The terms “gay” and “homosexual” aren’t technically gendered; homosexual women often refer to themselves as gay, and the fact that the previous clause is correct English in itself should be self-evident as to my point. And yet, over and over again I see those two words being used alongside lesbian (like this article which uses the phrase “homosexuals and lesbians”), as if lesbians are some magical creatures apart from the rest of the gay world.
Men, being the default, don’t have a special word for them. But women often have such special status markers as lesbian and Mrs., not to mention that most of the time they are lumped into the markers that carry a male connotation such as gays and guys. Thought not as common, as the newspaper article linked in the first paragraph illustrates, this tendency to construe the male as neutral (and the neutral as male) bleeds into words that, as a clear part of their definition, are gender neutral.
Such male normative language bleeds into male normative thinking, which ends up reinforcing the idea of men as normal and women as Other. If lesbians can’t even be properly included in the term homosexual, then what hope is there for them to be seen as full participants in the queer community?
[This is part of my series on Women and Violence, which I am writing as a project for a Women Studies course I’m taking. For an explanation and information on my intentions with this series, please see the introduction.]
In “The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action,” Audre Lorde writes the following description of her thought process when faced with a potential diagnosis of cancer:
[…] and what I most regretted were my silences. Of what had I ever been afraid? To question or to speak as I believed could have meant pain, or death. But we all hurt in so many different ways, all the time, and pain will either change or end. Death, on the other hand, is the final silence. And that might be coming quickly, now, without regard for whether I had ever spoken what needed to be said, or had only betrayed myself into small silences, while I planned someday to speak, or waited for someone else’s words. And I began to recognize a source of power within myself that comes from the knowledge that while it is most desirable not to be afraid, learning to put fear into a perspective gave me great strength.
I was going to die, if not sooner then later, whether or not I had ever spoken myself. My silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you.” (41)
[This is part of my series on Women and Violence, which I am writing as a project for a Women Studies course I’m taking. For an explanation and information on my intentions with this series, please see the introduction.]
In an article titled “‘Femininity’ and women’s silence in response to sexual harassment and coercion,” Kathleen V. Cairns describes how harassment of women functions as a method of social control over women’s behavior:
[O]vert practices include the public, ritual shaming of women in the form of catcalls, lewd remarks and so on which serves to demonstrate the fact that ‘any man or group of men feels entitled not only to pass judgement on any woman walking along minding her own business, but also to announce it to her‘ [Kotzin 1993: 167]
[…]
In patriarchy, women are taught to accept that their femaleness, their simple presence, are responsible for men’s behavior towards them […] It becomes women’s responsibility to police themselves, to keep their dress, comportment and presence within approved limits to avoid ‘provoking’ harassment. (96-7).
This dynamic - of men acting with impunity to judge women, and women shouldering the blame for men’s actions towards them - can be applied to other forms of gender violence as well. What it comes down to is the way that negative reactions from men - or even the anticipation of those reactions - function to police women in everything from their appearance to their behavior.
I’m off to WisCon for the week! I’ll be back May 29, but until then moderation will probably be much delayed, especially for borderline cases. Sorry, but, the conference calls!
For those of you going, I’m presenting on idealized bodies in World of Warcraft, so be sure to look me up. I’ll let everyone know how it went when I get back.
A lot of time my Privilege in Action posts are born out of me seeing two unrelated areas of interest facing the same exact privileged arguments. This time, it’s on the subject of women-oriented spaces, but of course it can be applied to spaces geared towards any non-privileged group.
Let me begin my post with a quote from one of the essays linked in the two threads I will be discussing [emphasis mine]:
After a while, we began organizing “chick nights,” gatherings of just the four of us and maybe some other women we knew from outside the group. For reasons that were often kind of bizarre, some of the men in the group took exception to this. They never organized nights at which we were excluded. When we pointed out that by the law of averages, a good half of the various social outings ended up being guy-only, they replied that it was not the same thing.
“Look,” I finally said to one of them, “when we get together Saturday night, we’re going to paint our nails and put goop on our faces and play with each others’ hair and watch movies with really hot guys and talk about how hot the guys are and probably talk about sex and periods and all that fun stuff. Do you really have any interest in that?”
“No,” he replied, “but we could do other stuff instead.”
Those of us who are veterans of anti-oppression work get the point that Gillam was making, even before her explanation of why they had “chick nights” in the first place, but for people such as her male friend, the concept is foreign and seems discriminatory in nature. He is used to, by virtue of his privilege, being included in things as a default, and therefore to him the natural course is not only to be included in the nights, but to be given a voice equal, or greater, to the women in deciding what is done in those nights.
And it is with that thought in mind that I begin this post on Privilege in Action.
Please Note: Since this post is going to be long enough as it is, I would rather not explain the difference between privilege-only spaces and non-privileged spaces. For those of you who wonder what the difference is between the two, please read my post on A Deeper Look at “Minority Spaces” before continuing with this one.
I. This is our garden. We like it.
I would like to first start by discussing a series of posts on the Feminist SF blog regarding the female-dominated slash fandom. The posts, for reference, are as follows: Slash fandom and male privilege/hetero privilege (a great PiA post written by someone who isn’t me!), This is our garden. We like it., and So, why do fanboys hate fanfic, especially slash?. The common thread that I want to talk about (also addressed in So, why do fanboys hate fanfic, especially slash?) can be summed up with this quote: “The fanboy… perceived a roomful of women, talking about men, and was infuriated to find that his opinion was regarded as of no value.”
When non-privileged groups form our own spaces to talk about our issues, whether or not we welcome participation from privileged groups or not, there is always a backlash from someone who feels that their privileged opinion is not being properly respected. In addition to the examples that Yonmei listed in her posts, every single one of them had an angry man coming on to lecture her and the other commenters about his opinion on slash/fanfic in the same exact style that Yonmei was criticizing in her posts.
Yonmei sums up the problem with conflating privileged participation and privileged domination in spaces for non-privileged groups:
If you find it comfortable to play in the slash sandbox, as is, I don’t think you’ll find any female slash fans telling you you can’t. If what you want to read is slash, no one can stop you. If what you want to write is slash, slash fans will want to read it. If you want to join in metadiscussions about slash, this is also possible - so long as you do so as a slash fan, and not as a gay man arguing that you know how gay men experience the world, and this or that in a slash story isn’t it. Because then you are not trying to join in metadiscussions as just another slash fan: you are trying to distort metadiscussions about slash with male privilege.
Going back to the quote I used in the introduction, it is not that there is necessarily a problem with privileged groups wanting to participate in non-privileged spaces, but that it often comes out that they want to dominate and change those spaces so that they appeal to them in the way that all of the other kinds of spaces out there do.
II. Defining how friendly “privilege-friendly” spaces should be
I don’t put much stock in old adages, but one thing that the constant tug-of-war over defining spaces brings to mind is, “give them an inch and they’ll take a mile.” I’ve been feeling that way about the woman-oriented gaming network, Iris and its child magazine Cerise that I recently created with Revena. In anti-oppression speak, I would call us a inclusive non-privileged safe space. In real terms, that means that we are a feminist/woman-oriented site that welcomes participation from men as long as they come as allies.
But most guys in the gaming blogsphere, even some who position themselves as allies or openminded, are not content with that. Take, for example, this heated exchange between myself, some other women gamers, and a male commenter on a post on New Game Plus called More reasons for a magazine for gaming women.
The exchange can be summed up as such:
Him: Why care what a guy says? Why react to the negativity? Why create a validation for them? Me: Women need to see others sticking up for us — both within our community and without… Because It’s. Not. About. Teh. Mens. It’s about networking and safety and creating a non-toxic gaming environment. Him: But again, why bother?… Why bother trying to convince them otherwise when you could better spend your energy living and creating the world that you want? [Insert a several paragraph diatribe about women wanting to be fetishized, that we shouldn’t “force” our view of equality on him, and that there is no problem because he doesn’t see it.] Me: Listen to what has already been said. It’s. Not. About. Teh. Mens… Men like you, who feel the need to talk over us and not listen to us, are exactly why we need a separate space in order to get our voices heard. Him: I don’t feel the need to talk over anyone. If anything, this is a need to know. But I think I’ve learned enough. Me: …
Well, I wasn’t nearly as nice sounding in the actual exchange. But the deluge of misogyny and privilege in his 17+ paragraph argument about how we women need to just shut up and realize we’ve already achieved equality since our voices are already being heard, all being said while he was simultaneously failing to hear what had been said only one comment above about how the premise to entire argument was false did not put me in the mood to make nicey-nice.
Anyway, the point of it all is that Nic felt affronted at the very idea that there was a space out there where his voice was given less weight, and decided to rectify that fact by dominating the conversation on another woman-oriented space in order to tell us all how much we hate men, freedom of speech, and “equality” that recognizes men’s rights to silence women.
So as not to give the impression that criticism of openly women-oriented spaces is confined to only misogynists like the Kotaku commenters and concern trolls like Nic, though, it is important to point out he is not the first to have criticized the community for not properly catering to male needs. Tony Walsh of Clickable Culture wrote an entire post about how put off he was by our magazine having a tagline saying that it was for women gamers.
Both arguments boil down to: “Your community/magazine doesn’t appeal to men enough, change x, y, or z to make it appeal more.” Both of them miss that, while we welcome privileged participation and want to reach beyond the scope of our group, we are here to give voices to women and women’s issues. Why do we need a gaming magazine “for women”? Precisely because of the assumption that underlies the two arguments being made, that male needs need to be catered anytime and anywhere, those women in the gaming community and the gaming industry (not to mention those who are actually allies who want to try to understand women’s issues rather than assuming they know “what women want”) be damned!
III. Conclusion
None of the privileged people could wrap their minds around the idea that their opinions were not only not worth more than those of the non-privileged group whose space and conversation it was, but actually meant less. These men were coming into a woman-created, woman-oriented sandbox and instead of playing by the rules of the community, they were trying to force it to conform to their ideas of what the community should be!
Privilege is believing that, regardless of the purpose behind a space, any space you enter should conform to your ideas, and that the pre-existing members of that space should give your singular opinion weight equal to that their group as a whole. If someone entered a community devoted to Spiderman/Peter Parker, telling them that they should focus on Mary Jane instead is something that, I think, is universally recognized as rude and presumptuous. Why, then, is it considered acceptable to go into communities devoted to giving women a voice in a certain area (like fandom, gaming, politics, etc) and tell us that we need to change to cater to privileged groups, or listen to a privileged point of view, and otherwise change what we are doing because it is not exactly like every other privilege-oriented, excuse me, every other normal space does?
Ragnell has up an excellent, excellent post called Chorus Member that covers everything from debunking the “hive mind” myth to addressing dismissal as an argumentation style. But that’s not why I’m writing this post. I’m writing this post to highlight a comment that shows exactly why feminism — and feminist activism through consciousness raising — is important.
Not sure I would have ever called myself a Feminist in any context, at least that’s just not a word I’d have ever used to describe myself. Closest I’d use is “common-sensist” and barely at that as a few years ago I really wouldn’thave reacted much to alot of the things going on in the funnies. Real life? Hell yea I’d react. Whether it be protests, donations, call-ins, or letter writing, etc. It was just the right thing to do because I was raised knowing people are equal regardless of what’s under their underpants. But that’s y’know real-life.
The funnies? Never dawned on me.
Sure, there were stories I really liked, characters or events that resonated with me for reasons I wouldn’t describe other than “They’re cool when written by so-and-so” and there were writers and artists who would annoy the hell out of me.
But then I discovered the internets and being both bored (and shy) reading other people’s blogs was MUCH more interesting than having to participate in IRC or whatever. And it’s your blog among others that helped me put a finger about things that bugged the heck out of me, and trends that originally had gotten me fed up to the point of quitting comics for a couple of years. And if it weren’t for said blogs helping to put the word out, and most importantly pointing me towards the proper channels to give that feedback and knowing that I wasn’t a single voice complaining to a brick wall, and that I really should quit comics again because otherwise they depress/annoy the crap outta me.
People, usually those angry at seeing a woman who has been turned onto feminism arguing with them, erroneously believe that feminism creates problems that didn’t exist prior. But the truth is that all feminism does is give us the tools to articulate the feelings that we’ve had all along, and it gives us the support group that we lack from a world that oppresses us. It makes us feel valid and worthy, gives us evidence with which to back up our arguments, and a place where we can go and be heard.
Days like these I’m proud to be a feminist. I’m proud to remember the things that gave me the tools to articulate my opinions. I’m proud to remember the times when people have said similar things to me on my blog. I’m proud to see feminists of all different kinds, who have all different kinds of opinions, coming together and supporting each other for the common goal of equality.
The battle may be far from over, but posts like Ragnell’s and comments like R.Nav’s are some of the little victories that mean so much.
[This is part of my series on Women and Violence, which I am writing as a project for a Women Studies course I’m taking. For an explanation and information on my intentions with this series, please see the introduction.]
Yesterday some of my classmates gave a presentation about female genital cutting (though the terminology they used, and which is probably more familiar to people, is “female genital mutilation” - a difference which I’ll address later on). It’s an important, worthwhile issue, and I’m glad our class is addressing it.
Still, every time the topic comes up in conversation I cringe inwardly.
Note: I don’t want to write about this on my blog because I want to hear from race-discussing people, my blog is so quiet you can hear the crickets chirping. I don’t want to write about it on the Daily Kos, even though I’d get traffic, because I’d get hostility and dismissal of white responsibility for reversing racism as a serious issue. Thank you, Andrea, for letting me guest post on Shrub–I’m using the privilege to write a rather “newbie” essay in this safe space.
Today I thought I was accusing “the city,” or some other general system, of having a racist blind eye. Turns out I was accusing my conversation partner of having a racist blind eye. I know from Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting In The Cafeteria?, Maxjulian’s blog, and Shrub that this is as important for me to do as, say, for men to point out each other’s sexism, but when I did it rudely, did I do more harm or more good in the world?
Zach over at Molten Boron became my hero for the day by posting, Kotaku Commenters Prove the Necessity of a Women’s Gaming Magazine, which debunks much of the misinformation Kotaku continues to spread about Iris and, most recently, our online magazine/journal, Cerise. More important than my squeeing over someone outside of my gaming community who actually gets it, though, the post is worth reading for its excellently made points about the culture of hostility in online gaming communities.
He ends on a note that I have thought about (and one day intend to write on), which is the separatism vs. integration argument:
I do somewhat see the argument for the anti-segregationist build-a-better-culture-from-within perspective. The problem is that I think it’s a false choice; it isn’t either be a part of the larger gaming community or be a part of the female/feminist gaming community, it’s both be a part of the larger gaming community and be a part of the female/feminist gaming community. Moreover, I don’t think the problem of women gamers being isolated from the gaming community writ large is as big a problem as the one of women gamers being alienated from the gaming community in general as a result of overt and subrosa hostility to women in gaming.
Obviously since I’m one of the founders of a feminist and female-oriented community, I ultimately agree with the points he’s making. What it comes down to, I think, is that it’s necessary for change to come both from within and without, and communities such as Iris (and new-to-me, Ludica) there won’t be anyone for women (and men) working from within to use as evidence for their arguments for change. And without that evidence, no matter how loud they try to shout they will continue to be silenced by the privileged majority.
[This is part of my series on Women and Violence, which I am writing as a project for a Women Studies course I’m taking. For an explanation and information on my intentions with this series, please see the introduction.]
Next week I’m giving a presentation in class on cosmetic surgery in regards to women of color. Now, cosmetic surgery does not readily fall under most common definitions of ‘violence,’ and I find myself hesitant to categorically label it as such.
On the one hand, while cosmetic surgery does involve bloody alterations on a person’s body, so does surgery in general, and we generally don’t label that as violent - especially when voluntarily consented to by the patient. The fact that cosmetic surgery is often (though not always) agreed to by an autonomous individual does mitigate the physical damage it brings.
Of course, we are all aware that ‘consent’ is a sticky issue, and that we can’t ignore the pressures that can constrain a person’s ability to make a choice - particularly in the case of women facing pressures to be ‘beautiful’ in a certain way.
Furthermore, the same level of physical damage can be construed as ‘violent’ or ‘non-violent’ depending on the context. Full-contact sports can be performed just as ferociously as a street brawl, yet not be uncontrolled and violent. What’s more, a session of safe, sane, and consensual BDSM can be non-violent, while the quietest rape perpetrated under clearly communicated threat is clearly not.
One of the researchers indicates that the issue spreading to ‘groups not typically affected by weight issues’. Whilst I think it is a problem that the sort of weight-and-food-obsession that drives disordered eating is spreading, what Professor Hay’s comment suggests is that disordered eating and eating disorders aren’t a problem if it only affects those we believe to be ‘typically’ affected - that is, women. Of course, this presentation isn’t only about the researcher’s comments, but how they’re framed in reporting.
Women were five times more likely to have a disorder than men, but the study found a sharp rise in males with the problems, particularly bingeing.
“It’s a clear problem when it’s spreading into groups that weren’t typically affected by weight issues,” Prof Hay said.
Of course, when you frame ‘groups typically affected’ as women (which, incidentally, obscures the class and race issues that also tend to shape the notion of which women are affected), the idea that “it’s a clear problem when it’s spreading” suggests that it wasn’t a problem before. Which of course is perfect fodder for the idea that eating disorders and disordered eating patterns are just about women being weak and silly.
That said, the study isn’t all bad news. Despite my issues with how it frames the issue in terms of gender, the study does do some good things. I’m not sure precisely how it distinguishes between ‘full blown eating disorders’ and ‘regular disordered eating’, but I suspect that’s largely because I’m not trained in psychology or psychiatric research. And despite my lack of knowledge, my intuition is that the distinction is important (if problematic), because whilst eating disorders are obviously quite serious, I think the prevalence of ‘regular disordered eating’, and the very naming of the phenomenon that way, says a lot about how warped our relationships with food can be, and how normalised that problem can (and has) become.
The researchers also, albeit cautiously, suggest that the rise in eating disorders and disordered eating is at least in part related to the public moral panic about obesity. I’m not going to get into a discussion of whether the obesity epidemic is real or not, because that discussion gets old really quickly, but this research goes some way to pointing out just why panicking about obesity isn’t the way to go about combating the problem if you believe there is one. Making people feel bad about themselves tends to reinforce the bad relationships with food and undermine any solutions to ‘the obesity epidemic’. Those who don’t take heed of these warnings run the risk of looking like they’re more interested in making fat people feel bad about themselves.
So, I’m taking a class on Iranian Society this semester, and our major assessment item is a small selected-sample study on outsider (ie, people not in Iran) perceptions of Iranian society. Given my postgraduate study plans (whilst being somewhat uncertain at the moment given the state of my university department) involve exploring feminist blogging and community, I thought I’d take the opportunity to actually explore that area to some extent.
To that end, I’d be most appreciative if the feminist bloggers among you would help me out by completing a short survey. The questionnaire has been provided by my lecturers, but if you have any concerns that come up in completing the survey, I’ll be happy to hear about them.
Whilst I don’t really want to get into credential-checking, I’ve agreed with my lecturer that asking those who wish to participate to include a link to their blog is, though imperfect, a good screening mechanism. I know that cuts out regular commenters, but for the sake of simplicity, I want to stick with those who have their own blogs or participate in groupblogs which have a significant focus on feminist issues.
Of course, all identifying information, including links to blogs, will be kept confidential, and whilst the research is for assessment purposes only, I’d be happy to e-mail the final assessment to those participants who are interested, once it’s been submitted.
If you are interested in participating, please e-mail me at ariella.drake@gmail.com with the subject “Iran Study”, including a link to your blog, and I’ll forward a copy of the questionnaire. I’m running on a bit of a timeline, so I’ll need completed questionnaires back by May 14th.
PS. Anyone who feels like passing this along to others who might be interested in participating, I’d be most appreciative.
Ron Artest is, without a doubt, the single worst role-model when it comes to active professional athletes so it comes as no surprise that though reported, it’s of little concern to the sports world when upsets and game sevens are amuk in the NBA. Artest is also one of the best defensive players in the game and, strictly for his on-court performance, one of the most sought after. So sought after, in fact, that his current team, the Sacramento Kings, agreed to take on Artest after the infamous Malice At The Palace and then stood behind him throughout the entire DV ordeal with talk about “everyone makes mistakes,” “think of the children” and “second chances.” He likely won’t be dismissed from his current team and even if he is, there are always other franchises looking for a gun-for-hire regardless of how they conduct themselves off the court.
The May 2007 issue is out! The theme is getting women “out there” in gaming journalism, and we have some great articles about that.
We’re currently looking for submissions for our June issue. Here’s the call for submissions:
Submsision deadline: May 15, 2007 Theme: The Making of a Gamer
Chances are if you’re a gamer, you have a story (or three) to tell about how you got there. Whether it be playing video games with our parents, reflecting on how it felt with our first gaming group, or even looking at how we were, and sometimes still are, treated by the workers and customers in our local gaming establishments, every woman has had unique experiences that have shaped our identities as gamers.
Do you have a story to tell about an experience or two that shaped your identity as gamer? Do you want reflect on the good and bad of being a young gamer, or talk about what games helped get you into gaming, or think about the first character in a game that you really got attached to and why? If so, then this is the issue for you!
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