A False Step

[poliphilo]

I got a savaging on a Feminist forum the other day. It was my own stupid fault. I'm too old to run with that particular crowd. Besides, I didn't study the subject at university and I don't use- or respect- the jargon.

I consider myself a feminist. If feminism means believing in the equality of the sexes, I'm enthusiastically for it. 

But I should have realised that the gnomic, slightly mischievous comments I go in for aren't going to wash on this particular site (with its ginormous rulebook)- and that you can't challenge someone (especially if if you're a white male) in that culture of victimhood without being accused of  "exercising privilege" and "silencing" them. 

A black American woman had accused a white European woman of racism. The white European woman had replied that the black American woman wasn't taking cultural differences into consideration and that her view was "US-centric". At least I think that's what had happened. The mods then intervened to rule that if a black person accuses a white person of racism that is gospel and no comeback is possible. The white person must take her whipping in patience and humility and afterwards kiss the rod.

I said I thought this was unfair- and that US-centrism is a real issue.  Are black American women really so fragile that they need protecting from all disagreement? Isn't it kind of insulting to assume they can't hold their own in debate?

I'll admit I didn't express myself as clearly or fully at the time. I spoke off the cuff. I should have been more careful- not that it would have made much difference if I had.

I thought I'd stir up a bit of controversy. I was wrong. The pack turned on me and tore me to shreds.

I am- among other things- a white, cracker racialist who likes to wave his dick around.

I'm talking about this here because after a while I realised there was no point in trying to explain myself over there. No-one  was interested in debate, only in parading their righteousness and calling me names. When you're in a hole it's foolish to go on digging.

I'll admit I felt a bit sorry for myself at first- but I'm over it now. I took a nice walk round a lake yesterday and had fish and chips in a garden centre and visited with my niece and nephew and that sort of cleared my head. 

Comments

[mazzie.livejournal.com]

There's some uncomfortable twisting going on.

I think that a backlash of resentment is predictable when those used to having the only voice that is heard and that truly matters in the grand scheme of the paradigms of real power are told that the status quo is no longer acceptable. I think it's extremist to say that your voice is halved and tenthed and even erased by your whiteness and your penis but, again, sometimes good points get through in extremes.

From a non-radical perspective, your skin and your gender provide you with unseen and unacknowledged privileges every day.

Some challenges to that are brutish and untenable, but they don't minimize or even mitigate your real-world power.

As for not wanting to call oneself feminist, that kind of shame saddens me. Rather than abandon the truth of feminism, why not reclaim it? It is and always has been about equality.

[solar-diablo.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's extremist in the slightest to point out the extremism of some perspectives/groups. A white hetero male's opinion is going to be devalued or outright dismissed, implicitly or explicitly, in certain feminist groups for the exact reason you state - he represents the status quo, and it's the status quo they are rebelling against/critiquing. It is no different, in terms of social dynamic, than how a white supremacist group would view the opinion of a Jewish or black man. That does NOT imply the two groups are on an equal moral footing, merely that the dynamic of exclusion stems from the same psychology. "We feel wronged by your group - why the hell would we offer you an equal place at our table?", so to speak.

The issue becomes whether said groups are attempting to create an atmosphere of objective, honest, self-reflexive discussion. For reasons I stated above, most of them are not interested or motivated by that, and therefore there is no use in attempting to interject it. Best to gratify that need in more neutral territory.

You bring up an interesting sidebar re: reclaiming labels. At another political spectrum here in the States you see this movement going round trying to reclaim the label "Republican" and/or "conservative" to mean something apart from what it's now perceived to be. While I don't discount the social value and psychological need to label and identify oneself, I wonder if that energy who be better served in simply acting on one's convictions rather than scrambling to codify titles for them.

[mazzie.livejournal.com]

I honestly know of precious few groups who are attempting to create an atmosphere of objective, honest, self-reflexive discussion, and I join them whenever I can. :) I agree that what Tony describes is not that.

[solar-diablo.livejournal.com]

I wholeheartedly agree with you there. Such groups are to be cultivated and cherished.

[mazzie.livejournal.com]

Wholehearted agreement is so attractive. May I add you? :)

[solar-diablo.livejournal.com]

Please do. :)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yeah, well I know all this- which is why I signed up to the feminist forum in the first place.

I'm aware of my privileges. And I've done my best to minimize their effects. Seriously this has been one of my lifetime projects. I was born into a wealthy middle class family and privately educated- and now I'm living on an Asian (Pakistani) street in a down-at-heels northern town- and all pretty much from choice. I don't expect kudos for this; I don't brag about it (normally): I'm doing it for myself.

What upsets me is the dogma, the closing of minds, the refusal to debate.

I don't suppose I'll ever stop thinking of myself as a feminist. It's too deeply engrained.

[solar-diablo.livejournal.com]

Is the thread of discussion open to public perusal, such that you could provide a link to the exchange? I'm dying of curiosity now.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

The thread is here.

http://community.livejournal.com/feminist/3137948.html

It's enormous. I'm only a small part of it (thank God).

[solar-diablo.livejournal.com]

Good Lord, that was exhausting to wade through.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yup.

[mazzie.livejournal.com]

Of course you do. I am sorry if I was overreaching or preachy. My mind is in an odd place from witnessing this:

http://community.livejournal.com/fatshionista/2951947.html

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Your comment was perfectly in order. I'm sort of glad someone was prepared to speak up on behalf of the feminists.

That thread on fatshionista seems a lot better tempered than the one I got caught up in.