All posts for the month September, 2010

Discussing Dusty Skins And Privilege (Part One)

Generally on any given day, I don’t go by generalisations or assumptions, given that my LadyBrain is allergic to ‘boxing’. But after careful observations and using devices that sound so scientific that you’ll be left impressed, I can say that all of you readers are really smart, analytical and incisive; mainly because you read this blog. So it must have not escaped your attention that I am a woman of colour and I write about my country India, the things I see around me or my lived experiences. Call it narcissism or limited vision or selective focus, the truth remains that my nationality and position as a woman of colour in a (virtual) world dominated by the digital dollar is the space I have access to as well as choose to discuss. However, to be entirely truthful, I had never thought of using the phrase WOC till some troll pointed out just what he wanted to do with my ‘deliciously brown’ face a while back. Since then, the effect of hueism has somehow taken residence underneath my skin and refuses to go away.

Yesterday, my friend and I got to talking over coffee about how we perceive our skin colour as anything but ‘brown’. Strangely, she has always considered herself ‘fair’ and I’ve seen my skin tone as ‘wheatish’. Obviously, from skin tone, the conversation goes to fairness creams. For the uninitiated, ‘fairness creams’ somehow get under your skin — literally speaking — and use some fancyarse magic with the melanin content of your skin and voilà! you’re white fair. A good example of this magic would be the following ad. Warning: The ad causes you to hurl and/or fling your computer across the room. Or you may just want to bang your head on the nearest nailed wall.

And people insist colonisation left with the British and their absurd fondness for bulldogs. But I digress. My point is, today you will not find women looking at Queen Victoria’s painting and wishing their skin could be translucent as well. Today you will find women — and men too! It’s the decade of the meterosexual after all! — religiously applying fairness creams every morning, afternoon, evening and night. Fine, I embellished a little but that doesn’t change the popularity and demand of these creams. Here is a censored version of what my friend I discussed earlier yesterday.

Friend: Have you noticed how Indian girls go swoon-y over ‘fairness’ or ‘whiteness’ creams?
Me: Yes. It’s like an antidote to all evil, so I hear.
Friend: And the word used for our complexion is “dusky” with the slightest tinge of “dusTy”.
Me: Didn’t you hear, our skin colour causes kids to have rabies, breeds terrorists, makes babies cry as well as make all the dogs start chasing their tails while trying to lick their feet.
Friend: You forgot to mention how men are tempted to rape us because of our dusTy skin.
Me: That was implied. As it always is, between any two dusTy Indian girls.
Bystander: All of this is a joke right?
Me: No, we don’t joke.
Friend: We can’t. We are feminists.
Bystander: (Vanishes into thin air) …

On a more serious note, I know people who refuse to believe Indians themselves can be biased towards the ‘Whiter complexion’, refusing to believe that the DoucheColonialGaze is now internalised to such an extent that now it seems as a part of Indian culture. The trajectory according to their idiot logic is that since we were oppressed for about roughly two centuries by the Whites, we are not going to worship the coloniser, plus the history textbooks say we are independent now, hence colonisation must be over. By that logic, we can also say feminism, class oppression and caste politics are over because it says so somewhere in some book that each of this evils are a part of the past. Without pointing out the obvious flaw in that strain of thought — it’s just not worth it — it would be naïve to think that only a few people think this way. Never underestimate the reach of screwed up logic, I can remember my grandmother saying.

Indians love skin colour, even if this means labeling each person like a lab rat. And just like we were taught in sixth grade, under each petal of the flower, you will find multitudes of systems and meanings. So fair means ‘beautiful’, wheatish means’ she might find someone, perhaps if she gives up speaking ‘ and dark is seen as ‘GET HER AWAY FROM ME! YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT IS CONTAGIOUS THESE DAYS!”. Recently some sensitive smartarse came along and popularised the word ‘dusky’ so now people say ‘dark’ only if they have ingested copious amounts of alcohol or forgot to take their medication for being politically correct. Suddenly ‘dusky’ skin becomes desirable, only if the woman in question is notably pretty, adheres to all norms of ‘ideal feminine’ body shape that is; all of this is rather obvious and well known. What people don’t know is that ‘dusky’ people like actresses, entrepreneurs, teachers, [Insert your career option here ] are good at their jobs precisely because of their skin. Or something incredibly and similarly inane. I confess I don’t know the details of this argument because my LadyBrain slammed itself shut somewhere around ‘dusky’.

What is interesting is, how a few people have managed to use this ‘duskiness’ attributed to their skin to their advantage, or that is what the media would have us believe. This is why we think Nandita Das is such a ‘good actor’ because a lot of producers and directors initially rejected her because of her skin colour so she could dedicate herself to ‘indie’ and ‘experimental films’, not because she initially might have had no say over what projects she took on. Because Bipasha Basu is ‘dusky’, she has become the new-age sex-bomb of Indian cinema. Not because she has spent years perfecting and crafting that persona or anything. Being ‘dusky’ is my only hope a few of my aunts and relatives have told me, considering how ‘dark’ I’ve become in the past 20 years. It’s funny, I would have ignored all of it — sort of a habit when it comes to taking my relative’s opinions of anything at all even remotely seriously — until that one day some one commented on my skin in this e-universe. I had always considered my body to be relatively invisible online considering one doesn’t use it, or in some simplistic essence is left behind. Obviously that was wrong as my skin does have some value attached to it, regardless of the gaze I’m subjected to.

Now that I think of it, my ‘dusky’ skin has boxed me in. I am that ‘brown’ girl who ‘writes about other mud squatters her country people’ online. Beyond that, it seems like I am nothing else. I am still wondering when did I get co-opted into a system of ‘tokenism’; when the ‘dusTy’ label was accorded onto me or when I let it define me (I decided to write this post after receiving record number of troll e-mails yesterday — 118  — that seemed to suggest/assess/define me nothing beyond my skin). And as of now, the box seems to get smaller by every passing second and I fear the day I am going to vanish and all there is left of me is my skin.


2 Comments
by Jaded on September 18, 2010  •  Permalink
Posted in Books I have read, My Writing, Postcolonial feminism, Radicalism, Random things
Tagged , , , , , , ,

Posted by Jaded on September 18, 2010

http://jaded16.wordpress.com/2010/09/18/discussing-dusty-skins-and-privilege-part-one/

Re-Making While Break-ing Bodies And Meanings

The past few days have been emotionally as well as physically taxing, as I prepared for a seminar, re-wrote, re-edited and then wrote again my paper. Then deleted it and started all over again. A few years ago I had the nasty habit of never saving any of my writing, so I went along and got me an auto-saving program. Now all I need is a program that will swat my hand away every time I try to delete my writing. So you can understand, dear reader why I didn’t want to open or even read any of my TrollMail. Turns out, had I opened it earlier I wouldn’t be comatose in front of the computer screen, losing the battle against writer’s block. Some days, the universe just provides you fodder, while on other days it spews slander all over you and your virtual space.

Questions like, “Must you use such harsh language, when you talk of your body or anyone else’s body?” or another states “It’s not proper for Indian women to talk of the body in such terms. You sound Western when you do write like this. Indian women don’t and shouldn’t talk of their private organs so blatantly. This isn’t our culture”. And I edited this one, because I distinctly remember my LadyBrain slammed itself shut after these lines. Forgive me for not reading any of her remaining eight e-mails for my eyes blurred over as soon as she started defining what “Indian women” should do or rather shouldn’t do. And just as I start to write this, another e-mail scurries forward bearing the words, “What is the point of breaking up your body to show what you mean? Aren’t you mutilating yourself, under the name of using poetic devices? Also, isn’t this an extremely Western method of articulating ? Doesn’t this stand against everything you supposedly believe in?”. As I mentioned before, the Interwebes can smack any semblance of the Writer’s Block right out of you, on a day like this.

First of all, where does language lose its trappings of ‘beauty’ and enter the realm of the ‘grotesque’? As far as I can see, there are no specific boundaries as one of the biggest dangers of any art is its ability to transform tragedy into something aesthetic or beautiful. This is probably why I like Van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night’ so much, despite the fact it is the man’s last painting before his suicide. Or the fact I like Sadat Hasan Manto’s grotesque short fictions, even though they leer so close to brutality, madness and often just plain violence. The one poem that speaks to me is where Emily Dickinson manages to write, “They shut me up in Prose –As when a little Girl/They put me in the Closet –Because they liked me “still” --” leaving me with the image of muffled words and inconsequential mumbles. All of these artists use macabre to further their crafted skill. This doesn’t mean I don’t get goosebumps when I see Starry Night, read Colder Than Ice, the above poem or any other work that hovers on tragedy and yet manages it to make it beautiful. The tragedy or the violence of these works don’t reduce because of its aesthetic value. To my mind, they become even more beautiful and jagged, pierce deeper than they would have had they not been so brutal. Do you think this painting loses its value just because of how raw or harsh it is? In fact, one of the most basic components of ‘Trying-To-Let-The-Silenced-Speak’ is to accept a certain conceit as well as “darkness” in their writing. For after years of silence, when the ‘voiceless’ speak, zie is hardly going to bestow praises to the oppressor. Outside of a Margaret Mitchell book that is. To write off someone’s word as too dark, too harsh, too loud, too blunt is nothing but another form of silencing; reducing them to be less than worthy to have – let alone use — their voice.

Secondly, policing bodies is probably a tradition older than time. Religious texts across cultures as well as literature insist on shaming, labeling and prodding the body — be it human or otherwise. When you hide something away, create a taboo around a part of your body; you further ensure silencing. Why is talking about one’s ‘private organs’ such a faux pas for people? And Indian women in particular if I’m looking at the second TrollMail? And just who is this Indian woman every troll — virtual or otherwise — surely brings up? She sounds like she is completely SpineLess, devoid of any inkling of choice or consent and extremely happy to be a broken doll. Eternally malleable, manageable and has no more potential than a masquerade. If there is a specific person behind her existence? If yes, could I have a long conversation with them and perhaps smack them with common-sense till they get it that creating such dichotomies, ideals and definitions, they are trapping hordes of bodies in the realm of the ‘impossibly Indian’? This Indian woman serves to keep us in our place, one step below everyone else. She is that ever-elusive ideal that isn’t achievable. I shudder to think of the army of doormats women this ‘Indian Woman’ has the potential to produce. Kind of a female culture-factory. Even the visual stuns me into silence; to expect me and all ‘Indian women’ to adhere to this norm is more than a little naïve. Another thing that irked me was the troll’s insistence that “this isn’t Indian culture”, for who defines Indian culture? Historically speaking, it was a few privileged dudes who decided how everyone else behaved. Today, perhaps quite a few women have internalised this misogyny giving the illusion of choice while ironically they are still dancing to someone else’s tunes. Also culture isn’t a monolithic or fixed ground — for what is culture without its people? And if we are still to adhere to “original Indian culture” — which was first translated and recorded by German Indologists — then we should declare an infinite war against modern plumbing. But I digress. Policing and controlling this ‘Indian woman’s body’, by telling how she should sit stand walk sleep jump sprint eat move be swim follow dance run bend talk sound hear see do is like placing her in a box without holes and asking her to blow glass inside. And, by giving it the appearance of ‘culture’, the need to have ManMadeWomen, as desired so by people is hidden away.

Coming to the third TrollMail, I was rather surprised to see zie could be as presumptuous to say, “everything you stand against” as even I don’t know what things I don’t like on a fixed basis. But the most obnoxious statement was when they said I sound ‘Western’ — because that is the worst any Oriental would ever want to be. Even if it means choosing between terrorism and opposing the West, any sound-minded Oriental would pick the West. I hear they have nude beaches there. So you can see our indignation with you — because of my choice, form and use of words. It never fails to amaze me how many people want to believe that everything was perfect before they came; ‘they’ can mean the Greeks, Persians, Portuguese, English invaders (pick one according to your mood!) and regard everyone who doesn’t subscribe to this view as ‘Westernised Trash’. After being colonised for more than 200 years, after being told that we have no culture or anything at all, by people who ironically originate from ‘Barbarians’ themselves (as St. Augustine would agree), it’s a tad difficult to not be Western. We speak in a language that is not ours, go by laws that are fundamentally based on Western principles,  study in schools that still insist on teaching children ‘Daffodils’ by Wordsworth as essential poetry though we will never see that flower on our land, perceive the world through the Coloniser’s eyes. Our sense of what is ‘proper’, ‘public’, ‘private’ comes from our oppressors, even if it was Nehru behaving as the mouthpiece. And just for kicks, if I start speaking in the DesiTongue, will I become more ‘Indian’? Or perhaps I should pepper my posts with actual spices, for what screams more Indian than chillies (which we stole from the Mughals by the way)?

It is while experimenting with words, sounds, senses and meanings I can negotiate with my heart into believeing that somehow I’m articulating who I am, or am trying to be in a language I don’t belong to, that breaks me up every time I write. To deny me that space, to criminalise my chosen method, judge me based on what YOU think I should do is to ask me to  stop thinking and breathing. For it is after very long that I’ve managed to pry the blindfold off; and I have a few things yet left to see.

[Cross-Posted]

2 Comments
by Jaded on September 16, 2010  •  Permalink
Posted in Books I have read, Life Just Sucks, My Writing, Postcolonial feminism, Random things, Survival Guide
Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

Posted by Jaded on September 16, 2010

http://jaded16.wordpress.com/2010/09/16/re-making-while-break-ing-bodies/

Red Pills Vs Blue Pills Or More Importantly Just Who Decides Edition Of Anti-Evilism-Ish

Evil Dick (by Latuff).

I wish it were just this simple. At least for a little while anyway.

Jaded16′s Note: The Interwebes is a funny place, gentle readers. Sometimes it shows you things like how I can get an artificial virginal cooter if I want (on special demand!) or it draws just the right guest bloggers to your blog so you don’t spew rambling LadyFeelings all over your blog as you battle writer’s block. And lose repeatedly. So LogosKaiEros is back to save my skin as I get what is left of my head back. Hopefully soon.

—–

I just read a handful or articles for one of my classes, and I am left thinking about a moral dilemma that has antagonized me since beginning my foray into anti oppression studies.

First, let me sum up the articles (I also discuss these articles on my blog here).

Nancy Hartsock writes about Feminist Standpoint Epistemology, which is, in a nutshell, the idea that oppressed people, by being oppressed, get to see the icky underside of society for what it is (i.e. oppressive) and so in this way, they know more than the privileged groups that are much more ignorant of the workings of kyriarchy.

Uma Narayan comes along and points out that we shouldn’t valorize this epistemological position, since, although oppressed people are better situated to see oppressive systems for what they are, they are also–by being oppressed by these very systems–possibly unable to use or access this knowledge.

So for instance, generally speaking women are better able to detect sexism than men are, but many woman have constructed identities around thinking that traditional female roles gain them respect–so their understanding is fractured.  If you push them, they might admit that people don’t respect them fully for being a mother/sex partner/’girly’ girl/model/childcare giver etc, but at the same time, they may not be willing or able to acknowledge that this is due to a society-wide power differential.  They may tell themselves that these are isolated cases and that their [insert traditional female role] provides them with all the fulfillment they need.  So in that way, many women suck at identifying sexism for what it is, too.

So then come along Acker et al, who did this research project about middle age housewives who are going back to the workforce.  In the article, they discuss how they want to approach this project so that they don’t impose their ideas onto the women they’re studying and end up skewing their results.  They talk about how they want to acknowledge these women as subjects, not just objects to study.  They write,

“…our commitment to minimizing the power differentials of the relationship in the research was further confounded when it came to the analysis.  We found that we had to assume the role of the people with the power to define.  The act of looking at interviews, summarizing another’s life, and placing it within a context is an act of objectification. [...]  The question becomes how to produce an analysis which goes beyond the experience of the researched while still granting them full subjectivity?  How do we explain the lives of others without violating their reality?” (my emphasis)

I haven’t been able to get this question out of my head, partially because my immediate response was “we can’t avoid this, nor should we.”

Acket et al. talk about how some of the women in the study really resisted looking at their lives from a feminist point of view, and the researchers felt reluctant to push the point–to risk shattering whatever comfort these women have managed to find in their oppressive society.

But I kept thinking, but aren’t they delusional?  Isn’t this comfort false? Isn’t this valorizing their oppressed existence?  Aren’t they really suffering from a fractured identity and then lying to themselves about being respected members of society?

So here’s the question:  If you meet someone who belongs to an oppressed group, and they deny that they are oppressed, do you have an obligation to try to shake them out of this?  Or the other way, is there ever a time when you have an obligation NOT to shake them out of their current self-understanding?  Are you ever obligated to leave people to their bluepill worlds?

[The blue pill in the matrix would have you stay in the matrix (blissful ignorance) and the red pill would bring you into the real world--where robots would try to kill you].

I really really really want to say that we should shove redpills down people’s throats; that they are living a delusion where they’re aren’t even all that happy anyway; and that by leaving people to their bluepill existence, that can actually get in the way of liberation for us redpillers.

…And then I remember the debate on whether rape victims should be obligated to report their attacks.

And I realize that I have argued that women should NOT be forced to report their attacks, since this could be harmful for their personal/mental well-being, and no one woman should bear the responsibility of fixing patriarchy.  We shouldn’t be forced or obligated to sacrificing our own personal happiness or serenity for ‘the good of the cause’.

But…can’t I use these same arguments here?  That one can’t really be happy or serene if Patriarchy is free to stomp around?  That one’s personal happiness would then be indirectly contributing to the further oppression of others?

Should I shove red pills down their throat but acknowledge that this is an unfair burden? (Hmm that sounds skeezily imperialistic).

Should I admit that one of obstacles in being anti-evil is acknowledging that if a person has chosen their bluepill ignornace, it’s not my place to wake them up from it, lest I violate their reality?

Now I don’t know what to think.

P.S. Gentle readers of the Olde Interwebes, remember that magical Open Guest Posting policy link? It still works, press it and see for yourself. No innuendo intended. Well not too much anyway.

2 Comments
by Jaded on September 14, 2010  •  Permalink
Posted in Books I have read, Guest Blogger, Postcolonial feminism, Radicalism, Ranting & Raving, Survival Guide
Tagged , , , , ,

Posted by Jaded on September 14, 2010

http://jaded16.wordpress.com/2010/09/14/red-pills-vs-blue-pills-or-more-importantly-just-who-decides-edition-of-anti-evilism-ish/

On Occupied Bodies And UnRaveling Threads

I have a new post up at Womanist Musings.

—-

The only good thing that came off from last two weeks of bed rest was I got to finish a quarter of the books I put off reading. Turns out if you are pathetic enough, your friend will feel bad enough to find you a much sought after essay ‘The Laughter Of Medusa‘ by Hélène Cixous just so you can forget about the pain you are in for about three hours. I’d only read scraps of this essay and that too online, so for a BookSnob like me, this was being as close to ecstasy as the Buddha would have, had he sought it. Ahem. Anyway, after a lot of initial squealing à la GrownUp that I am — or am trying to be — I actually got to reading the essay and precisely then, readers of the Olde Interwebes there was a loud popping sound. Popular belief is that it was the bubble around my head.

As much as I love feminist literary theory and Écriture Féminine (literally translates to women’s writing), something didn’t sit quite well with this essay for me. Aside from the essentialism that the essay and the times were stooped in, what really irked this LadyBrain is her assumption that all women should write in white ink — that is their mother’s breast milk — and from their own bodies to really articulate the woman inside.  And this is the same way most feminist theory (literary or otherwise) situates itself, high up on the Ivory Tower, trying to dissect the micro-organisms that women are downstairs. That’s not a new criticism, what really affected me is this idea of a ‘possessed body’ the woman is said to be.

As occupied bodies — literally or figuratively — we don’t really have control to what happens to our bodies, right? But isn’t that too gross an assumption, just like the one Cixous is making, perhaps an even bigger one?

Everywhere I see, women’s bodies are not really their own; not out here anyway. It is true, patriarchy does dictate large portions of our lives, that misogyny does hound us from almost every corner — to say otherwise would be foolish. From religion to societal structures, movies and popular literature and songs all boldly intone that our bodies are for giving and not for being. My maid’s daughter is in an abusive relationship, she has to escape out she acknowledges that, though walking out is simply not an option. When survival is at stake, she prefers to give up her body to ridicule and beatings rather than die out of starvation. Placing myself in her place, if I were to go back to Cixous’s assertion that I must write through my body, doing so would be an exercise in voluntarily opening spaces I’d rather not word out. Or how about my cousin who was forced to abort her child because the fetus was a girl? In her already vulnerable frame of mind, to ask her to articulate the tune of her wounded body can push her over the edge.

Let’s assume, I can withstand the torture of unraveling all the infinite and omnipresent threads that bind me, I do speak out. Then what? The best option I have is to seek a publisher who isn’t trying to re-package and re-fetishise my occupied body to selling larger products such as OrientalFlavour of the month, the TastyNative or the Olde StandBye of the ExoticFruit. Or maybe I can align myself with a group that is dedicated to giving marginalised voices a platform, without catering to their own egos or furthering their culture-factory which is the head of Mass Consumption of Tortured Voices, which I am told do exist. Or maybe I could give into my Left leanings and seek ‘intersectional’ spaces that are created just so that a Lady like me one day might speak out and their consciences are soothed I can achieve some sort of closure. All of this shouldn’t be harder than seeking permanent residence atop the moon, my LadyBrain concludes.

This ‘occupied body’ is simultaneously a real as well as a utopic concept. Real because we can see and live by its true ramifications. Utopic because it all comes down to literary mumbo-jumbo. Of course, we have to make feminism relevant, ensure more people see the movement, rid themselves of the hold kyarchy has on them, be merry and dance around Beauvoir’s grave. Okay I embellished a little, but that more-or-less covers all our goals. But then aren’t we telling them what we think they should do? How is that any different than the indignation Cixous would feel when I’d tell her I can’t write from my body? Or for that matter, the dictate of any religion do sound the same as the preachy tone more feminists I should have the gall to admit take, don’t they?

We can obviously say, “We should acknowledge differences”, “Understand that homogeneity is hegemonic” or simply say, “I will accept all that you are without judgment”. But in how many spaces, people, groups does it really happen? We talk of debunking oppression, solving the puzzle patriarchy is but forgetting to ask, at whose cost like Derrida keeps on asking. And like always, the few benefit while most give up their occupied bodies for re-possession. Only this time, perhaps they don’t see the cords.

Here is a poem I wrote that allowed me to ask these questions. If anyone finds any solutions, let me know.

Righting To Cixous*

Cixous said Write From The Body
so one day i sat down to write
waited forever for the prose to glow
even paid attention to the annoying
Grammar Flow (period)
Only to later realise
someone had stolen my Body away
just out of spite (period here too)

so i hung my head in shame
for i had no words coming
from every place i searched
my breasts, vagina, ass or eyes two
even opened my kidneys, nose and liver
till all of them loudly cried
mighty disappointed was i
that i had no spare parts that would speak out
or even be tamed (can disappointments
end in periods too)

then that night i was sleeping
suddenly my feet started talking
to my unsteady beat of my heart
but when i tried to write what
my toes had whispered secretly to my hair
all that remained was those angry
black rips and tears (grieving period)

so i decided to write to dear Cixous
that i tried really hard to Right From The Body
but it now seems to me
that the phrase was meant for only YOU.

*Inspired by Cixous’s statement that “women must write from the body”.


1 Comment
by Jaded on September 10, 2010  •  Permalink
Posted in Books I have read, Life Just Sucks, My Writing, Postcolonial feminism, Radicalism, Survival Guide
Tagged , , , , , , , ,

Posted by Jaded on September 10, 2010

http://jaded16.wordpress.com/2010/09/10/on-occupied-bodies-and-unraveling-threads/

I Was A Teenage Sexist Chicken

Jaded16′s Note : Time for another fabulous guest post, the LadyClock says so! And this time around it’s a ManPerson doing all the talking! It’s so easy to forget they exist too. Well all the douches anyway. This dude is one hardcore blogger and founder of SexGenderBody and The National Gadfly and is as opposed to MRA’s as much Foucault hated punctuation. Sounds almost like a wet dream doesn’t it?

—-

This post is not about Sexism or Feminism, it is about my experience in talking about them.

As webmaster / publisher / admin / janitor at SexGenderBody.com, I often dialog on those issues and in the communities that they create.  This post is one effort to frame how I experience the terms of the conversations and the goals of the site – to articulate my view on the structure of dialog itself.

Simply put, I have been thinking about how we treat each other inside a conversation about SGB issues and identity. I noticed some patterns of how we seem to argue with each other inside these conversations.  This post is not about something specific to SGB issues, advocates themselves or the conversations.  This is about how we speak to each other about those issues.  SGB issue conversations are not somehow different from other conversations.  I simply care about them more.  This applies to Racism, Classism, TG discrimination or any other conversation regarding society and individuals.

I will mostly use 1st person in this post, not because I think I’m ‘right‘ or ‘better‘ or anything.  It is just that I think that by making statements using the 3rd person (we/they/you), it is not as honest or intimate and is often a distraction.  As a reader, you may be left wondering who the subject is, whether to defend your own views and how I can claim to know other people’s thoughts & motives.  My writing tends to be more effective when I am describing my personal experience.

Guys hang back (and it’s not just guys)

I was chatting with friend about how Feminism & Sexism are addressed on some blogs.  She noted her experience that “men hang back” to see how the women are going to respond and later come in on the ‘safe’ side with a hearty “yeah, what she said!” It’s not universal across blogs, but it brings up an interesting point: chickening out.

Why would men hide out?  Maybe they have been lambasted and they are ‘gun-shy’  Certainly, I have been told a) I am sexist b) go do homework c) come back with approved answers.  Sometimes in harsh terms, peppered with “@$$hole” or “troll”.  I may have fully deserved that response or not.  But, the idea that I would ‘hide out’ because some woman treated me harshly is in itself a responsibility dodge. 

Hiding is a choice – my choice. Period.  The only person that makes me hide or stop hiding, is me.

There is responsibility and there are consequences.  In blogs and live conversations.  I have a very clear example of this in my personal life.  I had a girlfriend and she became pregnant.  We sat on the bed and she asked me what I wanted to do.  I told her that I would do whatever she wanted to do.  Right there – I chickened out.

What I did there was to lay it all on her.  When we broke up, she said to me that the relationship died on that day in that conversation.  She knew I was afraid and didn’t want a child.  She wanted my honesty and my intimacy.  I gave her neither.  It hurt our relationship.  I withheld my voice, my experience and how I felt.

It’s like that on blogs and in face-to-face conversations.   The problem with hanging back or hiding out, is that real communication struggles to exist without all parties involved in the conversation.  Everybody in the conversation loses out when someone hides out.

It’s not just men and it’s not just Sexism or Feminism.  How many people walk away from or hide out instead of speaking their mind and making a difference?  How many of us hold our voice still when we  are afraid?  How many women identify themselves as Feminists but do not find agreement from Feminist books, blogs or speakers?  I have met some.  Are they the only ones?  If there are more, where do they go and how do they contribute to the cause?  Where are their voices heard?  I don’t know.

Where else do people hide out?  Work?  Family?  We all probably do it in our lives to some degree.  Nobody alive today, invented it.  We can all quit at any time.  We can even relapse and quit again.  Speaking up is not without benefit.  In my life there is no greater feeling than feeling of being in a conversation with someone where both people feel heard by each other.

There are no correct answers

The academic hierarchy model of argument is wonderful in science – but psychology, sexism and discrimination are not hard science.  It is a limiting mistake to language them in such terms.  I mean that by treating subjective opinion as if it were objective fact is a disservice to the focal cause.  Not just in context but in results.  It sets up a false sense of truth and proof.

Also, an ‘academic’ or ‘scientific’ hierarchy looks to me like a lot of other paternalistic structures, perhaps even reinforcing some of the very assumptions, definitions, prejudices and messages that are being challenged in a conversation about SGB identity.

One example of my experience from Feminism conversations goes something like this:

A certain “1st Wave” theory was proven wrong in 1971 by so-and-so.  This “2nd Wave” theory was proven wrong in 1981 by so-and-so.  “3rd Wave” has theory become X, as anyone who has read so-and-so would know….and so forth.

I’ve done that in life.  Replaying someone else’s argument from the past is a shortcut.  I was trying to ‘win’ the argument.  I wanted to be right.  I was not looking into my life to see how this conversation really impacted me.  Who cares why?  I was not thinking for myself – but only of myself. That’s the critical factor.  By doing so, I deprived myself of the full knowledge of my impact on others and the chance to grow up.  I lost out.  The people I was talking to lost out.  The greater conversation around sexism lost out because I was both saying nothing new and denying my own personal contribution, both past and present.

It’s a classic case of ‘precedence’ – “if so-and-so said it, it must be true”.  History becomes canon which in turn becomes rote.  I don’t want to hear what a professor or author said sometime in the past.  I want to hear how this issue has impacted the person I’m talking to – in their own life.  Have they ever said or thought anything like that?  Was it done to them?  Have I done that to them?  How did they feel?  What does the person in front of me think about all of this?  What is this person’s gift of intellect, reason and vision have to offer our conversation?

So, now I have started asking people how this issue has impacted them in their life.  Have they ever thought or said anything like that?  Has it ever been said to them?  How did they feel?  Have I ever said something like that to them?

On the topic of academic debate:  I would like to see 1 million people stumbling through conversations together over the merits of Betty Friedan, Shulamith Firestone, Simone de Beauvoir, Andrea Dworkin or anyone else for that matter.  I would much rather the multitude of amateurs than a much smaller number of people that have read all the right materials, learned all the correct thoughts and speak in the appropriate homages to the good topics.  I like academic and structured debates.  I simply think that they cannot contain the larger population’s experience or contribution to any subject.

If I had to choose between a flawless argument that is given by one really smart person or 10 million amateur, untrained opinions, I would take the latter for a greater impact on improving society’s performance on the issue.  The larger group represents more individual contribution to the discourse, which I think is the only valuable currency in these debates.  Dogma fails where cognition succeeds. If we recorded 15 million conversations about Betty Friedan and each person spoke on the subject matter in terms of their own experience, honestly; then every one of those conversations would be relevant and contain something new.

Don’t get me wrong, structured debate has a place and a real value.  I honestly love participating in them.  I like discussing the history of Feminist Theory.  It’s informative. I even like talking to people much smarter than myself.  However, the broad and sweeping change in society will occur in the bazaar and not in the cathedral.

It’s OK to fall down

My life got better in these conversations when I realized that I was going to make mistakes.  Lots of them.  (Actually, I made all the mistakes then figured out what had happened.) Once I accepted that, it all got better.  I don’t want to make mistakes, but I do make them.  We all do.  There is a difference between knowing that I may offend someone and striving to do so.  I am going to get flamed or yelled at or disagreed with.  I used to believe that I had to defend my position in arguments, to save face, etc.  That’s not how it turned out to be.  These conversations are a dance in some ways.  I know that the desired result is equality and respect for all.  That serves as the tempo to the dance.  The words and opinions of those I speak with and myself – are the notes and the melody.

I just remind myself that there is a difference between myself and Rush Limbaugh but that does not excuse me from responsibility. I am admitting my fallibility – not giving myself license to offend.

So, what is my point?  Why say all this?  Because I wanted to encourage others to step forward into the mistakes and successes of these conversations.  I used my own mistakes as references and examples for someone else to look at their own experience and bring it to the conversation on SGB issues, or race, or class.  The water is choppy sometimes and you will spill.  So long as you care and respect, you will be fine.  People will insult you and me and each other.  It goes with the territory and I can’t begin to judge their motives.  If I’m lucky, if you’re lucky maybe those people will contribute to our lives in some meaningful way.

So, come in from the shadows.  If you have gone away, please come back.  It’s OK.  We need you.  I need you.

P.S. Thank you VaginaDrum, Clarisse and Michelle for allowing me to crystallize my thoughts lately on this issue and the upcoming site.

P.P.S. Remember that awesome Open Guest Posting Policy I keep on talking about? It’s a magical page, with a contact form! Use it and see!



4 Comments
by sexgenderbody on September 8, 2010  •  Permalink
Posted in Guest Blogger, Postcolonial feminism, Radicalism, Survival Guide
Tagged , , , ,

Posted by sexgenderbody on September 8, 2010

http://jaded16.wordpress.com/2010/09/08/i-was-a-teenage-sexist-chicken/

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