saying things better than I can

[libellum]

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

Comments

[emperor]

Perhaps I should elaborate a little. If I had an LJ post about how Christianity interacted with workplace ethics, it would drive me up the wall for people to keep saying "but there is no God, what are you on about?" - my post wouldn't be the venue for such comments. If I was trying to persuade people that Christanity was important in workplace ethics, then I'd have to engage with those comments.

Engaging with them might just mean "Sorry, but here isn't the place for TGGD; lets assume God exists for this post, and maybe discuss that point another time?", but saying "Theologians have argued for years about the existence of God, and we're sure He exists. Do you not think we've not had these debates before? Shut up." isn't going to convince anyone.

Similarly, if I'm teaching a class about applications of a particular epidemiological model, I wouldn't really want to spend hours debating whether the underlying assumptions were right or not with one student. I'd have to close the debate down by saying "I hear what you're saying, but lots of scientists have used this model, and found it effective. Let's take that as read, so I can carry on the class on applications of this model, and I'll talk to you about your questions later". If instead I say "Look, I'm an expert, I've been doing epidemiology for years, have 25 Nature papers in the subject, you're just an undergrad. Stop making a fool of yourself", the student will never attend another lecture of mine again.

[biascut]

I'd like to clarify two things here:

Firstly, when I talk about being an "expert", I mean more as a metaphor than literally. Feminism shouldn't have "experts", because heaven knows, an woman who has lived in poverty all her life and never learned to read and write almost certainly has more knowledge of gender oppression (and other forms of oppression) than I as a highly-educated, middle-class white English woman do. All I have is a lot of practice in analysing and expressing thoughts about gender, which does function as "expertise" in the context of discussing gender with men with similar levels of race, class, first-world privilege, but certainly wouldn't in other contexts, and there are plenty of discussions of gender where I would certainly put myself in the "non-expert" category and shut up and learn.

Secondly, part of what I'm talking about here is pedagogical responsibility. I don't take on the responsibility of educating anyone about feminism unless I want to, and I don't want to unless I think they are actually interested in learning and will to accept my rules. I'm not in a lecture hall, with a pedagogical responsibility to a bunch of paying students, and if I put someone off learning about gender because they will only listen if I speak sweetly and softly to them and consider their feelings at all times, and I don't want to, I'm very clear that that's their problem not mine.

(In the context of the parallels with Christianity, I also (obviously) don't have a proselytising responsibility.)