#feministrant

Okay so I was just surfing the web and saw some shit posting about mansplaining and these buthurt dudes in the comments like “it doesn’t matter if your dumb or an expert if What you’re saying is right hur hur hur” And ngl it put into focus the thoughts I’ve had on the matter for a while. My response turned out to be way too long for that thread so I thought I’d post it here.

I once literally had a dude sit across the room from me, knowing that I was studying feminism and actively advocating against these sorts of unconscious biases- while he was studying chemistry. He proceeds to patronisingly explain to me what the glass ceiling is. That’d be like me trying to tell him what titration is. He has assumed, despite my own research and study that he knows and I do not. That someone who has dedicated years of their life to social justice does not know the topic as well as he does. Yes his speech was technically correct, but he would have done much better directing that to the other men in the room than to me. He assumed that I didn’t know. Even though he knew I was an expert. That’s why it’s a problem. Whether it’s true or not doesn’t matter. Assuming that they don’t know creates a power imbalance, whether you’re intending to or not. If you don’t know whether or not they know- ask before diving into an explanation that you may well not need to give?

My problem will never be dudes explaining things to me. I’ve had wonderful male teachers. My partner is male, and he explains shit to me daily. He’s a clever guy, he knows a lot of cool things. But he never just assumes I don’t know. He says things like “oh did you hear about ...?” Before just letting rip. He tries his hardest to make sure I feel respected and his equal in conversation. He respects where my expertise are. He doesn’t just assume he knows better because he’s a dude.

My problem is, where dudes see “woman” when they ought to see “person”. I’m actually sure that most men don’t see us as fully human, at least subconsciously. I’ve actively had to remind male friends that women are people. They ask me stuff like “why do women do...?” Because I’m chill. I’m one of the guys right? I always say that the issue is that you’re holding all women responsible for the actions of a few. If I did that, I’d never speak to another man again. They see us as a hive mind, a collective, a separate entity from them. These sorts of questions remind me of the kind of questions children ask. “Why do dogs wag their tails?” “Why do birds fly?” Ect. A lot of men never look deeper. They see one woman acting strangely and go “uh, women” not “I wonder what happened to make her this way.” We don’t get our own individual thoughts and feelings to men like this, and as such are robbed of our personhood. They see us as just a woman, rather than a person with individual thoughts, unique experiences and skill sets, like they are. That is why they mansplain. That is why they assume that I don’t know, because they aren’t seeing that I have my own thoughts, feelings and experiences that relate to theirs, that can be called human. Instead of considering the ways I am like them, my own humanity, they focus on the ways I am not. My sex and gender presentation. Which apparently means that I don’t know.

I started noticing catcalls from drivers when I walked the dog in my neighborhood around age 10/11. I was socialized to take it as a compliment. So I did.

At my first job, a local radio station DJ said I looked straight out of Baywatch on the air when I walked over to their poolside broadcasting van celebrating the start of Summer around age 15. I was socialized to take it as a compliment. So I did.

Also around age 15, I was harassed at my school for being a slut due to all of my boyfriends. At the time, I was still heteronormatively a virgin and they didn’t believe me. Then when I actually did have sex with my boyfriend for the first time and decided to confess that “secret,” the same harassers called me a liar who was just seeking attention.

I was socialized to think that after the first time having sex with a boyfriend, it wasn’t my place or right to stop if I had said yes before. That my automy to say no ended when I loved them. I usually did and most of my exes all were the types who listened but I still felt guilty or like a bad girlfriend when I spoke up.

This status is for every “freak dance” and phone number and kiss I gave or slap on the butt or sleazy comment on my attire I ignored because it was safer to.

Earlier I commented: I am numb to it. If I don’t see the words, I just assume that friend of mine is choosing not to participate. Literally every female or femme person I know has a “me too” story. And yes, I have cis guy friends and masculine trans friends who have stories.

We are being socialized that it’s “just a part of life” and it’s not okay. Let’s be the era that literally says No to this.

Panel discussion facilitated by Chakka Reeves as part of the double bill film screening of the Women’s March on Washington and Women Mobilized for Change 1966 to 1974 at CIMMfest on Sunday April 23, 2017.

Our program was scheduled after an all male panel (all white with one hispanic man). The all male panel started late and ran into fifty percent of our scheduled time slot. The audience who turned up wanting to attend the Women Rise Up program walked into an all male panel discussion - can you imagine? But yes it got worse, not only was it the usual bunch of men talking about their work and what they do and representing themselves and having the space to talk about what they do and their ideas. Two of the guys, lovely as they maybe proceeded to talk about how they had taken a slogan from a women’s march in 2016 and created a techno track with the verse “Pussy Fights Back”. They also mentioned they were thrilled to see women playing it on the buses to Washington DC for the Women’s March in 2017. They could have stopped there making the perfect segway into our films having at this point run over by 20mins but the facilitator who is the current Assistant Director of CIMMfest said to the female on site producer that he will finish when he is ready. 

So when they finally finished at 1:30pm the Assistant Director failed to mention the next program which is weird and when asked to do it refused. At this point I went up to the “facilitator” to ask if he could announce the program and he told me he had the power. Yes indeed this is a question of power and who gets to have it in public spaces. So I asked him to question his own power in these situations and stated how problematic this is. (I do hope he reads this as I hope he does more thinking about this and how he can address his privileged position in future.) 

Then what happened everyone in the audience was furious and the panelists who were there for our conversation were angry too. Why? Because this is a classic example of patriarchal privilege that occurs everyday. Men taking up our time and space and in this case our audience to represent themselves rather than being in the listening seat for a change. I do a test these days I always go up to my male colleagues and ask them what are you up to? How many times is the question reciprocated? Zero percent. 

So the offense from the all-male panel rippled in different ways throughout our audience and panelists but one thing that made it worse was the “Pussy fights back” techno track. Part of the problem with patriarchal power is that men assume they have ownership of our ideas and can take and steal anytime they want from us. We just have to read the history books to see this annihilation in action - a classic example was Claudia Claudel whose work was stolen by Rodin. We all probably have a personal story of appropriation that we could share. I recently had a graduate student who had worked with me during his summer prior to his first semester of graduate school and he took the basis of my conceptual framework for his entire thesis project. 

Another woman on the panel was highly offended by the techno track as she is a survivor of sexual assault and finds the whole language around “Pussy fights back” a sexualization of the female body in a political context that is yet another form of erasure. Unfortunately we have adopted yet another example of female objectification in order to campaign for our liberation. The use of language that is constantly used to oppress our bodies and voices needs to be analyzed and considered questioning the cycle of oppression.