Tag: gender caste

To my fellow sisters-in-arms:

tekanji

Stop it. Stop invalidating me because of my reproductive choices. Stop telling me what is and is not worthy of discussion. Stop calling me names because I have a different sexual expression than you. Stop discriminating against our sisters just because they don’t have the same naughty bits as you. Stop telling women that they should not be allowed to choose their life’s path. And, for the love of little green apples, stop trying to make the only valid path in life the one you want to take.

That’s what the patriarchy does, not us. Get it?

So, stop it. Just fucking STOP IT.

No more token women!

tekanji

Whether we recognize it or not, we all know about The Girl. Sometimes the Love Interest, or the Sidekick, or the Little Sister, or what have you, she has existed in literature and popular culture from time immemorial. Those of you who are of my generation may be thinking of Smurfette, who was literally defined in both name and action as being the (only) female smurf while all the male smurfs were defined by their actions. Later on, some female smurf kids were added, but kids tend to fit more into a “gender neutral” category than adults in our society.

Enter And Then There’s the Girl: “Women Characters” vs. “Characters that are Women”, a Blog Against Sexism post from a couple days ago that I missed highlighting. The author, kalinara, uses Cheetara (do you notice a trend in taking a word and “feminizing” it for the token women?) to represent the phenomenon of The Girl.

After her introduciton, she illustrates exactly what it means to be The Girl (or, in this case, Woman) instead of simply a woman:

You have one old ghost guy who’s the elderly mentor/grandfather figure in Jaga. You have one architect/intellectual/wise older brother figure in Tygra. You have one young, brash, heroic but kind of dim main character in Lion-O. You have the token black guy as the strong gruff mechanic in Panthro. And you have the two cheerful “Thunderkittens” in the kids, Wiley-Kit and Wiley-Kat.

And then you have Cheetara. What the hell was Cheetara’s purpose? To be the woman and look hot in the leotard while being vaguely maternal? She could run fast and was dimly, conveniently psychic. But where the male characters at least had some stereotypical, shallow quality to serve as their personality (grandpa/big brother/brash hero/gruff strongman/playful kids), she had *nothing* but feminity to define her.

“Today is not the 80’s,” you may say. “We’re much more enlightened now.” In some ways, that is true. Today isn’t the 80’s and shows have evolved to give women more active roles (some of which come with their own sets of problems). However, the attitude that kalinara describes is not dead, nor limited to cartoons of my childhood.

In fact, what she says puts into better words a complaint I made in my open letter to geeky guys. It was regarding a recent publication of the gaming magazine The Escapist (which consistently puts out subpar, and often sexist, articles about women). In it, the author was trying to discuss why he preferred playing “a girl” in online games.

He gives his potential male characters a wide variety of personalities: “Am I the noble hero?” he asks himself, “A backstabbing thief? An insecure wisecracker?… [A]n alpha male…?” So, what does he say of his female characters? “[P]laying a girl puts me in far more neutral territory.” As the default for human, the man gets to choose from a range of archetypes that come easily to Dahlen’s mind. The woman, as Other, doesn’t get to do any of that “normal” stuff; she gets to be “neutral territory.” I’d also like to point out that it falls into mandatory gender roles: the active male versus the passive (neutral) female.

When I talk about women as the Other in this context, it is the same kind of tokenization/relegation of woman to The Woman. Men are normal; they are not defined by their gender but rather the roles in which they are placed – whether it be elderly mentor or noble hero. Sometimes women get these roles, too, but even then their “femininity” is often seen as a paramount feature of their character.

How, then, do we move away from this tokenization? Well, I suggest reading kalinara’s post and the comments on it for starters. Only when we understand why an issue occurs can we truly begin to correct it. So, go, read, and think about the women you see portrayed in the media you engage in – whether it be cartoons, video games, books, or anything else.

Via When Fangirls Attack.

In Defense of Domesticity [REPOST from Shrub.com]

tekanji

Note: This article was originally written on July 03, 2005 as a Shrub.com Article. In my process of switching all articles over to this blog, I will be reposting old entries. What follows is in its original form without any editing.

Because of some crossed wires, I’m taking this month instead of johnmoon (he’ll be up for August). Since I’m in the middle of moving, I’m going to shamelessly plagiarize my own comment from a thread over at reappropriate. On our blog, I argued for the ability for people to choose what, if any, parts of traditional femininity and masculinity are right for them. Taking the argument to its logical conclusion, everyone should have the right to choose what kind of life is right for them whether it be working a job or taking care of the house and kids.

When I was younger, I was pretty much against anything feminine. My personality, combined with my having a backlash against what was expected of me, caused me to get into a “male-normative” mindset (meaning that I thought that traditionally male things were “normal” and traditionally feminine things were “bad”): I hated makeup, and “girly” clothing like dresses and skirts, and, yes, I looked down on people who aspired to the domestic. It took me a long time to step away from that mindset but it wasn’t until I got a big dose of feminist theory that I really understood why it’s so important to see things such as domestic labour as valuable.

Now, I can understand fighting hard to give people a true choice in what they want to do with their lives. I understand that, right now, domestic labour is de-valued and, in many cases, can make a woman into nothing more than a domestic slave. However, I don’t think the solution is to further degrade that labour but to show society how valuable it is. To show society that “womanly” things are just as good as “manly” things.

The facts are, not everyone wants to aspire to a male-normative life. Some people, women and men, want to raise a family and keep their home functioning properly. And, frankly, that should be seen as a good thing. Homemakers, unlike the stereotype, don’t sit on their asses all day eating bonbons and watching soap operas. They do work: they can clean, they can cook, they can garden, they can decorate, they can be in charge of the finances, they can have time to have hobbies that they enjoy, if there are children around they can take care of them, too. Society is built not only by the breadwinners, but also on the backs of people (historically women) who have kept the less visible parts running smoothly.

These are people who have given all their time to making sure the people around them are healthy, happy, and in good order. These are people who have sacrificed much of themselves in order to benefit their families. Desiring to be a homemaker is, for many people, about loving one’s family above everything and wanting to be the domestic backbone that keeps things going.

Saying that these people have no ambition, degrading the valuable work they do… that’s what’s been done to them for ages. Calling their valuable labour worthless is calling them worthless for wanting to do that labour. And that is an anti-feminist value. To work for equality, we need to see the value in the traditionally feminine and not just try to make everyone into “men”.

An Open Letter to Geeky Guys (Non-geeks may learn something, too):

tekanji

Listen, I’m really glad that some of you are into the whole gender deconstruction thing. I think it’s great that you don’t want to just oogle the pixeled female bits. Really. But, guys? It’s not so cute when all your ‘deconstruction’ does is reaffirm women’s position as Second Class Geeks.

What am I talking about? Well, you can find examples on it all over the net. You can find one on this blog, addressed to your gaming cousins. For a more recent, and in-depth example, let’s take I Enjoy Playing a Girl from the latest Escapist issue.

Like most of you, Chris Dahlen, the author, has his heart in the right place as far as I can tell. He says things like, “I have to believe any serious gamer would rather roleplay their characters than ogle them,” and, “[f]or all our assurances that men and women have the same talents and potential, treating them exactly the same feels like ducking an issue, rather than leveling a playing field.” I think he hits on what could be a very insightful argument, if you know, he had bothered to flesh it out. The myth of gender equality through equal stats is an issue that deserves attention.

But, apparently in this male-normative society, that’s too much to ask from your average geek male writing on women’s issues. Wait, wait, wait. What’s male-normative? Basically where men are the default and women are the Other (sort of what Dahlen’s entire premise is for his article). Well, let’s just take a look at Dahlen’s language for an example, shall we?

He gives his potential male characters a wide variety of personalities: “Am I the noble hero?” he asks himself, “A backstabbing thief? An insecure wisecracker?… [A]n alpha male…?” So, what does he say of his female characters? “[P]laying a girl puts me in far more neutral territory.” As the default for human, the man gets to choose from a range of archetypes that come easily to Dahlen’s mind. The woman, as Other, doesn’t get to do any of that “normal” stuff; she gets to be “neutral territory.” I’d also like to point out that it falls into mandatory gender roles: the active male versus the passive (neutral) female.

His language is your language, guys. Your gut reaction, I’m sure, is to step up and say, “No, I’m not like that!” Maybe you’re not. Maybe you are. But, ask yourself, do you hear it when other people do it? Can you find other examples of it in his article? If I hadn’t pointed it out, would you have even thought twice about what he said?

Another thing to chew on: when you’re like “omfg geek girls rawk plz introduce for a date” it’s not endearing. In fact, it is another way you reduce us to the status of Second Class Geek. I can hear it now, “Why can’t you just take a compliment?!” Or, “Jeez, don’t be so sensitive. I would kill to get that kind of attention.” I’m sure you would. And I’m sure to you it would be as flattering as you mean your comments to be. But, just sit back and think on why that is. Here’s a hint: Your personal agency in geekdom is never questioned, but ours is always qualified by hypothetical male attraction/attachment.

Let’s see this at work, shall we? Again, I’m going to pick on Dahlen. He says [emphasis mine]:

Geek guys don’t look up to the high school quarterbacks that smacked us in the locker room; we’re more impressed by the complicated but confident geek girls, who actually talked to us in the library and always seemed more sure of themselves than the rest of school, no matter who teased them. And now they can slay giants. Who wouldn’t want to be one of them?

Now, the whole “sexy (geek) girls who kick ass” thing he invokes has its own problems. Ignoring that, however, let me just say something…

We

Are N-O-T

Geeks For You!

Is that clear enough? Is it? I really hope so, because I am going to pull out my Sword of Smiting with a +5 modifier against Privileged Asshats on the next geeky man who thinks geeky women are good because he might get a date. If I sound hostile, try having your geek status always put second to that of your sex/gender for a few years and see how happy you are.

I am sick of my status as Second Class Geek. I am sick of beeing seen as the hawt girl geek. I’m not a geek for the dating pool. And, you know what? Treating me as if I am? So not helping your case. We female geeks are geeks because we have geeky interests. Period. You would do well to remember that next time you want to open your big mouth and reduce us to T&A.

(Hat Tip: New Game Plus)

The Sexism of Transphobia

tekanji

First off, I’d like to give a fangirl squee to Feministe’s newest blogger, piny. I have loved piny ever since I came across him in comments on Alas and Feministe, and I considered asking him to blog here more than once (if I had gotten to know him better, I may have snapped him up before Feministe did). I still may see if I can convince him to guest blog on occasion. So, from one of your fans, congrats on the new position, piny!

Today I found an article where he fisks a transphobic letter to the editor from a San Fran magazine. He said to read the article, so I did. Then I read the letter responding to it. Between my hacking and sputtering, I found myself making connections between one issue addressed in the article and the subtext of the letter: the link between transphobia and sexism.

I. What’s the connection?

Marcus Arana, a discrimination investigator with San Francisco’s Human Rights Commission, said he finds many assumptions about transgenders to be based in sexism, regardless of whether those assumptions are coming from men or women.

“There is this funny idea that an FTM is somehow a frog to a butch lesbian pollywog. But we hardly ever hear that an MTF is on ‘the gay male spectrum.’ Once she cuts off her penis she is considered a woman,” said Arana, who agreed that transmale exclusion is “an anomaly in the inclusive San Francisco leather community.”

In a culture where men are Normal and women are Other, it seems obvious that issues that interact with an idea of gender caste will, on some level, include sexism. An unwillingness to look beyond the essentialist view of gender = sex one was born as, I think, is inseperable from the traditions that enforce rigid gender roles.

They are both part of the same continuum: men are men, women are women. Men are the masters, the public half, the strong, smart, and the rational. Women are the servants, the private half, the weak, the childlike, and the emotional. A union is one man, one woman. Any deviation from this norm is an abberation in need of being stamped out.

So, it would make sense for someone who fights one of these rigid roles to fight them all, right? Unfortunately not. Sometimes we can’t see the forest for the trees. Just as feminism is often seen as by and for middle-class white women (says the upper-class white woman), so too do other groups have the potential to hyper-focus on one issue while ignoring an other. In the case of this article, it is the gay leather scene (combining two non-normative practices: homosexuality and BDSM) that is in danger of adopting the same exclusionary tactics as are used on them. What about? The presence of a natural penis. Men need to be men, you see, and it’s only discrimination if that conception of manliness includes fucking women and only women.

II. Sexism: I don’t think it means what you think it means

The article in question is a well written plea for the San Fransico scenes to remain/become inclusionary. It shows the better side of the gay male kink scene, I think. But, as a wise blogger once said, “People who are not the problem…are not the problem.” So, let’s look at a person who is the problem.

Enter Mr. Anderson, a transphobic, misogynistic, possibly bi-phobic, gay male from California. He wrote that letter that had me sputtering. On the surface, what Mr. Anderson is asking for is reasonable: to be able to say “thanks, but no thanks” to romantic/sexual relationships with transmen without facing ridicule. No one sane would argue with that (we all get to define what kind of people we want to let into our pants… I mean lives), but that’s just it. If his argument has any merit, he does his darndest to destroy it with his evidence.

Exhibit A:

I once had an insulting encounter with a transgender pretending to be a man. I did not go psycho – I just got dressed and left. But get it clear: This was a sexual assault.

So, the whole “pretending to be a man” lets us know right off the bat that Mr. Anderson is, indeed, transphobic. Can someone answer me why a woman would “pretend” to be a man, just to get into bed with a gay man? Because, really, I don’t see the appeal. His non-trans privilege may allow him to pick and choose who is “man” enough for him and who’s just “pretending,” but it is his male privilege that sparked the next bit.

“I did not go psycho,” he said. Let me repeat that. I did not go psycho. As if going psycho would be a natural/acceptable reaction to the situation instead of, you know, actually being sexual assault. Which, it appears, Mr. Anderson doesn’t know the definition of. Doing physical violence to someone in an intimate situation (which is what would have occured if Mr. Anderson had “gone psycho” – does he want a cookie for not being an abuser or something?) definitely counts as “sexual assault.” Not disclosing one’s history prior to sexual intimacy, I’m sorry to say, does not. But, I suppose, Mr. Anderson doesn’t care a whit about the women, and men, who have actually been victims of assault.

Exhibit B:

And I do completely support anyone’s right to alter their appearance in any way, shape, or form – but when you begin to try and force me to have sex with you and you are the wrong gender, that’s way out of line. That is sexism.

Holy co-opting of feminist terminology, Batman! As if his misuse of “sexual assault” hadn’t been misogynist enough, we have not one but two plays for sympathy here by stealing from the language of real victims.

Let’s go backwards on this one, however. “That is sexism,” he says, referring to having sex “forced” on him. Sir, I do not think that the word means what you think it means. Sexism – and we’re talking about the personal kind because, as a man, you have not and will not experience the institutionalized kind – is discrimination based on gender. Unless you’re trying to make a (rather silly) case that homosexuality or heterosexuality are sexism because they discriminate against one gender in terms of having sex, you are using the wrong word. The word for forcing sex on someone against their will is “rape.” By misusing the word “sexism,” and indeed claiming something akin to “reverse sexism” – although in this case it’s more “sexism” = “reverse transphobia” – you are using your male privilege to cheapen a very real, and very harmful phenomenon. In fact, one might even say (corectly), that such a assertion is, in itself, sexist!

Speaking of rape and cheapening harmful phenomenons, Mr. Anderson’s claim that, “when you begin to try and force me to have sex with you and you are the wrong gender, that’s way out of line,” is sexist in two ways. 1) He is dismissing and deriding actual cases of rape, and near rape, by claiming that a sexual encounter that he calmly declined and then walked away from without any problem is tantamount to being “forced” to have sex with someone; and 2) He makes the implict connection between rape and “being the wrong gender.” Again, he has the privilege to decide when gender is a dependent factor in deciding whether or not an action qualifies as “sexual assault.”

Exhibit C:

We are unanimous in our being tired of hearing the tranny BS about male genitals and “what a man really is” – that’s such girl talk.

Just in case he hadn’t made the fact that he hates women, and people he percieves as women, clear enough, he turns his attention away from “pretend men” and gives actual women a smack in the face, too. If he thinks discussion of what constitutes a man is too feminine, I would guess this blog is so much “girl talk” that the very thought of it would shrivel up his male genitals. Oh, wait, then he wouldn’t be a real man either. Maybe Mr. Anderson would benefit from a little “girl talk,” it might help him overcome his masculinity issues and realize that accepting transmen as men won’t emasculate him in any way.

Exhibit Stupid:

Basically, what Peter Fiske is asking the community to do is ostracize the men in the leather community that won’t have sex with Fiske or other women who are surgically disguising themselves. In other words, kill the faggots. Imprison the faggots for being “bad.” Make them social outcasts for being sinners against the community.

Witness! The Amazing! Leaps! Of logic!? Inspired by a reason-hating patriarchy! Mr. Anderson goes from accusing Fiske (who preaches inclusion of transmen into men’s spaces, not unwilling men’s backsides) of shaming men who aren’t interested in transmen – excuse me, “women who are surgically disguising themselves,” since, you know, the first thing I think of when I think of plastic surgery is my urge to get a dick so I can have sex with gay men – to… killing faggots.

Wait for it, wait for it…

No. Still don’t get how he got from A to B. Near I can figure, he’s playing the poor whiddle oppressed gay man-born-man who is sooooooooo downtrodden by those transmen because of all the power that vaginas give people in this society. Excuse me if I don’t have sympathy for your plight, Mr. Anderson. I’m too busy dealing with things like domestic violence, grappling with my own privilege, and trying to understand how my oppression intersects with that of others. Others being, you know, groups like transpeople.

On Chivalry

tekanji

Most of my friends know my stance on chivalry: it needs to rest in a watery grave. Some of them think that I go overboard with my outspoken hatred of a tradition that is supposedly about “good manners.” They think that if I try to dismantle the system that I’ll deprive them of the privilege of having their SO’s do anything from open car doors for them to give them flowers. But, what they don’t get is that I could care less what arrangements they make with the people in their lives. I care about what people try to do to me without my consent. I care about what the unspoken “rules” of chivalry mean for me and other women. And that is why I hate chivalry in its current incarnation, not because I’m against people opening doors for each other or whatever other considerate gestures they wish to extend.

Over in the feminist LJ, police_my_lips has sparked a discussion on the matter. I’d like to pull some choice quotes from commenters and elaborate on my own experiences and opinions.

I. Chivalry: Then and Now

I’ll defer a bit to Miss Manners: Chivalric etiquette was an improvement on the previous system of “Ladies never.” Nevertheless, symbolically declaring women too superior to run the everyday world had an amazingly similar effect to declaring them too inferior. And by the way, chivalry originally applied only to upper-class ladies, and while a version of it was extended to the middle class in the nineteenth century, it never inspired anyone to defer to the lower classes.

With that in mind, I think it’s important to note that “chivalry” was not only sexist, but also classist. It never existed in the way some people today like to claim it did, and ought to be declared thoroughly dead, hopefully replaced by the idea that all people ought to treat each other with respect.

The only place chivalry seems to come up these days is by people making the argument that feminism is BAD because it requires people to be mean to men who hold doors open to women. Clearly, this is the most pressing and foremost issue for moden feminism.

[Comment by night101owl]

While chivalry certainly lingers on in part as another way to discredit us feminists as over-the-top, and that kind of bad PR is definitely worth addressing, I’ve found that it lingers on in spirit as well as name in other areas. I think these areas also need to be looked at in order for us to dismantle a tradition rooted in sexism and classism and replace it with a tradition that is focused on being considerate to all people. Remember, folks, good manners is helping people in need regardless of their gender, class, race, orientation, or what have you.

II. The difference between chivalry and good manners

Right. People sympathetic to chivalry often point out how certain behaviors, like holding open doors, can sometimes be the polite (or nice, or helpful, or friendly) thing to do. What we’re saying is that politeness is fine, but treating women based on a code that means treat us as fragile glass creatures is not. We put in the politeness bit to preempt people who would try to explain how chivalry and politeness are the same, or coterminous.

[Comment by trinityva, emphasis mine]

Good manners is about respect. It’s not respectful to treat a woman in a way that limits her personal freedom without her consent. It’s about doing things to help out those of your kind, regardless of their gender expression, chromosomal set, or sexual organs. It’s about helping because you want to help, not because society/your parents/your family/your friends have told you to.

Chivalry, in its original form and the bastardized version that’s touted today, may include common courtesies but the gendered slant takes it out of the arena of strict good manners. It’s good manners with conditions: I’ll open this door for you if you’re a woman, because I’m supposed to be nice to women. I’ll buy dinner for you because you’re a woman. I’ll do this and that because you’re a woman and my parents told me that women need/want to be treated this way. Not, you know, because we should be kind to those around us.

III. It’s about helping women, right? Wrong.

“Chivalry’s not dead? Let’s slay it.”
I often hear people say, “Ha ha, chivalry’s not dead. Awww.” Grrr.

If men really want to assist women, how about joining the fight for equal wages and political power? How about working for the maintenance of reproductive rights? How about boycotting the sexist, Anglo-centric, anti-fat, media?
(Nota bene: I know that many men already do these things. I’m just developing an argument, y’all.)
Through chivalry, opening the doors to cars and buildings for women and pulling out their chairs signifies that men want to help women. So, if by chivalry men demonstrate that they want to aid women, fine; do something that actually helps. (Nota bene: I know that men do things to help women, c.f. Men Against Rape, Dads for Daughters. Just developing the argument.)

Also, by holding that women are more fragile and delicate than men and also that women are more virtuous and trusting (hello, gender roles), chivalry cripples women: it puts them on a pedestal and renders them in need of protection from the cruel wiles of the worldly outside. Lastly, by saying that women are “more (fill in the blank)” than men are, chivalry doesn’t help equality between the sexes that we feminists work for.

[Comment by alaiyo, emphasis mine]

First off, I find it really sad that alaiyo has to qualify her arguments with “of course this doesn’t apply to all men” statements. That should be obvious; there are men (feminist, pro-feminist, and non-feminist) who concern themselves with actually helping women. Not surprisingly, in my experience they are also ones don’t consider themselves to be chivalrous.

Does that mean that my non-chivalrous friends are uncooth men who would slam a door in the face of a woman whose hands were full of groceries? Well, no. But they wouldn’t slam a door in the face of a man whose hands were full of groceries, either, something that chivalry allows by omission. How many “chivalrous” men think about other men when they hold open doors? Or rush to pull out another man’s chair? Not many, in my experience. And, at least in the chair-pulling instance, the act would probably be considered highly offensive to the recipient of such “chivalry”. But we women aren’t allowed to be offended by those same acts. We’re not allowed to speak up against them, or to ask for such acts not to extend to us. It’s just good manners after all.

And that, to me, is one of the ways that chivalry is exposed for what it really is: a way to control women by forcing “courtesy” on us. The veneer of good manners is just a smokescreen to make it hard for women to break away from the controlling aspects. Women get “special” treatment, whether we like it or not.

I once had a friend who wanted to be “chivalrous” towards me, so he would run ahead of me to open doors. In itself, it wouldn’t be so bad, except that even after I told him I didn’t like or appreciate that kind of behaviour, he would still do it and if I beat him to a door he wouldn’t walk through it.

That, while an extreme example, is not the only instance of that kind of thing. Almost always when I bring up with my chivalrous male friends that I don’t want a door opened for me, or I don’t want my chair pulled out, or whatever, they try to shame me by telling me that I’m oversensitive, that I should be glad for their help, etc. Sorry if I, you know, think my opinions should be the deciding factor in what people do to me. My apologies, fellows. I’ll just go back to being the fragile desert flower who needs protection from big, strong men who couldn’t give a shit about my happiness.

IV. Don’t ruin my romance!

I like my b/f giving me flowers as much as I like doing it for him. I hold open the doors for people to be courteous and I appreciate the same in return. Politeness, niceness, heck even being “romantic” is wonderful so long as you’re not set a certain “role” to play based on your gender! That’s my view =)

[Comment by rosalynmoon]

One of the most infuriating arguments I get from my female friends (who also try to shame me when I bring up my displeasure with chivalry) is that I’m trying to ruin the romance from them. Because they want their SOs to open doors for them, or to give them flowers, or whatever, I have to have the same treatment or suddenly I’m on a crusade to control what they do in their personal lives.

As rosalynmoon’s comment demonstates, feminists aren’t out to ruin romance for people. If you like getting flowers, great. If you want your SO to open doors for you, great. These are things that you discuss when you get together with your SO, so that you can be treated the way you want to be treated. You see how I am not part of this process?

For me, romance isn’t flowers. It isn’t opening of doors, or pulling out of chairs. I like to pay my share of the meal, or treat my SO to a movie on occasion. I like to be involved in major decisions, outside of perhaps a couple surprise parties or whatever. I like being a partner in my relationships, both intimate and friendly. I’m not a delicate flower, and to treat me as such is the deepest insult to my personhood. It is a dismissal of who I am and what I stand for. It is not courteous, it is rude.

V. Final Thoughts

Being nice is good.
Being friendly is good.
Being helpful is good.
Being polite is good.

Bullshit codes about how to treat people based on gender? Not so good.

“Needing” bullshit codes about how to treat people based on gender to remind you to be nice, friendly, helpful, and polite to women? Fucked the hell up.

[Comment by trinityva]

If chivalry really is good manners, then why do a good portion of the men that I hold doors open for refuse to go through? Why am I not allowed to define what kinds of “courtesy” I want to receive from my friends? Why are people treated differently based on their gender expression? Why is an act from a man to a woman considered appropriate, but that very same act from a man to another man not?

Every culture, every nation, and every individual have different ideas on how they want to be treated. If you want to give me a courtesy, then give me the courtesy of respecting me on my terms for a change.

Trading one set of chains for another

tekanji

More ranting via midlife mama. Libby critiqued an article from the American Prospect Online and asked for opinions. I was foolish enough to think that I could contain my opinion in one little comment. I know, I know, I should be used to the Attack of the 50-line Comment by now. So, I decided to turn my rant/fisk into its own post.

First off, I’m going to steal Libby’s summary of the article:

It’s an article in American Prospect Online that takes all those “opt out” articles seriously. The author, Linda R. Hirshman, a feminist professor, is working on a book about “marriage after feminism.” She interviewed 30 some-odd women whose weddings were announced in the Sunday NY Times over three Sundays in 1996. Most of them, she says, were staying home with their kids 7 or 8 years later. (Actually, 50% were no longer working for pay, and a third were working part time.) : Conservatives contend that the dropouts prove that feminism “failed” because it was too radical, because women didn’t want what feminism had to offer. In fact, if half or more of feminism’s heirs (85 percent of the women in my Times sample), are not working seriously, it’s because feminism wasn’t radical enough: It changed the workplace but it didn’t change men, and, more importantly, it didn’t fundamentally change how women related to men.

Just because I can, I’m going to use the same style of breakdowns as Hirshman uses in her article. Well, also I want to mock her section heads. And we all know I love mocking people and things. Also, all further quotes (unless otherwise noted) come from the article itself.

I. The Truth About Bad Science
Although Hirshman does offer up her own data on the matter, she (as Libby said), “takes all those ‘opt out’ articles seriously”. Given that, I must admit that I question the validity of her own research because of her horribly low standards. I fail to see how it’s helpful to downplay the importance that bad science and bad journalism play in the continued oppression of women.

People who don’t like the message attack the data.

And this, my friends, is why America is still debating whether or not to teach evolution in schools. Apparently, sloppiness is the new black. The next time I talk about how flying pigs are taking over the city and we need to stop them, I’ll just accuse my dissenters of attacking my data because they don’t like the message. Take that flying pig lovers!

Seriously, though, without proper data a proper discussion cannot take place. The articles Hirshman cites are crap, even if the message they send may have a grain of truth. There is nothing to be gained by validating their improper methodologies, flawed logic, and misuse of data. If you want to discuss the message, then both sides need to approach the issue with data that was gathered and analyzed properly, otherwise it’s fair game to discredit the message by discrediting evidence provided.

What evidence is good enough?

I don’t know, how about properly researched studies that aren’t out to prove their bias by any means necessary? How about not using articles from newspapers that care about being entertaining and therefore will go for sensationalism over facts? How about real evidence versus made up evidence? You know, ’cause that’s how adults argue things.

But, apparently, it is too much for Hirshman to think that it’s worthwhile for us to want real evidence of those kinds of trends so we can have a real discussion on them and what they mean about our society and our future. Using bad science is good enough for the Intelligent Design proponents, and – gosh, darn it! – it should be good for us feminists, too!

II. The Failure of Female-Only Responsibility
One thing I can agree with her assertion that the belief that women are responsible for child-rearing and homemaking was largely untouched by decades of workplace feminism. One of my biggest criticisms of some popular feminist movements in the past is that they focused so much on “earning” the right for women to be like men, that womanhood (and traditional women’s work) remained the lesser to manhood’s default normalcy.

Don’t get me wrong; I think the battles that were fought were necessary ones. I owe my bright future to the feminists who campaigned for workplace equality, access to birth control, and giving women a place in the public sphere. It is not their fault that we haven’t broken out of a male-normative mindset, but it will be ours if we don’t get our heads out of our asses and realize that women’s liberation isn’t just for women anymore. We live in a society with people who are not women and no amount of changing ourselves will change our lot if those around us don’t change as well.

For her brave start with criticizing “workplace feminism”, Hirshman just doesn’t seem to get it:

Women must take responsibility for the consequences of their decisions.

Why, oh, why do feminist conversations about how far we still need to go always come down to female responsibility? I’m responsible enough already, thanks, I’d like to see some of that responsibility levied on the patriarchy for once. And, while we’re at it, maybe we should start encouraging men to pick up the slack in the domestic arena, too. Just a thought.

Thereafter, however, liberal feminists abandoned the judgmental starting point of the movement in favor of offering women “choices.”

Oh, yes, screw people’s ability to choose a life from themselves. Let’s tell the women what they should do, and if they try to do anything different let’s shame them until they do what we want! Oh, wait, that’s what misogynists do!

It all counted as “feminist” as long as she chose it.

No. Just… no.

Such ignorance really makes me angry. The point of “choice feminism” is that we must recognize a woman’s right to make her own choices, even if those choices are anti-feminist, bad for her, or just ones we don’t agree with. It is her right as a human being to live her life the way she sees fit.

It is our job, however, as feminists to see where women’s choices are taken away from them and to broaden the path. For example; there are different-sex couples for whom the choice to take a partner’s last name is just that –a choice. But if they have sat down with their partner and truly discussed and considered all options, then they are privileged. In many societies (especially Western ones), women don’t really have a choice in the matter; they will take their husband’s name or be punished for it.

Does that mean that I should blame my eldest sister for taking her husband’s name? Or berate my middle sister if she chooses the same? Of course not! Not everyone can be a one woman army, and it is wrong of us to attack those who have chosen the easier path. I put the blame where it belongs: the patriarchy and its sexist traditions.

To “prove” her point about choice, Hirshman goes on to say:

(So dominant has the concept of choice become that when Charlotte, with a push from her insufferable first husband, quits her job, the writers at Sex and the City have her screaming, “I choose my choice! I choose my choice!”)

Someone has missed the point of that scene. In an earlier conversation with Miranda, Charlotte was berating her friend for not supporting her. Miranda, in typical fashion, did the “thou doth protest too much” comment. The whole message behind that was that it wasn’t Charlotte’s choice; it was the choice that society, and her husband, had made for her.

Speaking of robbing people of choice, Hirshman furthers the impression that it’s her way or the highway with this criticism of feminism:

Great as liberal feminism was, once it retreated to choice the movement had no language to use on the gendered ideology of the family. Feminists could not say, “Housekeeping and child-rearing in the nuclear family is not interesting and not socially validated. Justice requires that it not be assigned to women on the basis of their gender and at the sacrifice of their access to money, power, and honor.”

Not interesting to you and me, perhaps, but there are people out there who take great pride in the running of the household and the raising of children. Heck, the latter should be interesting to both partners, otherwise maybe they shouldn’t have had kids! But I guess the only woman that matters to Hirshman is herself!

Honestly, her contempt of women truly disgusts me. She has bought into the victim blaming, male-normative bullshit that continues to plague us despite feminism’s continuing efforts to achieve equality. The whole statement she makes is one that devalues women by calling traditionally women’s work boring and implying (with her last sentence) that it’s useless (because money, power, and honor are the only things in life that matter).

III. What Is To Be Done?

I’ve kept the exact section head for this one, and I’d like to give an answer to that question before I proceed the section itself. For starters, stop blaming women for the patriarchy’s chains. Then you can follow it up with a healthy dose of “you’re not the boss of me”. Meaning, forcing women to be what you want them to be is no different than what’s been forced upon us for centuries.

Here’s how Hirshman starts her section:

Here’s the feminist moral analysis that choice avoided: The family — with its repetitious, socially invisible, physical tasks — is a necessary part of life, but it allows fewer opportunities for full human flourishing than public spheres like the market or the government. This less-flourishing sphere is not the natural or moral responsibility only of women. Therefore, assigning it to women is unjust. Women assigning it to themselves is equally unjust.

And there we have it, folks, Hirshman employs the same tools of the patriarchy: women’s work (and the women and men who do it) is not as good as men’s work (and the women and men who do it). Thanks, Hirshman, for continuing to prove your contempt for your own sex. ‘Cause I haven’t gotten enough of that from ignorant, privileged males recently. Really, I appreciate it.

In so doing, feminism will be returning to its early, judgmental roots.

Hirshman, meet the Christian Fundamentalists. Christian Fundamentalists, meet Hirshman. Once you get past the differences in your surface agendas, you’ll find that your moral values are exactly the same. Death to those who think differently than us!

IV. Does Hirshman Really Care?

Honestly, I never though I’d meet someone ostensibly on my side that was more sanctimonious than I. Hirshman, my hat goes off to you. I’ve never met a feminist who could spin a militant ideology that is about controlling women’s choices and blaming them if they want something different as “caring” about these women.

Hirshman plays the benevolent matriarch in the grand old tradition of the “benevolent” patriarchy:

We care because what they do is bad for them, is certainly bad for society, and is widely imitated, even by people who never get their weddings in the Times.

It’s for your own good, sweeties! You’d better just stop trying to find your own personal happiness because you’re hurting society with all this “choice” nonsense. You should just listen to Mommy Hirshman with a smile on your face. Your life doesn’t belong to you, after all; you’re a woman!

As for society, elites supply the labor for the decision-making classes — the senators, the newspaper editors, the research scientists, the entrepreneurs, the policy-makers, and the policy wonks. If the ruling class is overwhelmingly male, the rulers will make mistakes that benefit males, whether from ignorance or from indifference.

Wow. That’s… wow. The classism in that statement is so thick, even to a privileged person like me, that it leaves me without anything coherent to say; whether it be real criticism, witty snark, or even not-so-witty snark.

Worse, the behavior tarnishes every female with the knowledge that she is almost never going to be a ruler.

Yeah, those stay-at-home sluts moms. They are ruining it for all of us chaste, moral virgins working women. No sex until marriage! Er, I mean, keep working after marriage!

A good life for humans includes the classical standard of using one’s capacities for speech and reason in a prudent way, the liberal requirement of having enough autonomy to direct one’s own life, and the utilitarian test of doing more good than harm in the world. Measured against these time-tested standards, the expensively educated upper-class moms will be leading lesser lives.

Wow, thanks Mom, for educating me on how when one leaves the public sphere they lose any opportunity to exercise their brains because they stay on the couch eating bon-bons all day. Seriously, what does Hirshman think homemakers and stay-at-home parents do?

But, you know, things like raising the future generation definitely doesn’t count as “doing more good than harm in the world”. The only importance of babies is in the making of them! It’s not that fathers should be encouraged to step up to their responsibilities, but that mothers should opt-out of them because that kind of work just isn’t worthwhile. The kids can raise themselves just fine.

Although it is harder to shatter a ceiling that is also the roof over your head, there is no other choice.

Not for Hirshman’s women, anyway.

And, just for giggles, I’d like to draw attention to the little “about the author” blurb at the bottom of this article:

With almost no effort, she landed spot No. 77 on Bernard Goldberg’s “100 People Who Are Screwing Up America.”

It’s a sad, sad day when I agree with someone like Goldberg. Although 1) for vastly different reasoning; and 2) truth be told I don’t think she, by herself, has that much power. It’s rather her espoused discourse that is “screwing up America” because it continues to perpetuate the myth of feminine inferiority.

Transphobia to the left of me, Anti-feminism to the right…

tekanji

For all my talk about not tarring and feathering those feminists (you know, the ones not like us), I must confess that there is one type of feminist that constantly gets under my skin. The transphobic one. Ye gods I wish I could go to all those who think that transgendered people don’t deserve a place in feminism because they aren’t “real women” (whatever that means) and say to them, “You! Out of my feminism!” I guess a part of it is because in order to believe what they do about the transgendered population, they must first believe in gender essentialism — an ideal not compatible with liberation, as one poster on the feminist LJ pointed out.

But are my exclusionary tactics any different than those who try to tar “radical” feminists with the same brush? Who cry to their critics, “I’m not that kind of feminist, don’t blame me!”? I’m not sure. The so-called “radical” feminists’ biggest problem is that the media has chosen them to caricature, while the transphobic feminists try to exclude transwomen (and transmen) in a very real way. Of course, I have said in the past that not all feminists hold 100% feminist values. I know that, despite my best efforts, I still hold some anti-feminist values.

But is there a line to be drawn? When does an “anti-feminist value” grow so large that it taints the entirety of a person’s, or group’s, feminism? Feminists for Life, if they ever indeed were feminist to begin with, crossed that line with their hate propaganda.

So where does that leave feminists like Charlotte Croson, whose article Sex, Lies and Feminism had so many ignorant assumptions about the transgendered community (as well as the BDSM community) that I couldn’t even finish reading the article? Or this so-called feminist group, FIASCO (Feminists Involved Against Sex Change Operations), whose spokesperson posted Women’s space colonized, a treatise on how transsexuals are “violating” women’s spaces in order to look at them sexually. No joke. I’d wonder how she’d feel about me, a bisexual woman-born-woman, going into bathrooms. I might, — gasp! — be there to “[undress] the innocent women with [my] eyes and [lust] after their bodies to be [mine]”, too!

It’s one thing to not understand transgendered issues (Emma, piny, and I had a long conversation on that in a feministe thread), and quite another to espouse the kind of exclusionist hatred found in the two articles linked above. Is it enough for me to say that women like that aren’t “real” feminists? Probably not. But, their feminism is so tainted by gender essentialism and transphobia (as if it’s somehow more acceptable than sexism, homophobia, racisim, or what-have-you) that I’m also loathe to include their narrow ideals in what I see is a plural movement focused on equality.

Feminism is about equality for all, not equality for some. It’s not just about the middle-aged, upper class, white, straight, [fill-in-the-majority here] women. It’s about the young and the old, the middle class and the poor, the black, the Asian, the Latino, the gay, bi, and trans. It’s about us, and them, and so much more. How can you, or I, be a feminist and then stand up and say, “But I don’t like you so you’re not allowed in the club!”?

Yet, if there’s no line to be drawn, then what happens when simple critique just doesn’t cut it? This isn’t the feminist not understanding why a woman would want to be a stay-at-home mom, this is the feminist who marches up to those women and lectures them on how useless they are for their choice. What, if any, amount of hurt should we be allowed to heap on others and still adhere enough to our goals to be called feminist?

And, after all this, I still don’t know. I know that hatred is not right. I know that it’s not useful. But I also know that it is so hard for me not to hate those who seek to hurt others.

Acknowledging Inersections: MRA's, Feminists, and Gender

tekanji

Hugo posted on MRA’s (Men’s Right’s Activists) and marriage on his thread, Querying the MRAs about marriage. He quoted a few of his resident MRA posters, and I decided to address a (possibly unintentional) implied undertone to one of the quotes about not wanting to be yet another person’s plaything. To which I asked the semi-rhetorical question, “But, somehow, it’s ok for women to go through this?”

For those of you unfamiliar with MRA’s, they’re men belonging to various specific organizations that focus primarily on men’s rights (or lack thereof) in the family court system. On the surface, it seems like a noble goal. And I’m sure for some in their ranks it is just about achieving equal representation in the way the legal system views divorce and child responsibilities. However, where the disconnect happens for me is that most of the MRA’s I’ve come in contact with have wrongfully blamed feminism, and sometimes Western women in general, for their problems.

One of the beliefs that some of them hold that I find to be particularly abhorrent is quoted in Hugo’s post:

As Fenn writes, many men are choosing to pursue immigrant girls from more established cultures who are comfortable in their own less-complex skins and bring their own flourishes of exotica and mystery with them.

First off, calling foreign women (although I’m sure they’d lump the men into a similar category) “less-complex” is insulting and, frankly, wrong. Anyone with a working knowledge of any foreign country would know that people are people, no matter where they live. Coming from a different culture in no way invalidates one’s personhood; it just makes it hard for people ignorant of everything but their own culture to understand the person in question.

Second of all, this whole Othering of (foreign) women is so 1950s. “Exotica and mystery”? Come on. All that is just a pretty way to saying that they don’t want to be bothered with someone they have to see as a human being. Far better for them to do the mail-order bride thing (a term that by its very nature calls up the idea of buying and shipping property rather than a human being) than actually have to build a relationship with someone who they see as their equal.

While I hope that the whole “mail-order bride” idea is an extreme example of their ideals, it does illustrate a notion that I’ve found expressed in one way or another in all of the MRA posts that I’ve read. All MRA’s seem to support a gender caste system and, indeed, for many of them it is a very strict gender caste system. In general, they want their men and women to subscribe to the cult of masculinity and the cult of femininity respectively, meaning breadwinning patriarchs supported by submissive housewives.

They rage on and on about court systems that support just that notion (female as “natural” mother, male as monetary provider) but refuse to acknowledge that a gender democracy is needed for those systems to change.

In Hugo’s thread I accused them of hypocrisy:

I just don’t understand how someone could be more than willing to see their own oppression while being unwilling (unable?) to see how their exact circumstances apply to women – indeed how their exact circumstances have applied to women for centuries.

Now, after all my discussion on how the MRA movement supports a gender caste, how it blames feminism/Western women for their woes, and how it wants its advocates to be the sole victims of the system, I’m going to turn around and apply my quoted statement to feminism.

I have been witness to several feminists denying that sexism against men (both institutionalized and individual) exists. Indeed, while feminism is in general a movement that focuses on not only female oppression, but also the way that many different oppressions (racism, homophobia, transphobia, etc) intersect, many feminists have a hard time acknowledging links between one or more of these oppressions. Heck, if I dug deep enough I’m sure I would have a hard time linking at least one oppression to feminism.

To be fair to the feminists I’m referring to, their statements were always in reference to men coming into their spaces and trying to de-rail their discussions by whining about how they were hurt by x, too. It wasn’t about these men’s experiences, though, it was about monopolizing the conversation and taking the emphasis off of the issues at hand. This, understandably, made the replies angry and harsh. To be further fair to the discussion, the valid concerns that occasionally popped up lead a few of the feminists to create an offshoot community called Patriarchy Hurts Men, Too. The fact that it’s not a very active community is likely a testimony to how many of those “but men are hurt by x, too” debates weren’t real comments to foster discussion, but rather hurtful attempts to halt meaningful examination of topics.

But, for all my fairness, the reality exists: some feminists either refuse to acknowledge that the way the patriarchy oppresses men directly relates to the oppression of women, or even that the patriarchy can oppress men at all.

Of course, the most obvious expression of the patriarchy oppressing men is already given in my MRA primer: gender caste. The cult of masculinity operates on the principle that a man must be “masculine” because being “feminine” is beneath him. I challenge any reader, feminist or no, to demonstrate how that isn’t 1) male oppression by the patriarchy, and/or 2) directly linked to the oppression of women.

The governing principle of a gender caste system is to force all people to worship at the altar of its gender cults. That means that while the cult of masculinity affords men many more privileges than the cult of femininity affords women, it takes away men’s choices in self-expression as readily as it takes away women’s choices. Indeed, living in a society where second-wave feminism has gained me the right to enter the male sphere, I’d say that ostensibly that the cult of masculinity was more rigid than its sister cult. Of course, being the gender that is seen as “lesser”, I’d say that women are still getting the short end of the stick. I just acknowledge that the goal of freeing women from oppression will also free men: in a gender democracy I won’t be the second sex and, therefore, all men will be free to explore their “feminine” sides without fear of being seen as inferior.

On the MRA’s end, that means that equality will be achieved in family court because relationships will be seen as partnerships instead of hierarchies. Of course, equality will come at a high cost for those who believe in gender caste; in order to get equal representation, they must first accept equal responsibility: in the relationship, in and outside the home, and in raising the children.

"He's a man", "she's a woman"… So what?

tekanji

While I’m on my mental vacation I’d just like to point ya’ll to a post by alley rat entitled Why Do Women Cheat?. It’s a critique on a pop-science article that uses essentialism, bad evolutionary science, and a big dose of idiocy to say that since “monogamous” female birds cheat for supposed “reasons”, human women do it for the same “reasons”. Yeah. Right.

Anyway, the conclusion of the article caught my eye. It gave me a warm fuzzy, so I wanted to share it:

While I’m at it, I’ll just mention that I think that the absolute weakest explanation for anything people do is “well, he’s a man” or “well, she’s a woman, that’s how women are”. No, people. That may be how YOU are, but don’t include me in that. The reason I got interested in feminism when I was a teenager was because people kept telling me what I was like, and they kept being really, really wrong. People told me that I wanted to get married and have kids; people told me that I couldn’t enjoy sex without love; people told me that I was a romantic, delicate creature. People told me lots of shit that was supposed to be true because I was female, and that wasn’t true at all. And it wasn’t true of most of my female friends, but a lot of it was true of my male friends. And I realized that people had been telling me a bunch of lies, things that were “social convention” and things that were stupid rules that I was suposed to follow whether or not they actually suited me. And the same thing applies to every boy I’ve ever been close to, only probably to a more severe extent. They got told all kinds of untrue things about themselves too, because when you’re born people look at your genitals and they think they know who you are. But they don’t. And so, to close this rant, I’d just like to say a big “Fuck off!” to all the lies. Human beings are infinitely more complicated than our biology (whatever that may be, anyway) and if you ignore or downplay the role of culture in behavior, you are doomed to telling lies.

Right on, alley rat.