saying things better than I can
The comments expressing affirmation and solidarity on my previous entry are very much appreciated. Thankyou to the women who had the courage to post their own experiences of gendered harassment at risk of being told by others that those experiences are insignificant or other than you experienced them; it's a tough thing to do, and I'm grateful to everyone who's helped me demonstrate that incidents of this kind are not isolated, and do not exist in a vacuum.
Thankyou, too, to those men who have listened. I've been heartwarmed by some of the support and understanding you've showed - it's gone a long way to reassure me that I don't have to talk solely to my own gender if I want an ally, even if totally public fora are still unsafe. Your support doesn't fiix anything, of course, but before writing that post I was despairing of finding any male allies among my social circle other than cyrus_ii, and a handful of sympathetic ears is definitely better than one.
And even though the debate has been exhausting in places, thankyou to to those men who have been willing to listen and have your minds changed. I'm not expecting to convince anyone overnight. It's a slow reveal, and next time I bring this up, more groundwork will have been done, and that's valuable.
For the record, I had no intention when writing my previous post to make a commitment to chronicle every example of gendered discrimination I experience. As such I'd appreciate it if no-one holds me to one. This stuff is going on whether or not I notice it, or am offended by it, or post about it, and whether or not you believe me.
There are some fantastic bits of writing in the comments, several of which have got rather lost in the pages of debate. This comment by biascut is particularly worthy of attention:
Here's a question for the men on this thread:
Would it help if, instead of framing this as a discussion between women and men, we framed it as a discussion between experts and non-experts? Because that's what we are, when it comes to sexism and misogyny, for two reasons. Firstly, because the evidence for what we're talking about is the stuff of our daily lives. Secondly, because, this being libellum's friends' list, the overwhelming majority of women here are feminist-identified, and have spent years discussing and analysing this stuff.
I think many of the men here are getting defensive because they think this is something that we can debate, and they're being told that they're not allowed to. What you need to realise, guys, is that this is a discussion with different viewpoints allowed, but we've been having this debate for years, and basically, we're way ahead of you. You're on GCSE Feminism, and we've all got degrees in it and between three and thirty years' of professional experience. If you don't respect that, it comes off as patronising and superior - and, because of the dynamic of the discussion, as sexist, because you can't help sounding like you think you know better than us because you're men.
Let me give an example to show what I mean. Let's assume, because of the demographic that libellum tends to attract, that you're a programmer of ten years' experience, and I know nothing about programming. If you're trying to explain to me how it works, I'm not going to understand immediately, and I'm going to ask questions. If I phrase my questions as an attempt to catch you out, because I think I know more about programming, you're going to get pissed off. If I say, "But wait a minute! You've clearly contradicted yourself here! This can't possibly be true! Ha!" and look pleased with myself - you're going to roll your eyes, because honestly, you're just explaining the basics to me. You're explaining that two plus two equals four. OF COURSE you know how a stupidly basic bit of code works, because if you didn't none of the programs you've written which use far more complicated ideas would function. If I say dubiously, "Well, I guess you might be right about this bit, but I still think you're wrong about that" - ditto. I mean, you're laughing at me by now, aren't you? I just sound stupid. And you sure as hell don't want to bother trying to continue to educate such an obtuse and disrespectful student.
On the other hand, if I say, "Oh right, I see what you mean - but I still don't get that, so could you explain it again?", it's totally different. One assumes that you know what you're talking about, and the other is patronising as fuck, because it assumes that I must be twenty times cleverer than you to have spotted something that you haven't noticed in your ten years' of programming experience. Just occasionally, it is the case that someone can cast a fresh eye on a problem and solve it. But generally, experts are better at stuff than non-experts.
Think of it that way - it's not that this isn't up for debate, but the bits that are up for debate are the things that the people with ten years' experience disagree about, not the things that people at GCSE level disagree about. The things that the programmers are discussing when they're trying to resolve a particular technical difficulty, and it sounds like a foreign language to non-programmers. If you think that you can spot a logical flaw in my feminist philosophy that I haven't spotted and resolved to my satisfaction in ten years' experience of experiencing, studying and talking about sexism and patriarchy and misogyny and feminism and postfeminism, and you declare that triumphantly - it's really, really hard not to feel like you think you know better than me because you've got a cock.
libellum has explicitly said that her intention here is to educate you. Be grateful for this opportunity, because there are plenty of us who are totally over educating men who struggling with GCSE Feminism and yet think they know better than us, unless we're getting paid for it. You are not on an equal footing with me, not because you're men, but simply because I'm an expert and you're not, and the reverse would be true if we were talking about whatever your area of expertise is. You want to ask questions and learn, go ahead. Ultimately, you can decide you don't agree with me, and you'll have lost nothing and gained a more respectable intellectual basis for that disagreement. But don't disrespect mine or any other feminist woman's expertise and then complain because I'm not nice to you.
If anyone wants to highlight anything else as being Compulsory Reading for libellum's Friendslist, please let me know and, if I agree, I'll repost it here.
While I'm asking, a couple of people have expressed a vague interest in being better-educated when it comes to feminist theory, and honestly, I'm a bumbling amateur and have no idea where to start. If anyone has any favourite bookmarks which might be appropriate for beginners (particularly male ones) who are willing to learn, or suggestions for a basic Feminism 101 bibliography, could you post them in the comments? I'll appreciate the tips, if no-one else :)