 11:16 AM on June 9, 2015 [3 favorites]


Well, as far as gender goes, I suppose I identify as "Samizdata". You are you and I am me, and it really depends on the people I am with and the situation.
posted by Samizdata at 12:09 PM on June 9, 2015


This is great! I <3 Hart!!

But the word she's looking for is Projection. Once I understood how often I project, and how incredibly often everyone else is projecting, the world became much more understandable.
posted by Frayed Knot at 12:45 PM on June 9, 2015


She articulated well the thinking process of those who don’t identify as anything (even “human” seems a stretch at times), and who assume, at least early in one’s life, that deviations from this personal understanding of the world are… mere noisy annoyances.

This x 10. I hadn't realised until fairly recently how core to a person's central identity their social roles/categories can be, since I don't identify as anything very often. I had a trans housemate for about a year, and she thanked me a few times for respecting her identity, pronoun etiquette, backing her up to her unhappy family, that sort of thing- which I was just puzzled and bemused by.

For me, it was as simple as 'oh, you say you're a woman? okay, you're a woman' and no more needed to be said. I felt slightly dishonest somehow for her assumption that I must be extremely well-read and progressive, let alone being a trans 'ally'. I figure that getting upset about who/what other people are sounds like a lot of work.
posted by The Zeroth Law at 12:47 PM on June 9, 2015 [4 favorites]


I think it's funny how closely this coincided with this xkcd about the same topic, but handled much less maturely. Monroe does a lot of great stuff, but he isn't always on the money, I suppose.

Wait, that comic was about gender and identity expression? I swear I thought it was just about Munroe saying he doesn't like beer.
posted by Faint of Butt at 12:52 PM on June 9, 2015 [12 favorites]


Zeroth, I feel the same way. I get credit for being an ally, which I guess I am, in that I would defend anyone's right to be whomever they choose, but for the most part, I really don't care enough to think about what people are carrying in their trousers. If someone identifies in a particular way, then I will interact with them in their chosen modality. If that modality changes, and it requires a change in my behavior, then I will notice and modify as needed, but else, I interact with humans in the way they present, or ask to be presented.
posted by dejah420 at 12:59 PM on June 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


Wait, that comic was about gender and identity expression? I swear I thought it was just about Munroe saying he doesn't like beer.
posted by Faint of Butt at 12:52 PM on June 9
[3 favorites +] [!]

I mean more along the lines of the "realizing everyone is different and if someone likes different stuff from you they're not just putting up a facade for the sake of societal pressures", but that works too.
posted by brecc at 1:09 PM on June 9, 2015


I mean the one guy asks about beer and summarizes it as only two choices, stouts or lagers. I think the metaphor is pretty clear.
posted by RobotHero at 1:20 PM on June 9, 2015


It's okay to not like things
posted by erniepan at 4:08 PM on June 9, 2015


There are genuinely people with no identity. As far as I can tell, I'm one of them. I will say upfront that I'm a straight white male, and I absolutely accept that a lot of my identity-less feelings stem from the fact that my "type" is the default.

But I have a nagging sense that there's more to it--that I lack something most other people have, even most of the other straight white males that I know. They may be so ensconced in their privilege that they don't identify as straight, white, or male, but they identify as something. As American, as New Yorkers, as geeks, as Lakers Fans, as Christians, as atheists, as Beatles fans ...

I seem to lack this ability in the same sense that psychopaths lack empathy. There's something (not empathy in my case--I have plenty of that) I simply don't have that almost everyone else I know does: a visceral sense of identity. At the age of 50, as I think back over my life so far, I know I have only ever been able to understand identity intellectually, similarly to how I understand a four-dimensional cube.

Yes, I'm am privileged, but not in every way. Growing up, in the 60s and 70s, I was one of the only Jews in a bible-belt state--and I look very Jewish, kind of like Woody Allen. I was bullied every day for about ten years of my childhood. When I was a bit older, and still living in Indiana, I became an atheist. And I've always had liberal views. For years, I lived in what was basically a marriage with another man. We didn't have sex, but in every other way we were married. And almost everyone assumed we were lovers.

And yet I've never identified as a Jew, an atheist, a sort-of gay man, or anything else. To me, I'm not "an atheist;" I'm a person who happens to not believe in God. I'm not "a Jew." I'm a person who happens to have had a bar-mitzvah and who happens to like chopped liver on matzo. I once thought that people who say "I am Jewish" just meant something like that and that people who say, "I'm an American" or "I'm a New Yorker" just meant they lived in the US or in New York. But I've learned--without ever really getting it--that most people mean much more than that.

The kids I grew up with--the ones who are just as privileged as I am--do have identities, as do my mother, father, and brother. They my not identify as white or straight, but they identify as liberal, smart, educated, atheist, rationalist, midwestern, geeky, or whatever.

One of the things this means is that there are certain types of strangers who feel like more than strangers to them. I've been a New Yorker (I'm a person who lives in NYC) for 20 years, and most of the other New Yorkers I know get at least a little excited if they're, say, in Prague, and they meet a stranger from Manhattan. It does nothing for me.

Well-meaning folks sometimes try to force "identity meetings" on me: "You should talk to so-and-so! He's from New York, too!" And I always think, "Why would I want to talk to him, just because he's from where I'm from? He's a stranger." It's not that I don't want to talk to him, but I have no special desire to--not more than I want to talk to anyone else--just because we're from the same place.

I can't think of any exception. I've worked for 30 years in the theatre, but other actors and directors--if they're strangers--are not "my people." And I don't feel any sort of affinity with a stranger because he or she happens to be a liberal. Even though I'm pro-gay marriage, pro-choice, pro-universal health care, etc, a random liberal is no more "my people" than a random conservative.

Which probably makes me sound like a misanthrope or a loner. I'm neither. As far as I can tell, human companionship is just as important to me than it is to a "normal" person. My friendships are the most important things in the world to me, and I easily get lonely. I am part of a group, but it's identity, as far as I'm concerned, is "Erin, Paul, Jason, Lisa, John, Alexis, and Victoria."

And it's always been like that for me. I have no memory of--and can't connect with--wanting the cool kids (or the geeks or the artsy kids or whatever) to accept me. I wanted to be accepted, but I was always be some very specific other kid or kids.

I fought this for years. I thought I was supposed to have an identity, and so I kept making myself go to groups: atheist meetups, theatre-people meetups, sci-fi conventions, etc. None of them ever felt like home, and I also never got the sense that I just hadn't found my home yet. I knew where it was: it was with the very specific friends I had--the ones I couldn't easily abstract into "that type."

And I knew that, for me, finding home would always be a painstaking but ultimately rewarding process. There are, for me, no shortcuts. I have to make each friend individually, and knowing that some guy or gall is an atheist, a Jew, a New Yorker, an actor, or whatever would not even work as a first step towards friendship for me.
posted by grumblebee at 5:28 PM on June 9, 2015 [9 favorites]


I think that this is some really relevant criticism about this kind of thing and a lot of the bad arguments that are turning up like weeds right now (i.e. "socialized as X") that's more eloquent than I was above:

Let's Stop Exercising Our Gender Anxieties On the Backs of Trans People
When we demonstrate that our main concern over a trans person appearing in public is what their existence does for our understanding of gender, we signal to potential trans allies that they can expect more policing from us rather than acceptance. If they distrust us after that, if they don’t want to work with us, if they want to see us swapped out for a feminist movement that isn’t going to give them more of the same problems they’re already dealing with, well, who’s to blame them?
posted by byanyothername at 8:38 PM on June 9, 2015 [8 favorites]


Thank you, byanyothername. I'm bookmarking it; I know it will come in handy later.
posted by Ambient Echo at 11:27 PM on June 9, 2015


I get credit for being an ally, which I guess I am, in that I would defend anyone's right to be whomever they choose, but for the most part, I really don't care enough to think about what people are carrying in their trousers.

Just a heads-up, reducing transness to genitals like this is really icky.
posted by Dysk at 1:27 AM on June 10, 2015 [2 favorites]


Byanyothername, I think Vi Hart's video is still a net positive in that context.

Towards the end, she amends "What does that even mean!?" with "Something real, I guess!" I think this reduces the problems with "sudden flash" learning, that she didn't go, "Oh, now I do in fact know exactly what it means," but learned to accept that it means something real to other people even if it's something she doesn't entirely understand. I think a lot of the problems come from people who insist on the other order: "First I need everything explained to my satisfaction and then I will accept you."
posted by RobotHero at 9:01 AM on June 10, 2015


grumblebee: I'm curious to know, how does a person cross over from the "stranger" bucket to the "friend" bucket, for you?
posted by theorique at 9:24 AM on June 10, 2015


I wish I could answer that. I could take make some guesses, but the honest answer, as far as I can tell, is "chemistry." It never seems to have much to do with shared tastes in politics, books, hobbies, affiliations, background, etc. (Well, it probably has something to do with those things, but not in an obvious way.) It's more about similar senses of humor, similar levels of vulnerability, whether or the other person has told a story that has enthralled me, etc.

And I've noticed that when I'm hanging out with friends, I tend to zone out when they discuss current events, popular culture, music, etc, even when the discussion is about stuff I like. What I prefer talking about is day-to-day stuff that's very present in people's lives, e.g. how they get along with their co-workers, what adventures they had on their commute, etc.

I'm a heavy Facebook user, and I find myself scrolling past "I saw this great movie!" and "support Hillary!" and latching on to "I just got into a huge fight with my sister!"

Almost all of my close friends are people I was forced to be around for a long time or people I collaborated with on long-term projects. Since shared love of a book doesn't do it for me, the chances of me becoming friends with some guy I meet in a bar are close to zero. I can't think of a time I've ever happened.

I have friends from childhood, with whom I spent years at the same schools, friends from college that lived in the same dorm as me, friends who were co-workers at various jobs, etc. I have friends that were my wife's friends before they became mine. I was around them for a long time because I was around my wife while she was hanging out with them. And, very gradually, I grew to like them, too.

I think the big draws for me are the ones I mentioned above: people who tell interesting stories, people who are often vulnerable (I'm not a fan of defensiveness or poses, and I tend to be pretty open about everything), and I'm attracted to a take-no-prisoners sense of humor. But even if I meet someone with all those properties, I doubt we'll become friends unless we're forced to spend a lot of time together.

I've also never had a romantic relationship that started on a blind date or a pickup. My wife and I gradually became platonic friends (we met in grad school) and then, a year after we'd been best friends, we started dating. That's been my pattern with past girlfriends, too.
posted by grumblebee at 12:20 PM on June 10, 2015


thank you! I appreciate your detailed and thoughtful response.
posted by theorique at 8:06 AM on June 11, 2015 [1 favorite]


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