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@ Alex's Grandma in the woman-friendly Barbelith discussion thread:
unless people are prepared to mention specific threads at least (naming individual posters, ok, may seem a bit much,) that they find offensive then it's difficult to see how the discussion can progress.
I've quoted a lot from Alex's Grandma' post here, because reading that post crystallised several thoughts for me. Yes, if there is genuine ignorance, it's necessary for it to be addressed. I have questions about whether it's expected that sexism will be addressed by women's labour in educating, homophobia by the labour of gay people, etc. It's a way for dominance to be exerted, by making those who have been burdened do extra work to help the privileged adapt to the new reality. How much can we expect each other to help make the space unsafe for everyone equally? I know it's unsafe for me, and I very much appreciate the endeavour of those who make it unsafe for others who perhaps take their privileges more for granted.
I'm choosing to write in this thread instead of in the other as I am most interested in whether there are other F-I* posters with similar experience than in defending my right to my experience against M-I* posters.
That low-level hum of anxiety that 'poster x' feels in the background may, after all, have something more to do with 'poster x' than it does with teh board as a whole.
Right. I'm very much aware of this. I have a level of serious damage which I have to deal with on a daily basis, whether I want to or not. Since it was caused by misogynist abuse, misogynist abuse and objectification tend to remind me of it. Because of the way I was damaged, being reminded in specific ways can make me ill and then I become much less able to respond coherently - sometimes I can get so ill from flashbacks & other post-traumatic stress symptoms that I have to take time off work, which I get majorly cross about.
I understand that for normal people it is not actually dangerous to witness nasty speech, but it's something I have to beware of at the moment if I'm to enjoy life. Hey, I'm improving all the time, I have professional help, and I'm starting to have some self-confidence, I'm earning & in the black etc etc. So anyway, stuff that makes me sick probably a lot of people might not notice at all - perhaps it is only in me, and not in the public space itself? But in that mode then I am internalising the wrongness, so I am carrying both the original damage and its consequences, and as a direct result constantly doubting whether I have any right to speak out. Because, y'know, I'm troubled and this is probably not difficult for the "normal". (Any of them around?) I suspect that my sensitised emotional immune system has helped others, e.g., when I have reported inappropriate behaviour I've witnessed around vulnerable children and teens, so I think I'm starting to see that the damage to me can become an avenue for grace.
it's a bit like walking into a pub, complaining to the regulars that one doesn't really like it, and then hanging round anyway, like a ghost at the feast.
Interesting simile. I guess for me the situation is more like: here's a pub that advertises itself as being all about revolution and cultural creativity, yet when I walk past some of the tables there are people who appear to be relishing conversations about torturing people like me or celebrating our exploitation.
I find it interesting that Alex's Grandma chose to make the analogy complainers=nonregulars, when to my perception it's the other way round - the core of Barbelith are mostly self-aware and challenging. To extend the metaphor further - because the pub is public, people are constantly coming in who don't understand how to enact revolutionary anti-oppressive behaviour in their words, so there's a burden of education which I guess it is hoped will decline with time, it being possible to refer people to past threads where that labour invested in education has been banked. That's very promising for a cultural revolutionary space, because it makes obvious the advantage of the archived text medium. In face-to-face groups where the conversation is verbal, those conversations have to be actually enacted again, unless new joiners are willing to take a reading list away for self-education before they join the conversation. Here on Barbelith, at least some people do seem willing to read past threads.
I coud describe my experience like this: when I am feeling vulnerable I end up sneaking around the pub, trying to work out whether I can have any decent conversations or whether someone is going to start parading their dominance in a way that makes it unworth my while to continue the conversation. There's enough good and promising conversation to keep me interested in the venue, but it's still potentially injurious to me and I am sometimes prepared to let other people know if I am having that experience. I hope that it's an equally unsafe space for people with racist and misogynist views. Threads like this one, and its companion thread, the PC thread, all the gender/transgender deconstruction and so on convince me that there is a reality to the comparative unsafety. Excellent.
The revolutionary and creative activities are definitely my thing, and those are what keep my interest attached. I hope I'm not a ghost at the feast. I'm not prepared to be an outsider like that, so I choose to understand the group's process at present as one in which we are all learning, and in which we all expect to be able to change our minds. I choose to perceive that the conversations I find threatening are the activity of a minority who are in a learning process too, or maybe experimenting around where the boundaries are. I'm not at present able to engage in extensive critical education processes. I come to talk about science, clothing design, writing as a reflective process, other creative stuff that excites my interest. I contribute to critical threads about oppression when I can, but that is very limited.
The way I understand it feminist theory in its broadest sense - as a critique of the nested power and dominance relationships based on gender, race and class - is a robust and liberating kind of critical thought. I beleive that kind of conversations I experience as threatening will be degraded by the intelligent immune system of the group - like broken proteins are degraded in eukaryotic cells by proteasomes - because they are based on limiting, un-compassionate, objectifying, and exploitative thinking which is basically unsexy and doesn't belong in the bright green future I'm heading for.
*F-I=female identified
*M-I=male-identified
(At the risk of being pompous I'm re-declaring these fairly common abbreviations for utmost clarity.) |
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