this post is pleasingly meta
I've got a massive text file here of various links and thoughts that I've been wanting to post to this tag, but the epic thread a couple of weeks ago wore me out a bit. I've been slowly working up to returning to it, but my text file runneth over, so I've should probably start somewhere.
One thing I've been thinking about is the two opposing responses I've seen to inequality. One is to articulate it: to talk about it, to rant about it, to ask questions, to have debates, to try to convince others that it's happening and it shoudn't be. The other attitude is to accept that stuff is unfair and get on with living as fair and just a life as you can, with a strong spirit, fighting unequality with action rather than word.
I've been called a "shouty" or "angry" feminist by people who fit into the latter camp. Which made me blink a bit. I mean I didn't talk about this stuff at all until recently, and even now I am I'm trying very hard not to shout. I want to express my hurt and anger when I'm hurt and angry, and I want to talk clearly and powerfully about stuff that seems to make sense to me, but I don't want to shout, because that makes me too easy a target for people to tell me to shut up.
Shouty vs quiet activism? I think both are invaluable in different contexts, at different times and to achieve different ends.
The reason I'm writing about this at all is because I'm still learning. A lot of my thinking about these questions is still pretty unsophisticated. I'm airing my experiences and ideas in the hope of inviting engagement from those who have more education or experience in gender studies than I do. Educating me isn't their responsibility, of course, but if I make it clear I'm willing to learn and read for myself and listen, hopefully some of them will chime in occasionally and help me develop my interpretation or my approach. In fact this hope has been more than realised. The response I've got from people who are further along than me has been overwhelmingly encouraging and reassuring.
I could get that from writing in a feminist safe space, though. And I'm not. Talking about it publically is a deliberate action on my part. The thing is that I'm becoming increasingly aware (as I read more widely and as I gradually grow up, gather more evidence, and become more circumspect) of the extent to which misogyny is still alive and flourishing in the society I live in. At the same time, I've become aware of how many people in my privileged, protected social group (and I include myself unreservedly in that category) disagree with that observation. I don't have time to fight battles every time I want to talk about something that's bothered me, so this project - of writing about this publically - is a finite one. Its aim is twofold: to sound out my friends and find out who still thinks change is needed and who doesn't (which I've already done, to some extent), and to give the people who are reserving judgment something to chew on.
To be perfectly honest, the person I'm really doing this for is my beloved dennyd. I hope he'll forgive me using him to explain :) Denny is sympathetic to my point of view, but he admits that he doesn't really know enough to be sure whether he agrees with me. He's aware of the concept of male privilege - he knows in theory that he benefits indirectly from misogyny through no fault or action of his own, and he knows in theory that because he isn't a woman he doesn't experience the world as a woman does, and therefore doesn't have the right to tell a woman her experience of the world is incorrect simply because it doesn't match his. He knows this in theory. But he struggles to see the misogyny that's still eating away at our society because he's never learned to look for it. He admits I might conceivably be right that there's lots of stuff going on he doesn't or can't see, but he still hasn't observed it for himself. He wants to understand in a more visceral way than that. He wants to learn to look for it. Several of my male friends have said the same sort of thing. They sympathise, but in a vague way. They don't get it.
So I'm not trying to convince chauvinists or misogynists of anything, here. All I can do is wait for them and their attitude to die. And I'm not interested in engaging with anyone who's never studied gender studies and yet has a brilliant theory about how none of this has anything to do with gender, because you're not going to change my mind and I don't have time to go over this kind of thing every time I post. I'm writing this for the benefit of the people who want to get it.
The reason I'm not writing this in a feminist blog, for a supportive and sympathetic audience who already gets it, is that that won't help me. I know that lots of people in out there agree with me, and when I need pepping up or reassuring I'll go and read some of the many, many eloquent and powerful things they've written. What will make a huge, tangible difference to my quality of life is to increase the number of real life friends I have who get it, so I'm not restricted to the internet when I want to talk about this stuff. Talking to the people who already get it won't help with that. I don't really want to ditch all my non-feminist friends either: you're brilliant, funny, smart, cool people, and I love your company, which is why I'm friends with you. Some of you I have political differences with and I can respect that. But a lot of my friends don't get it not because they've thought about it and done the research and have come to a different conclusion - but because they've never engaged with the issues. They've never had to. (Another consequence of privilege. I don't know much about race politics, because I'm white: I've never had to. I try to be aware of that when listening to people who are very invested in it, or when I join in conversations about it.)
Anyway, that's why I started talking about it. And to be honest, I don't know enough and I'm not eloquent enough and I don't have time to educate you all by myself. But I want to start writing about how this affects me in a more public way. Yeah, the debates are exhausting, but I'm not the type to keep quiet when something's on my mind. And this is on my mind a lot at the minute. So you get to hear about it.
The other reason is this: that the older I get, the more people are talking about this. This movement has gotten bigger and louder and more secure even in the short time I've been watching it, and I think that's amazing. I fully support the general principle of talking about this shit, even in front of people who might not agree with you. I support the principle of challenging misogyny or any hateful attitude when I see it, whether or not I stand a chance of convincing the person I'm challenging. I won't be silenced by fear of people telling me they see things a different way.
That doesn't mean I'll have the energy or time to answer every disagreement (and on general principle, the more sensitive and civil your response, the more likely I am to engage with it). But I see little point in saying any of this if only the people who agree with me can hear me.
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The other thing I've been thinking about is the tag itself: "Sexism: every little helps."
Several people pointed out that my usage of the word "sexism" in my first post was inappropriate. I don't, on balance, have any interest in a conversation that's defined as being about things that only happen to women. The world is full of exceptions and I do not want my interpretation to be derailed by someone piping up with one. And of course men suffer from gendered abuse and harassment as well.
So my subject matter is, I guess, the way in which gendered abuse and harassment directed at women by men is part of a wider pattern that makes the conversation different from how it would be if the genders were reversed. And the statistical slew of various sorts of rudeness, invasions of privacy, harassment, abuse, violence, inconvenience and disadvantages. When picking out examples from that pattern, whether it's a man or a woman being treated badly because of their gender or sex, I would call it sexism. I've been told this isn't the term other people would use. There's "misogyny", which I'm considering, but is there no gender-neutral word or phrase that can be used in the same way? This is a serious question, because there's no point setting myself up have my language torn apart every time I start talking. What word should I use?
I don't mind calling myself a feminist because I think feminism hasn't finished its very necessary work yet, but in general I prefer the term kyriarchy to patriarchy, and actually the term I'm happiest to describe myself is "gender activist". "Gender egalitarian" is another useful phrase, but I don't just think we need to equalise the genders, like some sort of binary balancing act on a pair of analogue scales, I think we need to break down the whole structure of gender and all the assumptions and restrictions and expectations attached to it.
So that's fine, but is there a better word for what I'm objecting to? Words are important: a lot of people (myself included) find it difficult to think clearly about something until they have the vocabulary to do so; and I certainly find that expanding my vocabulary helps me think more clearly and powerfully. Denny felt that I should avoid jargon when writing about this, because he finds the academese of a lot of feminism off-putting; he found my first post to be so convincing precisely because it took the talk back to the streets, back to day to day experiences, and away from abstract discussion of sociopolitical trends and invisible concepts like patriarchy and privilege. It made it visible. (Personally I think the visible stuff is only noticable once you contextualise it in the more conceptual stuff, but still, I see his point, especially given my intended audience.)
What word should I use, if not sexism, for gender-based incidents which reflect a more widespread and historically-rooted oppression? Bonus points for suggestions that fit into a catchy tag.