Escape Artists
The Lounge at the End of the Universe => Gallimaufry => Topic started by: ClintMemo on February 19, 2007, 07:35:24 PM
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I don't believe so, though there are people who would argue that.
There have just been a few instances of people assuming I was male on the board, so it was ironic in context.
Call it a few plus one. I just happened to stumble across this thread and, until now, assumed you were a guy. I had no idea what the word meant, so I don't have any reason to have made that assumption.
Maybe it's just because I'm old... :P
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Well, I think male is the default assumption -- I'm sure I do it from time to time. Male, white, etcetera. Which is one of the reasons why I call it out. It doesn't really bug me that any individual assumes one thing or another, but as a system, it's part of the construction of women (and nonwhites, etc.) as other.
I mean, there are all those studies about how people who are online under generic signifiers are treated as male, but people who are online under female signifiers are significantly more likely to be harrassed (http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2006-05-10-chat-threats_x.htm).
My ideal would be people thinking before assuming the next person they meet online is what they expect them to be. :)
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Ribbons, huh? And the sesame street defaults of eyelashes and hair barrettes? ;)
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My ideal would be people thinking before assuming the next person they meet online is what they expect them to be. :)
I don't disagree, and it'd be great if people did just that.
I want to raise the question if "why?"
In day-to-day life we meet people face to face, or over the phone, and we get automatic tip-offs about that person and gender is one of the first, but on this new fangled interweb we don't get any clues. Should we be concerned with gender at all? Does it matter if one assumes another is the same gender or another race, especially if the avatar in question doesn't give any hints one way or the other?
Is there, or should there be a gender/race/sexuality/political/religious/totally neutral way to refer to someone encounter in a virtual environment so as to not apply ones one stereotypes or prejudices?
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Completely as far as gender, you could use gender neutral pronouns. I've been trying to do that on the board, although I sometimes lapse.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_neutral_pronouns
The ones used in some genderfluid communities in the United States are under "neologisms."
It's also not inappropriate to use "they" as a personal pronoun. It has a long history of use, apparently, despite what recent grammarians would have us believe. Haut knows more about that.
In re:
Does it matter if one assumes another is the same gender or another race, especially if the avatar in question doesn't give any hints one way or the other?
Yes. It matters.
It matters because it reinforces defaults. It reinforces that the "standard" person is male or white or whatever. That's just not true, and it's offensive, and it's part of what creates and reinforces systems of sexism, racism, etc.
That doesn't mean one is never going to make mistakes, but it means one should question one's assumptions.
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I'm going to assume my assumptions are wrong from now on. Oh wait...
;D Just trying to lighten things up.
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Well, from your avatar I can see you are clearly a juvenile female of Kikuyu derivation. That was easy! :)
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I've been trying to purge stereotypes from my mind for years. Every time I think I'm making progress, I run into someone that is the living embodiment of some stereotype. I swear my late father-in-law was like that. If I wrote a story and made a character that was exactly like him, I'd get flamed for using such a two dimensional cardboard cutout.
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Have you read Maus?
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I'm late to this thread but feel strongly enough to post anyway...
Some sterotypes are certainly based on ignorance and prejudice, but many others are that way because they are based in fact. I find sterotypes based on race are usually off, but those based on region or community are pretty good. Such behaviours are usually reinforced by local customs, family and friends (everyone wants to fit in after all).
Does it matter if one assumes another is the same gender or another race, especially if the avatar in question doesn't give any hints one way or the other?
Yes. It matters.
It matters because it reinforces defaults. It reinforces that the "standard" person is male or white or whatever. That's just not true, and it's offensive, and it's part of what creates and reinforces systems of sexism, racism, etc.
You have a vaild point, Ms. Palimpsest, but the problem is that the human brain needs to picture something. How many times during a phone conversation have you unintentionally imagined what someone looks like? I'd be surprised if it wasn't always. Just as your brain produces ghost sounds and lights during sensory deprivation, it produces imagined images to associate to a person. And like sensory deprivation, the less information there is to interpret, the more your brain manufactures. Often this is based on previous experience - if I go to a chatroom of mostly women and someone signs in as blue-eyes332 - I'm imagining "woman" 'til I know otherwise (even if the most famous "blue-eyes" I know is Frank Sinatra).
Whatever the reason, the fact is that more males poke around and post on this Internet thingy, and unless there is something to give me a clue, I'm going to have to assume the default. You're a 15 yr old boy if I'm on a gamer site, a man in his late 20s/mid 30s on a chess game, and some guy who likes to sci-fi if you're posting here.
In the case of this forum, I don't think anyone cares what is someone's gender,age, etc. All that seems to matter is insightful comments (of which you have made a substantial amount and for which you have earned much respect). So I think Thaurismunths is right in implying that assuming someone is just like you doesn't matter - how can it be bad if I think you are just like me (maybe smarter based on your remarks ;)? Harmful is when I assume something derogatory because I dislike what you've said - "you didn't agree with my opinion of this story, so you must be an ignorant greasy wop who is too dumb to understand" Which I am glad to say I have not seen here.
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So it's impossible to keep an open mind about what someone else's attributes are?
Are you denying that the concept that all sf authors are male -- that indeed all authors are male -- has been harmful to women's work in the field?
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So it's impossible to keep an open mind about what someone else's attributes are?
Keeping an open mind is a personal effort, and is different than what I said. What I said was if you give me nothing to define you with, my own experiences with fill in the blanks because I don't believe that a person can think of another as an androgynous blank.
Keeping an open mind is knowing you are a woman and not dismissing you opinions because of that one fact.
Are you denying that the concept that all sf authors are male -- that indeed all authors are male -- has been harmful to women's work in the field?
Absolutely not, and unfortunately it's part of the reason why some of my favourite authors (C.S. Friedman, D.C. Fontana, C.J. Cheryl) did not reveal themselves as women - but by doing that they help reinforce the stereotype. By hiding themselves, they allow others to decide how to define them. The insightful, thorough and helpful comments you have made are no less so, simply because I now know you are a woman - and I would argue that knowing you were a woman at the time might help favourably change some ignorant goof's opinion - think Mary Shelley.
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I'm late to this thread but feel strongly enough to post anyway...
Some sterotypes are certainly based on ignorance and prejudice, but many others are that way because they are based in fact. I find sterotypes based on race are usually off, but those based on region or community are pretty good. Such behaviours are usually reinforced by local customs, family and friends (everyone wants to fit in after all).
It seems to me that you're conflating stereotype with statistical liklihood. I don't think they're at all the same.
It may well be statistically likely that, for instance, my grandma, who was a devout Catholic, practiced a particular custom or held a particular belief, or even engaged in a particular set of speech patterns. She may or may not have--though in knowing her religion and the region where she lived you'd be more likely right than not in your guesses. But she remains, for all that, an individual, a person easily distinguishable from anyone else's Catholic grandma of Irish descent from northern Ohio.
A stereotype does not recognize that. A stereotype says "Little old Catholic lady in Toledo" and assembles a list of characteristics that might in outline suggest my grandma to someone who didn't really know her, but that doesn't come anywhere close to depicting her. I might, if I squinted and ignored her as an idividual person, even be able to say "My grandma was a walking stereotype," but it would require a sort of willful blindness on my part.
As a writer, to me, using a stereotype involves saying "Okay, I've got a character who's...a little girl." To choose one that drives me, personally, up a wall. "Therefore, she will be...<insert list of cultural assumptions about little girls>. I don't need to consider this character as an idividual while composing, because this list of cultural assumptions will be sufficiently <little girl> for my purposes." And it's not the same thing, I think, as saying, "Well, lots of little girls in this age range love My Little Pony, so I think my little girl character would have Sparkleworks and Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash in a prominent spot in her room."
Using a stereotype is like using a rubber stamp. Acknowledging that your character is statistically going to be likely to....do or like whatever is just building your character. But! Watch out for assumptions about what is statistically likely--sometimes they're based not on statistics but on piled-up prejudices and unquestioned repetitions of stereotypes that everyone assumes are right just because of the repetition (and because of underlying cultural assumptions).
You have a vaild point, Ms. Palimpsest, but the problem is that the human brain needs to picture something. How many times during a phone conversation have you unintentionally imagined what someone looks like? I'd be surprised if it wasn't always. Just as your brain produces ghost sounds and lights during sensory deprivation, it produces imagined images to associate to a person. And like sensory deprivation, the less information there is to interpret, the more your brain manufactures. Often this is based on previous experience - if I go to a chatroom of mostly women and someone signs in as blue-eyes332 - I'm imagining "woman" 'til I know otherwise (even if the most famous "blue-eyes" I know is Frank Sinatra).
This is precisely, I think, Palimpsest's point.
People are going to fill in the missing spots in their concepts of other people--the human brain is hardwired to fill in missing information, to find patterns and even make them where none is actually there. I don't think she's arguing that we should all stop doing this.
What she's saying, I think, is that when doing so we should be aware of the assumptions we're bringing to it. To fill in uncritically, without questioning those assumptions, is to reinforce harmful patterns, patterns that you would likely wish strenuously to disassociate yourself from.
Whatever the reason, the fact is that more males poke around and post on this Internet thingy, and unless there is something to give me a clue, I'm going to have to assume the default.
You sure about that? The parts of the intarwebs I hang out in have a lot of girls poking around. And lots of those girls are SF readers and/or writers.
In the case of this forum, I don't think anyone cares what is someone's gender,age, etc. All that seems to matter is insightful comments (of which you have made a substantial amount and for which you have earned much respect). So I think Thaurismunths is right in implying that assuming someone is just like you doesn't matter - how can it be bad if I think you are just like me (maybe smarter based on your remarks ;)?
It can be harmful when it reinforces the very subtle and widepread assumption that the people who have worthwhile things to say, and who are worth paying attention to, are people who are just like you. Which, actually, it does. Not because you, yourself are sexist or racist, but because the whole cultural framework perpetuates sexism and racism, and part of the battle against them involves questioning the assumptions, and being aware of things like what you're assuming about a person when all you have is an internet handle.
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The only thing I have to add to haut's post, at least at the moment, is that it's hardly a coincidence that people's default is white, male, straight, and etc. The rest of us are constructed as deviating from the norm.
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I took a long time to respond to this because as I wrote my reply I was trying to clarify to myself what my point was originally. I guess it boils down to this: If you don't want people to think you are something you are not then show them who you are. If you use a neutral handle or post anonymously you really shouldn't be upset that people can't guess who you are - this includes them guessing you're something you are not.
It seems to me that you're conflating stereotype with statistical liklihood.
I'm not one for arguing semantics(stats vs stereotype), to me sterotypes are "Canadians love hockey" - I don't.
And, for me, this discussion is not specific to writing. In "imagining" hautdesert or palimpset or Thaurismunths or slic, I'm not applying stereotypes as literary shortcut instead of building a character. I'm assuming they are like me until shown otherwise, not because I'm unimaginative but because I don't know who/how it helps that I imagine SFEly as a Pakastani woman living in Northern Minnesota.
People are going to fill in the missing spots in their concepts of other people--the human brain is hardwired to fill in missing information...
..when doing so we should be aware of the assumptions we're bringing to it.
It can be harmful when it reinforces the very subtle and widepread assumption that the people who have worthwhile things to say...are people who are just like you.
I agree with all your points, but feel that we interpret them differently - if you want people to stop making assumptions you disagree with then show them something that challenges those assumptions.
Whatever the reason, the fact is that more males poke around and post on this Internet thingy, and unless there is something to give me a clue, I'm going to have to assume the default.
You sure about that? The parts of the intarwebs I hang out in have a lot of girls poking around. And lots of those girls are SF readers and/or writers.
I was speaking in complete generalities, as I thought that was the point. In my blue-eyes332 example I did suggest there are sections that are not covered in men.
It reinforces that the "standard" person is male or white or whatever...
..it's hardly a coincidence that people's default is white, male, straight, and etc....
But Thaurismunths point was "Does it matter if one assumes another is the same gender..." so it only reinforces this default for straight white men. Straight asian women would consider all other anonymous posters to be straight asian women, etc., etc...
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I took a long time to respond to this because as I wrote my reply I was trying to clarify to myself what my point was originally. I guess it boils down to this: If you don't want people to think you are something you are not then show them who you are. If you use a neutral handle or post anonymously you really shouldn't be upset that people can't guess who you are - this includes them guessing you're something you are not.
It's not a question of "not wanting people to think you're something you're not." It's a question of being frustrated that the default is clearly white and male and anything else is "other."
It seems to me that you're conflating stereotype with statistical liklihood.
I'm not one for arguing semantics(stats vs stereotype), to me sterotypes are "Canadians love hockey" - I don't.
The semantic difference is important. It's as important as the difference between sentiment and sentimentality. They're two different things, easily confused, but really not the same.
And, for me, this discussion is not specific to writing. In "imagining" hautdesert or palimpset or Thaurismunths or slic, I'm not applying stereotypes as literary shortcut instead of building a character. I'm assuming they are like me until shown otherwise, not because I'm unimaginative but because I don't know who/how it helps that I imagine SFEly as a Pakastani woman living in Northern Minnesota.
Right, I was going off on a writing tangent, because it touched on some of those issues. :)
You sure about that? The parts of the intarwebs I hang out in have a lot of girls poking around. And lots of those girls are SF readers and/or writers.
I was speaking in complete generalities, as I thought that was the point. In my blue-eyes332 example I did suggest there are sections that are not covered in men.
My point isn't that there are parts that are largely populated by women--my point is that your assumption (that it's mostly men on the internet) may well be factually incorrect, and more a product of the places you hang out (and your cultural assumptions) than of objective reality.
It reinforces that the "standard" person is male or white or whatever...
..it's hardly a coincidence that people's default is white, male, straight, and etc....
But Thaurismunths point was "Does it matter if one assumes another is the same gender..." so it only reinforces this default for straight white men. Straight asian women would consider all other anonymous posters to be straight asian women, etc., etc...
Well, in reality it reinforces the default for everyone. Because it's not just straight white men who assume that the individuals on the net are straight white men. It's the cultural default.
My argument, and Palimpsest's, I imagine, proceeded from the fact that both you and Thaurismunths are, to judge from your posts, male. So the answer is that you being male, yes, there is a harm in your assuming that everyone is male. (There would also be a harm in, say, my assuming that everyone is female unless otherwise indicated. But the culture being what it is, the harm of all of us assuming maleness is more insidious.)
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I would also respectfully submit that one reason you may not personally see it as harmful is because it isn't damaging to you. (Not to imply that all people in the dominant classes see things one way, or that all people in opressed classes do either, but it's harder to see the system if you're at the top of it.)
When we reinforce "white male" as normal, as default -- and that *is* the cultural default -- then writing that's about women the way most writing is about men becomes "women's writing" whereas the writing that's about men the way most writing is, remains just "writing."
When we reinforce "white male" as normal, as default -- and that *is* the cultural default -- then politics that address the issues of black women become "identity politics" whereas the politics that address the issues of white men, which is most politics, is just "politics."
This is called "othering." It's not cool.
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My point isn't that there are parts that are largely populated by women--my point is that your assumption (that it's mostly men on the internet) may well be factually incorrect, and more a product of the places you hang out (and your cultural assumptions) than of objective reality.
I haven't read up on it recently, but a quick search bears out my belief
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/28/AR2005122801403.html
http://www.blog.aimscanada.com/aims_canada/2006/10/good_morning_ho.html
Well, in reality it reinforces the default for everyone. Because it's not just straight white men who assume that the individuals on the net are straight white men. It's the cultural default.
Again, how else to change that default/perception than show people that there are other people out there.
My argument, and Palimpsest's, I imagine, proceeded from the fact that both you and Thaurismunths are, to judge from your posts, male. So the answer is that you being male, yes, there is a harm in your assuming that everyone is male.
This is called "othering." It's not cool.
Yikes. Quick aside, having my name under my avatar is another hint as to my gender :) But (assuming it is my real name) neither of you know anything else about me. I won't turn this into a contest of who had/has the harder life, but rest assured I'm not dancing in the streets with money and power, and school involved a good bit of blood, bruises and torment. I was shunned, and looked down upon well enough to understand "othering".
When we reinforce "white male" as normal, as default -- and that *is* the cultural default --...
So again, should I start assuming all anonymous posters are gay black women? bald Jewish girls? glasses-wearing Indian supermodels with humps?
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So again, should I start assuming all anonymous posters are gay black women? bald Jewish girls? glasses-wearing Indian supermodels with humps?
My personal feeling on this -- and please understand, I'm speaking simply as an individual peer in the thread here, not as the moderator or EP's editor or anything else -- anyway, my feeling is that it doesn't really matter what one pictures in one's own mind, so long as those assumptions don't lead to damaging outward action.
'Damaging' is ambiguous, and there are degrees. I understand Palimpsest's position that use of gender-charged language is damaging in an indirect sense, even when no offense is intended. Gender-neutral language seems like a fine ideal to me (though I'm conservative enough to hate all the new pronouns on aesthetic grounds, and prefer to stick with "he or she" or "they") -- but adoption of an ideal is slow even when there's widespread buy-in, which there isn't yet, and Slic's right that it doesn't solve the question of mental models. It's not natural to imagine unknown people as genderless, and I don't think it's practical nor moral to insist that others have no mental models. (Why moral? Because condemning the contents of someone else's head rings of thoughtcrime to me. And instituting thoughtcrime is on my very short list of evils.)
So yes, I agree with Slic, people are going to have models. Sometimes those models will be male and sometimes they'll be female; sometimes they'll be white or black or whatever. All are equally sexist or racist in the absence of data. What matters isn't the models themselves, but how they affect behavior. I have mental pictures, too, of just about everyone on these boards, but I don't think it's necessary to share my models with anyone else -- nor for anyone else to care what my models are as long as I'm not pushy about them.
Infringements of models upon the world will happen anyway, and I'll occasionally slip and act as if my model has more validity than it deserves. I don't think this is hard to overcome if no one inflates the degree of damage artificially. A reasonable person should be able to correct a mistaken model graciously, and to accept correction graciously. A simple "Actually, I'm..." and a "D'oh! Noted." should suffice in most situations.
When it gets ugly is when people manufacture offense, or defend their models against reality. "I'm a ______, asshole! Quit making assumptions!" is manufacturing offense. It's not a gracious correction; it's a provocative one, and the other party can't simply accept it without an apparent public show of capitulation. Humans resist losing face, so acceptance becomes less likely, and hearts and minds remain distant. On the other side, "Well, how the hell was I supposed to know that! You seemed like a total _____ to me!" is defending one's model against reality. Models should not be hardened against change. They're only useful and social if they're reformable on an instant's notice, with every new bit of data.
I think there's been a bit of each on these boards, though it hasn't gone as far as aggression or even definite incivility. It's unfortunate that just the specter of social identity issues can result in arguments like this one; but it does happen, and as debates go I think this one's been pretty calm. I don't think it's in the nature of our species to be truly rational or objective about our identities, ever -- but we can be polite about them, and that's something, especially in smart communities like this one, for which my hopes have frequently been rewarded.
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Does it matter if one assumes another is the same gender or another race, especially if the avatar in question doesn't give any hints one way or the other?
Yes. It matters.
It matters because it reinforces defaults. It reinforces that the "standard" person is male or white or whatever. That's just not true, and it's offensive, and it's part of what creates and reinforces systems of sexism, racism, etc.
That doesn't mean one is never going to make mistakes, but it means one should question one's assumptions.
I don't think that's true. I don't consider having a "default avatar" for someone you meet online to be offensive or responsible for creating/perpetuating racism, sexism, etc. I think that it's not assuming about people, but refusing to change your mind once they've defied those expectations that is the true source of racism/sexism/etc. in society.
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Does it matter if one assumes another is the same gender or another race, especially if the avatar in question doesn't give any hints one way or the other?
Yes. It matters.
It matters because it reinforces defaults. It reinforces that the "standard" person is male or white or whatever. That's just not true, and it's offensive, and it's part of what creates and reinforces systems of sexism, racism, etc.
I don't see how it "reinforces" defaults.
When a new name pops up on the forum they have a blank slate, but that slate gets filled quickly.
The most obvious trait is usually gender, it's an issue with very little grey area: You have an innie or an outtie, and if you fall in-between you probably identify one way or the other (but that’s a rude topic to inquire on). Exceptions to this are uncommon enough that I handle them on case-by-case bases.
Next is age/intelligence based on how well the person writes and the kind of subject material they discuss or include. Unlike gender this has a LOT of grey, and is swayed by age, education, and nationality, but some of the information included can be used to tailor your view of the author. You can't remove your voice from your writings so there are always indicators that can be used to form a picture of the author.
I don't often look for more than that, unless someone tips their hand revealing their nationality, race, etc.
Reinforcing a stereotype is something done by members of the stereotyped class. If I thought that all geeks online are male, and met only male geeks online, the stereotype would be reinforced. If I thought that all single moms smoke cigarettes, and all the single moms I met smoke cigarettes, then the stereotypes would be reinforced. So, what if I met a geek online, and they never gave any clues about their gender, and their gender never became an issue, how would it matter if I thought of them as a man?
How about if I met a woman on-line who was a single mom, and she never gave clues about her smoking preferences, how would it change things if I never found out and it never became an issue?
I think the issue isn't that people impose these generic avatars, I think the concern is when a person refuses to change the features of that avatar.
I look for these clues so I have an understanding on how relate with the poster, author, or story. By forming a mental picture of who wrote what, I can guess at what their intentions were and I try to put myself in their shoes. From there I can better appreciate where they're coming from and hopefully better relate my thoughts to them. In terms of this contest it helps me gauge the kind of response that is appropriate to the author.
Also, how is it any different/better to use a blank avatar on a person who expresses clues about themselves than it is to apply a textured avatar on a person who doesn’t express clues?
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I would also respectfully submit that one reason you may not personally see it as harmful is because it isn't damaging to you. (Not to imply that all people in the dominant classes see things one way, or that all people in opressed classes do either, but it's harder to see the system if you're at the top of it.)
When we reinforce "white male" as normal, as default -- and that *is* the cultural default -- then writing that's about women the way most writing is about men becomes "women's writing" whereas the writing that's about men the way most writing is, remains just "writing."
When we reinforce "white male" as normal, as default -- and that *is* the cultural default -- then politics that address the issues of black women become "identity politics" whereas the politics that address the issues of white men, which is most politics, is just "politics."
This is called "othering." It's not cool.
Being the rationalizing creatures we are, we categorize things. One big lump of "writing" or "music" or "people" would be awful hard to sort through if you were looking for something, or if you wanted to tell share the idea with someone else. Not all doctors, authors, or music is made equal. There are specialists and generalists, fiction and non-fiction, classical and contemporary. Categorizations are necessary.
So if we are going to have "women's writing" and "black's writing" and "youth's writing" and "white's writing" and "men's writing" and "adult’s writing", doesn't it make sense that something needs to be the baseline? Something should be "writing writing".
So what should that baseline be and how do we choose it?
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Reinforcing a stereotype is something done by members of the stereotyped class.
I'm pretty sure you meant this in a more general sense like "when a person behaves the way I expect, they are reinforcing my beliefs" - and the opposite, "a person needs to behave against type if they don't like that belief". To me, that comment came across as "poor people are poor because it's their fault" kinda thing. Which I very much disagree with - fodder for another thread.
If I thought that all geeks online are male, and met only male geeks online, the stereotype would be reinforced. If I thought that all single moms smoke cigarettes, and all the single moms I met smoke cigarettes, then the stereotypes would be reinforced. So, what if I met a geek online, and they never gave any clues about their gender, and their gender never became an issue, how would it matter if I thought of them as a man?
How about if I met a woman on-line who was a single mom, and she never gave clues about her smoking preferences, how would it change things if I never found out and it never became an issue?
This is where I agree with palimpsest and hautdesert - it does hurt in the larger sense that you wouldn't seem to consider that there are women geeks or non-smoking single moms. I pretty sure you are more open minded than that, and that these are simple examples. But this also strengthens my arguement because it shows that without a reason to expand a definition, it stays the same.
I think the issue isn't that people impose these generic avatars, I think the concern is when a person refuses to change the features of that avatar.
Not sure what you mean - so now that you know I am a 38 year old man from Canada with Italian and Scottish parents that I should change my handle and pic to a red and white maple leaf playing soccer?
...it helps me gauge the kind of response that is appropriate to the author.
Sure, I turn this a bit and say if the person gives no clues then they shouldn't be insulted if they are treated inappropriatly (e.g. if you are 13, and I treat you as though you are a grown adult, don't blame me).
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So if we are going to have "women's writing" and "black's writing" and "youth's writing" and "white's writing" and "men's writing" and "adult’s writing", doesn't it make sense that something needs to be the baseline? Something should be "writing writing".
So what should that baseline be and how do we choose it?
Simply put - No.
Why do we need a baseline? Why not have a descriptor on everything? Why must one thing be the yardstick against which everything else is based? It's relative to what you are comparing it to, not a general standard.
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Ehhh, I probably shouldn't be wading into this. My thoughts aren't all that deep, and palimpsest and hautdesert are doing a great job of elucidating points I mostly agree with.
Then again, I got my own hands, so I may as well type with them.
The most obvious trait is usually gender, it's an issue with very little grey area: You have an innie or an outtie, and if you fall in-between you probably identify one way or the other (but that’s a rude topic to inquire on).
What gender comprises, culturally, is a far more complicated notion than the M or F tickbox, and even what gender is, physically, can better be viewed as a spectrum than an exclusive proposition, I think. That it seems so simple and straightforward to you is, perhaps, just the luck of your personal experience and genetics. I liked your explanation of the grey area with age, education and nationality, but I think to single out gender as the place where no such grey area exists exactly demonstrates why making assumptions on the basis of gender can be so problematic.
Reinforcing a stereotype is something done by members of the stereotyped class.
This statement just knocks the breath right out of me. I'm not sure even how to approach it without being incendiary. As I understand it, you're saying that if I hold a stereotype, then that's the fault (or perhaps responsibility?) of the people I'm stereotyping? Zuwha? How are other people responsible for my thoughts about them? And how is a group responsible for the opinion I hold about the individual for being a member of that group? I can't even restate this in a way I can wrap my brain around it. I'm sorry. Maybe if you give it another run, I'll get it.
If I thought that all geeks online are male, and met only male geeks online, the stereotype would be reinforced. If I thought that all single moms smoke cigarettes, and all the single moms I met smoke cigarettes, then the stereotypes would be reinforced.
Actually (disclaimer: I'm not an social anthropologist, but I do read about this stuff sometimes) I think the way it has been shown to work is thus :
You (and please, take this as "one", the generic you) think Mexicans are lazy.
You see Mexicans being lazy. This reaffirms your belief.
You encounter a Mexican who is not lazy.
You can't fit them into your pattern. You decide that you can continue to think of Mexicans as lazy, because most of them are, as you've already seen.
The trick is, every subsequent non-lazy Mexican you encounter, does nothing to balance the scales. They are always the exception to the stereotype, and therefore need not be counted. In some cases, the non-lazy Mexican will not even be mentally acknowledged, because they don't fit the stereotype. Once you hold the stereotype, it can only be reinforced, and is much harder to dismiss than merely finding counter-examples.
(apologies to any Mexicans in the audience).
So, what if I met a geek online, and they never gave any clues about their gender, and their gender never became an issue, how would it matter if I thought of them as a man?
I would respectfully submit that if you're thinking of them as a man, then their gender (as you've presumed it) matters. Otherwise you would think of them as something else - human, maybe. Opponent. Friend. Conversant. Person. Irritating little twit. There are any number of non-gender specific ways to think about people.
I'm with Steve on the idealism of hoping people think of other people as people. I would never try to force someone into this mode, argue them into this mode, or legislate them into this mode.
I will not, however, accept the impossibility of it. Especially not based on the prevalence of stereotyping and making assumptions.
I don't care whether someone misapprehends my gender in an online community. I get plenty of real life face-to-face misapprehensions that bother (and affect) me to a greater degree. I am more bothered by the fact that someone needs to box me into "male" or "female" inside their head before they can interact with me or understand me. Course, it's their head, so all my bother is mine to shoulder, though given a forum like this, I'll feel free to express it.
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How are other people responsible for my thoughts about them? And how is a group responsible for the opinion I hold about the individual for being a member of that group?
The only real two things I took minor issue with in this post.
First off, what a person does is directly responsible for your opinion of them (though not the only thing)! If I see someone kill someone else, or help someone in need, or rob someone, or eat too much, or whatever - their actions dictate my thoughts about them. Granted, we can control how we express it, but I think that a person's actions are as much responsible for how we view them as our own prejudices.
Secondly, I think it's more judging a person's willful inclusion in a group than the group itself that determines our opinion of an individual. We can't fault someone for being born a certain way. But as far as group dynamics go - if members of a group show a certain tendency we dislike, and the individual within that group is doing nothing to differentiate themselves from that sort of tendency, then I say we have all the right in the world to judge their inclusion in that group. THIS is why leaders of groups need to speak out unabashedly against behaviors from individuals that damage the opinion of the group - every Muslim should be publicly SCREAMING that they think suicide bombers are wrong/evil. Every fundamentalist Christian should be telling the WORLD how wrong it is to bomb abortion clinics. If you don't want to be stereotyped based on a group, prove you're not a part of the stereotype. People will always have stereotypes in their mind. It's unavoidable. Show me someone who claims to have no preconceived notions, and I'll show you a liar.
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Reinforcing a stereotype is something done by members of the stereotyped class.
I'm pretty sure you meant this in a more general sense like "when a person behaves the way I expect, they are reinforcing my beliefs" - and the opposite, "a person needs to behave against type if they don't like that belief". To me, that comment came across as "poor people are poor because it's their fault" kinda thing. Which I very much disagree with - fodder for another thread.
You seem to have taken what I said as I had intended, but I don't see how you're making that connection.
If my view on single moms is that they're all smokers, than I would make the assumption upon meeting a single mother that she is a smoker. I didn't intend to imply that I would go any farther with that stereotype, such as assuming it's her fault*, that she smokes because she's a single mom, or that she smokes around her child. I could guess that these are possibilities, but to condemn someone I just met for ruining her marriage, taking up such a disgusting habit, and risking her child's health is going a bit too far.
(*I say "fault" to imply that she considers it a negative consequence of her actions. I know at least one mother who chose to be single and is quite happy that way.)
If I thought that all geeks online are male, and met only male geeks online, the stereotype would be reinforced. If I thought that all single moms smoke cigarettes, and all the single moms I met smoke cigarettes, then the stereotypes would be reinforced. So, what if I met a geek online, and they never gave any clues about their gender, and their gender never became an issue, how would it matter if I thought of them as a man?
How about if I met a woman on-line who was a single mom, and she never gave clues about her smoking preferences, how would it change things if I never found out and it never became an issue?
This is where I agree with palimpsest and hautdesert - it does hurt in the larger sense that you wouldn't seem to consider that there are women geeks or non-smoking single moms. I pretty sure you are more open minded than that, and that these are simple examples. But this also strengthens my argument because it shows that without a reason to expand a definition, it stays the same.
Thank you; I am not so close-minded, and I am trying to use simple examples because I'm not so succinct as to keep a complex example from flowing on for pages.
Saying that it hurts in the larger sense only applies if I have met female geeks and do not acknowledge their existence or marginalize them unfairly (such as assuming that a female geek can't be as hardcore or serious as a male geek). If the geeks I've met are exclusively male that would mean I have not been exposed to an accurate sample of the population, that doesn't necessarily mean I'm close-minded. If I haven't ever seen an exception to what seems to be a rule (geek = male) then why would I make a preemptive exception? It'd be like making room in a toolbox for a Psionic Octarine Wave Lamp: I've never seen one before, so how would I know what it looks like?
I think the issue isn't that people impose these generic avatars, I think the concern is when a person refuses to change the features of that avatar.
Not sure what you mean - so now that you know I am a 38 year old man from Canada with Italian and Scottish parents that I should change my handle and pic to a red and white maple leaf playing soccer?.
I'm sorry, I was being too vague. By "avatar" I meant the mental picture we create of someone we don't know, or even of people we do know. Going back to the smoking mom idea: Now that I know you're a 38 year old Male Canadian with Italian and Scottish parents I could guess that you've heard of the Arrogant Worms, know what it's like to wait your turn in a hospital, and your parents held strong opinions. I'd never make the assumption that a Canadian likes hockey. I'm from Detroit and I know more Americans who like Hockey than Canadians however; I wouldn't think its wrong of an American from Georgia to make that leap.
...it helps me gauge the kind of response that is appropriate to the author.
Sure, I turn this a bit and say if the person gives no clues then they shouldn't be insulted if they are treated inappropriately (e.g. if you are 13, and I treat you as though you are a grown adult, don't blame me).
Yes! ...kind of.
There really isn't an excuse for treating someone inappropriately, such as reaming out an unknown poster for their comment. If it's obvious that that person should have known better, such as if I were to go and PhiDry that he doesn't know his ass for a hole in the ground, every time he posts a comment, I'd pretty much have it coming when he tells me just what I can do with my opinions. But if an unknown, or someone who's obviously new/young/ignorant posts something seriously off base, there's no need to over react.
Telling the line between the two is where applying stereotypes comes in.
And making mistakes with those stereotypes is where Steve's "A simple 'Actually, I'm...' and a 'D'oh! Noted.'" comes in.
And no, I don’t have any problems with PhiDry.
(edit = getting the quotes right0
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I would respectfully submit that if you're thinking of them as a man, then their gender (as you've presumed it) matters. Otherwise you would think of them as something else - human, maybe. Opponent. Friend. Conversant. Person. Irritating little twit. There are any number of non-gender specific ways to think about people.
I'm with Steve on the idealism of hoping people think of other people as people. I would never try to force someone into this mode, argue them into this mode, or legislate them into this mode.
I will not, however, accept the impossibility of it. Especially not based on the prevalence of stereotyping and making assumptions.
First, great post. For the most part I'm in 100% agreement with you, but I would like to present another perspective on this part:
(By the way, I'm using first person mostly in order to avoid dragging anyone else into my hypotheticals.)
If you're thinking of them as a man, then their gender (as you've presumed it) matters. Otherwise you would think of them as something else - human, maybe. Opponent. Friend.
I don't think this holds because the mental models are not exclusive of each other. I think it's perfectly natural to think of someone as male -- and human, and a friend, and bloody annoying when they get on the subject of Harry Potter, and a hundred other things.
I don't think it's sexist merely to have an image of you in my head as male or female. It's possible that not everyone maintains such images -- I don't know enough about anyone else's head to say -- but some people do, and I don't think it's wrong or unfortunate. I personally find it much easier to talk to people than to screen names, and when I think of you as a person I end up with a picture in my head. My pictures aren't usually of cloaked figures with dark hoods, so they're necessarily going to include gender.
It would be sexist and wrong if my image of you precluded treating you as a human being foremost, or influenced my communication such that I ended up talking primarily to the image in my head and forgot about you, the actual person. It would be equally bad if my holding the image prevented me from seeing the "real" you as revealed in your communication. (I put "real" in quotes because I don't think anyone fully reveals themselves in media like this. Still, it's far more real than others' mental models.)
There are times in conversation when it actually is important to the topic to treat the person I'm talking with as a man or woman. In such cases I should be especially careful not to address the image, but to rely on fact. (And if I lack facts from evidence, ask, or keep my mouth shut.) There are other times -- more frequent times -- when "friend" is the most important attribute for the context, or "Harry Potter snob," or whatever. The better we know someone, the more our mental image helps us address them properly. If we barely know them at all, then we shouldn't treat the image as having any practical value.
But simply having the image? I won't say it has no impact -- I'm not that naïve, everything we think has an impact on the way we communicate, and people do communicate differently based on gender assumptions along with many other factors -- but I don't think it's an affront against identity. And if it is, then there's not much I can do about it except try to keep my images up-to-date and remember that "person" is the only (mostly) safe assumption.
Am I making any sense here? Or am I the only one whose head works this way, or is my foot wedged deep in my throat now? >8-> (The lack of reply to my prior post has me wondering.)
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I agree with you and Anarkey - everyone seems to feel that having the image is not the problem, but holding onto it "too long" is bad.
Though, I'm still mulling over my response to Thaurismunths. The "stereotypes types are ok until I see an exception" I take from his post needs some thinking about.
And, frankly, I'm still waiting on palimpsest or hautdesert to chime in.
I also want to point out that I haven't seen comments about the impact of androgenous handle. I have no problem with them, but does anyone else think are they, in part, a contributer to this mental image creation/assumption we are talking about?
(The lack of reply to my prior post has me wondering.)
I find that a lack of comment implies agreement - most people only have energy for disagreement ;)
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How are other people responsible for my thoughts about them? And how is a group responsible for the opinion I hold about the individual for being a member of that group?
The only real two things I took minor issue with in this post.
First off, what a person does is directly responsible for your opinion of them (though not the only thing)! If I see someone kill someone else, or help someone in need, or rob someone, or eat too much, or whatever - their actions dictate my thoughts about them. Granted, we can control how we express it, but I think that a person's actions are as much responsible for how we view them as our own prejudices.
I'm afraid we're going to endlessly disagree on this point, fiveyear. Not a one of y'all, despite whatever stereotypes I'm hoarding about each, dictates my thoughts. You may be informing my thoughts, but unless I'm wrong about the Illuminati's Orbital Mind Control Lasers (Hail Eris!) you will not be dictacting anything inside my head.
Observations of people's actions are just that, observations. Any conclusions drawn from observations (I saw them pigging out at McDonald's, no wonder they're so fat) are the responsibility of the person that added the therefore, in other words, the person whose head they occur in.
I'm not on board with "the devil made me think it", even if the devil is another person behaving badly.
Secondly, I think it's more judging a person's willful inclusion in a group than the group itself that determines our opinion of an individual. We can't fault someone for being born a certain way. But as far as group dynamics go - if members of a group show a certain tendency we dislike, and the individual within that group is doing nothing to differentiate themselves from that sort of tendency, then I say we have all the right in the world to judge their inclusion in that group.
As a part of this conversation, I think you're going afield here. Thus far, we're talking mostly about groups that one cannot avoid being grouped in such as gender, age, race, etc. I can't pretend I'm fifteen if I'm sixty, no matter what. I don't think you're actually proposing that all sixty-year-olds act like fifteen-year-olds to show how un-sixty they are, so I'll save us that detour by simply pointing out that it's not always possible or desirable to distinguish oneself from the stereotyped group.
More to the point, though, I'm not buying that as a member of a certain group it's my responsibility to argue that I'm not like them, whether I have joined them myself or am grouped by someone using a stereotype. Goodness, the declamations would never end! Every vote, every purchase, every social affiliation would demand a sharp delineation of the exact sliver of the Venn diagram that didn't overlap. And to whom? How often? Maybe you have something else in mind, but your description of every Muslim screaming about terrorist bombers suggests to me an endless litany. That mental image went SF dystopic on me nigh instantly.
Show me someone who claims to have no preconceived notions, and I'll show you a liar.
In this we most certainly do agree. I don't know anyone here who has had the temerity to advance the claim that they have no preconceived notions. I haven't even heard anyone saying they're too good for stereotypes.
On the other hand, as I said before, just because a certain quality of human behavior is universal does not mean it is inevitable, or that it gets a free unexamined pass.
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I find that a lack of comment implies agreement - most people only have energy for disagreement ;)
In the general case I agree with you. I just want to make sure it's not a case of "Eley's being an ass, but we're not going to tell him so because he's Eley and he runs the joint."
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I don't think this is hard to overcome if no one inflates the degree of damage artificially. A reasonable person should be able to correct a mistaken model graciously, and to accept correction graciously. A simple "Actually, I'm..." and a "D'oh! Noted." should suffice in most situations.
Steve is exactly right, here. It's going to happen. As long as everybody handles it well, it really is no big deal.
It happened to me:
I understand that my handle doesn't betray my gender, but I still would prefer if you didn't assume I'm male.
Point taken. I apologize. ::hangs his head in shame::
I was corrected by palimpsest in an approprately polite way that got her point accross, I apologized, and we moved on. I'm glad something was said because, even though I felt stupid for having done it, it has made me change the way I respond on the forums.
I'm also not sure about using gender neutral pronouns. I think its fine if others do it, but it feels very awkward to use them myself.
(Side note: In his story Dream Engine, Tim Pratt uses the pronouns zie (he/she) and zir (his/her) when talking about a character who can transform to different species/genders. It was very effective for the story.)
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If you're thinking of them as a man, then their gender (as you've presumed it) matters. Otherwise you would think of them as something else - human, maybe. Opponent. Friend.
I don't think this holds because the mental models are not exclusive of each other. I think it's perfectly natural to think of someone as male -- and human, and a friend, and bloody annoying when they get on the subject of Harry Potter, and a hundred other things.
Sure. And that's fair: to think of a person in all the different ways you can and to use the way that serves the conversation at hand. Very practical. I, for one, have no problem being thought of as that-poster-who-is-pedantic-about-Borges (though it would probably hurt my feelings if I were just that-poster-who-is-pedantic).
But an evolving mental model is not a stereotype. And what we're talking about here is stereotypes. The purpose of the stereotype is to save you the work of the evolving mental model. So feeling obligated to label me male or female right off the bat, before you can really interact with me (and this label can be a visual image or it can simply be the label male) feels like stereotyping. There's a sort of implicit primacy to that label, in that we cannot function interactively until we've pinned it on each other one way or the other. That's the part that is a shame, to me.
I don't think it's sexist merely to have an image of you in my head as male or female.
No, but I would argue that to need to have an image in one's head as to whether one is male or female, is sexist. Because people are, as you've eloquently explained, tons of other things outside of their gender.
And I've encountered the inability to deal with people outside of gender contexts time and time again in online media. People want that question settled. They'll pester you about it, or make assumptions, or whatever, but they just can't handle a gender question mark. And why? Online media is one place where it has the possibility of not mattering, so why can't we let it not matter?
It's possible that not everyone maintains such images -- I don't know enough about anyone else's head to say -- but some people do, and I don't think it's wrong or unfortunate. I personally find it much easier to talk to people than to screen names, and when I think of you as a person I end up with a picture in my head. My pictures aren't usually of cloaked figures with dark hoods, so they're necessarily going to include gender.
Part of this may be explainable as a divergence in neurology. I am not a visual person, by and large, and I do actually work with labels in my head that are formless. Well, no, formless isn't right...but they aren't people, I guess, in the conventional sense. Like, in my head, J.R. is angular and steep (and she has her picture right there as her icon, but her picture is not my headsense of her) and palimpsest is like a pair of sewing needles, sharp and shiny. For you, Steve, I have a strong voice sense (I have an auditory memory) so I don't need other abstract stuff, but your voice translates to warm and evening. Your wife's voice says cheerful and dark, curly hair, though she may be neither in the flesh. Perhaps this doesn't work for other people and just confirms I'm a little strange, but there it is. (apologies, too, if my headsense of you is just wrong, wrong, wrong. My exposure is limited, after all).
It would be sexist and wrong if my image of you precluded treating you as a human being foremost, or influenced my communication such that I ended up talking primarily to the image in my head and forgot about you, the actual person.
Yeah, and I would argue that the need to settle that before you can "deal" with a person is a way of placing the gender foremost. And the amount of demanding of avatars that are explicit, that help people not make mistakes and that force people to declare themselves on this thread alone may be an indicator of how strong that need is.
But then, I don't require pictures in my head and I may be crazy for it. So who's to say?
(BTW, I specifically adressed your first post in my previous one, though I did not quote. I did agree, though. We aren't ignoring you, honest.)
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Sometimes silence means frustration. In this case, it meant frustration.
I am trained as a social anthropologist. Anarkey is right about the way stereotypes get formed. It's called confirmation bias. It means that if you have an idea that "all gay people are sexually promiscuous," you classify anyone who is gay but not sexually promiscuous as an exception.
My grandfather, who was a KKK member, believed there were "some Jews" who were okay -- invariably, the ones he knew well. The rest -- well, they were trying to corrupt society. (By the by, I'm ethnically Jewish on the other side.)
I am in no way responsible for your stereotypes.
Also, I will just reiterate the point. The idea that people class other people wrong is not, in and of itself, a terrible thing on an invidual basis. People are people. We make mistakes.
But, in aggregate, it creates a system where the default is male, white, heterosexual, and etcetera, and the rest of us are *other.*
Therefore, it's helpful to interrogate your assumptions. Will you never make mistakes? Of course you'll make mistakes. But how can raising one's awareness be a bad idea?
Why are WOMEN the ones who have to mark ourselves with ribbons? The "women are fewer on the internet" thing is a red herring. Women have to mark themselves with ribbons in everything. Animated characters, by default, ar egenerally male. Generally, you mark them as female with ribbons and eyelashes and lipstick. This, again, establishes male as the defalut, and female as the other, the marked state.
Writing could mean "people's writing" rahter than men's writing. Writing by women could also be "people's writing" rather than women's writing. But this is not the way we discuss writing.
When the default is white male identity politics, whiteness and maleness become invisible. Therefore, that writing can be called universal. It can be called canon. It can be elevated. 21 male names can be listed without either the interviewer or the interviewee commenting on it, because male is the invisible state, the unmarked state, the state of assumption. Women, the special state, can be edited out without notice. Cuz they're not writers, they're women writers. (See L. Timmel Duchamp's introduction to the collection of stories by Nicola Griffith published by Aqueduct Press. See her letter to James Tiptree in _Talking Back: Epistolary Fantasies_.)
The rest of us get tokenism. Octavia Butler and Samuel Delany put together on panels, not because they wrote in a similar fashion, but because they're both black (This from SD's mouth, by the by). Women writers experiencing the same, even though they're more than 50% of the general population.
I would encourage people to go back to the thread where J. R. Blackwell discussed how men's actions in stories are discussed with what "people" do, whereas women's are discussed about what "women" do.
Women are people.
Check.
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So if we are going to have "women's writing" and "black's writing" and "youth's writing" and "white's writing" and "men's writing" and "adult’s writing", doesn't it make sense that something needs to be the baseline? Something should be "writing writing".
So what should that baseline be and how do we choose it?
Human writing? Adult writing? Western writing, when you're in a western setting?
Or perhaps, writing could be writing, and then when it's grouped later, for acadeimc purposes, one could look at "black writing" -- the way one currently can look at "writing by people who were born in povertY" or "writing by Irish-Americans" or "writing by men who had mistresses." These aren't marked groups, but they comprise difference. Othering only takes place on some axes, and those axes generally mark power.
It's not coincidence that the groups that have always been in control are those groups which get to be the default. It's a way of consolidating and reinforcing power.
(Also, ditto Slic.)
**
_Writing the Other_ by Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward. Amazing book. Can not recommend it enough for anyone who takes writing seriously.
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All are equally sexist or racist in the absence of data.
Hi Steve,
I disagree with your proposal.
In order for all traits to be equally racist or sexist or whatever, all traits have to be equal in society. Your analysis leaves out power.
And again, I'm not arguing against mental models, as I believe I've noted several times. I am arguing against assuming your mental models are *correct*.
When I call people out by pointing out that I'm female, this is not "manufactured outrage." The idea that the default person is male is something that affects me in my life. It affects how I am perceived when I walk down the street, or when I enter into conversation with someone, or when I'm paid .75 cents on the male dollar, or when I attempt to publish work under my real name.
Your (generic you) mental avatar of me can be male, and at the same time, when you go to write about me, you can still say he or she. You can acknowledge your mental avatar is based on assumptions.
I have tried to use humor to point out that the default is not always correct. My hope is that it will create a bit of awareness next tiem that when someone wants to use a gender-specific pronoun, they'll be aware that the person they're addressing might not be the default male they're assuming.
Everyone makes mistakes about this kind of thing. Lord knows, I do too. But it's not "manufactured outrage" to call it out as the result of systems and assumptions. Nor is it "persecuting thoughtcrims." (Which, btw, we do all the time -- the difference between murder 1 and manslaughter is what was in the killer's head at the time.)
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Speaking as a writer, I think it's important to challenge, or at least be aware of, the automatic assumptions one makes. And nowhere, I'll argue, are we more prone to making assumptions than here in the textual world, where the only signifier of a person is a word and sometimes an icon. It's (to me at least) important to examine how my notions of gender affect my perception of a person or their writing and how it shapes my writing and the characters depicted therein. Race, class, and gender are all things that (again, imo) no one -- especially writers -- should assume are unchanging or monolithic entities.
I've been working with computers since 1980. I run an online game and usually use gender-neutral names online because there is a penalty attached to identifying yourself as female. It can come in the form of men harassing you because they want to netsex and assume that if you're on a BBS and female, that must be what you're all about. Or it can come in the form of having one's work, achievements, or coding ability automatically in question because of the lack of a cock. That's a bummer. And it's tiresome. And after a while you get a thick skin and just stop mentioning it because it's wearing to have to stick up for for what's important all the time. But it's still important. I don't manufacture outrage. I have it thrust upon me on a daily basis, and at a guess, I don't say anything 90% of the time because I've learned to choose my battles.
I groaned when someone asked me to read this thread because I've seen this fight fought over and over again, sometimes on my own game boards. So much of it involves the laborious task of introducing people to the terms of the discussion. If the pervasiveness of sexism and gender stereotyping in modern society is something that you find hard to perceive and you can't figure out what the fuss is all about but want to, then I humbly and wholeheartedly and with no snark whatsoever suggest going and reading a basic Women's Studies text and evaluating it for yourself to see whether or not any of it makes sense to you, rather than arguing about anecdotal evidence.
I second the recommendation of _Writing the Other_. It's a great book if you are interested in this sort of debate or even if you're just trying to work on your technique when depicting characters that fall outside a white male heterosexual norm.
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But an evolving mental model is not a stereotype. And what we're talking about here is stereotypes. The purpose of the stereotype is to save you the work of the evolving mental model. So feeling obligated to label me male or female right off the bat, before you can really interact with me (and this label can be a visual image or it can simply be the label male) feels like stereotyping. There's a sort of implicit primacy to that label, in that we cannot function interactively until we've pinned it on each other one way or the other. That's the part that is a shame, to me.
Right! Exactly. See, this is where the semantic difference between statistical likelihood and stereotype becomes really important.
A stereotype is not just something that a member of a certain group is more likely to be or do or have or whatever. A stereotype is rigid, and doesn't actually correlate with actual reality. Sometimes it does--but sometimes a stopped clock tells the right time, too.
"All Canadians like hockey" is a stereotype when, as anarkey's lazy Mexican example shows above, it is applied to all Canadians by the particular stereotype-posessor. (That is, the viewer, not the person viewed and being categorized.) And Canadians who don't like hockey are "exceptions" or just ignored completely. It may well be that statistics bear out the fact that many Canadians like hockey. Saying, with real knowledge of it, "That person is Canadian, and so they probably like hockey" is not stereotyping. Saying "That person is Canadian, so they must like hockey, and if they don't they're just an exception to the rule" is stereotyping.
That level of it is thoughtless but more or less harmless. But how about this one: Women talk more than men.
Sure, you say, everyone knows it. Why just look around you and you see women chattering and men not so much. Obviously women talk more than men, and the stereotype is just an expression of that statistical likelihood. But see, it's not true.
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003565.html (http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003565.html)
The thing is, stereotypes are not just statistical likelihoods. They are frames, perceptual filters that affect the way you organize information about other people, and that lead you to believe things about whole classes of people that are demonstrably untrue.
And yes, reading further, confirmation bias. Exactly.
As far as it being important to speak up and point out that you're not a member of the default class (insofar as doing so gives the lie to the stereotype), yes, I totally agree, slic. (Though I share anarkey's frustration with the idea that one needs to declare otherness at every juncture.) On the other hand, I think it's a shame that there's one supposedly "neutral" position (white, male, straight, etc.) that I need to constantly distinguish myself from. I have no problem with the fact that people are going to see my handle and assume things about me that aren't true, but I have a problem with the fact that those assumptions are overwhelmingly going to be "white, straight, male." And while I don't take offense at any given person's assumptions--I assume, maybe wrongly but I don’t think so, that any given person (in this case the posters here) make their assumptions with good intentions, and without meaning to offend or oppress--there's this thing I think needs changing about society--not about people making assumptions, but about the cultural framework that skews those assumptions--and so I intend to speak up, and make people aware of it. Because you can't question assumptions you don't realize are there.
It's not my intention to "be offended." It's my intention to point out something that a lot of people never even consider and that I think is important. I am not outraged by the members of this board, or outraged by mistaken assumptions about my gender--I know good and well that my gender can't be deduced from my handle, I know good and well that posters here are decent folks who would never dream of purposely offending me. I am outraged by the cultural conditions as a whole, certainly, and yes, Cat, exactly. And I want to change those conditions as much as I can. Pointing out the assumptions is one of the ways I act.
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When I call people out by pointing out that I'm female, this is not "manufactured outrage." The idea that the default person is male is something that affects me in my life.
My actual term was "offense," not "outrage," but I take your point. And for what it's worth, it was not my intention to imply that taking offense is artificial. I'm annoyed or offended when people get the wrong idea about me too. How annoyed/offended depends on their intent, whether they should have known better, how stupid their idea really was, etc. By "manufactured" (and I am not at all implying that you've done this) I meant magnifying the implied scale of the offense beyond the actual offense taken, and beyond the other person's ability to gracefully rectify.
Your (generic you) mental avatar of me can be male, and at the same time, when you go to write about me, you can still say he or she. You can acknowledge your mental avatar is based on assumptions.
You're absolutely right. These are things I try to do. And when I screw up, having it pointed out to me (politely, as you've done) does reinforce my likelihood of remembering the fragility of those models next time.
I have tried to use humor to point out that the default is not always correct.
I want to address this "default/other" duality for a moment. I think, when it comes to society at large, you're right. My observations conform with yours, although obviously you notice it more than I do. Still, I do try not to be stupid or self-deluded.
However. Regarding this community -- would it make any difference if I told you that when I see a post from a new figure that really catches my interest, my immediate mental model (in the absence of other data) usually has the poster as female?
That could be wishful thinking to a degree, a "man I wish there were more girls here" thing; but although it isn't entirely. The numbers don't bear it out if you sort by pure post volume. But I have access to more information than most people -- names on contest submissions, for instance -- so I know how many of the really good stories came from women. I can tell you it's disproportionate to the number of submissions from women. And I also know that in other writing communities (the Viable Paradise e-mail list, for instance) women are frequently the most active correspondents. That probably colors my perception.
In any case. For me, here, on this forum, for people who say things that are really interesting, my default seems to be female. You can call that sexist too if you wish, and I couldn't argue. But I thought it might interest you.
(Which, btw, we do all the time -- the difference between murder 1 and manslaughter is what was in the killer's head at the time.)
Minor aside, since it's off the track: in cases such as this, thought is an accessory to action. You're not actually prosecuting the thought, you're prosecuting the action. If I simply thought about killing someone, I could not be prosecuted. (Or at least, should not be.)
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You're not actually prosecuting the thought, you're prosecuting the action. If I simply thought about killing someone, I could not be prosecuted. (Or at least, should not be.)
You're right. I get used to the thoughtcrimes thing being used to argue against hate crimes legislation, so I pulled out that argument. You're correct that it's different here.
However. Regarding this community -- would it make any difference if I told you that when I see a post from a new figure that really catches my interest, my immediate mental model (in the absence of other data) usually has the poster as female? ... For me, here, on this forum, for people who say things that are really interesting, my default seems to be female. You can call that sexist too if you wish, and I couldn't argue. But I thought it might interest you.
I wouldn't necessarily call it sexist, for the same reason that I don't believe in reverse racism.
It does interest me. If nothing else, it's interesting because it operates in defiance of cultural norms. I'll have to think more about a sociological analysis of it. I don't have one off the bat.
I have been thinking an awful lot about what you say here though:
so I know how many of the really good stories came from women.
If my calculations from knowing people who entered the contest whose entries have not yet dropped are correct (and they may not be correct), at least 10 of the 21 finalists are by women. It looks to me, from a superficial overview, like this is a higher proportion of women than submitted to the contest. Which is interesting. Among other things, I don't think it could have happened without anonymous submissions.
There are a lot of questions about why something like that might happen... and why it doesn't happen in other venues. I have some theories (which have to do with how the subbing population self-selected), but I'll hold them for now.
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If my calculations from knowing people who entered the contest whose entries have not yet dropped are correct (and they may not be correct), at least 10 of the 21 finalists are by women. It looks to me, from a superficial overview, like this is a higher proportion of women than submitted to the contest.
I'm pretty sure it's more than ten, or at least it will be when Semifinal 7 wraps up. And yes, the percentage of submissions from women was considerably less -- probably more around 33%, although I haven't done a methodical count, and it'd be hard to say with certainty since names are all I have to go on.
Oh, and for what it's worth, our submissions editor Scott has been tracking the same trend in Escape Pod. The percentage of stories we buy from women is markedly higher than the percentage of submissions. I don't think that says anything at all about any social trends, because the selectors are too narrow a sample group (i.e., me and Scott) but at least I can produce statistical evidence that I think women are cool. >8-> How many men can say that?
Which is interesting. Among other things, I don't think it could have happened without anonymous submissions.
I'm not as certain about that as you are -- but then I take a lot of pride in the intelligence of the Escape Pod community, which may incline me towards naïve optimism. >8-> In any case, there's no control population for this particular experiment, so we can't advance beyond suppositions. A proper experiment could be constructed, say with the same group of stories presented to different populations of judges (one where the names are kept anonymous, one where stories are given the real author names, one where author names are randomized, etc.) but it wouldn't be trivial to set up.
There are a lot of questions about why something like that might happen... and why it doesn't happen in other venues. I have some theories (which have to do with how the subbing population self-selected), but I'll hold them for now.
I'd like to hear them sometime. Again, my only hypothesis comes down to "Escape Pod fans are smart and cool," and I acknowledge that's not a theory with much depth to it. >8->
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I don't think that says anything at all about any social trends, because the selectors are too narrow a sample group (i.e., me and Scott) but at least I can produce statistical evidence that I think women are cool.
You, Scalzi, Mamatas, and Jed Hartman. :)
Potentailly others.
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Since this thread inexplicably was my name as the person who started it, I feel I need at least say something.
For what's is worth, I have seen a lot of barriers and stereotypes breaking down over the last few decades. I commented in the "Heroes" thread that the show has multiple multi-racial couples and no one cares. Way back when, there was one on "The Jeffersons" and it was very controversial. In real life, I've noticed that, compared to when I was young, fewer and fewer of the people I see at work (I'm a software developer) are white guys. I started going to conventions around 1988. The last one I went to was in 2003. During that time, I noticed more and more women and more and more minorities from year to year. Even in internet forums, I notice more and more women (when I'm smart enough to notice gender :P )
So societal norms do change, just not very fast.
Just as an aside, here's something else I've noticed changing over time:
When I was young, if you shared an apartment with someone, it was usually someone of the same sex. If it wasn't, then everyone assumed you were "shacking up" and that was considered somewhat scandalous. Ten years later, if you shared an apartment with someone, it was probably someone of the opposite sex. Everyone still assumed you were having sex, but nobody cared. But, if you shared an apartment with someone of the same sex, they assumed you were gay and having sex and that was considered scandalous. Now, you could be sharing an apartment with anyone you want and nobody cares.
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So societal norms do change, just not very fast.
Definitely.
However, I don't think things will *keep* changing if people don't keep talking about it, and we haven't reached nirvana yet.
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You, Scalzi, Mamatas, and Jed Hartman. :)
Fine company, all of them. (Although Jed did reject one of my stories for Strange Horizons... Perhaps next time I should submit under "Stephanie Lee" and see what happens.) >8->
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Stephanie Lee.
That's pretty clever.
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I would also respectfully submit that one reason you may not personally see it as harmful is because it isn't damaging to you. (Not to imply that all people in the dominant classes see things one way, or that all people in opressed classes do either, but it's harder to see the system if you're at the top of it.)
When we reinforce "white male" as normal, as default -- and that *is* the cultural default -- then writing that's about women the way most writing is about men becomes "women's writing" whereas the writing that's about men the way most writing is, remains just "writing."
When we reinforce "white male" as normal, as default -- and that *is* the cultural default -- then politics that address the issues of black women become "identity politics" whereas the politics that address the issues of white men, which is most politics, is just "politics."
This is called "othering." It's not cool.
I have only skimmed the rest of the thread, so forgive me if the horse I'm about to beat is dead, but this post said something that really bothered me. While I don't want to single out Palimpsest (I see similar arguments made in similar settings all the time) it seems a touch mean-spirited for someone who hides behind an obscured identity in a forum like this to jump out and say, "Ah-ha! You assumed I was just like you, and because you happen to belong to the Traditional Dominant Majority, that makes you culturally insensitive!"
Palimpsest's point about "othering" is valid, but that was not what Slic seemed to be saying. Rather, when he pictures someone with interests similar to his, he pictures someone who looks like himself. The reason he doesn't see it as harmful is because in his mind, he is relating to someone as an equal; when that person turns out NOT to be a mirror image of himself, does he treat them any differently? My impression, based on his comments in this forum, is that he probably does not.
Of course, that's how I would behave, and since I don't know Slic, I'm projecting to fill in the blanks.
But my point is that while there is a great deal of race- and gender-based discrimination in the world, white males are just as likely to be suffering from it as anyone else. Our ancestors did have some pretty stupid notions about superiority and class and the "way of the world", but most of the white males I know are pretty pleased to have been relieved of the white man's burden, and would just like to hang out with the rest of y'all without having to walk on eggshells all the time. (We would also like to have as much money as everyone seems to assume we do, but that's another topic altogether.)
As for combating "othering", I think it is more important these days to get away from trying to treat everyone as if they were the same, and start to celebrate our differences. As SF/fantasy fans, I think we all have an edge on the rest of society in THAT department. I'm not surprised to see the stats on the numbers of women in the contest, but I have been surprised at which stories were written by whom. If I recall, one of my stories had a few people fooled with regard to the author's gender. But I highly suspect that, at least in this arena, discovering the "real" identity of your favorite author falls more into the "interesting side-note" category than the "earth-shattering revelation" category.
*Note: While trying to compose a thoughtful and non-inflammatory post, I have developed a new bias against "small humans who insist on screaming at each other while their daddy is trying to write". I hope that my annoyance with that group has not unduly influenced my tone. Cheers!
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True confession time:
I "walk on eggshells" all the time. I'm so terrified that I'm going to offend someone (which is the last thing I want to do) either by what I say or do or don't say or don't do, that I find myself avoiding certain strangers just because I'd rather stay away from them then run the risk of accidentally doing something culturally stupid or offensive due to my own ignorance. Yes, I know that sounds pathetic. It is pathetic, but I have gotten better about it in the last few years. However, it's mostly because my ever-hardening heart of stone cares less and less about what other people think of me, especially people I don't actually know. And yes, I know it's hard to get to know people that are different from you when all you do is try to avoid them, but it still happens, and I'm making conscious effort to overcome this because I don't want my daughter to grow up with the same anxieties that I have. So far, she hasn't, but she's a better person than I am anyway. :P
Now in a text-only online forum, I don't have as much of a problem because half the time I can't get very much information from a screen-name anyway. Some of the screen names I have seen look like they came from a random letter password generator. (I'm sure they mean something. I'm just too oblivious to know what that is.) It's hard to worry about offending someone when you have no sense of what they are like. I can say what I think or what I feel and the biggest fear is just that I might sound stupid. Well, I've been through a lot worse things than looking stupid, so I'm not so afraid of that.
Now back to the topic:
There's two things that always come up in these discussions that always bug me. One is that sometimes people want everyone to be the same. They aren't. People can be equal under the law. People can be of equal intrinsic worth. People can be granted the same opportunities, but no two people are the same. Everyone is different. Everyone has different talents and tastes and histories and families and values. Race and gender are part of what makes a person who they are. Why should we deny that? I'm not saying we should use stereotypes. Stereotypes make lots of assumptions about people based on just a few facts you happen to know about the individual. Most of the assumptions are wrong most of the time. (Other people have covered this better than me already, so I'll leave it at that.)
Another thing is when people stand up and claim they are proud of their gender and/or ethnicity. That's part of the KKK stereotype. "I'm proud to be a white man!" Why are you proud? Do you have anything to do with it? No! I say be proud of what you have accomplished. Be proud that you graduated from high school. Be proud that you graduated from college. Be proud that you got a promotion or a raise. Be proud that you've been happily married for ten years. Be proud when your children do something wonderful (you did have a part in raising and teaching them). Be proud that you entered a story in the escape pod contest and it made it to the semi-finals. Heck, be proud that you drove to work this morning and made it there on time, but don't be proud of something you had no hand in. That's like being proud because you bought a winning lottery ticket.
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it seems a touch mean-spirited for someone who hides behind an obscured identity in a forum like this to jump out and say, "Ah-ha! You assumed I was just like you, and because you happen to belong to the Traditional Dominant Majority, that makes you culturally insensitive!"
Tad, to be honest, this offends me. It's mean-spirited of you to assume this is my motivation, especially when I've explained my motivation elsewhere.
Palimpsest's point about "othering" is valid, but that was not what Slic seemed to be saying. Rather, when he pictures someone with interests similar to his, he pictures someone who looks like himself. The reason he doesn't see it as harmful is because in his mind, he is relating to someone as an equal; when that person turns out NOT to be a mirror image of himself, does he treat them any differently? My impression, based on his comments in this forum, is that he probably does not.
Fine. And what's hard about not calling me male, if you don't know? What's hard about questioning your assumptions? That's all anyone has asked.
But my point is that while there is a great deal of race- and gender-based discrimination in the world, white males are just as likely to be suffering from it as anyone else.
Do you have evidence for this? I have evidence to back up that it's not true. Women are paid less than men. Black people are paid less than whites. Asians are paid less than whites.
Women and minorities are underrepresented in government, in top corporate positions -- down to genre magazines.
What systemic prejudice is there against white men? Stats, please.
most of the white males I know are pretty pleased to have been relieved of the white man's burden, and would just like to hang out with the rest of y'all without having to walk on eggshells all the time.
I'd love you to be free of the white man's burden too. But in the meantime, we live in a country where infant mortality is fantastically higher if you happen not to be white, and where poverty is a heritable condition through the female line.
White men have privelege. I, as a white woman, have privelege. As a white woman with parents who make much more than the statistical norm, I have even more privelege.
That means my way is eased in many things. It means I can go to college without debt. It means I didn't have to work my way through high school to keep groceries on the table. It means that I can be at this MFA program. It means that I could afford to go to one of the seven sisters for my undergraduate education, and that I could leave to find another school when it became intolerable.
It means that I can look at characters on television and see their whiteness as my own. It means I don't have to be ashamed of my skin, or worry about "paper bag tests." It means I don't have to know that I'm part of a demographic that is least likely to marry in the country. It means if I get raped by a white man, I won't have to worry about people refusing to believe me because "black women aren't attractive enough to get raped by white men." It means I don't have to listen to people call me unhygeinic, or listen to teh racist theories of teh bell curve masquerading under the guise of science to say that intelligence only evolved in European climes. It means if I get raped by a black man, I don't have to fear reporting because of the historical clubs that have been used to hit black men over and over, calling them sexually deviant and animalistic. It means that, because of my race, my presence in porn is not automatically "a fetish." It means that my grandparents didn't have to smile more than the normal population, in order to seem subservient. It means I don't have to worry about inviting white people into my space.
As a man, you get priveleges. You get to not be constructed as a victim. You get to be the default in your gender. You get to see media representations of yourself in successful positions, as three-dimensional characters, scattered everywhere. If you go out drinking, no one will say you are asking for rape. If you do get raped, people will say that it's worse on you than for a woman, as a prominent rape activist recently said about men who are raped. If you go to work and need to take time off for your children, you will be seen as a family man who is responsible, where women who do the same are frequently seen as having their attentions unhealthily divided between family and home.
(We would also like to have as much money as everyone seems to assume we do, but that's another topic altogether.)
No one said individual white men are rich. I said that white men, as a class, make more money and are more represented than women and minorities, as classes.
But I highly suspect that, at least in this arena, discovering the "real" identity of your favorite author falls more into the "interesting side-note" category than the "earth-shattering revelation" category.
I can understand where it's an interesting side note to you. But I live in a world where most of the time when I read lists of people's favorite authors, almost all, if not all of them are male, way out of proportion to the general population, and even out of proportion to the publications. I live in a world where men are more likely to get long reviews in locus, to be nominated for several of the major awards, and make it onto the table of contents of the big three magazines. I live in a world where most publications receive far fewer submissions by women then men, and then *publish percentages even less than that*. I live in a world where Harper's magazine publishes seven men to every woman, where 6 of their last twelve issues had no women writers in them at all.
But, in an anonymous contest, you take our bylines off, and women represent half the final contestants? That's interesting. For someone whose career may be impeded by sexism, it's very interesting indeed.
For someone whose career won't be? For someone whose gender allows them to be the subject of "universal" literature? For someone for whom this is a hobby? Maybe this is an interesting side-note.
But perhaps you can see why it's more than that to me.
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I have only skimmed the rest of the thread, so forgive me if the horse I'm about to beat is dead, but this post said something that really bothered me. While I don't want to single out Palimpsest (I see similar arguments made in similar settings all the time) it seems a touch mean-spirited for someone who hides behind an obscured identity in a forum like this to jump out and say, "Ah-ha! You assumed I was just like you, and because you happen to belong to the Traditional Dominant Majority, that makes you culturally insensitive!"
You are misrepresenting Palimpsest's point.
It is not the mistaken assumption that is being called out here. It's the fact that without any other markers, a person is assumed to be male. It is not the fact that you had a fifty-fifty chance to get it right and picked wrong--it's the fact that you theoretically have a fifty-fifty chance, but in reality the vast majority of people are going to assume maleness if there is no other data.
It is not a question of someone assuming that others are like themselves. It is a question of assuming that others are male, white, and straight no matter what they, themselves are. You happen to be male, and so you aren't seeing it from that angle.
Once again, the offense is not in having guessed wrong. I'm really not sure how to state it more clearly, frankly. This is absolutely not a question of someone hiding behind a neutral handle and then jumping out and yelling "gotcha!"
Here, look at it like this. Pretend I've just drawn a stick figure--you know, standard, default thing, a line for a body, circle for a head, lines for arms and legs. Now, I go and ask people to tell me about the stick figure. Is it a man or a woman? What are most people going to answer?
You and I, and anyone who thinks about it know that the stick figure is genderless, there's no way to know one way or the other if it's male or female. But most people will quickly tell you that it's male, and will only recognize one drawn with, say, a triangle body as female.
The genderless, unmarked, undistinguished figure is assumed to be male--not just by men. It's the default, "normal" state. This carries over into everything, and the end result is that things that are "male" centered are considered unmarked, plain, default and universal, and anything that's feminine is different, particular, not universal.
It is not that your assumption in particular is offensive, it is that it is part of a much larger tendency that sustains a patently unjust system.
But my point is that while there is a great deal of race- and gender-based discrimination in the world, white males are just as likely to be suffering from it as anyone else.
Okay, I'm going to have to be completely honest about this. No, white males are not just as likely to be suffering from it as anyone else. This is not to say that white males are all guilty and should be walking around in sackcloth and ashes doing pennance or anything, but really, be aware of the fact that every white male in the US--every single one--benefits from being white and male. You benefit in ways that are most likely completely invisible to you, so automatic in your life that you take them as completely routine, like the air around you.
I benefit from being white and straight, in the same ways, but every day of my life I run up against the ways I am disadvantaged because I am not male. I can't make myself not white, or not straight, I can't avoid the privelege those states give me, but I can be aware of the fact that I have that privelege, and not get defensive when I'm called on it. I can try to be aware of the actions and thought patterns in myself that might serve to reinforce a situation I know is inequitable.
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Hi Clint,
I appreciate your willingness to discuss your anxiety in this forum. Thank you.
Race and gender are part of what makes a person who they are. Why should we deny that?
I'm not sure whether you think I'm arguing this. It's not somethign I believe. If you can point me to places which seem to indicate this is my perspective, I'd be happy to discuss it with you. :)
Another thing is when people stand up and claim they are proud of their gender and/or ethnicity. That's part of the KKK stereotype. "I'm proud to be a white man!" Why are you proud? Do you have anything to do with it? ... That's like being proud because you bought a winning lottery ticket.
I think this is very well put.
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Okay, I've just thought of a metaphor that may express what I'm trying to describe.
It's like we're all fish. We swim in water--we breathe it! But you don't even notice it, like air, as I said earlier.
and some fish are stuck up on the beach at low tide shouting "I'm having a hard time, I can barely breathe, there's not enough water!"
And some other fish are swimming around in the ocean saying, "You don't have enough what? What the heck is it you're complaining about? I have a hard time too, look at these other bigger fish that might eat me!" But that doesn't change the fact that they've got water to breathe, and the other fish don't. And if they could only *see* what the problem was--if they could actually see that they're breathing water, something they never think about, they might be able to figure out some way to be helpful, but as it is they're just swimming around trying to figure out why these other fish are getting upset about nothing.
I'm not demanding apologies and pennance, or getting offended. I'm just saying--look at the water you're breathing, question the assumptions.
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I want to be clear that while I did find elements of your post offensive, Tad, I don't think that's the worst thing in the world. We're talking about politics, after all; it's better to offend in discussion than to let these issues fester without ever bringing them to the light of day. I just want to make sure you know that I'm offended by your positions, but not about to toss you out with the bathwater, if that makes any sense.
And I want to make that clear to anyone else reading, too, in case you're afraid to speak because you know I or someone else will be offended. One reason that race and gender relations are so fraught in this country is that people don't discuss them.
Even on minor points about sexism: I've read a lot of internet threads where women talk about the street harrassment they face in big cities like New York, where it's very common to be physically groped -- people counting on women's social training to be passive as the man caresses her breast in a public space. As three or four hundred women share identical experiences, invariably a man comes to the discussion and says, "I didn't realize that happened so much. I didn't realize it was so pervasive." If we don't talk about that, then how can we get to the bigger stuff?
On the race front, I can remember at times being stunned by what I've been told by friends of mine who are black -- for instance, having people spit in their faces because they're holding hands with a white person. Oh my God, I think, does stuff like that still happen? You mean it happens to you regularly?
It's hard to see these things when you are a member of the dominant class. There are a lot of systems that keep them beneath our radar. But they happen. And if we're too scared to talk about race and gender for fear of offending -- me offending you, you offending me -- how can they ever come to light?
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Hi Clint,
I appreciate your willingness to discuss your anxiety in this forum. Thank you.
Your welcome
Race and gender are part of what makes a person who they are. Why should we deny that?
I'm not sure whether you think I'm arguing this. It's not somethign I believe. If you can point me to places which seem to indicate this is my perspective, I'd be happy to discuss it with you. :)
I'm not saying that you or anyone else said that specifically in this conversation. I'm just saying that whenever I've had this type of conversation with a
group of people in the past, someone does say something like that. They want to treat everyone as if they came out of the same cookie cutter mold.
Another thing is when people stand up and claim they are proud of their gender and/or ethnicity. That's part of the KKK stereotype. "I'm proud to be a white man!" Why are you proud? Do you have anything to do with it? ... That's like being proud because you bought a winning lottery ticket.
I think this is very well put.
Thanks.
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And I want to make that clear to anyone else reading, too, in case you're afraid to speak because you know I or someone else will be offended. One reason that race and gender relations are so fraught in this country is that people don't discuss them.
I guess I'm the poster child for that. :P
Even on minor points about sexism: I've read a lot of internet threads where women talk about the street harrassment they face in big cities like New York, where it's very common to be physically groped -- people counting on women's social training to be passive as the man caresses her breast in a public space. As three or four hundred women share identical experiences, invariably a man comes to the discussion and says, "I didn't realize that happened so much. I didn't realize it was so pervasive." If we don't talk about that, then how can we get to the bigger stuff?
On the race front, I can remember at times being stunned by what I've been told by friends of mine who are black -- for instance, having people spit in their faces because they're holding hands with a white person. Oh my God, I think, does stuff like that still happen? You mean it happens to you regularly?
It's hard to see these things when you are a member of the dominant class. There are a lot of systems that keep them beneath our radar. But they happen. And if we're too scared to talk about race and gender for fear of offending -- me offending you, you offending me -- how can they ever come to light?
Well, I think you are listing two examples of "a small minority ruining it for everyone." Why do I say that? I've never seen someone spit in anyone else's face for any reason and I've never seen anyone do anything that nasty to another person just because they were of another race. I don't remember ever seeing a guy grope a girl on the street. Maybe I just hang out with better people than that. Seriously, most guys don't do things like that, only the jerks.
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Sure.
But that's how privelege works. When I go out with my parnter who is the same race and opposite sex, we don't get harrassed. If I went out with a partner who was the same sex, I might get harrassed.
Just because only a small minority does hte harrassment doens't mean that life isn't significanlty harder for poeple wo get harrassed.
And again, these are manifestations of sexism and racism within a larger framework. These are overt. Others are more subtle. It all works together in a system.
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Does it matter if one assumes another is the same gender or another race, especially if the avatar in question doesn't give any hints one way or the other?
Yes. It matters.
It matters because it reinforces defaults. It reinforces that the "standard" person is male or white or whatever. That's just not true, and it's offensive, and it's part of what creates and reinforces systems of sexism, racism, etc.
I don't see how it "reinforces" defaults.
When a new name pops up on the forum they have a blank slate, but that slate gets filled quickly.
The most obvious trait is usually gender, it's an issue with very little grey area: You have an innie or an outtie, and if you fall in-between you probably identify one way or the other (but that’s a rude topic to inquire on). Exceptions to this are uncommon enough that I handle them on case-by-case bases.
Next is age/intelligence based on how well the person writes and the kind of subject material they discuss or include. Unlike gender this has a LOT of grey, and is swayed by age, education, and nationality, but some of the information included can be used to tailor your view of the author. You can't remove your voice from your writings so there are always indicators that can be used to form a picture of the author.
I don't often look for more than that, unless someone tips their hand revealing their nationality, race, etc.
Reinforcing a stereotype is something done by members of the stereotyped class. If I thought that all geeks online are male, and met only male geeks online, the stereotype would be reinforced. If I thought that all single moms smoke cigarettes, and all the single moms I met smoke cigarettes, then the stereotypes would be reinforced. So, what if I met a geek online, and they never gave any clues about their gender, and their gender never became an issue, how would it matter if I thought of them as a man?
How about if I met a woman on-line who was a single mom, and she never gave clues about her smoking preferences, how would it change things if I never found out and it never became an issue?
I think the issue isn't that people impose these generic avatars, I think the concern is when a person refuses to change the features of that avatar.
I look for these clues so I have an understanding on how relate with the poster, author, or story. By forming a mental picture of who wrote what, I can guess at what their intentions were and I try to put myself in their shoes. From there I can better appreciate where they're coming from and hopefully better relate my thoughts to them. In terms of this contest it helps me gauge the kind of response that is appropriate to the author.
Also, how is it any different/better to use a blank avatar on a person who expresses clues about themselves than it is to apply a textured avatar on a person who doesn’t express clues?
In short, you can tell a person from the words they use? For example, if you were to look through my past comments, would you know who I am?
Maybe, in some land distant, there is a government agency monitoring everything written on the web... And deducing who you are, how old you are, what gender you are, and what profession you have. That's a disturbing thought. This agency could then potentially control a good portion of the population... That sounds very SF, but seriously. How far are we from such a totalitarian rule, how long before we are all pawns in an agencies game? We wouldn't even know.
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I just discovered this thread and thought it would be an interesting discussion to me since I was an Anthropology major. After browsing through, still interesting but not what I expected, exactly- much more personal. It reminds me more of some work I did after I graduated. I got a job in the Campus Relations department of the university, and we put on a conference called "What is White?" We brought in academics from all over the country to discuss race issues, not just from the "White" perspective. But it is important to define "White". . .
Anyway, Clint's feelings are not uncommon at all. The cultural landscape has changed a lot. There's a lot of cultural knowledge he grew up with that is now widely considered wrong- a lot of that very subtle stuff, too. He does not have all the cultural knowledge to comfortably navigate the increasingly multicultural world we live in, and it's not easy to obtain it.
The text only forum makes things even more dangerous, I think. Things are deceptively homogeneous looking. You're even more likely to misstep (I know I have, but not necessarily on ethnic or gender issues). When I post, I'm acutely aware of this lack of knowledge.
True confession time:
I "walk on eggshells" all the time. I'm so terrified that I'm going to offend someone (which is the last thing I want to do) either by what I say or do or don't say or don't do, that I find myself avoiding certain strangers just because I'd rather stay away from them then run the risk of accidentally doing something culturally stupid or offensive due to my own ignorance. Yes, I know that sounds pathetic. It is pathetic, but I have gotten better about it in the last few years. However, it's mostly because my ever-hardening heart of stone cares less and less about what other people think of me, especially people I don't actually know.
. . .
Now in a text-only online forum, I don't have as much of a problem because half the time I can't get very much information from a screen-name anyway.
. . .
Now back to the topic:
There's two things that always come up in these discussions that always bug me. One is that sometimes people want everyone to be the same. . . . Race and gender are part of what makes a person who they are. Why should we deny that? . . .
Another thing is when people stand up and claim they are proud of their gender and/or ethnicity. That's part of the KKK stereotype. "I'm proud to be a white man!" Why are you proud? Do you have anything to do with it? No! I say be proud of what you have accomplished. Be proud that you graduated from high school. Be proud that you graduated from college. Be proud that you got a promotion or a raise. Be proud that you've been happily married for ten years. Be proud when your children do something wonderful (you did have a part in raising and teaching them). Be proud that you entered a story in the escape pod contest and it made it to the semi-finals. Heck, be proud that you drove to work this morning and made it there on time, but don't be proud of something you had no hand in. That's like being proud because you bought a winning lottery ticket.
Clint,
For an oppressed group to claim pride in being a member of that group, particularly if they are using the term (e.g., Black) that the dominant group historically used to identify them (as opposed to the way they would have identified themselves), they are effectively taking ownership of that the term or the image that used to be used against them. Does this sometimes have negative repercussions, too? I think that it can, especially if it goes too far and becomes violent hatred. Is this a double standard? Perhaps, but that perspective fails to appreciate what's going on.
Can you say you're proud to be a white man? Certainly, that can be problematic. White is a term historically used by the group in power to distinguished themselves. Being White does not fit with my identity, although that's how people identify me. White does not come close to reflecting my cultural ties and heritage. But there are other people who want take ownership of the term, "White", in a positive way. I don't have a problem with that, and I go along with being categorized as White out of convention. However, White just doesn't have that much meaning for me in relation to how I identify myself culturally.
In your case, Clint, I wouldn't worry too much about the pride in identity thing. You may find it helpful to try and understand where folks are coming from, accept it, and leave it at that. You don't have to agree with it to tolerate and accept it.
Speaking as someone who has a happy cross-cultural marriage, grew up in a multi-ethnic community, and speaks 2 foreign languages, and earned a Bachelors in Sociocultural Anthropology, there are too many cultural rules to learn. You'll never learn everything you'll need to know to avoid offending anyone. However, if you can manage to make a personal connection with whomever you're interacting with, and if you can be humble about it, there's nothing wrong with asking others to be tolerant of your own ignorance and misunderstanding. This doesn't guarantee they will forgive you. But, in my experience, most people will cut you some slack. When they don't, just exercise that attitude you've been cultivating: decide you don't care what they think of you.
As to your comment that race and gender are what we are, race and gender are actually social constructs. They are often equated to biological realities, but they are not one and the same. We are our genotype, we are whatever sex we are, but race and gender are not nearly written in stone. The world's cultures differ greatly in how the races are defined- our notion of Black, White, Hispanic, Asian, Indian, etc., are far from universal. Our notion that race is a static characteristic is not even universal. And race is not a valid scientific category because there is more genetic variation of physical characteristics within the socially defined races as there are between them.
Sex (male vs. female) is irreversible (although cosmetic surgical changes can be made, and hormones can be taken)- sex is a biological constant. However, Gender is a social construct, how we define the norms of Man and Woman. While these two genders are mostly universal (I've heard of at least one culture that defined 4 genders), the way the genders are defined is not universal, either. There are a lot of commonalities across many cultures, but it would be too much to call these universals, or so I've learned.
So, strictly speaking, choosing your identity is something the individual does. Also, an individual can be proud of their heritage, judging it to be noble even when others question it. They can be proud to publicly acknowledge their heritage, even when others deem it to be unworthy. This is a good way to look at people who say they are proud to be of one race or another, one gender or another. If they manage to do it without judging me negatively for being different (and I've known some who can't), well, I'm proud of them, too.
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As the person who jump started the thread, I would like to clarify that Tad is quite right about the point I was trying to raise. My comments were based on the these quotes from palimpsest.
My ideal would be people thinking before assuming the next person they meet online is what they expect them to be. :)
So it's impossible to keep an open mind about what someone else's attributes are?
I was wondering/saying that using a blank handle, like using just your initals (a la D.C. Fontanta, C.S. Friedman, etc), is part, contributes to continuing these sterotypes.
However, even though palimpsest's point may not have been directed staight at my point, it's unfair to tell Tad that he miscontrued your motivation - the context was there. Yes, palimpsest, you definitely outlined your point clearly later on, but three pages of posting is alot to go through.
The thread took a bit of more general turn than I had intended, and I was fine with that. However, I raised the point again:
I also want to point out that I haven't seen comments about the impact of androgenous handle. I have no problem with them, but does anyone else think are they, in part, a contributer to this mental image creation/assumption we are talking about?
And since it still got no traction, I let it fall away. So, being the annoying pest, I'll explain my point another way:
Someone mentioned the lack of response from the general public about mixed-race couples on TV now - would this be happened as quickly if shows like Star Trek (in general, Kirk kissing Uhura, specifically) or the Jeffersons hid it away - had it off camera?
As for the "white man" not suffering, well, I will agree with palimpsest's points as to what I don't suffer from, but I will also raise the point that ours is a different burden. We are excluded, blamed, harrassed when we don't follow the "path" society lays out for us.
But again, I agree that it's a matter of degrees, our path is quite a bit wider than others. There was a scene from a really old Law and Order that raised this point and really stuck with me - to paraphrase "An influential white man can go through life having ancillary contact with blacks [or others] if he so wishes, not true for an influential black man [or white woman, etc.]." And since I'm delving into pop culture examples, the movie, White Man's Burden, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114928/ also did a great job of making me aware of "what water/air I'm breathing. The main plot is passable enough, but it's paying close attention to all the background stuff, every billboard has a black person, the main superhero pantheon is all black, etc., that clearly makes the movie's point.
I would also like to say that from what I've read of the other posters, it seems we are preaching to the converted for the most part - that Tad also made a good point in that the Sci-Fi crowd is much more open to the different than other people (is that sterotype or statistical liklihood ;))
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Clint,
For an oppressed group to claim pride in being a member of that group, particularly if they are using the term (e.g., Black) that the dominant group historically used to identify them (as opposed to the way they would have identified themselves), they are effectively taking ownership of that the term or the image that used to be used against them.
I hadn't thought of that, but I can see where it could be a good thing. Just make sure that's not the only thing you have to be proud of, or the thing that you are most proud of.
Does this sometimes have negative repercussions, too? I think that it can, especially if it goes too far and becomes violent hatred. Is this a double standard? Perhaps, but that perspective fails to appreciate what's going on.
Can you say you're proud to be a white man? Certainly, that can be problematic. White is a term historically used by the group in power to distinguished themselves. Being White does not fit with my identity, although that's how people identify me. White does not come close to reflecting my cultural ties and heritage. But there are other people who want take ownership of the term, "White", in a positive way. I don't have a problem with that, and I go along with being categorized as White out of convention. However, White just doesn't have that much meaning for me in relation to how I identify myself culturally.
What's funny to me is that, being "white", I feel like I don't have really any cultural heritage. i.e. I'm nothing special. Maybe it's just because I breathe it all the time (as someone put it) that I don't realize it's there.
In your case, Clint, I wouldn't worry too much about the pride in identity thing. You may find it helpful to try and understand where folks are coming from, accept it, and leave it at that. You don't have to agree with it to tolerate and accept it.
I have no problem with people saying "I started life with all these disadvantages and look how far I've come." In fact, I applaud them. Their "degree of difficulty" in life is much higher than mine and to see them accomplish great things makes me admire them that much more.
Speaking as someone who has a happy cross-cultural marriage, grew up in a multi-ethnic community, and speaks 2 foreign languages, and earned a Bachelors in Sociocultural Anthropology, there are too many cultural rules to learn. You'll never learn everything you'll need to know to avoid offending anyone. However, if you can manage to make a personal connection with whomever you're interacting with, and if you can be humble about it, there's nothing wrong with asking others to be tolerant of your own ignorance and misunderstanding. This doesn't guarantee they will forgive you. But, in my experience, most people will cut you some slack. When they don't, just exercise that attitude you've been cultivating: decide you don't care what they think of you.
I've always thought that in the unlikely even that I ever get stranded on a plant inhabited by aliens and I have a universal translator, the first words out of my mouth will be "Let me apologize in advance for all the stupid and offensive things I'm likely to do. I know nothing about you but I mean you no offense and no harm."
Sex (male vs. female) is irreversible (although cosmetic surgical changes can be made, and hormones can be taken)- sex is a biological constant. However, Gender is a social construct, how we define the norms of Man and Woman. While these two genders are mostly universal (I've heard of at least one culture that defined 4 genders), the way the genders are defined is not universal, either. There are a lot of commonalities across many cultures, but it would be too much to call these universals, or so I've learned.
hmm.....I've never heard gender defined that way, but it does make sense.
So, strictly speaking, choosing your identity is something the individual does. Also, an individual can be proud of their heritage, judging it to be noble even when others question it. They can be proud to publicly acknowledge their heritage, even when others deem it to be unworthy. This is a good way to look at people who say they are proud to be of one race or another, one gender or another. If they manage to do it without judging me negatively for being different (and I've known some who can't), well, I'm proud of them, too.
I think there's nothing wrong with saying "I'm black and there is nothing wrong with that. Look at the great things black people have done." People who put other people down because of race or gender are just wrong and they need to be shown to be wrong.
Your childhood was obviously very different than mine. I spent my first 11 years in a little town in western Massachusetts. The school I went to had exactly one person who was not white - and she was something of a celebrity, though I didn't know her. My opinions of black men were formed entirely by actors I saw on TV - Bill Cosby, Flip Wilson, the guy on the Mod Squad (Lincoln Hayes?), the guy on Hogan's Heroes (Ivan Dixon?) and the guy on Mission Impossible (Greg Morris?), with the occasional guest star on Star Trek. So I thought all black men were all cool, brilliant and sometimes funny.
then I moved to Kentucky were racism was pretty rampant...and I just didn't get it. To a lesser extent, I was also a target being a "yankee". I didn't really feel comfortable living here until after high school.
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However, even though palimpsest's point may not have been directed staight at my point, it's unfair to tell Tad that he miscontrued your motivation - the context was there. Yes, palimpsest, you definitely outlined your point clearly later on, but three pages of posting is alot to go through.
The context was there for a lot of things. If you thought it was mean-spirited, maybe you should think about why that is.
I also want to point out that I haven't seen comments about the impact of androgenous handle. I have no problem with them, but does anyone else think are they, in part, a contributer to this mental image creation/assumption we are talking about?
No.
Not unless your androgynous handle is equally problematic. And in fact, it is more transgressive for me to refuse to mark my gender, when my gender is non-default, than it is for you to mark yours.
Someone mentioned the lack of response from the general public about mixed-race couples on TV now - would this be happened as quickly if shows like Star Trek (in general, Kirk kissing Uhura, specifically) or the Jeffersons hid it away - had it off camera?
You're assuming that I am hiding my identity off camera.
Are you hiding your identity off camera by not putting a male identifier in your name?
you're holding me to a different standard than you hold yourself to, Slic. You're buying into the idea that woman is other, and indeed asking me to specifically other myself at every turn. I ask you to remember that people online can be male or female; you reply that I should make my gender obvious so you don't have to think about it?
Not buying.
As for the "white man" not suffering, well, I will agree with palimpsest's points as to what I don't suffer from, but I will also raise the point that ours is a different burden. We are excluded, blamed, harrassed when we don't follow the "path" society lays out for us.
I'm not excluded, blamed, or harrassed when I don't follow the path society lays out for me? If I am, and I believe I am, than I don't see how your burden is "different."
I would also like to say that from what I've read of the other posters, it seems we are preaching to the converted for the most part - that Tad also made a good point in that the Sci-Fi crowd is much more open to the different than other people (is that sterotype or statistical liklihood )
No, I think the SF community likes to pat itself on the back for being open-minded. The rate of publciations for women and minorities don't back it up. SF is not more signficantly open to the voices of women and minorities than literary communities. When Fantasy magazine makes a move to be more open to women's voices, it gets slammed for doing so. Black writers have also discussed at length their marginalization within "progressive" communities. Many writers, including Tom Disch, have made blatant comments about women's role -- or lack thereof -- in SF. He believes women like Ursula LeGuin and Vonda McIntyre "soften the field."
In fact, there are a lot of discussions about ways in which sexism is tolerated within science fiction communities where it isn't tolerated elsewhere. Sexual harrassment is a common problem at cons. I'm not going to reconstruct the wheel for you, but start with Kameron Hurley's Brutal Women and read through the Feminist Science Fiction and Fantasy Blog.
Actually, I could have this conversation with my friends in my MFA program, and they would say "Oh, but this is preaching to the choir. Our community is liberal. It's communities like SF, bastions of masculinity, where the prejudice lies."
You're both wrong.
I also fail to see, where if you are "converted," you are accepting that I, as a woman, have as much right to be treated as a woman and a person simultaneously without adhering to special and separate rules, as you have to be treated as a man and a person simultaneously without adhering ot special and separate rules.
Updated for Clarity:
I do think we're talking to the choir in some ways, like I bet we'd all agree that women should have the right to vote, and that women aren't dumber than men, and that women should be allowed to work. That's definitely something. There are communities that don't believe in these things.
I bet we might even be able to push it further -- most of us probably support abortion, and think that raping an unconscious woman is wrong, and support women veterans, and think it's unfortunate there isn't more representation of women in local and national government.
Those positions make us allies on some extremely important issues. I appreciate you standing by me, and I hope to stand by you on others. I know there are a lot of veterans and men in service here, and I stand by your need for better medical services when you get home, faster diagnosis of problems, and payment for your sacrifices and handicaps. I stand by your need to be well-equipped in the field. From there, our politics may separate.
But just as veterans rights don't end with "support our troops," women's rights don't end with acceptance into Harvard Law school. There are a lot of other issues that face women, as an othered class, in this country. I appreciate you standing by me in a belief that women can be as talented and able as men, but I will still call you out on finer points, points where we disagree. You are an ally of mine in some ways, but we do not hold the same positions in others.
This is where I disagree that I am speaking to the converted; in many ways, I feel that I -- and, I would note, the other women who have joined the conversation, that I know of, Ana, Haut, and Cat -- are arguing about the way we feel percieved and treated, and that we are having those perceptions written off as "mean-spirited" as "manufactured offense" -- although the term was withdrawn -- as our fault or as untrue.
Women often find that men will tell them what is true about their experience and what isn't, just as minorities often find that whites will tell them the same -- including, for instance, what it's okay to comment on, or be annoyed by, or even offended at. When I run into this problem with a black friend, I try to step back and remember that I am not living their experience, but I am taught by the media that it's okay for me to mediate it, because white is "objective" and black is "other." A lot of my reactions often come from a guilty place, a place that says "don't be mad at me, it's not my fault!" and I listen to that place, rather than listening to how I have affected them. I step back and try to listen to what they're saying. Only on very, very few occasions have I found I disagree at root, once I sweep away my urge to judge their reality and my guilt beneath it.
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Right on, Birnam.
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I would add that the comment of mine which appears to have launched this thread is this:
She. The feminist poet was a she. ;)
It's joking. It has a winky face at the end. It wasn't long or drawn out. It didn't contain accusations or recriminations or demands for penance.
Why does this comment provoke such strong reactions that it's a "mean-spirited gotcha?" Why is it perceived as an attack? What is the context that makes a sentence fragment and a following sentence, marked with a smiley face, a legitimately read "mean-spirited gotcha?"
In response Steve said mea culpa, someone else asked about it, and I said it was ironic in context. Again no hint of recrimination, of demands for penance, of any assumption on my part that Steve is offensive, just evidence that I pointed out a wrong assumption and commented that it was funny in context because we'd been talking about my gender earlier on the board, and in particular Steve's surprise that people read me as male. Where's the anger here, the mean-spiritedness?
At the risk of offending, I argue that it comes across that way to readers who feel guilty, because they know that they made a mistake, and because they know that they do make these assumptions. The response is defensiveness -- why are you _mad_ at me? -- when in fact, I wasn't mad. I've been mad since, granted, but at the time, I was correcting in a joking tone to point out the assumption. I was quite calm.
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I would add that the comment of mine which appears to have launched this thread is this:
She. The feminist poet was a she. ;)
It's joking. It has a winky face at the end. It wasn't long or drawn out. It didn't contain accusations or recriminations or demands for penance.
Why does this comment provoke such strong reactions that it's a "mean-spirited gotcha?" Why is it perceived as an attack? What is the context that makes a sentence fragment and a following sentence, marked with a smiley face, a legitimately read "mean-spirited gotcha?"
I don't even remember the thread that started this but since I'm the one who needs to learn to talk about this stuff, I'll toss out an answer anyway - because lots of us are "walking on eggshells".
While I would not have interpreted what you said as a mean spirited gotcha, I could see where someone could have made that mistake, especially if they have seen a lot of people try to play the victim card. I don't think you were doing that, but I could easily imagine someone thinking you were heading in that direction.
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However, even though palimpsest's point may not have been directed staight at my point, it's unfair to tell Tad that he miscontrued your motivation - the context was there. Yes, palimpsest, you definitely outlined your point clearly later on, but three pages of posting is alot to go through.
The context was there for a lot of things. If you thought it was mean-spirited, maybe you should think about why that is.
I did not explain myself well here - I truly did not think you were mean-spirited, and I didn't think Tad was either - since you both replied before I had a chance to get online, I didn't get a chance to post on Tad's comment first. ClintMemo said it better than I could.
You're assuming that I am hiding my identity off camera.
Aren't you? Maybe I missed it, maybe you didn't enter a story or maybe all of them made it to the finals, but I haven't seen you tell us what your name is. I am really not trying to bait you into telling us - you could have a huge number of reasons for not wanting to - maybe you are Marget Atwood (you aren't, are you? 'cause it'd be cool if you were). And it really can't be said that you are hiding because there are a number of people on these boards who know who you are, but that's not the same as telling everyone.
Are you hiding your identity off camera by not putting a male identifier in your name?
you're holding me to a different standard than you hold yourself to, Slic. You're buying into the idea that woman is other, and indeed asking me to specifically other myself at every turn. I ask you to remember that people online can be male or female; you reply that I should make my gender obvious so you don't have to think about it?
Again, I'll point to the space under my symbol that has my name "Stephen Lumini" (and a quick google search will probably tell you more about me than I can). I suppose I could put Stephen Lumini, 38, father of three, white guy - that's a snarky comment, I know.
I'm not saying you or anyone has to tell me their gender, but I am saying if you want the default to change (and I get the strong feeling you do) then you have to show people that the default is incorrect. I'm a bicycle rider in a city of many car drivers who feel that they own the road (Only kids ride bikes or poor people/students who can't afford a car) - I make it a point of puttng my bike helmet in a prominant place on my desk, I make it a point to loudly complain (to no one in particular) about the latest jackass driver, I make it a point of bringing it up in conversation if I think it fits. I do all this because I want the default to change, hoping those who hear me will think twice when they see a bike rider.
I'm not excluded, blamed, or harrassed when I don't follow the path society lays out for me? If I am, and I believe I am, than I don't see how your burden is "different."
It isn't really - that's my point, everyone, including us middle-aged, all-powerful, white men have burdens. When my lovely wife opened a daycare in our home, and I answered phone, invariably the question was asked "Will you be taking care of the kids?" - with the mom's ready to bolt if I said yes. Luckily, it is not my aspiration to run a home daycare, but I can easily understand the frustration/anger/resentment when the most serious block to being in my chosen profession is not talent, but my gender or skin colour or family.
I'm, again, lucky that unlike some of my fav authors (C.S. Friedman, D.C. Fontana), I didn't have to make the choice of changing jobs or hiding my gender. But what about Ursula K LeGuin or Octavia Butler or Margaret Weis? Or for that matter Tracey Hickman - for years I thought the dude was a lady.
I do think liberal-types are too quick to pat themselves on the back and say "We're awesome because we are so openminded." So it doesn't hurt to remind me :-[
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I'd like to offer an apology to Palimpsest; I know hir intention was not to attack anyone, and I should have caveated my remarks a lot better. (And I use hir pronouns of choice out of respect for hir preferences.)
The "gotcha" I referred to was not the feminist poet comment, but rather the exchange I had quoted with Slic. I thought he was taking undue flack for what he was saying, and I wanted to comment on the irony of the situation. I did not intend to levy any accusations, just to highlight a natural tendency people have to make assumptions. And we all know what happens with assumptions. (Something about a donkey, which usually ends up being me!)
FWIW, I think I must have picked up on some underlying cues from palimpsests posts early on, because I was not at all surprised when I "met" hir. There have, however, been a couple of folks I assumed from context were female... and weren't. I won't mention names, because I'm pretty sure any of them could take me out in a fair fight. ;)
It seems there are a couple of similar but different themes being read into this thread, though. On the one hand, some people are arguing around the idea that "everyone deserves to be treated with dignity and respect", which I think we all pretty much agree on. The other (not opposing, but slightly different) topic seems to be "our societal conditioning still leads us to favor a certain group over others", a subject which tends to make those of us in that group feel a touch demonized, since we didn't choose to be in that group, and would like very much to live in a world that was truly fair and equitable.
I have appreciated Palimpsest's dedication, as well as hir thorough and generally gentle criticism of writing. I agree that our society is nowhere near perfect yet, and would like it to get better. But I can't change everybody's mind, and I probably overreact when, after making what feels like every effort to have an open mind and treat people with that dignity and respect, I'm told that it's not enough because of my race and gender. I especially object to the argument "you will never understand how the rest of us are suffering because you are a white male." That, to me, is just as wrong as saying ... well, any of the stuff Archie Bunker used to say.
Now, if you are saying that I will never understand because I'm an insensitive jerk... you may have me there. :D
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LOL
I didn't know Tracey Hickman was a man.
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I would add that the comment of mine which appears to have launched this thread is this:
She. The feminist poet was a she. ;)
First, I'm not at all sure that particular comment launched this thread. It's not clear to me that any single comment launched it. It just sort of happened, in the comments to the Semifinal 3 poll, and I moved it to its own thread once it became clear that the discussion had legs. But even there there was context from other threads, etc. I'd much rather just say "it happened" than pin it down to any one source.
I don't even remember the thread that started this but since I'm the one who needs to learn to talk about this stuff, I'll toss out an answer anyway - because lots of us are "walking on eggshells".
And here I think Clint nails it. He's right. I'm thinking directly back to my brusque (and in hindsight, very unfair) post at Jared when he brought up sexism in Heroes: my first answer was, more or less, "I'd like to disagree, but you've created a context where no one can argue with you without looking like an asshole." He hadn't, as the followups proved, but a lot of people in the 'default' feel that way all the time whenever sex or race comes up. We don't know how to talk about these issues because, in a very real way, we don't feel like we're allowed to talk about them.
(And once again, I'm switching back to first person, even though I don't always feel this way myself -- but I do some of the time, and I don't want to make an example out of anyone but me.)
The sense here, Palimpsest, is that women can make jokes about gender. Or otherwise be frank about it, in any serious or light way. However, for many males in the audience it's awkward, because we feel that if we respond in kind we'll never know when we're crossing the line. It's hard for us to see the line, because we're not the ones who draw it, and we feel like the people who do draw the line (in this context, women) aren't usually explicit about its placement. We simply know -- or believe -- that there is a line. When other people make jokes that we don't feel we get to make, we feel left out.
And exclusion leads to unpleasant feelings and unpleasant behavior. We keep silent, or sometimes get defensive inappropriately, or in some cases lash out as if we're being territorially challenged. That's really stupid, I agree fully -- but it is a very male thing to do.
(That's a case in point: I feel like I get to make fun of male behavior because I'm male. I don't get to make fun of female behavior. Women, however, get to make fun of both. And that's bothersome to men. This may or may not make any sense to you, you may or may not feel it has any validity, but I'll lay down money that it makes sense to most of the men reading this. Any man who doesn't agree, please speak up.)
Similar neuroses apply to race. Black people can analyze being black, in standup comedy or doctoral dissertations or anything in between. Likewise for other minority cultures. But I often feel that if I make a comment that even observes someone else's race, even if it's topical to the current conversation, I'm taking a risk. I just don't know what might offend or what might not. Sometimes I take the risk anyway and sometimes I don't. But there's usually some awkwardness.
(For me personally, the one minority condition for which I don't feel this way is sexuality -- I'm quite comfortable talking with gay people about being gay -- but that's due to personal history and I know that many straight people have the same awkwardness that applies to sex and race.)
So that's what's going on for 'the default' in these contexts. It's our side of the communication barrier. I wouldn't call it a "burden" as some others have done, but it's certainly a contributor to cultural rifts. I value open and honest communication above nearly anything else -- but as a white male I sometimes feel my participation in discussions about race or sex is going to be judged and found wanting, under rules I don't get to make or even understand. And that makes communication...not impossible, but more difficult. It's a river that has to be crossed before I can begin to be frank.
I offer this, not to argue with anyone, but by way of explanation. I'm not sure there's an answer for it that's any better or easier than "Get over it, take the risk, say what you think and take the lumps if it offends someone." I'd love to hear other ideas. Because that one, as easy as it is to say, is not easy to do most of the time. I think I'm getting better at it, but it's still not easy.
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You're assuming that I am hiding my identity off camera.
Aren't you? Maybe I missed it, maybe you didn't enter a story or maybe all of them made it to the finals, but I haven't seen you tell us what your name is.
You missed it. Her name is Rachel Swirsky; she's taken credit for the story "Memorial," (http://forum.escapeartists.info/index.php?topic=455.0) which was in Group 21.
(Which I razzed her about, because the first post in that thread was her criticizing her own story when it was anonymous.) >8->
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I especially object to the argument "you will never understand how the rest of us are suffering because you are a white male."
I don't think this, for the record. I just think it's not obvious, and one has to work to understand one's privelege.
I don't mind being called by female pronouns, by the way... I tend to use neutral pronouns when I don't know someone's gender. I do actually identify as female, rather than trans, or genderqueer, or having no gender identity, or etc. :)
(I don't think it's totally cool that we mark sex in pronouns as a culture, but it's not a broad-based fight I want to take up at the moment.)
I think I must have picked up on some underlying cues from palimpsests posts early on, because I was not at all surprised when I "met" hir.
:D
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(That's a case in point: I feel like I get to make fun of male behavior because I'm male. I don't get to make fun of female behavior. Women, however, get to make fun of both. And that's bothersome to men. This may or may not make any sense to you, you may or may not feel it has any validity, but I'll lay down money that it makes sense to most of the men reading this. Any man who doesn't agree, please speak up.)
It absolutely makes sense to me because I see it all the time. It's perfectly acceptable for women to make "male bashing" comments but not for a man to make "female bashing" comments. Now I will sometimes make "female bashing" comments as jokes but only to women I know really really really well where I know that they know I'm just being funny and not being mean. i.e. when I'm sure it's safe.
Ironically, I don't have a problem making male bashing jokes to women, but that's just another form of self-deprecating humor, and as a neurotic, pathetic, conflict avoiding, oblivious, stone-hearted, middle-aged white guy, I'm into that.
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I don't mind being called by female pronouns, by the way... I tend to use neutral pronouns when I don't know someone's gender. I do actually identify as female, rather than trans, or genderqueer, or having no gender identity, or etc. :)
(I don't think it's totally cool that we mark sex in pronouns as a culture, but it's not a broad-based fight I want to take up at the moment.)
I'm not sure how much this has changed since then, but I was actually taught, from elementary school through college, to always use male pronouns unless you knew the person was female. Do they still teach that?
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"Get over it, take the risk, say what you think and take the lumps if it offends someone."
This is basically it, I think.
But there's another option. I know men who know exactly where the line is.
They took the time to educate themselves.
Bear in mind htat, as the default, you get to almost always see the culture represented from your positioning. I, as not the default, also get to see that. I'm eliminated from that narrative, but very much aware of it.
This is not as much true for you. Women as gazer, as opposed to subject of the gaze, are not often presented, and black people as gazer even less. That sucks. Patriarchy hurts men too. White supremacy hurts wihte people, too.
So, the solution is to talk about it -- and then get your feelings and ego out of hte way. Remember: given the vast swath of priveleges that come with being male, what we're tlaking about is very small potatoes. Ditto for white privelege. Therefore, it can come across as petty when men take a conversation about female opression - or othering - and turn it into a conversation about how it hurts mens feelings when this is brought up.
On feminist blogs, this phenomenon is known as "What about the men?"
But if you're the kind of person who can't take the risks and take your lumps, there is an alternative. Go read as much as you can. Pick up a huge pile of feminist theory texts and read them all. Go to several feminist blogs and read them, every day, for six months. And don't say anything. Lurk. See what's going on. Learn, rather than assuming it's your right to already know -- or my obligation to organize my activism for my liberation according to your comfort. (This is bracing terminology, and I'm aware of that, but it taps into deeper cultural assumptions about what it's allowable for men to ask of women -- and how it's allowable for men to make all conversations about maleness. It's not meant as a condemnation. It's just what happens in our culture. But that doesn't mean I shouldn't call it out.)
You'll learn what the line is, probably sooner than you think.
UPDATE:
I'd love to hear other ideas. Because that one, as easy as it is to say, is not easy to do most of the time. I think I'm getting better at it, but it's still not easy.
I don't think it's ever easy. It's not easy for me to put my prievelege aside when I'm reading things black feminists write that hurt my feelings. But why should I have it easy? Why am I entitled to ease?
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but I was actually taught, from elementary school through college, to always use male pronouns unless you knew the person was female. Do they still teach that?
Some people do. It's still sexist -- overtly so -- it overtly positions men, the priveleged class, as the default. If you want mor einformation, ther'es a very good essay by Ursula LeGuin on the subject, which you can find if you seek out her book of essays.
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It absolutely makes sense to me because I see it all the time. It's perfectly acceptable for women to make "male bashing" comments but not for a man to make "female bashing" comments. Now I will sometimes make "female bashing" comments as jokes but only to women I know really really really well where I know that they know I'm just being funny and not being mean. i.e. when I'm sure it's safe.
Hi Clint and Steve, since you brought it up,
What you're leaving out of your analyses, again -- I pointed this out in an earlier comment too -- is power.
Men, as a class, are not oppressed for their sex.
Women, as a class, are.
Therefore, female bashing jokes have much more power to contribute to the injury of women in our society. Directly. When you tell a joke about a greedy ex-wife, you are contirbuting to the culture which sees traditional women's work as less important than men's, and thus women who have worked at home as having no call on the money they helped their husband earn by facilitating his career. When you tell a joke about a dumb blonde, you reinforce the idea that women can be smart or attractive, but not both. And so on.
These things hurt women, in ways that jokes like Homer Simpson have never and will never hurt men. Indeed, Homer Simpson type jokes support the power structures as they exist. Homer is a total loser, a complete slob, yet entitled to the devotion of his lovely, smarter, prettier wife. He, like Tim Allen on Home Improvement, are playfully unable to do any sort of household work. The result is tha tthe women roll their eyes, and then do all the drudge work, reinforcing the pattern of housework as women's responsibility -- women do more housework, in general (anecdotes to the contrary aside), even women who work. So even jokes that appear to hurt men, in general, are hidden ways of consolidating power.
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I'm a bicycle rider in a city of many car drivers who feel that they own the road (Only kids ride bikes or poor people/students who can't afford a car) - I make it a point of puttng my bike helmet in a prominant place on my desk, I make it a point to loudly complain (to no one in particular) about the latest jackass driver, I make it a point of bringing it up in conversation if I think it fits. I do all this because I want the default to change, hoping those who hear me will think twice when they see a bike rider.
I realize you missed me "coming out" as Rachel Swirsky on the other thread, so I know that's the major thing underlying some of your comments, but I do want to address this. :)
I am doing this. I am working feminism into this conversation. I am addressing sexist stereotypes when they come up in the stories.
Here's an example of how this stuff becomes invisible: several of my female friends emailed me when they started reading the entries, "Oh my God, the entries.... is everyone stuck in 1950's gender roles?"
This stuff isn't invisble to us.
But pointing it out means a fight. Every time. And every time from scratch. That's incredibly wearying.
I have communicated with Haut, Ana, and Cat with this in IM. I know Cat and Haut from outside the board. I met Ana here. We have to bolster each other to have this conversation. Because I know it's frustrating for y'all, but I don't think you understand how frustrating it is for us.
We've had htis conversation before. We've heard your counterarguments. And ,more, every time we have this conversation anew, we realize how big the barriers to women are, how systemic. If even kind, liberal males who are in SF don't understand sexism as systemic, how can we ever make progress?
Haut and I are orgaizing a slush bomb to Analog next year, as part-protest and part-community effort to get women writing hard SF, and let Analog know we've noticed our absence from its TOC. Haut and I participated in last year's slush bomb to FSF. Other women writers of my acquaintance didn't.
But we all read the arguments. We all saw men saying "there is no problem that women appear infrequently. Maybe men are just better writers. Maybe men are just more ambitious."
I'm not saying this to make you feel guilty, but to explain why I'm discussing this, and how much I *am* trying to change the default, every day, through talking abotu feminism, and through writing stories that force readers to interrogate their assumptions. At this point, it's my life's work.
I'm also saiyng it because I want you to understand why I may not reply immediately. Sometimes I have to get my breath.
I'm, again, lucky that unlike some of my fav authors (C.S. Friedman, D.C. Fontana), I didn't have to make the choice of changing jobs or hiding my gender. But what about Ursula K LeGuin or Octavia Butler or Margaret Weis? Or for that matter Tracey Hickman - for years I thought the dude was a lady.
They're great! They're also in the minority. They have barriers to their success that white men don't have. Those barriers shouldn't exist.
The existence of Oprah Winfrey doesn't disprove the fact that many black women live in poverty.
I do think liberal-types are too quick to pat themselves on the back and say "We're awesome because we are so openminded." So it doesn't hurt to remind me
It's an easy trap. I totally do it too.
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I admit I haven't read the entire thread, but this whole thing reminds me of an entirely irrelevant thing that happened to me.
I moved to Germany almost six years ago. I had some high school and college German, but that was a long time before. My wife and I were practicing a bit and the first thing I did here was sign up for a six month long 40 hour a week class. To say that learning a language is hard is to state the obvious. The really hard part isn't watching TV or reading the newspaper, it's understanding the guy in front of you, who isn't helping to be understood. (This was just a little background.)
About a month after I moved here I met a friend of my brother-in-law's. To quote my brother-in-law this friend is a "flamboyant queen". Anyway this guy never stopped moving. Half to time he talked it was from the other room and the other half of the time he had his back to me. I understood one word out of twenty and maybe understood one sentence every half hour. When I did understand something, I pieced it together about three sentences after it was spoken. I spent two hours staring at this guy trying to just get something.
Two weeks later my brother-in-law says,"why did you hate Dario?" I said, "huh?" He said , "Dario said you were really rude and he wants to know why you hate him."
Since then everytime I see this guy, he treats me like I'm a Nazi wondering why he's not wearing his pink triangle. He has decided it is because I hate gays.
The last time this was brought up was at our monthly poker game. I looked around the table at the people I chose for the game and personally invited. There was me(naturally), my wife, my brother-in-law(who also told us about this guy he just started dating), the best man from my weddings in the states and here, his boyfriend, my best man's sister, and her girlfriend. To use the common saying from our group, my wife and I are the mandated breeders.
Anyway, I do hate this guy now, but just because he made it impossible to be any other way.
As I started off saying, this story is totally irrelevant, but it came to mind.
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So, the solution is to talk about it -- and then get your feelings and ego out of hte way. Remember: given the vast swath of priveleges that come with being male, what we're tlaking about is very small potatoes. Ditto for white privelege. Therefore, it can come across as petty when men take a conversation about female opression - or othering - and turn it into a conversation about how it hurts mens feelings when this is brought up.
That's not where I was going with this. My feelings aren't hurt, and I certainly wasn't trying to close down anyone else's communication. I was simply adding my own perspective on the awkwardness that Clint and others were talking about. I can't add much about female oppression because, well, I can't, although I'm eager to listen about it. From my end, my options are to talk about what I do know, or don't talk.
Palimpsest, you said both sides need to be talking about this stuff. I thought that was a really good point, and I attempted to follow through. My post was very largely motivated by you. You now appear to be saying that it bothers you when men talk about their side of it. Our problems are petty, so you don't want to hear about them. Our job is to educate ourselves until we know what you know, and until we've done that we really shouldn't speak.
It's probably not what you meant, but it's sometimes what I read in your posts.
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...By the way, I initially had six more paragraphs in that last post. I cut them, deciding they probably needed more consideration and that I was probably too close to crossing the line again by being too honest in what I thought.
I almost cut the whole thing -- in fact I started to -- but I finally decided against allowing a sense of guilt to silence me entirely. I still feel guilty, though. A part of me says "Shit, what if I'm just frustrating Palimpsest again by telling her my feelings are important? What if she's right, and my feelings really aren't as important on this topic as hers are? That makes me an asshole, doesn't it? Should I be talking at all?"
This is the kind of thing I'm talking about.
And now I feel like I'm being too honest here.
But enough. I've killed more than an hour on this now. I've got to go make dinner for my family.
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Hey Steve,
You aren't being too honest. I appreciate your thoughtfulness.
That's not where I was going with this. My feelings aren't hurt, and I certainly wasn't trying to close down anyone else's communication. I was simply adding my own perspective on the awkwardness that Clint and others were talking about. I can't add much about female oppression because, well, I can't, although I'm eager to listen about it. From my end, my options are to talk about what I do know, or don't talk.
Right. I don't read you as closing down anyone else's communication. I didn't mean this about you specifically, sorry if that came across.
But the evolution of this thread does show male privelege -- requests to avoid creating a default, and to avoid othering, became in part a conversation about how defaults are okay, and how women are incorrect in their perceptions that they aren't. Rather than focusing on how othering affects women, the conversation becomes about how it affects men.
There's no individual blame in this. It's not even that it shouldn't have happened. It probably needed to happen.
But that doesn't mean that it didn't folow an arc where men exercised privelege to negotiate female realities, and where men's experiences -- (we need a baseline, why don't you tell us you're a woman?, i have to walk on eggshells, and etc.) -- were brought to the center of hte disucssion.
This happens in 90% of mixed-sex discussions about feminism, and in 90% of mixed-race conversations about white supremacy. Again: it's okay. There's no blame to individuals. It's part of how our cultural systems work.
Conversations about rape generally turn to one thing or another -- either how the victim should have been more careful, or how men are affected by rape accusations. Talking about women, or about the responsibilties or rapists, is extremely difficult. The conversation slips back to a male perspective. It's extremely difficult to avoid.
At the same time, I will observe that and mention it. Because it operates invisibly, and while it is perfectly fine any one time it operates, in aggregate, it promotes the centering of men at the heart of discourse, which is one of the things I discussed earlier in "patriarchy hurts men, too."
Palimpsest, you said both sides need to be talking about this stuff. I thought that was a really good point, and I attempted to follow through. My post was very largely motivated by you. You now appear to be saying that it bothers you when men talk about their side of it. Our problems are petty, so you don't want to hear about them.
I don't not want to hear about them. We can talk about them.
But that doesn't mean that they aren't petty. When I come into a discourse about how non-white women are excluded from feminism, and white women play into the hands of white supremacy by talking about high heels and abortion instead of class division, and there's angry language about white women in it, it hurts my feelings. My hurt feelings are real. They're worth examining and talking about. But, in comparison to what the point of their post was, it's still petty.
The first time I realized how racist I was -- am! -- was a heart-breaking moment. It hurt like I can't believe. I was working with an anthropologist professor who I loved, absolutely loved, and she liked me very much. We were doing an independent study about creative writing. I was writing black characters. I had a black woman invite a white owman into her home, and my professor said, "I don't believe this. Most black people I know are never comfortable with white people in their space." I looked at her, across this small office, and realized that even though I wanted to be anti-racist, even though she liked me a lot, there was an impassable gulf between us. Race would always be in the room.
It's good to talk about that. I needed to talk about that.
Part of what hurts about it is that I'm not used to being racialized, to being marked out for my race, to being unpriveleged in this way. That's an uncomfortable feeling, and also worth talking about. However, when we're discussing the subject of racism, even though it may be something I want or need to talk about, in the subject of racism, it's still petty. The white man's burden, and the fear of walking on eggshells, are small things, in the wake of male privelege.
This is what I mean about framing my activism in reaction to your feelings, or refusing to do so. Black women shouldn't frame their conversation around my feelings. And I don't think feminists should frame thair conversatoin around men's feelings. It puts white people and men at the center of the conversation, again.
Our job is to educate ourselves until we know what you know, and until we've done that we really shouldn't speak.
Well, educating yourselves is a good idea. So is taking lumps. I try to do both, personally.
But you were mentioning an invisible, ill-defined line, and I was pointing out that the reason it's invisible to you is that you're centered in a male-defined narrative. If you really want to find the line, you can.
It isn't magic. It's grounded in a coherent body of work. It isn't a single line, of course, it's a bunch of lines that move through each other -- feminism is better called feminisms -- but you'll understand why I make my lines, and you will be able to argue for why you or someone else would draw the line elsewhere.
The recommendation to lurk on feminist blogs is specifically to avoid venting outrage. It isn't that I don't wnat to talk to you. I'm in your space, bringing these ideas here. But if you go to a feminist blog, you are entering their community, and their community is built on a commonality of experience which may seem obscure at first, but becomes clear as information is brought in. Often, men will enter feminist blogs and make very superficial arguments, and the women and experienced feminist and pro-feminist men there will not be tolerant of that, because feminism 101 isn't what those spaces are about. Feminism 101 can be what this space is about, however.
I can bring some of my knowledge to this conversation, but I can't bring everything in. Among other things, I recommend my own weird hybrid of second and third wave feminism, blended with social anthropology and literary theory. I don't know everything.
If you are committed to social equality, it's something that requires work. The benefit is working to end oppression, making privelege visible, understading where the line is, helping women -- and other groups. The detriment is it takes work, and that work is internal and painful.
It can't be solved in a single conversation; that was one of my points.
I hope I've been clearer this time. Please let me know if I haven't. I don't want to dismiss you -- I have sincerely appreciated your willingness to examine yourself and to participate frankly in this conversation. At the same time, I myself am also trying to be honest.
I think there are gaps in terminology between us that also make things difficult. And, of course, I don't always express things as well as I could. I apologize for that, and for any offense I've given through misstep or misunderstanding.
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...By the way, I initially had six more paragraphs in that last post. I cut them, deciding they probably needed more consideration and that I was probably too close to crossing the line again by being too honest in what I thought.
I almost cut the whole thing -- in fact I started to -- but I finally decided against allowing a sense of guilt to silence me entirely. I still feel guilty, though. A part of me says "Shit, what if I'm just frustrating Palimpsest again by telling her my feelings are important? What if she's right, and my feelings really aren't as important on this topic as hers are? That makes me an asshole, doesn't it? Should I be talking at all?"
Thank you for trusting to put your words out there.
Willingness to take these risks does, in my mind, mean willingness to take lumps. It's not that I don't trust in your good faith, but good faith is not always everything. That's been a hard lesson for me. (Again, this is my way of talking about race and sex, modeled on the ways I've seen being most successful and respectful.)
What I want to add to the above post is that even if you do say something assholish, or say something sexist, or something offensive -- oh well. It's okay. We all do. It isn't a binary thing that makes you an asshole or a sexist or a worthless human being, just someone who said something unperfect. We don't need to be perfect all the time.
At the same time, it's okay for me to point it out (just as I appreciate you pointing out how my words have come across).
I apologize for using second person here. These are general beliefs of mine, not meant to indicate you as opposed to me or anyone else.
And I apologize for emotionally loaded language as well. When I say upset, I mean... unsettled, I suppose... and I am often speaking out of my own experience as a white person entering communities where people of color speak. I know I get defensive, and hurt, sometimes very much so. I apologize for projecting those terms on you. I was trying to speak in a way that would be grounded in my experience, and I think I've been sloppy about pronouns.
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When I have more time, I will address other things posted, but I wanted to point out that a quick fact. In French and Italian (and other Romance Languages, I'm sure), they have masculine and feminine pronouns - when dealing with groups of mixed gender they use the masculine pronoun. I'm not going to comment on the sexism, just pointing out the facts.
but I was actually taught, from elementary school through college, to always use male pronouns unless you knew the person was female. Do they still teach that?
Some people do. It's still sexist -- overtly so -- it overtly positions men, the priveleged class, as the default. If you want mor einformation, ther'es a very good essay by Ursula LeGuin on the subject, which you can find if you seek out her book of essays.
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...By the way, I initially had six more paragraphs in that last post. I cut them, deciding they probably needed more consideration and that I was probably too close to crossing the line again by being too honest in what I thought.
I almost cut the whole thing -- in fact I started to -- but I finally decided against allowing a sense of guilt to silence me entirely. I still feel guilty, though. A part of me says "Shit, what if I'm just frustrating Palimpsest again by telling her my feelings are important? What if she's right, and my feelings really aren't as important on this topic as hers are? That makes me an asshole, doesn't it? Should I be talking at all?"
This is the kind of thing I'm talking about.
And now I feel like I'm being too honest here.
But enough. I've killed more than an hour on this now. I've got to go make dinner for my family.
When I said that "white men suffer, too", this is kind of what I was talking about. I don't think anyone needs to feel sorry for us, but give some of us credit for agonizing over this stuff, and for understanding that it needs to change more quickly.
I don't consider my "suffering" to be even the the palest shadow of the real suffering that others have gone through for not fitting "the norm", but I point it out because I think it's important that people who believe in the "many colors of the homo-rainbow" (as I do) keep in mind that white -- or pink, or peach, or whatever the hell this pigment is -- and male people are still human, too.
As far as making changes in the status quo, I think the *slush bomb* Palimpsest and Hautdesert mentioned is a grand way to do it. I root for you all, and wish your effort every success... though I am implicitly excluded from participating. I especially like the idea because it shows that the people who feel they don't have "power", as discussed earlier, are finding ways to seize it. In America, at least, I think that is the most important step left for our society to take.
Now, I would like to share, as a humorous aside (note the careful tread to indicate the humorosity), my mental state as I have written these posts today. You know how often these types of conversations devolve into some variation of "I'm not a bigot... why, I have [fill-in-the-blank] friends!"? Well, I read the references to the percentages of published women, etc, and chuckled to myself. "I'm not going to fall into that trap!" I wasn't about to mention that my favorite author of the last few years was Lois MacMaster Bujold, because that would be self-serving and hypocritical, right? Very paternalistic and condescending.
Then it started to bug me; I really don't have a very diverse collection. Asimov, Vonnegut, Vinge... oh, there's Left Hand of Darkness! Ha! I've got LeGuin. And if I broaden the genre, I've got Alice Walker and Amy Tan, too! No, this is still not looking good. I'm not going to stoop to listing stuff in the forum, but I need to prove to myself how open-minded I am. Oh! The CDs! I've got loads and loads of very diverse artists. Los Lobos, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Seal, and the Pogues! Where are all the women? Tori Amos; that'll do the trick. Hmmm... Elvis Costello, Harry Connick, Jr., Peter Gabriel. This isn't bolstering the case any. There's Ofra Haza, though; Enya, Sarah MacLachlan. Wow, this is starting to sound desperate. Wait, there's Dada! I think they're gay! Too bad they're still more or less geeky white guys.
Wow. I'm really glad I didn't try to list my diverse collection as proof that I'm some kind of multi-cultural saint. I would just make a fool of myself if I did that!
(Okay... humorous aside is over with. Thank you for indulging me.)
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Tad, if you're a Peter Gabriel fan there must be good in you! ;) (not like I didn't know that already, but liking PG just confirms it...)
<subliminal message>read C.J. Cherryh, maybe try some Leigh Brackett, rest her soul, there's a pretty good collection available on amazon, not to mention used books...</subliminal message>
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I'm convinced that there is plenty of institutionalized/systematized racism, ethnocentrism, and sexism. The ways that we relate to others are meaningful patterns of behavior and are a part of our culture. Generally, we are blind to our culture. It is not easy to bring culture to a conscious level, and it is usually a painful process that requires going through culture shock. Even then, it only happens in degrees as we become more and more aware of our own cultural behavior and thought through discovering differences in other cultures.
(A note on culture shock's stages: this includes initial rejection, sometimes progresses to idealization of a foreign culture over our native culture, and hopefully ends in a more objective view of the culture that sees both the good and the bad).
So, when someone to say that they don't see institutionalized discrimination, this is well explained by the accepted definition of culture that it is something we are usually blind to anyway. I'm more inclined to believe the person who does see it. Then again, there is sometimes the self-fulfilling prophecy, the reading-between-the-lines-when-there's-nothing-there phenomenon. After all, the universe reveals itself to us through the questions we ask of it. So, I listen (never discounting claims of discrimination out of hand), but still evaluate what I hear.
Keep in mind that gender can also be viewed as a culture or subculture. I would even say there are a lot more than two distinct gender subcultures in the US. As we move in and out of these groups socially, we can experience culture shock. If we want to do it comfortably, we have to learn and take our lumps ( as Palimpsest said).
Still, I don't think it's necessary to become encultured in order for them to be tolerant. They can also choose to withdraw from the dialogue for the most part and use tolerance when they can't. A lot of people are not comfortable with people trying to convert them. I think those people have to be tolerated, too. Still, mutual tolerance means that we must have some sensitivity to each other in a public forum.
Or they can piss people off and get "bashed" (not making any threats here- referring to social bashing).
One problem of Anthropology is it's paradigm of cultural relativism. This is essentially the viewpoint that you cannot judge actions using rules external to the actor's culture. This was played up a lot in Star Trek in their Prime Directive (which was repeatedly shown to be defectiveness). We have feminist anthropologists to thank (sincerely) for criticizing the failings cultural relativism with respect to human rights abuses- abuses which are more far more often carried out against women than men (although not exclusively).
This presents a problem that has yet to be fully resolved in the field. I gave the issue considerable thought years ago. I can't say I have the magic bullet answer, but I worked out my own understanding of how the solution might be framed. Essentially, I see this down to conflict between the collective rights of the group versus the rights of the individual. Since the individual is part of the group, the two are not exactly mutually exclusive, and there are probably a lot of gray areas. But I think that this is a problem that falls to governments and there should be some formal process to evaluate questionable practices on a case-by-case basis and seek to balance the group versus the individual as much as possible.
if it is traditional for the wife to be buried alive with her husband when he dies (this really happens, not fictional) should the government of the region abolish this practice because it violates the rights of the wife? Does the group not have a right to practice their beliefs? What if the wife consents to the burial? Even if she does consent and is of sound body and mind (keep in mind that in reality, she is usually drugged or drunk), can we discount that there is intense social pressure being placed on her? But a wife might potentially choose to sacrifice herself for her surviving family rather than except being banished. I don't really see how this can be avoided 100% of the time without putting a group in conflict with the government and possibly costing more lives. Like I said, I don't have all the answers here by any means.
I might add that there are still women who are perfectly comfortable with 50's gender roles. My own wife, who was born in and grew up mostly in the Philippines, is generally more conservative about gender roles than I am, which really trips me out sometimes. Despite being more conservative in general, the Philippines has had two women as presidents and they have a long tradition of women as business owners. There is a diverse set of values out there. . .
At any rate, I think the approach of applying cultural relativism except when it conflicts with an individual's human rights (including equal treatment and social equality) is a good, if sometimes still problematic approach. For those who don't agree with it, I think we should be tolerant, but also expect tolerance from them in return.
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But the evolution of this thread does show male privelege -- requests to avoid creating a default, and to avoid othering, became in part a conversation about how defaults are okay, and how women are incorrect in their perceptions that they aren't. Rather than focusing on how othering affects women, the conversation becomes about how it affects men.
There's no individual blame in this. It's not even that it shouldn't have happened. It probably needed to happen.
But that doesn't mean that it didn't folow an arc where men exercised privelege to negotiate female realities, and where men's experiences -- (we need a baseline, why don't you tell us you're a woman?, i have to walk on eggshells, and etc.) -- were brought to the center of hte disucssion.
Very fair response, Palimpsest. Thank you for returning with water rather than fire. >8->
...Hmmm. And I just deleted a bunch more paragraphs, though this time it was for a more positive reason. I was attempting to ask how the communication patterns you observed exercise privilege -- since the people who were griping here about how you present yourself don't really have the power to change it -- and this is on technical grounds a conversation between equals. (Okay, a few of us are moderators, but we're not moderating anyone frivolously.) But in the process of framing the question, I think I suddenly Got It. Or I Got Something, anyway.
You're not saying that anyone is preventing you from sharing your perspective by literally censoring you. If I'm right, you're saying they're preventing you from sharing your perspective by socially pressuring you to justify your mode of presentation before can get far enough into it. Is that right?
If so...hmmm. I could say "Ignore all that jazz, say what you want to say," but even I can see it's more complicated than that. And the balances are delicate, because no one's actually denying your right to a perspective or to share it, they're just... Not sitting still for it?
Huh. I'm sitting here for a few minutes pondering, and the best I can do is that this all might come down to narrative pace. Male/female differences in how a story gets told and listened to.
Am I onto something here, or am I just tripping out?
Well, educating yourselves is a good idea. So is taking lumps. I try to do both, personally.
This is extremely well said. And for what it's worth, I'm trying. I really am listening and thinking about what I hear. And I have deep confidence that I'm not the only one.
I have a few more thoughts, in particular about women, and probably some questions too, but it's been a long day. I'll come back to them.
Meanwhile... Is anyone up for a thread about the ways in which it's fun to be a woman or a man? There's got to be something light and grinnable we can share to lighten the weight of all the stones in this topic. >8->
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...Hmmm. And I just deleted a bunch more paragraphs, though this time it was for a more positive reason. I was attempting to ask how the communication patterns you observed exercise privilege -- since the people who were griping here about how you present yourself don't really have the power to change it -- and this is on technical grounds a conversation between equals. (Okay, a few of us are moderators, but we're not moderating anyone frivolously.) But in the process of framing the question, I think I suddenly Got It. Or I Got Something, anyway.
. . .
Huh. I'm sitting here for a few minutes pondering, and the best I can do is that this all might come down to narrative pace. Male/female differences in how a story gets told and listened to.
Am I onto something here, or am I just tripping out?
This is along the lines of my theory, by the way, and I look forward to Palimpsest's response. I've been thinking lately about literary trends being culturally bound- i.e., one reason authors are successful is because they are able to connect with with people either through human universals that span the ages or through tapping into aspects of their contemporary culture. (Of course there are other reasons, too, like they should actually write well, etc.)
I've observed in the work place at various jobs over the years that people tend to hire/promote those whom they think will fit in or that they connect with. It's possible to connect with people despite cultural differences, but it is often easier to do when you have shared cultural knowledge. So, with White men in positions of power for so long, even in the absence of sexist beliefs, I would expect women to be at a disadvantage, especially among men who don't know how to relate to women with a set of expectations they don't understand. I think this can extend to how people write and how editors read and connect with stories. In fact, I really think that happens.
Meanwhile... Is anyone up for a thread about the ways in which it's fun to be a woman or a man? There's got to be something light and grinnable we can share to lighten the weight of all the stones in this topic. >8->
Maybe we should write a musical. I just heard about the short film West Bank Story, and I'm feeling inspired! Maybe we could call it Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus: The Musical
, and still keep it in the speculative fiction genre somehow.
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Tad, if you're a Peter Gabriel fan there must be good in you! ;) (not like I didn't know that already, but liking PG just confirms it...)
<subliminal message>read C.J. Cherryh, maybe try some Leigh Brackett, rest her soul, there's a pretty good collection available on amazon, not to mention used books...</subliminal message>
Following the whole gender-thread, the "...there must be good in you!" comment, combined with a conversation I had earlier this week about "editing a better version of Star Wars"... I just had a brilliant thought:
What if we convinced George Lucas to let Lois M. Bujold re-write those three terrible movies?
(I'm still angry about those, because I knew from the first trailer for Ep.1 that a) they would be terrible, and b) I would have to see them anyway because I have been programmed since age 5 to do so. And, to paraphrase Tom Waits, "I could eat alphabet soup and sh1t a better script than that.")
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As far as making changes in the status quo, I think the *slush bomb* Palimpsest and Hautdesert mentioned is a grand way to do it. I root for you all, and wish your effort every success... though I am implicitly excluded from participating. I especially like the idea because it shows that the people who feel they don't have "power", as discussed earlier, are finding ways to seize it. In America, at least, I think that is the most important step left for our society to take.
Actually, if you check the page (and since palimpsest didn't pimp it, I will : http://www.rachelswirsky.com/slush.html (http://www.rachelswirsky.com/slush.html)),
you can participate if you're willing to do a collaborative work. I'd be delighted to collaborate on a story with you for the slushbomb. If you are interested, PM me.
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You're not saying that anyone is preventing you from sharing your perspective by literally censoring you. If I'm right, you're saying they're preventing you from sharing your perspective by socially pressuring you to justify your mode of presentation before can get far enough into it. Is that right?
If so...hmmm. I could say "Ignore all that jazz, say what you want to say," but even I can see it's more complicated than that. And the balances are delicate, because no one's actually denying your right to a perspective or to share it, they're just... Not sitting still for it?
Interrupting, more like. Even in a forum like this, you can easily derail someone by taking a sideline and running with it, or jumping on one small detail and ignoring the larger picture, or drawing thing whole thing back to square one with "define your terms". It's a lot of work, and that's the thing palimpsest keeps saying. It's a long, hard slog before you can even get to the place where you can say the thing you want to say. Sometimes, a lot of times, women are not up for the slog. Everyone has busy lives, and this stuff takes time.
I have to say now that I have enormous respect and admiration for palimpsest (and haut) for being willing to have this conversation again, and being willing to chalk each point and counterpoint of it, even though (like any woman) they've probably done it dozens of times before.
But, Steve, I've liked the way you've phrased this, especially "they're preventing you from sharing your perspective by socially pressuring you to justify your mode of presentation before can get far enough into it."
Inside I went "yes! exactly" when I read that. I haven't quite been able to talk about the leap between the meta of the discourse and the discourse itself. But yes, you have to run the obstacle course first, and you have to do it every time and it's incredibly wearying, because you just want to get to the meat of what you have to say.
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I don't want to derail, but I've really appreciated what a thoughtful, careful discussion this is, and the amount of thoughtwork that has appeared in these posts.
It would be interesting to see an article or paper come out of this discussion. (Hint, hint, Palimpset.)
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When I have more time, I will address other things posted, but I wanted to point out that a quick fact. In French and Italian (and other Romance Languages, I'm sure), they have masculine and feminine pronouns - when dealing with groups of mixed gender they use the masculine pronoun. I'm not going to comment on the sexism, just pointing out the facts.
FWIW, I don't think generalizing in the plural is quite the same as generalizing in the singular. We do, after all, talk about mankind and men quite a lot when we mean both genders (and while it is still arguably sexist, it's not quite the same thing as individuating someone as male when they might not be). German ubiquitously uses "man" for "one", and I think that's a closer parallel to using "he" when you mean "someone". I have no idea if and how the German feminist movement addresses "man", but I'd be interested to hear it.
Also, I think it's a bit of a red herring to draw from the Romance languages as an example because they have a completely different approach to gender in language than Germanic languages. Every noun in a Romance language has a gender, and (unlike German) none of those genders are neuter (das Mädchen, anyone?). In Spanish, tie is female and dress is male. Stars are female, planets male (which is an oddity, because "planeta" is an "a" ending word, and "a" ending words are usually female). Sea, sugar and internet can be either. In short, the whole world of words in a Romance language is gendered in a way that's probably incomprehensible to mono-lingual English speakers. It's not a useful comparison, IMO.
I would argue that it is precisely because English tends to be gender neutral with its nouns (and even pluralized pronouns) that it's more significant when it is NOT gender neutral with singular pronouns.
However, I have to admit that I've no idea why you dragged that example in to the (delightfully civilized) fray. Your post indicated you were short on time, so perhaps there was some explanation left out, or some inference we were supposed to have drawn from your example, but all I could really do was say "Unless you show me more, I don't think these two things are really alike." So feel free to show me more, or more explicitly detail the link you were drawing.
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It absolutely makes sense to me because I see it all the time. It's perfectly acceptable for women to make "male bashing" comments but not for a man to make "female bashing" comments. Now I will sometimes make "female bashing" comments as jokes but only to women I know really really really well where I know that they know I'm just being funny and not being mean. i.e. when I'm sure it's safe.
Hi Clint and Steve, since you brought it up,
What you're leaving out of your analyses, again -- I pointed this out in an earlier comment too -- is power.
Men, as a class, are not oppressed for their sex.
Women, as a class, are.
Therefore, female bashing jokes have much more power to contribute to the injury of women in our society. Directly. When you tell a joke about a greedy ex-wife, you are contirbuting to the culture which sees traditional women's work as less important than men's, and thus women who have worked at home as having no call on the money they helped their husband earn by facilitating his career. When you tell a joke about a dumb blonde, you reinforce the idea that women can be smart or attractive, but not both. And so on.
These things hurt women, in ways that jokes like Homer Simpson have never and will never hurt men. Indeed, Homer Simpson type jokes support the power structures as they exist. Homer is a total loser, a complete slob, yet entitled to the devotion of his lovely, smarter, prettier wife. He, like Tim Allen on Home Improvement, are playfully unable to do any sort of household work. The result is tha tthe women roll their eyes, and then do all the drudge work, reinforcing the pattern of housework as women's responsibility -- women do more housework, in general (anecdotes to the contrary aside), even women who work. So even jokes that appear to hurt men, in general, are hidden ways of consolidating power.
So that makes it okay...? If we're all trying to be equal, and treat human beings as what they are (people), then current socioeconomic status, gender, skin color - none of these things should determine what is and what is not "acceptable behavior." If a woman makes jokes about men, she has no right to get offended when a man makes jokes about women. period.
So, the solution is to talk about it -- and then get your feelings and ego out of hte way. Remember: given the vast swath of priveleges that come with being male, what we're tlaking about is very small potatoes. Ditto for white privelege. Therefore, it can come across as petty when men take a conversation about female opression - or othering - and turn it into a conversation about how it hurts mens feelings when this is brought up.
On feminist blogs, this phenomenon is known as "What about the men?"
But if you're the kind of person who can't take the risks and take your lumps, there is an alternative. Go read as much as you can. Pick up a huge pile of feminist theory texts and read them all. Go to several feminist blogs and read them, every day, for six months. And don't say anything. Lurk. See what's going on. Learn, rather than assuming it's your right to already know -- or my obligation to organize my activism for my liberation according to your comfort. (This is bracing terminology, and I'm aware of that, but it taps into deeper cultural assumptions about what it's allowable for men to ask of women -- and how it's allowable for men to make all conversations about maleness. It's not meant as a condemnation. It's just what happens in our culture. But that doesn't mean I shouldn't call it out.)
You'll learn what the line is, probably sooner than you think.
Reading this created in me a gut reaction. I had to consciously make the effort to stop typing in a fit of anger and calm down. *sigh*
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Reading fiveyearwinter's post also caused a gut reaction in me.
Maybe you're so angry because she's right. Patience and learning are something that seems to be getting lost. 5 min quick fixes, 1 week courses that make you a master programmer - it's hogwash. Experience counts, knowledge counts and listing to and trying to understand others is one of the best things any one can do.
If a woman makes jokes about men, she has no right to get offended when a man makes jokes about women. period.
For me the solution is not that we stop offending people, it's that people stop being so damn easily offended. It's a joke, walk away or point out what a foolish thing it is to say. There was a time when it was ok to call out someone for being ignorant or just plain stupid. In my office, I politely let someone know when they've made a mistake, and most often they thank me for it. I'm grateful when it's pointed out to me - I can't learn from mistakes I didn't know I made.
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When I have more time, I will address other things posted, but I wanted to point out that a quick fact. In French and Italian (and other Romance Languages, I'm sure), they have masculine and feminine pronouns - when dealing with groups of mixed gender they use the masculine pronoun. I'm not going to comment on the sexism, just pointing out the facts.
... So feel free to show me more, or more explicitly detail the link you were drawing.
The point came out of a discussion I was having with my wife about this thread. She's had pointed out what ClintMemo said (before I had read it) as to what she was taught, and both of us being bilingual, she mentioned the French rule about mixed-gender groups - authors being one of those.
As to where it was meant to go - no where really - just something to mention. However, as has been pointed out, cultural-bias comes long established practices. As far as English culture goes, French and Italian (Spanish to a certain extent) have had a significant impact. I know that the Angles and Saxons were there first, but I've never studied the influences they left. Overall, though, I'm just as curious as you on how European feminists address this - have they invented words like hir to cover this?
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Reading fiveyearwinter's post also caused a gut reaction in me.
Maybe you're so angry because she's right.
Or maybe I'm so angry because she's wrong.
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Reading fiveyearwinter's post also caused a gut reaction in me.
Maybe you're so angry because she's right.
Or maybe I'm so angry because she's wrong.
Maybe everybody's angry because "right" and "wrong" aren't the only two possible answers? But both sides keep on talking as if someone has to be right and someone else has to be wrong?
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So that makes it okay...? If we're all trying to be equal, and treat human beings as what they are (people), then current socioeconomic status, gender, skin color - none of these things should determine what is and what is not "acceptable behavior." If a woman makes jokes about men, she has no right to get offended when a man makes jokes about women. period.
So the fact that you have the power in the situation means nothing? Do you also think that both blacks and whites have equal right to say the n-r?
Context matters.
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What if we convinced George Lucas to let Lois M. Bujold re-write those three terrible movies?
Sounds good to me, but good luck with Lucas's ego. :D
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So that makes it okay...? If we're all trying to be equal, and treat human beings as what they are (people), then current socioeconomic status, gender, skin color - none of these things should determine what is and what is not "acceptable behavior." If a woman makes jokes about men, she has no right to get offended when a man makes jokes about women. period.
So the fact that you have the power in the situation means nothing? Do you also think that both blacks and whites have equal right to say the n-r?
Context matters.
Technically, under freedom of speech, yes, they both do.
But if we're treating everyone as equals - no one should say that, so yes, I still think they have equal rights - none at all.
Explain to me why men having "the power in the situation" makes it okay for women to insult and offend them? That then victimizes men, AND drags women down to the level of being insulting and offense because they're "striking" back at the white male. Completely undermining the idea of equality.
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Huh. I'm sitting here for a few minutes pondering, and the best I can do is that this all might come down to narrative pace. Male/female differences in how a story gets told and listened to.
Am I onto something here, or am I just tripping out?
I think Anarkey has a little bit more of what I'm saying. Interrupting, rather than just sitting still.
However, this too is a good thing to talk about. We, as a culture -- and most cultures -- have troubel looking at our assumptions. We are acculturated at a very young age. It is unconscious. The operations of our society are invisible. It is a lot of work to bring them to the surface and articulate them, for everyone, more work for some people in some ways.
One of the rules of our society is that what men have to say is more worthwhile than what women have to say.
We add other rules on top of it -- no, really, we're *equal* type rules. But the underlying framework that what women have to say is less worthwhile remains.
Look at haut's earlier example of how women talk more. We don't [she provided the link, I'm going to lazily rely upon her]. In fact, we talk less. Studies have shown that when women speak more than 1/3 of the time in a conversation, they are considerd to be dominating it. When you force a man and a woman to speak one on one and time it and you force them each to speak 50% of the time, both the man and woman (in the statistical preponderance of cases) will afterward report that the man had barely any time to speak.
But the myth that women speak more is remarkably resistant. Despite the fact that it's been knocked down by studies, and recently publicly debunked in a number of fora; despite the fact that the claims as publicly presented show a range of data and are never traced back to specific instances (common traits of urban myths) -- this message reappears. It was presented as fact on NPR a couple months ago.
Women *seem* to talk more (again, we're talking statistical norms and statistically normative perceptions), because we have less perceived right to speak. Earlier values that women should be silent, and men should make decisions, predominate. Black women have even less than white women. And we think of black women as particularly "loud."
Now, think about hallmarks of good writing as taught in creative writing courses. It avoids adverbs and adjectives that overwrite. It uses strong action verbs and avoids passive constructions. It is direct. It avoids words like "maybe" or "kind of" that equivocate.
Think about what we think about men and women. Women in western culture are trained to equivocate in their language, rather than being direct. Women aer thought to be passive. Men are thought to be active. Women's writing is at least stereotypically more likely to concentrate on description, while men's writing is at least in theory more likely to concentrate on action.
Go to Gender Genie and check it out. The differences between "men's" writing and "women's" writing correlate strongly to what in a creative writing class are called "good" writing and "bad" writing.
So my point, arrived at circuitously (not because I'm a woman, but because I'm an academic :-P), is that there are a lot of unconscious cues on the level of acculturation telling you, and everyone else in this conversation, that it's important for us to focus on male voices.
This goes back to the default thing, too. Men are more or less taught that it's okay for them always to be the subject, while women are the gazed at, the object. Ditto whites. And since we, as white people, and you, as men, are used to being the subject, it's hard to not automatically assume that position. Again, there's no blame there for individuals. But to fight racism and sexism, it is important to remember that the oppressed classes are constructed as having less right to a voice, and that the avenues through which those voices are -- not silenced through censorship, but spoken over or ignored -- are largely invisible.
This is extremely well said. And for what it's worth, I'm trying. I really am listening and thinking about what I hear. And I have deep confidence that I'm not the only one.
Thank you. I do have that sense, and I deeply appreciate it.
I have a few more thoughts, in particular about women, and probably some questions too, but it's been a long day. I'll come back to them.
Ditto. :)
Meanwhile... Is anyone up for a thread about the ways in which it's fun to be a woman or a man? There's got to be something light and grinnable we can share to lighten the weight of all the stones in this topic. >8->
My reservation about this... and I'm sorry that I have one... is that I feel it could easily lead to more fractiousness, as well as generalizations and stuff.
Could we have a thread on something else we love, perhaps? LOL, people always seem to want to talk abotu SF media. Or maybe just a "things we love" thread? That's not very imaginative. Sorry!
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Explain to me why men having "the power in the situation" makes it okay for women to insult and offend them? That then victimizes men, AND drags women down to the level of being insulting and offense because they're "striking" back at the white male. Completely undermining the idea of equality.
No, it doesn't victimize men.
I don't tell jokes about men. I'm not into them. I don't think jokes based on stereotypes are funny, generally.
However, I don't think jokes about men harm men. Men as a class are not in a position to be harmed by women as a class. Men are not systematically oppressed because of their gender. Women are. Women, as a class, are continually hurt and oppressed through stereotypes promoted through jokes. Men, as a class, aren't.
It's the difference between "in bad taste" and "contributing to the systemic oppressio of a large group of people." You're not going to convince me that's not an important distinction.
*
By the way, I'm leaving the comptuer for a while now. I will respond to everything I feel I need to respond to that has been said up to this point in the day. I'm not ignoring anyone, just dealing with class stuff.
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No, it doesn't victimize men.
I don't tell jokes about men. I'm not into them. I don't think jokes based on stereotypes are funny, generally.
However, I don't think jokes about men harm men. Men as a class are not in a position to be harmed by women as a class. Men are not systematically oppressed because of their gender. Women are. Women, as a class, are continually hurt and oppressed through stereotypes promoted through jokes. Men, as a class, aren't.
And this is where you lose me. I get that you are using Men as the group name and not men as in me -and but this sounds like "You're bigger and stronger than me, so if I hit you in the knees with a baseball bat it won't hurt as much, so it's ok to hit you with the bat."
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As to where it was meant to go - no where really - just something to mention. However, as has been pointed out, cultural-bias comes long established practices. As far as English culture goes, French and Italian (Spanish to a certain extent) have had a significant impact. I know that the Angles and Saxons were there first, but I've never studied the influences they left. Overall, though, I'm just as curious as you on how European feminists address this - have they invented words like hir to cover this?
Aha. Then I shall stop trying to force it to go places if it was not meant to go somewhere. Thanks for clarifying. And yes, now would be a great time for some European feminist, or someone knowledgeable about European feminism to come in and tell us what exactly they do about "man" in Germany, and what they do about "ellos" in Spain, etc. I'm not personally aware of any attempts to modify language to be more inclusive in anything other than English, but that's likely to be my own ignorance, not necessarily what's happening in the world.
English tends to be highly malleable, other languages, not so much (though of course all living languages change and grow).
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But if we're treating everyone as equals - no one should say that, so yes, I still think they have equal rights - none at all.
Explain to me why men having "the power in the situation" makes it okay for women to insult and offend them? That then victimizes men, AND drags women down to the level of being insulting and offense because they're "striking" back at the white male. Completely undermining the idea of equality.
I'm not crazy about hypotheticals in debate, so I don't really like addressing these nebulous women who have the gall to insult and offend these hazy non-existent men, but I do sense that you're conflating a goal of "equality for all" with a yardstick of holding everyone to the same standard. And that, further, there's a good foot and a half missing from the yardstick we're applying to the non-dominant, non-default members of the society.
I actually don't hold equality in such high regard, myself, with the exception that I sure would like to make a dollar for every dollar a man of my abilities and experience makes, and I'm not going to do that unless I'm a car mechanic. However, let's pretend for a moment that I think equality for all is the highest aim of American society, and that we mean to get it.
Equality as a societal goal means that all people are treated equally in economic and legal situations. So your race doesn't affect your guilty verdict in a court of law, and your socio-economic status doesn't prevent you from gaining an education, and your gender doesn't prevent you from doing jobs you are otherwise qualified for. It does not mean that every individual treats every other individual the same way, reciprocally, and I find it strange that you think it does. Equality doesn't have anything to do with jokes, or offense, or insults. Palimpsest's use of jokes as an example is merely an illustration as to how power can operate relatively invisibly, harming one group while not appreciably damaging another group. And she's talking about groups. She says "men" and she says "women". She's talking about a sociological phenomenon here, not a specific person's actions. That you took it to mean specific interaction between given individuals...and that it made you so angry...and that you took it so personally...well, I think that says stuff about your personal life experiences, and not much about sociological phenomena at large.
I was quite surprised when you said you were angry, actually. We all have our buttons (mine are large and all too easy to push) but I think your reaction could not have been related solely to what palimpsest was saying, as it wasn't in proportion to her tone. It's an abstract conversation, largely theoretical. You can feel free to disagree, firmly even, without call for anger. By and large people have gone out of their way to be restrained. There's no penalizing outcome to anyone from this conversation and no real negative effect is likely to arise from it. I understand emotions are often difficult to control, but I also understand that anger is yet another in that long line of tools that men often apply against women. I realize, too, that pointing this out after the fact may have a chilling effect, similar to what Steve expressed after he reacted in a way that followed the dialog pattern that palimpsest expected, and she pointed it out to him. I can only say, in my defense, that any such chilling effect is not my intent. I have to call them as I see them.
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My anger in these sorts of instances is largely a product of people I see being what I view as especially irrational. Ironic and hypocritical, I'm sure. But I feel as though some of the things said in this conversation have just a tinge of a sort of conspiracy-level paranoia. Then again, being the majority in virtually every sense of the word (white, male, european, protestant, republican, etc.), I can imagine I'm simply talking from what will be perceived as ignorance.
Based on your post, it seems as though you believe individual instances do not represent the whole of sociological interaction between the sexes. I would like for you to clarify that, if you would. I see personal interactions as a microcosmic version of the group's general views and attitudes at large. If stereotypes fail us (and they do on so many levels) then we are FORCED to take into account the actions of individual. If individuals do not represent, at least on some level, the actions and attitudes of the group as a whole, then I firmly believe our assessment of the group must be flawed.
For example: Equality. Equality is so much more than dollar-for-dollar pay and verdicts being declared independent of skin color and the like - (though it is all these things). Equality is also a measure of the way a group of people is viewed in a society by the other members of this society. People are lamenting within the realm of Sci-Fi, within the society known as the Internet, and within human interaction at large the fact that women are being "othered" - this, to me, demonstrates that they are being perceived as inequal. It may be a semantic argument, in which case I will simply drop it. But to me, it seems as though the idea of equality is intimately tied to treatment on ALL levels - between the groups of the sexes as WELL as between individuals in society. Much as slaves longed for equality - not merely in pay or voting rights, but as being viewed as human being worthy of the same and having all the same rights and respect as a white person. It was a matter of being seen as "black" (a member of the group) on a general level by whites, but also about being treated, specifically, by individuals, as human beings. And that, to me, is equality. I firmly believe people should be treated the same on a fundamental human level. If you disagree, I am curious to hear why.
I find your need to point out what you view as my personal issues as largely irrelevant, actually - especially the mention of men using anger as a tool against women. We could get into women constantly criticizing every single thing men say and do - but that would be a stereotype, wouldn't it?
I mentioned I felt sudden and admittedly knee-jerk anger. I didn't utilize that anger in any way - in fact, I stopped myself from posting what I was intending to say. I realize I can come on strong - to some extent, that was my admission of it. That could well have been the end of it. Let's not digress into ad-hominem.
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. . . As far as English culture goes, French and Italian (Spanish to a certain extent) have had a significant impact. I know that the Angles and Saxons were there first, but I've never studied the influences they left. Overall, though, I'm just as curious as you on how European feminists address this - have they invented words like hir to cover this?
. . . now would be a great time for some European feminist, or someone knowledgeable about European feminism to come in and tell us what exactly they do about "man" in Germany, and what they do about "ellos" in Spain, etc. I'm not personally aware of any attempts to modify language to be more inclusive in anything other than English, but that's likely to be my own ignorance, not necessarily what's happening in the world.
I minored in the linguistic study of Spanish. I only speak a smattering of German, less Italian or French. And I don't claim to be a European feminist. . . But I have some familiarity with the question and have heard it posed in Spanish language classes. My best understanding is that, even if there are movements to neutralize the gender in languages that assign gender to nouns and use the male gender as the general term, it is such a deeply ingrained part of the languages grammar that change is extremely unlikely.
It might be interesting to talk about other cultural explanations for this, but I'd really be shooting in the dark. I think the changes in English to make it more gender neutral are far more grammatically superficial. I cannot offer reference specific papers to back this up, but my impression is that it's easier to change the lexicon. Words enter the language and change meaning often. Grammar does change, too, but it would take a very strong social movement indeed to make such a sweeping change like neutralizing the gender of nouns in languages like Spanish. Our sense of grammar (or syntax), which is believed to be innate, tells us if something sounds right or not. If you neutralized the gender in those languages completely, I think that this would just not sound right to most speakers. At least, that is the case today.
As evidence to this point, I think it is interesting that Filipino has adopted some of the grammatical gender markers of Spanish along with the Spanish words that became part of the lexicon through 500 years of Spanish rule. However, words of indigenous origin did not take on this genderization (to my knowledge). In fact, there is only one gender neutral word for he and she in Filipino: shiya. You will often hear native Filipino speakers use the incorrect third person pronoun when they speak English due to this.
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When I said that "white men suffer, too", this is kind of what I was talking about. I don't think anyone needs to feel sorry for us, but give some of us credit for agonizing over this stuff, and for understanding that it needs to change more quickly.
. . .
Now, I would like to share, as a humorous aside . . .
Tad, I'm totally failing to keep up with the pace of this discussion, but I loved your humorous aside. About you being a PG fan, I say, So. ;)
(Would you believe I have PG album in German?)
I've been wanting to comment on the White Man's guilt issue, however. Actually, I'd rather broaden it to Oppressor's Guilt, because it is not really limited to either white people or to men. It may be important to go through a certain amount of that guilt. However, at some point I do think you have to move beyond it. I do see guilt as something that can be counterproductive, especially in large quantities. Also, I make a clear distinction between guilt, blame, and responsibility. Blame and guilt are emotions that dwell negatively on the perceived cause of a problem. Responsibility is forward looking and seeks a solution or remedy.
Let me also go back to Palimpsest's story of how she discovered some of her own unintentional racist attitudes. I think we have to come to terms with and accept that it is a tendency of all people, no matter our culture or gender, to abuse power. Depending on how narrowly you define things, there are not many, if any, peoples of the world who have not been oppressors at one point in history. Neither being a man nor being white gives us a monopoly on oppression, especially when you view things historically. It's something we're all capable of. Accept that, and move on to the next step.
What is important, then, is taking responsibility for one's own behavior. Try to become more self-aware of how you are using and abusing power and learn how to relate to others more fairly. Learn how you can be an instrument of change and promote social equality. Learn how to better appreciate diversity and where others are coming from. Learn how to connect with people on a more personal level and overcome the differences between us, hopefully, even to better appreciate those differences. Responsibility is the key word for me. I try to let go of the blame and guilt and concern myself instead with how I can act in the present and move forward positively.
I'd also like to add how much I respect how willing people have been to engage in an honest discussion of these issues which are emotionally sensitive on all sides. If not for that, the conversation simply would not have happened, and I really think it's a valuable one. Perhaps the forums offer a level of safety that we would not feel if we were all face to face at a party in someone's house one day.
I see this as one positive effect of the distance and anonymity that Internet communication brings. I usually have seen this aspect of electronic communication to be a negative thing that leads to people behaving badly- after all, the social sanctions are less. You can leave the forum and maybe none of your off-line friends will know. Maybe your on-line friends in other forums won't know. However, this technology has also given us a way to insulate ourselves emotionally a bit so that we can have a truly valuable conversation on emotionally charged issues which is an opportunity for our own personal growth.
Wow! I was never so optimistic as to believe that would actually work in a positive way.
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What if we convinced George Lucas to let Lois M. Bujold re-write those three terrible movies?
Sounds good to me, but good luck with Lucas's ego. :D
*sigh* A boy can dream, can't he?
So can a girl, of course! (Got to consider the thread.)
Oh, and since it's Bujold: Betan hermaphrodites can dream, too.
::)
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Nice posts, Birnam! And would your German PG be PGIII/Melt, or Security? ;)
The topic of jokes about men being "acceptable"--personally, I find derogatory jokes about men to be loathesome. First of all, I don't get behind mocking a whole class of people on stereotypical grounds. But second of all.
Second of all, those jokes don't function socially the same way jokes about women do. Jokes about men very often re-inforce the status quo. Let's take the most visible, most flagrant version of the "it's acceptable to mock men"--the household product commercial.
He's so stupid and thoughtless! He tromps mud on your beautiful kitchen floor and never notices, and what are you going to do? Oh, when he tries to take care of the kids, whatta maroon, it's mess all over and the kid's covered in food! And for the sake of all that's holy, don't let him near the laundry! He's as bad as the kids! (He is classed as a child in these scenarios, in a real way.) This is offensive just on the face of it, and yeah, I think it's crap. But what's the underlying message? "He's not going to grow up ever because he's a man--you're just going to have to do all that for him because you're better at it, you're smarter so you have to do all the scutwork."
Yeah, I can see that really hurts men's interests. That really shows how oppressed men are in our society.
I say this not meaning to dismiss personal offense--I totally understand being personally offended by derogatory jokes about men. Like I said, I find them loathesome. But truth is, the reason they're generally acceptable is that they serve the purpose of re-inforcing sexism against women.
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Dang it, walk away from the computer and have another thought.
Those jokes are consolation prizes. "Oh, sorry little girl, you weren't born with the right genetalia, so you won't be winning our grand prize, but we have some lovely parting gifts: a lifetime supply of Pinesol and the right to publicly mock those who did end up with the right set! So now you don't feel too bad about losing, right? Right?"
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My problem with palimpsest's attitude concerning gender-based jokes is that I feel it glosses over the potential damage they can have towards women:
-Why would a man suddenly decide to take a woman seriously if she thinks it's okay to mock him? Maybe men as a whole don't take women seriously enough as is, but I can't imagine this improving the situation.
-It is possible to be sexist against men. I know this shocks people, but it's also possible to be racist against white people. Just because a minority is in the position of victim doesn't mean they are incapable of also victimizing the majority. Sexism is bad - or is it only bad when it actively harms a member of a particular gender? So men can tell sexist jokes at work if their boss is a woman - since she's in the position of power? Or I can say the 'n' word if my supervisor is black? It's okay for a black guy to call a white woman a "cracker b*tch" (I'm not especially offended by racial slurs against white people) because he's the minority and she isn't? Just because someone has (possibly justifiable) anger about their position in society does not make a certain behavior acceptable - it just makes it understandable. If a child has a terrible home life and becomes a hoodlum, it's not okay for him to vandalize houses and steal cars just because he was dealt a bad hand. We're still responsible for our actions.
-There is a right way and a wrong way to express discontent about social injustice. Making women aware of the fact that they shouldn't be considered second-class citizens, actively going after/boycotting/etc. businesses that practice gender discrimination, making education available to everyone - these are positive methods of creating social change.
-If something is wrong it is wrong. Telling a sexist joke is sexism. Telling a racist joke is racism. Talking about "context" means you will have to prove the correlation between women being an oppressed gender (I can agree about that) with jokes being a contributing factor to that oppression (prove it). All the men who think that telling a sexist joke is "harmless" feel the same way you do, EVEN IF they agree that women are oppressed. They most likely feel that it's no great social injustice to tell a joke. And to say that half the population has the right to do something that is sexist just because "it's not harmful to men" is willfully blind to the fact that sexism isn't only wrong when it victimizes someone. Being sexist against a rich woman who can do whatever she likes and can afford anything she wants is STILL SEXISM.
This is why I think any kind of stereotyping joke is actively harmful - not only to those that are the "butt" of the joke, but also to those revealing their ignorance through it. This is not some sociological guerilla warfare. Women are not being nobly subversive by openly mocking men (not that I'm accusing all women of this - the vast majority of the women in my life are very sweet, kind people) - they are propagating the STEREOTYPE that women are angry, shrewish, and overly critical. I know it sounds like I'm blowing this whole thing out of proportion - but I feel that it does a disservice to all the women struggling to be viewed as equal contributing members of society to gloss over these sorts of attitudes.
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-Why would a man suddenly decide to take a woman seriously if she thinks it's okay to mock him? Maybe men as a whole don't take women seriously enough as is, but I can't imagine this improving the situation.
...Hmmm. Now I'm trying to picture what my marriage would be like if neither of us ever mocked the other. Probably not as healthy. >8-> (I'm very much in the "keep each other amused" school of relationship building.)
I'm not sure I can agree with where all this anti-joke stuff is going. Jokes have a place in society. They distort the truth, yes, but they're also a pressure valve for tension. Personal and cultural. Believing everything you hear in jokes is dangerous -- but so is never laughing at anything. Especially oneself.
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My girlfriend and I definitely believe in the idea of teasing one another as a viable means of communicating affection. I'm not arguing the idea that jokes are bad - even tasteless, offensive jokes are funny, to me.
What I'm arguing against is the idea that it would be okay for one group to make these sorts of jokes while condemning the other for it.
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But I feel as though some of the things said in this conversation have just a tinge of a sort of conspiracy-level paranoia.
Can you be specific? I have heard all or most of the things said in this conversation before, so they aren't all that jarring to me, or all that paranoid sounding. A conspiracy requires conspirators, and my understanding of the main thrust of much of palimpsest's and haut's argument is the oppression is systemic, unconscious and sometimes unintended...the exact opposite of a conspiracy. They hope that shifting people from unconscious and reflexive to thoughtful and conscious might change individual behavior, and possibly even society as a whole, for the better. Everyone here has said "I do it too. We all do it. It's not right, but it's hard work to train yourself out of it." which again, negates the idea that this is being framed as a conspiracy.
Based on your post, it seems as though you believe individual instances do not represent the whole of sociological interaction between the sexes. I would like for you to clarify that, if you would.
Absolutely, that's how I see it. No seeming about it. I very much like the way you've phrased it, and would be hard put to improve on it with clarifications. Though I suppose I can try, with an example. I have interactions with my partner, and he has interactions with me. These interactions cover a fairly wide gamut (we argue, we have sex, we enjoy conversations, we sleep next to one another, and so on), but they do not represent the whole gamut of interactions between men and women. I have never broken up with him, he has never given me an STD. Those two interactions are not represented within our context, but they are very well represented within the general context of interaction between the sexes. We are not a self-sufficient all-encompassing example. We can't be. Any single interaction, or set of interactions, that I have with an individual of the opposite gender represents only a small fraction of the totality of gender relations.
That said, there are threads, documentable tendencies, in gender relations. For example, statistically, a pregnant woman is at a higher risk of being murdered than a non-pregnant woman (citation of the study I'm referring to here (http://"http://www.letswrap.com/LetsWRAP/Spring01/page2.htm")). That means something in a larger societal sense, even if it doesn't mean anything directly to me or you, because you (presumably) have not murdered anyone pregnant, and I have not yet been murdered at all (pregnant or otherwise).
For example: Equality. Equality is so much more than dollar-for-dollar pay and verdicts being declared independent of skin color and the like - (though it is all these things).
It may well be more than that, but if we could just get some concrete action on those lesser bits, I for one, would be thrilled.
Equality is also a measure of the way a group of people is viewed in a society by the other members of this society.
Sure, yeah. You're right in line with what palimpsest is saying here. I disclaimered about equality because I'm not completely in line with what palimpsest and haut think on this. I place a premium on plurality, and so we end up saying a lot of the same things, but I'm not quite as convinced as they are that turning the small wheel of social interaction ultimately turns the big wheel of power and economic change. It's positive, in that it's something you can do as an individual, and I totally respect their approach, and most of the time we probably sound like we think exactly the same things because our opinions dovetail nicely but, shockety shock, not all feminists are the same.
But to me, it seems as though the idea of equality is intimately tied to treatment on ALL levels - between the groups of the sexes as WELL as between individuals in society. Much as slaves longed for equality - not merely in pay or voting rights, but as being viewed as human being worthy of the same and having all the same rights and respect as a white person.
Sure, but I would argue that if the law had seen them as the same, not as property, say, then the rest would follow from that. Unfortunately, the law still doesn't see them the same, and thus, we still have inequality. I guess it's kind of a chicken and egg thing, and of wondering where the fulcrum is. I don't think the fulcrum is linguistic (except perhaps in true hate speech, which is a different animal), though like I said, I value inclusivity.
I firmly believe people should be treated the same on a fundamental human level. If you disagree, I am curious to hear why.
Oh hell no, I don't believe people should be treated the same. This is where I step decidedly off the equality train. Treat a blind person the same as a deaf person? Treat someone 6'2" the same as someone 5'2'? Treat a ten year old boy the same as a sixty year old woman? No, no, and no.
The only "sameness" values that are worthy of every individual human are basic courtesy and respect. Trick is, this is not the same for all people. If I may circle back to Steve's "evolving mental model", this is where we get into the treating of people as to how they indicate they want to be treated, and not as any of the stereotypes that let you shortcut, and avoid thinking about them as human.
I found it very touching, for example, when TAD chose a gender neutral pronoun to refer to palimpsest (even though she clarified that she doesn't mind being referred to with the traditional feminine pronoun), because he was open, he was listening, he wanted to treat her the way she indicated that she wanted to be treated. Respect. Awesome.
I find your need to point out what you view as my personal issues as largely irrelevant, actually
Yeah, me too. I have no idea why you thought it was salient to bring your anger into the conversation, but since you did, I addressed it. You didn't explain your anger, and I came up with what I thought of as a charitable interpretation, that the locus of your anger was actually elsewhere, in your past, or in something tangential happening to you outside of this conversation. I was not applying the less charitable interpretation to you (that you were trying to stifle the conversation with a show of anger) but I thought you ought to know that given what you presented (not much beyond GAH this makes me soooooo mad) the less charitable interpretation could easily have been applied.
We could get into women constantly criticizing every single thing men say and do - but that would be a stereotype, wouldn't it?
I sense there's some bait you're trying to get me to rise to here, but, really, I got nothing. You want to talk about "women" or more specifically me constantly criticizing every single thing "men" or more specifically you say, then do it. My buttons are large and easy to push, but that's not one of them.
I mentioned I felt sudden and admittedly knee-jerk anger. I didn't utilize that anger in any way
You expressed it. That's using it.
Let's not digress into ad-hominem.
I have tried to explain that I was not attacking you ad-hominem. I was, perhaps, not as delicate in my original post as was necessary to get my point across. Unfortunately, delicacy is not one of my strong points, despite my being a woman, and I did try (both then and in my subsequent explanation). However, I think if you truly feel that ad-hominem attacks are out of place, then you might refrain from using really loaded words such as irrational and paranoid to describe your fellow forum members.
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I minored in the linguistic study of Spanish. I only speak a smattering of German, less Italian or French. And I don't claim to be a European feminist. . . But I have some familiarity with the question and have heard it posed in Spanish language classes. My best understanding is that, even if there are movements to neutralize the gender in languages that assign gender to nouns and use the male gender as the general term, it is such a deeply ingrained part of the languages grammar that change is extremely unlikely.
Wait, I'm not with you...are you saying that feminists would move to degender nouns and make them all male? That seems totally backward to me, and not feminist at all. Or is that a hypothetical? Please explain further.
As evidence to this point, I think it is interesting that Filipino has adopted some of the grammatical gender markers of Spanish along with the Spanish words that became part of the lexicon through 500 years of Spanish rule. However, words of indigenous origin did not take on this genderization (to my knowledge). In fact, there is only one gender neutral word for he and she in Filipino: shiya. You will often hear native Filipino speakers use the incorrect third person pronoun when they speak English due to this.
Wait again, are you saying that Filipino genderizes words it imports from Spanish? Or that it genderizes words more generally because of Spanish influence? Or both? What about in the other direction, do Filipino words imported into Spanish acquire gender markers? Examples, please.
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My problem with palimpsest's attitude concerning gender-based jokes is that I feel it glosses over the potential damage they can have towards women:
fiveyearwinter,
I think you're arguing about something you think palimpsest was saying, as opposed to what she actually said. What she actually said was that she pretty much doesn't find any jokes based on stereotypes to be funny. Her funnybone is elsewhere. She doesn't make jokes that stereotype men and doesn't make jokes that stereotype women (and presumably, doesn't laugh at them). It's not her thing, not her bag. She's said this several times.
Palimpsest did say that jokes that stereotyped men are not equivalent in their level of oppression as jokes that stereotype women. And yes, this is true. As hautdesert pointed out, even jokes that on the surface appear to stereotype men, often really just serve to reinforce subservience in women. They also both said that they think jokes that stereotype men are bad for men. Not as bad, but damaging, yes, and not cool. I'm not sure what else you want from them. They've already conceded a bunch of the points you're arguing against which makes your post look a little straw man.
Also, I think it would behoove you to notice when posts are from palimpsest and when they are from hautdesert. They are not the same person, AFAIK.
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...Palimpsest did say that jokes that stereotyped men are not equivalent in their level of oppression as jokes that stereotype women.... Not as bad, but damaging, yes, and not cool.
No, it doesn't victimize men.
It felt like she did to me - hence my earlier reply. And that is what I took out of fiveyearwinter's comments. He agrees with most everything palimpsest says, except for the part of "my pain is greater than yours" or maybe more precisely "Your pain is insignificant because of your position of power, so it doesn't count".
Regardless if a joke about how fathers are such bad parents reinforces "subservience in women" is true or not, being a great Dad (I have the mugs to prove it ;)), it still offends me and pisses me off that my parenting skills are questioned because of my gender - just as some idiots question a woman's writing ability for her gender. My annoyance isn't lessened and shouldn't be dismissed due to my societal position of power.
And I would like to thank fiveyearwinter for coming back and posting his views, and maintaining the civility of this discussion.
Oh hell no, I don't believe people should be treated the same. This is where I step decidedly off the equality train. Treat a blind person the same as a deaf person? Treat someone 6'2" the same as someone 5'2'? Treat a ten year old boy the same as a sixty year old woman? No, no, and no.
The only "sameness" values that are worthy of every individual human are basic courtesy and respect. Trick is, this is not the same for all people. If I may circle back to Steve's "evolving mental model", this is where we get into the treating of people as to how they indicate they want to be treated, and not as any of the stereotypes that let you shortcut, and avoid thinking about them as human.
Here, here - I agree completely.
I mentioned I felt sudden and admittedly knee-jerk anger. I didn't utilize that anger in any way
You expressed it. That's using it.
Utilize or express is a semantic arguement. For this I still go back to - it's better to know, regardless of why he was mad, than just let him fume quietly.
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Free association time. I'm not quoting anyone because don't think this applies to any particular statement from any particular person, but it just came back into my head and I think it's relevant to the discussion as a whole.
It's my personal definition of evil. Taken directly from Terry Pratchett, from Carpe Jugulum, from Granny Weatherwax. Who said:
"Evil begins when we start treating people as things."
I've started spinning off in my head how this might apply to Internet culture. That it's harder to see people on the Internet seems to be both a blessing and a curse in this regard. On the one hand, you have a strong degree of control over the extent to which personal traits, ones which may lead to cultural "thingifying" in the real world, are revealed. You can reveal yourself, conceal yourself, lie about yourself, whatever. Unmapping cultural assumptions online may not be the same as removing them from the world, but it does give you choices about the way you're treated -- at the cost, possibly, of being other than you are. Am I right about this?
On the other hand, everyone on the Internet gets treated as a "thing" to a greater extent than the real world. We don't see people; we see words, mostly, and it's an act of will to remap those words back to people. One mistake I've frequently made is to begin arguing with words I see, and forget I'm arguing with real people. In the past I've gotten really really nasty in flamewars, just for fun, using cleverness to slice people down -- and been proud of it. I'm not proud of it now.
...All of which leads to a question I have, and it's primarily for women: to what extent has your choice of how you present yourself online been shaped by choices of whether to reveal your gender? Is online life more of a pain in the ass for women, less of a pain in the ass, or is it difficult to compare?
Followup question: do you think things are getting better or worse? Does MySpace (http://www.myspace.com) factor into your assessment?
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I appreciate Steve's attempt to move this conversation in a new direction, and I figure it's probably about ready to go there. However, I also get the sense that slic is feeling a little ignored, from the number of "that's what I've been saying" posts. I can't speak to anyone else, but I haven't been consciously ignoring you, slic. I nodded my head all the way through your bike rider helmet example, but I didn't have anything in particular to add to it.
However, I think there's still a misunderstanding about what we mean when we say "oppression" and "victimization". I am worn down on trying to explain this and completely ready to talk about something else, but I want to give it one more pass and hope it sticks. This is all I'll say, because even I am sick of my name in this thread. (Sorry, Steve, it will have to be one of our other women who answer your questions). That doesn't mean I won't read replies, by the way, I'm not shouting my last word and running. More like I'm taking a (temporary) vow of silence on this topic.
Whether a joke supports or does not support oppression does not directly correlate to how much it hurts the individual who is the subject (or the perceived subject) of the joke. It may be that jokes that are biased against men hurt slic's feelings WAY more than jokes that are biased against women hurt palimpsest's feelings. She's not talking about her personal pain, and she's also not talking about slic's personal pain. She's not denying anyone's right to anger or upset or whatever when they personally encounter an offensive stereotype. She's not minimizing that.
If you'll note from hautdesert's very fine example, the joke she deconstructs is not aimed at a specific woman. It's on public media, it's aimed at all women. That commercial, and other media offerings and locker room jokes and plenty of other examples that have come up in this thread already, feed into a system that denigrates women, that assigns them as a class lesser status than that given to men. Men can't be victimized this particular way, because there is no such corresponding system at work against them.
It's not dismissive of us to say, "Oh but you aren't being oppressed", because as a class, you're not, regardless of how you feel individually. The same way I am not oppressed because of my race, no matter how many dumb cracker jokes a person of color makes. Even if they direct those jokes at me, to my face, I'm still not oppressed. I may be angry, I may be hurt, but I'm not being oppressed. The person of color can make jokes until the cows come home, I (and people of my race) are still going to (likely) be wealthier, have greater opportunities and enjoy better health. Thus, I am not oppressed, no matter how annoyed I am. I'm not saying the person of color has the right to make those jokes, or that it would be humane of them to do so, or that I deserve to have to listen to those jokes, or anything like that. Still, the person of color's jokes aimed at me don't fall under the rubric of oppression, though it can fall under plenty of other headings, including headings that deplore such actions as mean-spirited.
*Phew*. Ok, that's my best go. I'm done.
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Anarkey,
Sorry, throw the Strunk & White at me for ambiguous and overly complicated sentences. I was just saying that languages which assign gender to nouns tend to also use masculine nouns and pronouns as the default pronoun in the following cases:
- If they refer to a person of unknown gender
- If they refer to a group of people with unknown gender
- If they refer to a group of mixed gender
I am talking about the scenario where feminists might move to strip away gender from nouns and use gender neutral forms in these languages. I really don't know of such movements in the Spanish speaking world and know less of other such languages. The response I have always heard, even from professors who are women, is that Spanish speakers just don't see it that way. Regardless of the merits of such a movement, I don't think it would be successful. The reason being that the structure of language is so intrinsic that it is less likely to change than the words found in the language.
In Filipino there are nouns of Spanish origin that refer to people and indicate gender. While Filipino lacks a genderized articles (like el, la, los, las, un, and una) the ultimate o (masculine) or a (femanine) that commonly appears on Spanish nouns also indicates gender. For example, my wife is a Filipina, my brother-in-law is a Filipino, my brother-in-law and his wife are both Filipinos. These noun forms, and others, made their way into the Filipino language, but the accompanying articles did not. To my knowledge, there are no indigenous words that use this method of indicating gender, but if they are they must be few.
I don't know of any Filipino words that were imported into Spanish, but there may be some. However, there have been words of foreign origin that have been encorporated into Spanish. All nouns have a gender in Spanish. There might be some differences as to which gender has been assigned to a Spanish word of foreign origin, though. (I think I've heard both "el troque" and "la troca" for "truck").
So, this suggests to me that the syntatical or grammatical function of gender is intrinsic to the languages structure, and that this trumps the symantec value of genderized nouns. I think that it might be possible to introduce a set of neutral pronouns in Spanish, as people talk about in English. One good candidate for this is the indirect object third person pronoun, se. There is a convention in Spanish to use se also as a direct object pronoun when it refers to a person or people of any gender, known or unknown. I choose to comply with this convention, myself. I believe the practice is called seismo (or se-ism)
For those not familiar with the different types of pronouns, here's an example:
I(subject pron.) threw itdirect object pron. to themindirect object pron..
I'm not sure how to use the table tool in the forum post, so here is the list of pronouns:
me, you, him/her, us, you, them (English uses the same set of pronouns for both direct and inderect object)
me, te, lo/la/(se), nos, os, los/las/(se) (Spanish direct object pronouns)
me, te, se, nos, os, se (Spanish indirect object pronouns)
Substituting a gender neutral pronoun that is added to the language or adapted from another area of the language sounds to me like something that is possible to achieve. The gender neutral form could then be used when gender is unknown or where the parties referred to are of mixed gender- i.e., the default. I think this approach is possible becuase it is more like adding a word to a language than changing the structure of the language.
Still, I'm not convinced that using gender neutral pronouns in Spanish could get as much momentum as it does in English because there is so much genderization in the language and Spanish speakers generally seem to think it is not meaningful. In English genderized forms stand out in contrast to the bulk of the other words in our language.
Also, the explanation I was given for seismo in Spanish had nothing to do with gender politics. It was a way to elevate the terms used for people as oppoosed to the terms used for things. I think its usage confirms this. As I said above, it is used even when gender is known, so it is not really being used here as a default term when gender is unknown or in mixed gender cases.
To sum up, I think it's possible to replace a few words like gender specific pronouns with gender neutral forms, especially in English, but I think it is less likely to occur in Spanish. Far less likely would be neutralizing the gender of Spanish nouns in general.
I hope that doesn't just bring up more questions than it clarifies. . .
Wait, I'm not with you...are you saying that feminists would move to degender nouns and make them all male? That seems totally backward to me, and not feminist at all. Or is that a hypothetical? Please explain further.
. . .
Wait again, are you saying that Filipino genderizes words it imports from Spanish? Or that it genderizes words more generally because of Spanish influence? Or both? What about in the other direction, do Filipino words imported into Spanish acquire gender markers? Examples, please.
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I can't speak to anyone else, but I haven't been consciously ignoring you, slic.
Thanks for the comment, Anarkey. I do love being noticed, but don't worry, I've enjoyed the discussion, and happy with my contributions.
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Tad, I'm totally failing to keep up with the pace of this discussion, but I loved your humorous aside. About you being a PG fan, I say, So. ;)
(Would you believe I have PG album in German?)
Yes, I do believe it! I have both, myself. "Blood of Eden" was the wedding song my wife and I chose for our first dance (neither of our families noticed the lyrics).
PG (and Paul Simon) were "gateway drugs" for me, leading into more adventurous territory, such as Kate Bush and Laurie Anderson, as well as a wealth of fantastic musicians showcased on his Real World label.
Now here's a thread I'd like to see develop, and maybe you all can help. Who are your favorite sci-fi musicians? I've heard of the folk bands that sing Star Trek ballads, and Steve has featured some great stuff on EP from time to time. I was fond of Peter Schilling ("Voelig losgeloest/Major Tom" is still pretty awesome), and there's always Parliament's Mother Ship flying around; but who really evokes that Sense of Wonder for you?
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Nice posts, Birnam! And would your German PG be PGIII/Melt, or Security? ;)
Yes, I do believe it! I have both, myself. "Blood of Eden" was the wedding song my wife and I chose for our first dance (neither of our families noticed the lyrics).
PG (and Paul Simon) were "gateway drugs" for me, leading into more adventurous territory, such as Kate Bush and Laurie Anderson, as well as a wealth of fantastic musicians showcased on his Real World label.
Now here's a thread I'd like to see develop, and maybe you all can help. Who are your favorite sci-fi musicians? I've heard of the folk bands that sing Star Trek ballads, and Steve has featured some great stuff on EP from time to time. I was fond of Peter Schilling ("Voelig losgeloest/Major Tom" is still pretty awesome), and there's always Parliament's Mother Ship flying around; but who really evokes that Sense of Wonder for you?
HautDesert & Tad!
I have Security, a.k.a. Deutsches Album. My favorite on this album is "Kon Takt!". I think it's harder hitting than the English version, "I Have the Touch", which I love, too.
I really loved "Don't Give Up" (and other songs Kate Bush collaberated on) and thought "This is the Picture (Excellent Birds)" with Laurie Anderson was pretty cool. I didn't really get into those other two artists, but I like some other stuff by Kate Bush, too. I understand where you're coming from with Paul Simon, too.
Wow, Sci-Fi music- there's a challenging question. There's a few that pop right out, of course- I'm totally with you on "Major Tom"! God I love that song! I've had trouble getting my hands on a copy of it, though. A friend gave me a 12" version recorded on CD- audio quality was OK, but at the end of the song there was a skip on the record! I still listen to it though. It's really long and combines both English and German versions.
"Blood of Eden," huh? You're hard core! We just went with a favorite Crowded House song.
Of course there's the other Major Tom song, "A Space Oddity" by David Bowie, and Elton John's "Rocket Man" is ok. Can I count John Williams Star Wars scores? I don't sit and listen to them on my iPod, but the Star Wars theme gives me chills when I hear it. (Laugh if you will). I think my wife feels almost the same way about the Superman theme, but she won't admit it.
How about A Flock of Seagulls's "Space Age Love Song"? The instrumental song at the end of Buckaroo Banzai? Weird Al's "The Saga Begins"? I like those.
I don't care for Duran Duran's Electric Barbarella- and now I'm stretching. I can't think of anything else I'm really familiar with.
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Tad, I'm totally failing to keep up with the pace of this discussion, but I loved your humorous aside. About you being a PG fan, I say, So. ;)
(Would you believe I have PG album in German?)
Yes, I do believe it! I have both, myself. "Blood of Eden" was the wedding song my wife and I chose for our first dance (neither of our families noticed the lyrics).
PG (and Paul Simon) were "gateway drugs" for me, leading into more adventurous territory, such as Kate Bush and Laurie Anderson, as well as a wealth of fantastic musicians showcased on his Real World label.
Now here's a thread I'd like to see develop, and maybe you all can help. Who are your favorite sci-fi musicians? I've heard of the folk bands that sing Star Trek ballads, and Steve has featured some great stuff on EP from time to time. I was fond of Peter Schilling ("Voelig losgeloest/Major Tom" is still pretty awesome), and there's always Parliament's Mother Ship flying around; but who really evokes that Sense of Wonder for you?
I'm not sure if this counts, but I have several of the Babylon 5 soundtrack albums, by Chris Franke. They're really good in an electronic, symphonic, space-opera sort of way.
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I think the sci-fi music idea is great, but you reaaly should move it to a different thread. It is distracing from the point of this one.
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And this is where you lose me. I get that you are using Men as the group name and not men as in me -and but this sounds like "You're bigger and stronger than me, so if I hit you in the knees with a baseball bat it won't hurt as much, so it's ok to hit you with the bat."
The point is, it's not a bat, it's a nerf ball.
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I see personal interactions as a microcosmic version of the group's general views and attitudes at large. If stereotypes fail us (and they do on so many levels) then we are FORCED to take into account the actions of individual. If individuals do not represent, at least on some level, the actions and attitudes of the group as a whole, then I firmly believe our assessment of the group must be flawed.
There really are other levles of analysis. The flock acts in certain ways which are not consistent or describable by watching individual birds.
Stereotype is A) not justified by social science, and B) teh application of group observations to indviduals.
Social science is the study of the way that the flock moves, and how it does so.
I don't really care if you reject social science, as I'm suspecting from your post that you do, but when you do that, I'm going to react the same as if you said you disbelieved physics. It's not my job to prove my discipline exists any more than it's the job of evolutionists to prove to people who've been fed propaganda that their discipline exists.
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Let me also go back to Palimpsest's story of how she discovered some of her own unintentional racist attitudes. I think we have to come to terms with and accept that it is a tendency of all people, no matter our culture or gender, to abuse power. Depending on how narrowly you define things, there are not many, if any, peoples of the world who have not been oppressors at one point in history. Neither being a man nor being white gives us a monopoly on oppression, especially when you view things historically. It's something we're all capable of. Accept that, and move on to the next step.
What is important, then, is taking responsibility for one's own behavior. Try to become more self-aware of how you are using and abusing power and learn how to relate to others more fairly. Learn how you can be an instrument of change and promote social equality. Learn how to better appreciate diversity and where others are coming from. Learn how to connect with people on a more personal level and overcome the differences between us, hopefully, even to better appreciate those differences. Responsibility is the key word for me. I try to let go of the blame and guilt and concern myself instead with how I can act in the present and move forward positively.
Ditto. And ditto your feeling of positive-ness.
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It is possible to be sexist against men. I know this shocks people, but it's also possible to be racist against white people. Just because a minority is in the position of victim doesn't mean they are incapable of also victimizing the majority. Sexism is bad - or is it only bad when it actively harms a member of a particular gender? So men can tell sexist jokes at work if their boss is a woman - since she's in the position of power? Or I can say the 'n' word if my supervisor is black? It's okay for a black guy to call a white woman a "cracker b*tch" (I'm not especially offended by racial slurs against white people) because he's the minority and she isn't? Just because someone has (possibly justifiable) anger about their position in society does not make a certain behavior acceptable - it just makes it understandable. If a child has a terrible home life and becomes a hoodlum, it's not okay for him to vandalize houses and steal cars just because he was dealt a bad hand. We're still responsible for our actions.
No, it's not possible to be sexist against men or racist against white people.
Systemically, these just arent' possibilities.
You can harbor anti-male or anti-white attitudes, but racism as it is used in terms of social science and as it is meaningful in the world, is a systemic problem that continually puts barriers in front of an oppressed class.
Me saying "YOU SUCK!" doesn't correlate to you being unable to get equal pay, or have your word counted as valid in a court of law, or determine your own bodily rights. Therefore, me saying "YOU SUCK!" sucks, but only on a personal level.
Racism is a systemic thing.
Whites and oppressor classes are stuck in this model of racism as a personal feeling of badness, which is why whites are often flummoxed when black people say things like, "That is racist."
"I didn't mean it to be racist," replies white person X, "I had good intentions."
"Who the fuck cares about yoru intentions?" asks black person Y. "You just contributed to teh atmopshere that makes it possible for people to burn crosses on my lawn in 200-and-bloody-7!"
"But I didn't mean it!"
"White people are clueless."
"See! That's racism!"
"?"
*
You're creating a false equivalence between two unequivolent things.
Here's an illustration that illustrates the fallacy of reverse racism -- http://www.amptoons.com/blog/archives/2005/12/02/a-concise-history-of-black-white-relations-in-the-usa/
Here's a link less fliply describing the varieties of modern racism, and their systemic effects -- http://www.rachelstavern.com/?p=395
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Believing everything you hear in jokes is dangerous -- but so is never laughing at anything. Especially oneself.
The question isn't never laughing at anything. The stereotype of the humorless feminist (voila) is based on teh fact that we object to jokes that have a role in oppressing women.
Take that ignorant t-shirt that came out lately:
NO
MEANS
NO
(and then around the NO was written "have another drink")
This is specifically not funny.
"The Sad Tale of the Tearless Onion" is a joke that is funny.
"Just Do It?" Funny.
99% of the entries posted on that scary, scary feminist blog Pandagon? Hysterical.
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What I'm arguing against is the idea that it would be okay for one group to make these sorts of jokes while condemning the other for it.
And what you're continuing to fail to understand is power differentials.
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Whether a joke supports or does not support oppression does not directly correlate to how much it hurts the individual who is the subject (or the perceived subject) of the joke. It may be that jokes that are biased against men hurt slic's feelings WAY more than jokes that are biased against women hurt palimpsest's feelings. She's not talking about her personal pain, and she's also not talking about slic's personal pain. She's not denying anyone's right to anger or upset or whatever when they personally encounter an offensive stereotype. She's not minimizing that.
If you'll note from hautdesert's very fine example, the joke she deconstructs is not aimed at a specific woman. It's on public media, it's aimed at all women. That commercial, and other media offerings and locker room jokes and plenty of other examples that have come up in this thread already, feed into a system that denigrates women, that assigns them as a class lesser status than that given to men. Men can't be victimized this particular way, because there is no such corresponding system at work against them.
It's not dismissive of us to say, "Oh but you aren't being oppressed", because as a class, you're not, regardless of how you feel individually. The same way I am not oppressed because of my race, no matter how many dumb cracker jokes a person of color makes. Even if they direct those jokes at me, to my face, I'm still not oppressed. I may be angry, I may be hurt, but I'm not being oppressed. The person of color can make jokes until the cows come home, I (and people of my race) are still going to (likely) be wealthier, have greater opportunities and enjoy better health. Thus, I am not oppressed, no matter how annoyed I am. I'm not saying the person of color has the right to make those jokes, or that it would be humane of them to do so, or that I deserve to have to listen to those jokes, or anything like that. Still, the person of color's jokes aimed at me don't fall under the rubric of oppression, though it can fall under plenty of other headings, including headings that deplore such actions as mean-spirited.
Cut. Print.
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I think the sci-fi music idea is great, but you reaaly should move it to a different thread. It is distracing from the point of this one.
Yeah, I somehow suspect that was the fond hope. Sorry to ruin everyone's work to move the subject.
I'm nearly done with what I have to say anyway, since it seems to me most of the remaining objections are based in a rejection or misunderstanding of social science, which limits the efficacy of argument.
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One problem of Anthropology is it's paradigm of cultural relativism. This is essentially the viewpoint that you cannot judge actions using rules external to the actor's culture. This was played up a lot in Star Trek in their Prime Directive (which was repeatedly shown to be defectiveness). We have feminist anthropologists to thank (sincerely) for criticizing the failings cultural relativism with respect to human rights abuses- abuses which are more far more often carried out against women than men (although not exclusively).
That's interesting. May I ask when you got your degree?
The fact that i don't consider this problem very modern may also correlate to where I got mine. UC Santa Cruz has an activist faculty. My understanding though is that most anthropologists no longer look at cultural relativism as an absolute, esp. when it comes to human rights abuses, but rather use it as a way of trying to recenter without as many eurocentric knee jerks.
International activism has to be culturally sensitive.
Take female circumcision (please -- take it and throw it away). You get a lot of history of people going into Africa and going "Yo! Stop that shit right now!"
And then you have these lovely, lovely reactions of the problem getting much worse.
Colonialists make FGS (female genital surgeries)* illegal; local people divorce FGS from their ritualistic context and perform them on younger and younger children (which, from Carolyn Martin Shaw's research, is damaging for several reasons, including the fact that the rite loses what positive social connections it has, and also because it's more likely to be more severely physically damaging to young girls.)
Colonialists forbid FGS in hospitals; they reinforce unhygeinic conditions that kill women.
Colonialists take a strong stance that FGS is evil; cultures that never, ever practiced it go, "We'll prove we're not white, and that we're on teh side of Africans. We'll start practicing FGS!"
These things just don't work.
What has been making progress is culturally sensitive activism. Emphasis on educating women reduces FGS. Creating economic opportunities for women so that they are not as exclusively reliant on marriage, reduces FGS. Talking about hte health problems of FGS including the fact that it can be inhibitive for reproduction, because that's what the women involved seem to care about -- this reduces FGS. Placing tools for activism in the hands of women who are part of the culture and want to stop FGS, rather than forcing all the activism from outside, reduces FGS. So can talking to communities as a whole, or finding other kinds of rituals that can substitute for FGS.
So, I don't think the ideas of cultural relativism and activism are irreconcilable, but it's necessary to move away from the Mead mode of "If an indigenous person got a snake bite, and I had a snake bite kit, I wouldn't help them" which was generally so stupid that as far as I know not even she practiced it.
--
*FGS -- I'm not satisfied with any of the ways of referring to female circumcision. Female Genital Mutilation is useful in some conversations, but it's very alienating. And female circumcision is a misnomer which has led to some more of that lovely false equivalency. So, FGS, imperfect, is my compromise.
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No, it's not possible to be sexist against men or racist against white people.
Systemically, these just arent' possibilities.
You're probably going to think this is nit-picking at best, or an attempt to distract from your point at worst, but it really isn't. When we're being absolute, can we please change "men" and "white people" to something like "the dominant class" or, even better, your terminology of "the default?"
I ask not because I'm disagreeing with you fundamentally (I'm not sure yet whether I completely agree, but I want to think about it some more before I open my mouth) but because I have an overprecise mind, one that recoils at broad strokes, and at no point in this discussion was it limited to American middle-class culture.
There certainly are places in the world where white people are the minority and can be oppressed. Saying it's not possible to be racist against white people in Japan, for instance, is wrong on the face of it. There are also microcultures in the United States in which the local power structure and economy is entirely non-white. You could say that's a reaction to the larger system, but still, within those areas white people are the exception. Saying that whites cannot be systemically oppressed when your immediate area is not a white-dominated world sounds contrary to stuff I've actually seen.
I'm not sure whether there are any significant cultures in the world (micro- or otherwise) where men aren't dominant. That one may be justifiable in the real world, though I still have that itch to try to think of an exception.
Am I wrong about this? Can white people not be oppressed even in local contexts when they're the minority and have no power?
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Sure. It is not possible to practice systemic discrimination against the dominant class.
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When you said that it's impossible to be sexist against men, it meant the end of this conversation for me. I read everything else you had to say, but most of it was the same to me (as it should have been since you were still arguing from your perspective).
We're arguing from points of view that are simply irreconcilable. There's not even any common ground to discuss this upon. Needless to say, I do not consider the functional definition of racism as equated with "oppression" to be correct, nor do I believe that equating my disagreement with you equivalent to disbelief in the laws of physics. You do, that's fine. I've nothing more to say that you haven't already heard.
EDIT: I suppose the qualifier of "systemic discrimination" makes things better on the surface, but I guess I am still too focused on the fact that it can happen in individual instances. Regardless, I find this debate to be more or less fruitless at this point. Thanks, everybody! I'm sure I'll keep reading. :)
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Am I wrong about this? Can white people not be oppressed even in local contexts when they're the minority and have no power?
They can.
We always have to be aware of the effects of a post-colonial world, but systems get more complicated outside the United States. Seizing land from Guyanan farmers is racist against whites, and at the same time, complex, because of that country's history of race relations, and current positioning in the global context visa vis majority white countries.
Whiteness, of course, is a constructed category. I'm white until I meet a Nazi, at which point I'm a dirty Jew. Irish people are white now, but weren't a while ago, and etc. "White" isn't an absolute category, so you can get white people oppressed by other white people, stuff like Romani being oppressed in Eastern Europe, even though Romani are white-ish. And it's sort of open -- are Armenians white? Are tehy white when you don't know they're Armenian? Are they still white when we're talking about the Armenian genocide?
Whiteness is a problematic, but still sociologically significant, category in the United States, which matches, as I understand, fuzzily but pretty well with the categorizations in western Europe. I was definitely using it in that sense.
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Needless to say, I do not consider the functional definition of racism as equated with "oppression" to be correct, nor do I believe that equating my disagreement with you equivalent to disbelief in the laws of physics.
To be specific, I equated a lack of belief in social science with a lack of belief in physics.
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Corrected. My point remains.
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I'm nearly done with what I have to say anyway, since it seems to me most of the remaining objections are based in a rejection or misunderstanding of social science, which limits the efficacy of argument.
It's a shame that you'll be "done" at that point. The sense I get from both you and Anarkey is that, having nearly pushed past that 'interruption' stage and gotten most of us men to listen, the women are getting too burned out to say anything more. Everyone's saying the same thing: "I'll keep reading, but I'm not gonna feed this crocodile."
It's too bad. My questions were sincere ones, they weren't just to keep the ball rolling for its own sake. It looks I asked them too late. But I can't blame you -- this thread has been something of a gauntlet.
Thanks for putting up with it this far. And that goes to everyone.
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I see personal interactions as a microcosmic version of the group's general views and attitudes at large. If stereotypes fail us (and they do on so many levels) then we are FORCED to take into account the actions of individual. If individuals do not represent, at least on some level, the actions and attitudes of the group as a whole, then I firmly believe our assessment of the group must be flawed.
Good points by Palimpsest. I'll add that if there were no emergent properties when moving from the micro to the macro, you would have no fields of Sociology or Anthropology. Psychology would be able to cover it all. Psychology is important and related to both fields- as there is a relationship between the macro and the micro.
To take another look at humor and gender politics, think about humor that involves a woman dressing up as a man vs. a man dressing up as a woman. A man dressing up as a woman usually serves to make fun of women, or women with certain characteristics (e.g., Rasputia from Norbit). If a man is passing as a woman and fools others, discovery of the deception usually leads to humiliation and embarrassment for the man that lowers his status. However, when a woman masquerades as a man, the result is to raise her social status, and when her true identity is discovered the response is anger and feelings of betrayal (e.g., Victor Victoria). There's at least one good academic example from ethnography that I can easily site as well.
In fact, this observation can perhaps be extended to the case of Palimpsest being mistaken for a man in the Forums, or at least to the theoretical discussion. In essence, "if you're a woman, you should advertise it so we men are not tricked into thinking you're a man." I am not accusing men on the forum of consciously thinking this. But, I think that we men need to reflect a little on that and see if there is some of that in our response.
Again, this is an expectation of behavior that stems from the norms of our culture. I'm not saying this to beat up on anyone. However, the only way for the culture to change is for individuals to change. If you think a behavior is wrong, you as an individual must take responsibility for contributing to the change. You contribute by changing yourself, by learning to recognize these harmful patterns, patterns that we tend to accept because we are brought up into them. You contribute to change by your actions and by talking to others about their actions.
In beginning Anthropology we talk about real norms versus ideal norms. Ideal norms are believed by the culture to be true. For example, we are society based on social equality and believe it is wrong to discriminate. However, we are often blind to our own discriminatory behavior unless it is extremely blatant, and even then we may rationalize it and fail to recognize it for what it is. The real norm is that discrimination persists.
Also, when you think of yourself as a good person it is hard to imagine that you could do something that your are philosophically opposed to, even unknowingly. It is painful to realize that you're being hypocritical.
Add to this the tendency of people to push back when you push against them. I see this as one side of the fight or flight response. Some folks have probably flown from this post in fear of facing something painful or being criticized. Some people have stood up to fight. I would also like to add that these are not the only possible responses, just our instinctual responses. There have also been others who have risen above these animal impulses and stayed to discuss the topic further and seek their own self-actualization. This is what I try to do, and I applaud all the other forum members who are doing the same.
It looks to me like Palimpsest is having to repeat herself (although I think her arguments have been clear), and she's already contributed hugely to the discussion. If she's ready to move on, I don't blame her. It wouldn't be fair to continue discussing her posts without her rebutting, but if there are questions that members still feel are outstanding, perhaps they can be re-framed and the discussion can continue with those who remain. I think there are others whom we could hear from, too.
To fiveyearwinter- If you disagree with how Palimpsest defines racism (as being intrinsically tied to oppression), I simply you suggest you fill in "racist oppression" whenever you see the term, and fill in "sexist oppression" when you see sexism. You don't have to get hung up on the terms. We can pull out a dictionary or search definitions on the web to resolve that if need be. I think the words you're using are secondary to the points that each of you is trying to make about the damage that gender-based jokes can have on both men and women.
I think you're saying it's a double standard for someone to say that jokes against women to not be ok while jokes against men are ok. I don't disagree with that claim about it being a double-standard. However, I'm not convinced that it serves to remove the social power that still rests with men. I'm not sure if you believe that to be the case either. Even if it did, well, there's still plenty of power left to share. If the power differential between women as a class became switched with that of men as a class, I might be worried because it is unequal. So, jokes against men are not as harmful on the group scale as they are on the individual scale.
I do see negative repercussions of jokes against men on the macro scale, however. I don't think the jokes can makes men an oppressed group, but they can increase tension between men and women and impede communication. Derogatory jokes tend to reinforce our perceptions of differentness and make it more difficult for us to understand and relate to each other effectively and functionally. Extending that back down to the individual level, it gives individuals a convenient excuse for not communicating effectively. Men might say (and women might use analogous statements)
- "No wonder she can't understand where I'm coming from."
- "What else would I expect of a woman."
- "I don't understand women, they're like a different species."
It's important to aknowledge differences, hopefully to understand and appreciate them. However, it is essential to also recognize our similarities and the common ground we share in order to have healthy and productive relationships.
I can understand Palimpsest pulling out since she's contributed so much and obviously has some other obligations to attend to. Maybe that's part of your reason too. I believe you were posting to this thread before I got here. I don't want to make assumptions about your motivation, and I'll give you a benefit of the doubt. I don't even know your gender, but I don't think that precludes this same type of thinking between two women who see themselves as belonging to different groups. I just hope hope this kind of "we're incapable of understanding each other" attitude is not a motivation for you to leave the discussion. Anyway, your reasons are your business, and I respect that.
With all that said, I have to admit that I sometimes find myself laughing at a gender based joke that I disagree with philosophically. When that happens I have to think about the joke a bit, and about the source of the joke. Times like that help bring things to a conscious level. But sometimes I decide that I don't have to take the joke too seriously. In general, I don't care for gender or race based jokes, and usually do find them offensive, though.
One time a woman who works in another office in my organization sent an e-mail chain letter of anti-man jokes to a few of her friends, all women. One of those women has a nickname that is the same as my first name, and the sender ended up directing the e-mail to me instead. I laughed about that and was not offended. A couple of the jokes I thought were pretty clever. I didn't think she was trying to be mean-spirited, and I just didn't take it too seriously. I knew that the sender found it embarrassing, anyway, so I tried to just make light of the situation. I certainly didn't find them very harmful to me.
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And this is where you lose me. I get that you are using Men as the group name and not men as in me -and but this sounds like "You're bigger and stronger than me, so if I hit you in the knees with a baseball bat it won't hurt as much, so it's ok to hit you with the bat."
The point is, it's not a bat, it's a nerf ball.
Not sure if I'm in a semantics arguement and don't know it, or we are miscommunicating on scale.
The point of my comments along this line were to point out the flammability of the tone (if you can use that term online) of some of the comments.
One more analogical try and I'll stop:
It's like someone living in a Canada, and they've just lost their job in an economically depressed region, and the response is "Well ,you live in Canda, and it has a great standard of living, their national GDP is up 6% and out west the economy is booming - so you're not victimized/oppressed because whole lot of people in your country are doing just fine."
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Palimpsest,
Sorry, I'm getting lost in the thread and missed this post at first! I was also looking back even further in the thread and saw your comment on page 2 that you were trained as a Social Anthropologist. Before now I'd only caught your later post about your Anthropology Prof & racism. Sorry it took me so long to catch on that your background in Anthro was more extensive. Now I'm revising this post a little, too.
One problem of Anthropology is it's paradigm of cultural relativism. This is essentially the viewpoint that you cannot judge actions using rules external to the actor's culture. This was played up a lot in Star Trek in their Prime Directive (which was repeatedly shown to be defectiveness). We have feminist anthropologists to thank (sincerely) for criticizing the failings cultural relativism with respect to human rights abuses- abuses which are more far more often carried out against women than men (although not exclusively).
That's interesting. May I ask when you got your degree?
BA in Social Anthro with a minor in Spanish Language from UC Riverside, 1997.
The fact that i don't consider this problem very modern may also correlate to where I got mine. UC Santa Cruz has an activist faculty. My understanding though is that most anthropologists no longer look at cultural relativism as an absolute, esp. when it comes to human rights abuses, but rather use it as a way of trying to recenter without as many eurocentric knee jerks.
True, it's not a very modern issue in the field. I thought it might be new to a lot of folks in the discussion, though. Having not read the prior two pages more thoroughly when I first posted, I didn't realize your familiarity with the issue, either. Also, I don't think anyone's come up with a concisely stated paradigm that people can agree on. I've been out of the loop for a while. However, I joined AAA over a year ago, and I've been reading their publications. That doesn't mean I'm in the loop, but I have not gotten a sense from what I've read that the issue has been adequately resolved for the field as a whole. I'm not really sure what the consensus is, if there is one.
I keep hearing about growing schisms in the field. I was always attracted to the holistic approach that distinguished Anthropology. However, many departments are splitting, separating Biological from Social & Cultural Anthro. I've been trying to get a sense where the field is going.
A month ago when I was flying out of state I ran into one of my faculty advisers. Totally by chance he got in line behind me to board the plane. We ended up sitting together the whole flight and talking about the field, about the department at UCR, etc. What I learned about the field from him was not particularly encouraging.
Until a year ago I was really set on returning to school for a PhD in Anthro once my kids get a little older. Instead, I have focused lately on my long-time love of writing.
International activism has to be culturally sensitive.
Take female circumcision (please -- take it and throw it away). You get a lot of history of people going into Africa and going "Yo! Stop that shit right now!"
And then you have these lovely, lovely reactions of the problem getting much worse.
Colonialists make FGS (female genital surgeries)* illegal; local people divorce FGS from their ritualistic context and perform them on younger and younger children (which, from Carolyn Martin Shaw's research, is damaging for several reasons, including the fact that the rite loses what positive social connections it has, and also because it's more likely to be more severely physically damaging to young girls.)
Colonialists forbid FGS in hospitals; they reinforce unhygeinic conditions that kill women.
Colonialists take a strong stance that FGS is evil; cultures that never, ever practiced it go, "We'll prove we're not white, and that we're on the side of Africans. We'll start practicing FGS!"
These things just don't work.
Yes, one natural response when you push people is for them to push back. Anyway, it's a colonial response, "Let us teach you primitive, backwards people how to be civilized." Very condescending.
What has been making progress is culturally sensitive activism. Emphasis on educating women reduces FGS. Creating economic opportunities for women so that they are not as exclusively reliant on marriage, reduces FGS. Talking about hte health problems of FGS including the fact that it can be inhibitive for reproduction, because that's what the women involved seem to care about -- this reduces FGS. Placing tools for activism in the hands of women who are part of the culture and want to stop FGS, rather than forcing all the activism from outside, reduces FGS. So can talking to communities as a whole, or finding other kinds of rituals that can substitute for FGS.
So, I don't think the ideas of cultural relativism and activism are irreconcilable, but it's necessary to move away from the Mead mode of "If an indigenous person got a snake bite, and I had a snake bite kit, I wouldn't help them" which was generally so stupid that as far as I know not even she practiced it.
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*FGS -- I'm not satisfied with any of the ways of referring to female circumcision. Female Genital Mutilation is useful in some conversations, but it's very alienating. And female circumcision is a misnomer which has led to some more of that lovely false equivalence. So, FGS, imperfect, is my compromise.
I originally had put more of my ideas about how to approach these issues in a balanced way, balancing the relativistic rights of the group to practice its culture vs. the rights of the individual. But I thought it was getting convoluted. Your examples are far better than what I was cobbling together.
Cultural relativism certainly cannot be abandoned entirely. It just seems to me that it's based on the assumption that all cultures are equally good. I prefer to think that all cultures are to varying degrees dysfunctional. They survive if they are functional enough to survive, otherwise they perish.
This mirrors my understanding of evolution. Darwinian theory assumes that evolution is fitness maximizing. However, as some of my professors pointed out, it's really fitness satisficing. An organism has to have just enough fitness to survive, and not much more. So, it's not really maximizing it's fitness.
So, there's a lot of dysfunctional traits that both organisms and cultures can have if they are just functional enough to survive. This also means there may be plenty of room to change a culture to make it more prosperous and more functional. In fact, I think it is the function of culture (especially technology as physical culture) to make the organism more fit. In this way, culture helps human organisms survive when their biological fitness alone would cause them to perish. In this way, greater genetic diversity is achieved in the species than would be possible without culture.
Culturally sensitive activism is obviously a great approach, an application that tries to find a balance between these issues. I'm glad to hear about the success that is coming from it. I'm sure that as people continue to find and develop models that work with different issues and with different cultures this will have significant impact on the field of Anthropology.
I have to admit that this discussion has really reminded me about why I love Anthropology! My focus was really on Cognitive & Linguistic Anthro (backed up by the Spanish Linguistics) and Latin American Studies. But these themes of sexism, racism, and ethnocentrism run throughout the discipline. To be honest, my interest in racism and ethnocentrism are what got me into Anthro in the first place. Sexism was not originally part of my primary focus, but as I learned more about human rights abuses that continued against women it became a more central interest.
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