More on black and white thinking
Just when I posted this, Kim at Bastante Already posted this:
When I cast off the label of "radical feminist" and as I continue to mull over whether or not I even consider myself a plain old "feminist," I've allowed my Whoa, That Offends Me factor to drop way, way down. Comments, jokes and such that two years ago would have set my blood to at least simmer have been allowed to go unchallenged.
Thing is, all the while, I've been aware this is -- well, if not bullshit, at least not true to who I am.
Or -- maybe it is?
Anyone who's been reading both this blog and the former ill-fated Kaka Mak blog can see what happened here. Heck, a third-grader could see what went down.
But let's make it crystal clear:
1. I found the radical feminist blogosphere. A longtime feminist, as I began educating myself on on radical feminism, I became attracted to the no apologies, no bullshit aspect of radical feminism. I jumped in with both feets.
2. After about a year of passionate radical feminist blogging, the Us v. "Sparklepony" factor reared its ugly head. For another few months, I tried to tell myself this didn't exist, this rivalry. Women fighting women? In feminism? How could this be.
3. But it did be, and as posts and comments got angrier, more sarcastic and downright nasty, I wanted out of this "radical feminist" thing. This was not the feminism I thought it was.
4. I shit-canned Kaka Mak and frittered around the edges of a "nervous breakdown," brought upon by intense regret of some of the things I had posted as well as some other rather unsettling things happening in my off-blog life.
I am feeling similarly about humor. I find myself caring so much less about what people say. I still recognize sexism in jokes, inappropriateness in off-color joking, etc. But suddenly things that used to be funny to me that became cesspools of misogyny are cute, or amusing... or even just forgivable all of a sudden.
It actually feels so much better. I feel so much more human, so much more real, so much more able to relate with my fellow human beings, simply because I'm not watching what they say for sexism every moment any more.
Or worse, watching for misogyny. Misogyny, which is "hatred of women." As in, if people make these little jokes, say these little things, it's proof that deep down they hate you. That they want to hurt you, rape you, harm you, whatever. When you see these things, you start to see hate. An endless, simmering threat, because that's the word that's used: hate. To let it go, to write it off without confronting the person or at least confessing it to the group, becomes to know there's someone out there who is so deeply your enemy that he, or maybe even she, hates you.
I'm very leery of that word now. Very leery of the idea that people doing sexist things, pushing women's boundaries in sexist ways, is hidden hatred. I think using that lens to look at people who say or do offensive things is potentially emotionally dangerous.
And with all this stuff, all this paranoia, sloughing off of me, I keep wondering: why didn't I see it? How did I get so caught up in this thinking and these words that I even started to wonder if I should care about free speech -- something that I've always been certain mattered the most, something that I always from youth argued for in what others considered totally shocking circumstances?
And I think for me what got me was the notion that we had no leader. We had no figure, no messiah. What we supposedly had was this ability to listen to people, to raise our consciousness, to see things in a new and unique way that would end oppression and make everything better. And since there was no leader selling it, there was no snake oil salesman to detect. It was a way a group thought, not orders from a leader.
And the thing that makes it so hard to question is the idea that if someone strays, they have false consciousness. If they disagree they're a "choice feminist," an uneducated fool invested in the status quo. Any suggestion that we're being totalitarian, suppressing thought, etc. must mean the person saying it is deluded by American culture, by white or gender privilege, etc. There's no possibility that someone could be detecting bullshit.
And you're supposed to be looking inside yourself, looking at something that isn't science, isn't provable, because the oppressed don't have voices and aren't heard. So people say, for example, "Have you ever experienced something like this?" and give you a reason why that has to be sexism or even violence or hate (see above). And you're going, "Sure, this happened to me ... could it have been sexism?" And before you know it, it has to be, because the theory covers it. And because if someone's out there hating you, you're an idiot not to be vigilant.
Which is why I'm about ready to jettison the idea of consciousness, raised or false, entirely. I'm okay with the idea that oppressed people can have experiences that others don't understand. But I really do think now that if we can't articulate what these are, or if we put aside articulating what these are because "it's not our duty to educate," we're putting our whole way of looking at the world on a shaky foundation.
When I cast off the label of "radical feminist" and as I continue to mull over whether or not I even consider myself a plain old "feminist," I've allowed my Whoa, That Offends Me factor to drop way, way down. Comments, jokes and such that two years ago would have set my blood to at least simmer have been allowed to go unchallenged.
Thing is, all the while, I've been aware this is -- well, if not bullshit, at least not true to who I am.
Or -- maybe it is?
Anyone who's been reading both this blog and the former ill-fated Kaka Mak blog can see what happened here. Heck, a third-grader could see what went down.
But let's make it crystal clear:
1. I found the radical feminist blogosphere. A longtime feminist, as I began educating myself on on radical feminism, I became attracted to the no apologies, no bullshit aspect of radical feminism. I jumped in with both feets.
2. After about a year of passionate radical feminist blogging, the Us v. "Sparklepony" factor reared its ugly head. For another few months, I tried to tell myself this didn't exist, this rivalry. Women fighting women? In feminism? How could this be.
3. But it did be, and as posts and comments got angrier, more sarcastic and downright nasty, I wanted out of this "radical feminist" thing. This was not the feminism I thought it was.
4. I shit-canned Kaka Mak and frittered around the edges of a "nervous breakdown," brought upon by intense regret of some of the things I had posted as well as some other rather unsettling things happening in my off-blog life.
I am feeling similarly about humor. I find myself caring so much less about what people say. I still recognize sexism in jokes, inappropriateness in off-color joking, etc. But suddenly things that used to be funny to me that became cesspools of misogyny are cute, or amusing... or even just forgivable all of a sudden.
It actually feels so much better. I feel so much more human, so much more real, so much more able to relate with my fellow human beings, simply because I'm not watching what they say for sexism every moment any more.
Or worse, watching for misogyny. Misogyny, which is "hatred of women." As in, if people make these little jokes, say these little things, it's proof that deep down they hate you. That they want to hurt you, rape you, harm you, whatever. When you see these things, you start to see hate. An endless, simmering threat, because that's the word that's used: hate. To let it go, to write it off without confronting the person or at least confessing it to the group, becomes to know there's someone out there who is so deeply your enemy that he, or maybe even she, hates you.
I'm very leery of that word now. Very leery of the idea that people doing sexist things, pushing women's boundaries in sexist ways, is hidden hatred. I think using that lens to look at people who say or do offensive things is potentially emotionally dangerous.
And with all this stuff, all this paranoia, sloughing off of me, I keep wondering: why didn't I see it? How did I get so caught up in this thinking and these words that I even started to wonder if I should care about free speech -- something that I've always been certain mattered the most, something that I always from youth argued for in what others considered totally shocking circumstances?
And I think for me what got me was the notion that we had no leader. We had no figure, no messiah. What we supposedly had was this ability to listen to people, to raise our consciousness, to see things in a new and unique way that would end oppression and make everything better. And since there was no leader selling it, there was no snake oil salesman to detect. It was a way a group thought, not orders from a leader.
And the thing that makes it so hard to question is the idea that if someone strays, they have false consciousness. If they disagree they're a "choice feminist," an uneducated fool invested in the status quo. Any suggestion that we're being totalitarian, suppressing thought, etc. must mean the person saying it is deluded by American culture, by white or gender privilege, etc. There's no possibility that someone could be detecting bullshit.
And you're supposed to be looking inside yourself, looking at something that isn't science, isn't provable, because the oppressed don't have voices and aren't heard. So people say, for example, "Have you ever experienced something like this?" and give you a reason why that has to be sexism or even violence or hate (see above). And you're going, "Sure, this happened to me ... could it have been sexism?" And before you know it, it has to be, because the theory covers it. And because if someone's out there hating you, you're an idiot not to be vigilant.
Which is why I'm about ready to jettison the idea of consciousness, raised or false, entirely. I'm okay with the idea that oppressed people can have experiences that others don't understand. But I really do think now that if we can't articulate what these are, or if we put aside articulating what these are because "it's not our duty to educate," we're putting our whole way of looking at the world on a shaky foundation.