If I told a male poster that he was obviously mistaken, and I was dismissive of him, I'm labeled simply a rude person. But if I am dismissive of a female poster, am I then misogynistic?
First, personally, I wouldn't lable your aggressiveness there "misogynistic" so much as defensive and arrogant in a way that is very familiar to me from real life. It is a typical, but, critically, not an inevitable, response that people who have occupied a position of privilege often have to having their privilege challenged--particularly if a view of themselves as "enlightened" on a certain point is being undermined.
Look, Persephone went after my reportage of my experience on the issue of class: I hated that experience, because, for god sake, my birth family was rural poor; I grew up doing manual labor from the age of 5 or 6, and always felt like a shitkicker amongst my university pals. So, I like to think I'm pretty aware of class, but, well, I'm not perfect. I have blind spots. I don't like the experience of being told my zipper is down either, but...you move on.
I even have blind spots about gender: At a crucial, difficult point in my job, I became aware that it's easier to challenge the authority of my female boss in the eyes of her superiors and peers, who are, at my work, mostly male. In that case, I had to calm myself down in order to remind myself that if I undercut her authority for some short term gain in a conflict that I'm having with her (and, philosophically and managerially, she and I have pretty different styles), the long-term consequences to the instituion for women were likely to be bad.
What I'm saying is: we're not asking male-identified posters to behave in radically different ways than we don't expect from ourselves. It's a matter of thinking things through and having an awareness of both short-term and long-term consequences, and having certain goals for the space, e.g., let's take making it one that does not alienate people like Celane by playing into patterns of quick dismissal (see also page one of this thread and ibis's experience).
Note one other subtext here: this doesn't have to be framed as a kind of "punishment" as you seem to be currently viewing the situation. Because I have a long-term goal of making my institution more respectful of female authority, it definitely requires me to strategise my approach conflicts with my boss more carefully than I might otherwise do. But taking extra time in thinking through my reaction to my boss is actually kind of empowering in a strange way--somehow having that longer term goal for my workplace shifts my relationship to whole hierarchical structure--I feel less at its mercy and more an active player in its creation--and makes our conflicts less personal/reactive, for me.
(I do think the chivalric metaphors--the knights defending damsels in distress in protection of some castle and retaining their code of honor--is doing some of the damage here. If you find yourself imagining yourself along those lines, that should be a red flare that your actions and motivations are probably dubious. Re-frame! Re-frame!)
I have a long-term goal of making this place a less chilly space for women, but keeping the stuff I love: the intellectual challenge, the humor, the wit. I actually believe that complex goals like that serve everyone. |
