Yeah, I'm still here, time to rant again
The other day, I read about a new LJ community specifically for abused women. In the group's formation blurb, they said "we're restricting this comm to women only, because abused women need a place to talk safe from men and their men-opinions."
Um.
So many things irk me about that.
Abuse victims ought and should have safe places to talk with other abuse victims -- collectively, or by gender (physical or socially identified), or by type of abuse...the subdivisions are quite numerous for how they might wish to group themselves.
Implicit within that statement is my endorsement of abused women having a safe space to talk with other abused women.
Yet.
The description goes beyond carving out a women-only space for this support community. It's doing so by gratuitously antagonizing the men who would likely otherwise leave the community alone. I'm sure that there are some who'd say "b-b-but it's discriminatory to exclude ME from their community, how dare they associate without me!?" Those are the Harrison Bergeronians of the world. (For those of you who haven't read Vonnegut's short story, I highly recommend you do.) These people should certainly be excluded from such a group.
But this goes beyond it. It's implying that anything a man could say in a group for abused women is suspect and dangerous. It's implying that men are so inherently privileged (and yes, I've already ranted on that, no need to rerant it now) that even their inclusion would threaten the women members.
It's also being unnecessarily antagonistic to men. Antagonistic language can be useful. It is sometimes necessary to tell someone "no, shut up and listen to me tell my side/opinion/experience." All too often people get wrapped up in what they're saying that they forget to listen to anyone else. Telling them to stop, shut up and listen is necessary for meaningful dialog and discourse, and sometimes you need to use harsh or vulgar, or strong language to do it. But I don't see that being done in this case. All I see is the community founders and members saying "you're bad, you're evil, you need to shut up and stay the hell away from us." No invitation to discourse, no invitation to dialog, no invitation to explain why men would need to stay away. Had the group simply been formed as "a place for abused women to share their experiences with other abused women," I'd have probably never said a word about it. By including the "safe from men and their men-opinions," all they've done is irritate and antagonize me, for no gain of their own, unless irritating me and other men is their goal. How irritating the kyriarchs actually benefits the underclass I couldn't begin to say.
Another thing that's implicit in this community is the assertion that all the abuse these women have suffered is at the hands of men. I'm quite positive that the majority of abused women are in fact abused by men. But I am highly doubtful, nigh absolutely skeptical, that there isn't a subset of women abused by other women. By tokenizing men to the class of dangerous abusers that women must be kept safe from, there is an implicit assertion of women as the class of safe members.
Even beyond this, it's implying that anything a man might say is dangerous and suspect, while women are safe to say what they wish. Will every woman in the community want to support everyone else? I would hope so, but I'm sure there will be one or two who will twist and turn and manipulate the others, in a decidedly unsupportive way.
Um.
So many things irk me about that.
Abuse victims ought and should have safe places to talk with other abuse victims -- collectively, or by gender (physical or socially identified), or by type of abuse...the subdivisions are quite numerous for how they might wish to group themselves.
Implicit within that statement is my endorsement of abused women having a safe space to talk with other abused women.
Yet.
The description goes beyond carving out a women-only space for this support community. It's doing so by gratuitously antagonizing the men who would likely otherwise leave the community alone. I'm sure that there are some who'd say "b-b-but it's discriminatory to exclude ME from their community, how dare they associate without me!?" Those are the Harrison Bergeronians of the world. (For those of you who haven't read Vonnegut's short story, I highly recommend you do.) These people should certainly be excluded from such a group.
But this goes beyond it. It's implying that anything a man could say in a group for abused women is suspect and dangerous. It's implying that men are so inherently privileged (and yes, I've already ranted on that, no need to rerant it now) that even their inclusion would threaten the women members.
It's also being unnecessarily antagonistic to men. Antagonistic language can be useful. It is sometimes necessary to tell someone "no, shut up and listen to me tell my side/opinion/experience." All too often people get wrapped up in what they're saying that they forget to listen to anyone else. Telling them to stop, shut up and listen is necessary for meaningful dialog and discourse, and sometimes you need to use harsh or vulgar, or strong language to do it. But I don't see that being done in this case. All I see is the community founders and members saying "you're bad, you're evil, you need to shut up and stay the hell away from us." No invitation to discourse, no invitation to dialog, no invitation to explain why men would need to stay away. Had the group simply been formed as "a place for abused women to share their experiences with other abused women," I'd have probably never said a word about it. By including the "safe from men and their men-opinions," all they've done is irritate and antagonize me, for no gain of their own, unless irritating me and other men is their goal. How irritating the kyriarchs actually benefits the underclass I couldn't begin to say.
Another thing that's implicit in this community is the assertion that all the abuse these women have suffered is at the hands of men. I'm quite positive that the majority of abused women are in fact abused by men. But I am highly doubtful, nigh absolutely skeptical, that there isn't a subset of women abused by other women. By tokenizing men to the class of dangerous abusers that women must be kept safe from, there is an implicit assertion of women as the class of safe members.
Even beyond this, it's implying that anything a man might say is dangerous and suspect, while women are safe to say what they wish. Will every woman in the community want to support everyone else? I would hope so, but I'm sure there will be one or two who will twist and turn and manipulate the others, in a decidedly unsupportive way.