the best of both worlds

[sophiaserpentia]

Originally published at Monstrous Regiment. You can comment here or there.

I’ve often felt that, with regards to what we can bring to feminism in terms of our experience and our awareness, that transfolk have a unique contribution to make and are in a way the best of both worlds.

Oh, i don’t mean that in the creepy sense that we’re so used to hearing it from trans-fetishizers. But let me give you an example of what i mean.

I participate in a number of feminist forums online. With reasonable regularity men come along, and their reactions are so similar, so predictable, that feminists like Ginmar have joked about making bingo cards. But you know, in the 90’s that was me; i was the guy going to feminist forums and making all of the same predictable comments. “But not me!” “But patriarchy hurts men too.” “But most victims of violence are male.” “But men get raped too.” “But how can you attribute motivations to me that defy my own experience?” And so on.

Having heard these objections many times already, and taking them to be tactics of dismissal, feminists often react kind of harshly. And men who say these things in feminist contexts usually leave feeling they’ve been excoriated.

What’s going on here is that feminism, beyond being a collection of views and theories and actvist movements, is at its heart a different way of communicating. It takes time, and a willingness to listen, to grok this. In large part, feminist forums are about giving voice to thoughts and feelings which are silenced everywhere else. The purpose is to allow women, who have been told all their lives to shut out certain ways of thinking, to learn how to think feminist thoughts and express them. These thoughts are not always rationally perfect or grounded in evidence; sometimes they carry a lot of anger; but women have to be allowed to express them anyway, because they can’t anywhere else, and because it’s the only way for them to learn about sexism in a more nuanced way.

Most guys come to feminist forums not really having experienced what it is like to be silenced on account of their gender, to be expected to defer and placate. They are used to “debate” and have been raised on the idea of “the free marketplace of ideas.” Feminist forums are not a place for debate so much as they are a place for mentoring. Sometimes women say outrageous things there; but such things are said and we sit with them because women need somewhere to express their feelings and experiences if they are ever going to learn more seasoned forms of expression.

It’s not just men who have to learn how to listen to anger in feminist settings. I’ve had a number of women tell me, when i asked them why they hate feminists, something like this: “Oh, a feminist once told me i’m betraying womankind by marrying a man and being a stay at home mother!” Well, yeah, sometimes statements like that are made in feminist forums. But you learn over time to see such words in the way they’re meant; you don’t take them personally, but instead you listen to the anger and look for the source of it. I’ve never met a seasoned feminist who would make a statement like that; but maybe they did when they were just setting out on this journey. Instead it sounds very much like something one says when they are just starting, after a lifetime of never being allowed, to express their rage at the scope of sexism.

Anyways, men, however well-meaning they may be, have to understand that when they bring debate and nitpicking and exceptions and logical analysis to feminist forums, this feels to everyone else there like a projection into feminist space of the misogynistic methods of silencing they came there to escape. Telling someone “You’re wrong, here’s why,” is not really the way people learn in feminist forums. So they find themselves becoming instant lightning rods. It’s not pleasant for anyone concerned.

Before i stopped being “offended-almost-feminist-guy” i had to shut up and listen, a lot. I was fortunate in this regard to have a feminist partner who was willing to take the time to explain things to me. It wasn’t really her job to do that; but she cared enough to, and i am grateful.

The feminist woman i am today looks upon the almost-feminist guy i used to be with compassion, and sees him in every guy who comes to a feminist forum where i participate. I know the way he thinks — or at least the way he thinks he thinks. I see it as a kind of special contribution i can make, some good i can make out of my unusual experience, to take the time to explain to him why he just needs to listen for now.

Comments

[pharminatrix.livejournal.com]

Wow, this is really thoughtful, warm, and compelling. Excellent food for thought. Especially given how confused I am these days regarding my own gender perspectives.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

This is why I don't go into feminist forums - I don't need to be a punching bag while I wait for angry women to process their emotions to "a more seasoned form of expression". I don't need to make them wrong for feeling what they do and nor do I feel a need to hang around for it.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

Feminist forums are not all "angry women," BTW. Perhaps i have erred if that's the impression this post gave. Anger is expressed there, and has to be safe there; but also, if someone is there as a genuine participant (and not as a forum troll) then the anger generally doesn't apply to them. I've seen quite often that men who grok this are perfectly welcome to listen and speak in many of the feminist forums i've been a part of.

Part of it is, when we're taught to understand statements, that when we see a statement made about a category to which we belong ("men," or "women") that we take that statement as if directed at us. But this is one of the limitations that make it difficult to learn how to express your rage at being oppressed. Sometimes the experience involves a specific man, or specific men; sometimes it is a more generalized realization that relates to many of the men a woman has ever encountered in her life.

And sometimes it is a thing a woman has learned in her way of relating to men in general. This can be the most difficult to deal with, because no man wants to hear that someone has decided she just can't trust him before she has even ever met him. But listen further, and eventually you'll say, "Well, hell, if i'd been through all that myself, i wouldn't trust men either." And that's about the time it clicks into place.

[neitherday.livejournal.com]

The problem is there is no incentive to sit around and take the abuse until it clicks into place. The people (not just men) who leave the forums and discussion groups with a bitter taste in their mouths will likely not return to feminism and many of their minds and voices will be lost to the ideas of change.

Barring violent revolution, the only way to initiate change is to convince enough people of its necessity. Each person who leaves and doesn't come back because of the hostility is a setback for the movement more than a personal setback for the individual.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

Yes, feminism and feminists in one way or another have been intertwined in my life since childhood and I've experienced all the extremes that come from that. And I understand that there are aspects I can never fully understand and nor do I assume otherwise. And as you said, there is no incentive to be in spaces where there is little for me to do but listen.

Sadly, many people embrace victimhood and don't understand the simple need to take emotional responsibility.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

Well, what looks to you like "embracing victimhood" is much more likely the process of dealing with traumas inflicted by misogyny, a subject at which i have written at considerable length over the last year or so.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

I make a differentiation because I've experienced significant trauma and it wasn't group participation or "safe space" that let me heal, but instead getting serious professional help. In my case, NLP and EMDR.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

The problem is there is no incentive to sit around and take the abuse until it clicks into place.

::nods::

And that was the way i felt about it for about a decade. Hence my saying that perhaps it is a contribution i can make -- i can't make it any easier but i can explain the necessity of it.

For example, as a white person i need to hear anger from people of color when they express it. It's my privilege to walk away from it, but they don't have that choice. So even if i don't agree with the words being said, i need to hear them and listen, and hope that eventually the bigger picture, which i have barred myself from grasping, will take root in my mind and grow there. It is the only way i can demonstrate my solidarity.

[guttaperk.livejournal.com]

Speaking as a man of colour- all that you said is true, but none of it changes the fact that some of the things said on these forums will remain horseshit, however necessary it is on the speaker's journey of truth, and however well-rooted the words are in essential and unspoken truths of the speaker's experience.

That's true for black speakers, and for female speakers, and for male speakers, and for young speakers.

I do think that it's important that people not be disrespected or silenced for speaking horseshit; but I'm not certain that validating it aids in their growth.

Having said that, every moment is not an optimal moment for criticism.


It's a difficult issue. We want to validate the people that they are and the things that they do not say; but it's not necessarily optimal to validate the problematic things that are actually verbalised. Young boys may display rambunctious, inappropriate aggression as part of their maturation process; such aggression may be redirected and channeled; it is no excuse for condemnation and denigration; but immature, inappropriate aggression should not be validated. This is no different.


I will say that you, like many women, make too many assumptions about the absence of silencing of men. Just as you needed to listen and ponder the difficulties of immature feminists, it seems that you havemore listening and pondering to do. Men are well-silenced from youth. They are often accustomed to deference, just as women may become accustomed to their own pedestals; but such things come at high price. Men are expected to fit a role, too, and that role is often no more freely chosen, and no less unhealthy, than the roles foisted on women.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

Yes, sometimes people say horseshit in consciousness-raising forums and it can at times be quite damaging. CR is not a safe process. Sometimes i have even half-cynically wondered if feeling profoundly threatened is a necessary part of it.

What you raise about the silencing of men is confusing for me because i never know how to interpret the silencing i experienced as a kid. Was i a boy being silenced? Or a transgirl? If the latter, does the distinction mean i can't understand what boys go through? Or maybe it's a distinction without a difference because the stated goal of my treatment as a kid was to make a man of me.

I will never say that men are not harmed by patriarchy -- as i know firsthand it is not true. But every harm done to men by the patriarchy has an analogue that has been experienced by women. Which doesn't make it right, or a tit-for-tat, but if men talk about having been emotionally stunted as boys, or violently suppressed from expressing certain emotions... it's not uncommon for them to be kind of surprised, and feel vaguely put off, as i was, to hear that it's nothing women can't understand because any girl has been through pretty much the same thing (and more).

[guttaperk.livejournal.com]

My point is not to get into a victimhood competition, but to note that "men don't have experience of being silenced" is untrue.

It's also not true to say, in any general sense, that "any girl has been through" everything a man has been through. Have I misunderstood you? And why can't the fact that women have been through some of the same traumatic experiences as some men be evidence of significant commonality rather than grounds for semidismissal of male trauma?

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

to note that "men don't have experience of being silenced" is untrue.

That's right -- and that's not what i'm saying at all.


It's also not true to say, in any general sense, that "any girl has been through" everything a man has been through. Have I misunderstood you?

Well... to hopefully clarify, let me speak again from my own experience: when i first came to feminism at 21, i was excited by it because i found a lot of parallels between my own experiences of being shoved into a gender-based shoebox and emotionally stunted, and many of the kinds of things which feminists say happen to women.

There are male-specific variations which are not identical to things which girls routinely experience -- but the structural effect is the same. Boys are emotionally silenced; so are girls. In a different way, but the effect is the same. That is what i mean.

So when i went in to talk about my experiences, what i was told, pretty much, is that "yes, these things are awful, how can boys not be unhappy? But as awful as these things are, women experience worse."

Which felt to me like dismissal. But it's really not. Dismissal would be flatly denying my experience. It's just that i, as a man (then, at least, if ever), could not walk into a feminist space and tell women what it's like to be oppressed on the basis of one's gender.

What threw me off was knowing that 70% of violent crime victims are male. I couldn't work that in with what i thought feminists were saying. But what feminists are looking at is that 90% of violent perpetrators are male. So most crime is male-on-male.

But men are not singling one another out for attacks because their victim is a man. (Well... there's some debate over whether homophobic violence is an extension of misogyny, which is kind of simplified but, in my opinion, fundamentally right.) The factors at work in male-on-male violence are more likely related to race, class, or religion than to gender. Male-on-female violence involves a very different dynamic.

And the social dynamic around male-on-female violence is very different. It's not uncommon for police to impose a de-facto curfew on women if there is known to be a serial rapist in a neighborhood. Women are routinely given advice on how to avoid being raped or mugged. And so there's this huge culture of fear around violence against women which men just don't experience to the same degree.

Argh, i know i'm rambling on a bit but hopefully i've gone some way towards explaining what i mean.

[guttaperk.livejournal.com]

I agree with much of what you say. However, "what i was told, pretty much, is that "yes, these things are awful, how can boys not be unhappy? But as awful as these things are, women experience worse." is much kinder and gentler- not to mention more nuanced and sensible- than the majority of discourse to which I have been exposed.

Further, I don't actually agree that gender does not enter into male-on-male violence. Class and race are more often the focus; but one thing that I have learned about these issues is that foci are often red herrings.

I guess what it comes down to is that the stereotypes of the male experience used by yourself and others are often both inaccurate and dismissive, as gender-based stereotypes can often be. You may not mean to be dismissive, but you are- just as men of all ages may not have meant to be dismissive of the oppression of women- but we/they often were.

It really makes sense at some point to just stop stereotyping the experiences of others. Oppression doesn't have to be "worse" to be unacceptable.

[sarahmichigan.livejournal.com]

I agree with you that male-on-male violence has a gender-based component to it many times. Boys are beaten if they're not "man" enough, weak men are "pussies" and "girls" and so on.

I really have liked some of the "men's studies" books I was exposed to whem my husband was writing a paper about these sorts of issues; they were really eye-opening to me about the often-violent gender socialization that men do to other men and boys.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

Boys are beaten if they're not "man" enough, weak men are "pussies" and "girls" and so on.

A question i think is interesting WRT this: do you think such violence is a reflection of misogyny? Or do you think it is its own kind of beast?

IOW would such violence exist without misogyny? That's what it comes down to for me.

Did you ever read "Knights Without Armor" by Aaron Kipnis? That was a book i found particularly helpful among the men's studies books i read a long time ago. A lot of it was focused on the role of male-on-male violence as a tool of gender-role enforcement among boys and men.

Re: That's interesting

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

That's kind of how it felt when i was male-identified and young, and trying to participate in feminist discussion. I felt like i was sometimes being singled out and personally attacked.

Now i see the same conversations from a different perspective (sometimes almost word for word, even though it's 15 years later), and i interpret them much differently. Deliberate personal attacks aside - they do happen and i am not trying to excuse vitriol from anyone, feminist or otherwise - i have found that there's a tendency to hear feminist words as if they contain more anger than they actually convey, to someone not accustomed to their point of view. Or the anger they convey is not directed personally even though the words might be.

This is a hard point to really discuss abstractly. One of these days i'll assemble or track some actual quotes to demonstrate what i mean.

ginmar gets a lot of trolls and can be testy with anyone she concludes is one. But she is not the vicious wolverine she's made out to be. She doesn't let everyone see every side of her.

[circuit-four.livejournal.com]

I only mean this partially in sarcasm, but... should I disqualified from reply to this post? If I disagree with you, will it be dismissed as a matter of my biological sex and enculturated gender, the "typical thing a man would say," tracking the Patriarchy all over your floor? That's a bit of sarcasm yet, but it's also an honest and friendly question, because I'm not going to offer contrary opinions if they wouldn't add anything to the discussion.

But I'll still tell you my opinion of the post anyhow: alternately brilliantly compassionate and infuriatingly presumptuous. I'm glad you made it; you're being provocative in the best way. I think I'm going to track this one for now and only jump in if something really, really lucid to say comes to mind. You've got me second-guessing myself a bit, and that's a good sign too, because it means the mechanisms are getting reanalyzed...

If I may say one hopefully innocuous thing, though... It reminds me of one of the only moments from recent South Park that didn't have my throwing bricks. :) One of the characters' father accidentally says "the N-word" on national television, and the "Token Black" character remains angry at him and his son (can't remember if it was Stan or Kyle) no matter what patronizing guilty white liberal things they do to prove they "really understand" how being called n*gg*r feels to an African-American. Peace only comes when his white friend comes up to him and says, "Okay. I really have absolutely no clue what it feels like and I never will." Token explains that that's what he wanted to hear all along -- an admission that the experience just isn't there and can't really be made despite all the good intentions in the world.

Is that anywhere in the vicinity of what you're trying to communicate to males and the "pre-trans" like me?

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

I only mean this partially in sarcasm, but... should I disqualified from reply to this post?

Completely earnestly and without any sarcasm at all... no, you are not disqualified from replying to this.


If I disagree with you, will it be dismissed as a matter of my biological sex and enculturated gender, the "typical thing a man would say," tracking the Patriarchy all over your floor?

No, disagreement will not be dismissed. But... bear in mind, that whatever objections you raise, there is a decent chance that not only have i have heard it before, i probably said it myself when i was young.

To say that i've heard it before is not to dismiss it out of hand. See, i know it sounds infuriating, but trust me, over the course of two or three years in various forums i've seen very different men from very different points of view raising the exact same objections independently from one another. To know the same things were said by me makes it even THAT much more surreal. It is enough to make one question the freedom of one's will and the human ability to parse and understand the world from uniquely individual points of view.

Also, it's not really a gender-directed objection against men, because women who are new to feminism also frequently come in and offer their own repetitions of various objections, although they're from a different set.

The Token story is not far off the mark at all. However, i would not say that understanding is impossible or will never come. I'm just saying that it requires a good deal of listening, and as others have commented, it's not a particularly thankful undertaking.

[circuit-four.livejournal.com]

Just clearing out my inbox heap. :) Sorry I kind of flew off the handle about this one. I don't know, I'm not encouraged by the "I'll have heard it before" response, and I'm not looking forward to having this out with the pall of that over our heads. I can at least recognize you're much more my ally than anything else on this sort of issue -- I enjoy your journal and the opportunity to talk with you, so I'm willing to bury the whole subject if necessary. :)

It is enough to make one question the freedom of one's will and the human ability to parse and understand the world from uniquely individual points of view.

Gods only know I agree with you on that one. I will say that's my biggest issue with radical feminism: it's exactly as bad as any other ideology, and that's fairly bad. :) Most of my objections can be explained as something like, "It feels like they're consulting a look-up table whenever a question's asked of them." They start with the theory and work backwards to the facts. And I can't begin to pretend that's a radical feminist trait per se, because my own beliefs lead me to see as a fundamentally human -- maybe the fundamentally human trait...

Mostly, and not ironically, listening to radical feminists makes me feel powerless. I realize this may seem absurd, since masculinity is a source of power in a patriarchal society whether or not its possessor desires it or cultivates it -- I don't even dispute that.

But I feel like the assessment of radical feminism leaves me with no good option. I feel like whatever position I take on an issue, it'll be construed as "typically male," fundamentally a consequence of my gender, with both my reason and my own legitimate feelings and experience irrelevant to it.

Yes, it is in fact hard to accommodate a philosophy that very often seems to be calling you wrong -- or worse, irrelevant or hostile -- by default because of a mere trait. I feel the message being presented is "Here's what we need of you: do you think you could listen to us, but accept that we won't listen back? This is really the only way to redeem yourself for your support (by, you know, breathing) of the patriarchy." Is there really much alternative but to actually become hostile?

Yes. I'm sure you've heard it all before, and forgive me if this sounds terse or sarcastic, but having heard it before doesn't excuse anyone from giving it serious consideration, if there's to be any useful exchange whatsoever. You complain about silencing, but is that really only remedied by more silencing? I know you've heard this one before, because I've heard it before, but I've still never heard a good reply to it: how much faith do these people really have in the feminine voice, if they think it necessarily perishes in the presence of male ones?

I think Neitherday really hit it. There's probably useful experience and perspective that I'm missing because I'm not given any motive to sit and listen to all these recriminations. I'm willing to listen to feminist rage if I'm allowed to vent a little not-quite-transgender rage and be heard as a real person, dealing with a lot of power imbalances -- and thus anger of my own -- vis a vis mainstream society and the feminist world and the world of queer/TG ideologues.

I'm on so many ideological fences, my butt hurts in six dimensions. ;p Is the right answer to go form a radical minority ideology consisting of... myself, and reinforce my own beliefs against all outsiders at the cost of any ability to make exchanges with you? Because I really worry this is where this is all going.

[sarahmichigan.livejournal.com]

Thought-provoking post.

I understand the need for women to have space to discuss feminism without having to deal with men's clueless comments.

However, I think men also get dismissed in these sorts of discussions in general, open forums, and shouldn't be. The objections might be old and tired to you and other feminists, but not to them, and they'll never be able to get past some of their blinders if they aren't engaged in a non-angry non-dismissive way.

I don't think feminists need to cater to Cavemen, but there are a lot of earnest "almost-feminist" men out there who could be allies if educated who are put off.

I'm put off by a lot of feminist talk, especially around sexuality, even though I do consider myself a feminist. It comes up in unexpected places, too. I participate in a lot of forums/discussions around size-acceptance and get the feeling in some circles that it's unacceptable for fat women to be treated as sex objects in any context, and the sexualization of fat women is bad, bad, bad and if I enjoy sexual depictions of women, I'm unenlightened and am hurting the cause. I'm coming from a sort of perpendicular viewpoint, where my sexuality was quite squashed and confined as a fundamentalist Christian young person, and so I really bridle at any indication that expressions of sexuality are bad, wrong, and hurtful to women.

I have a lot of sympapthy for men who are really trying to "get it", and feel like there aren't many spaces where they and feminists can engage in a healthy way.

Eh, just rambling and not really addressing the meat of your post at this point...

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

You're addressing the meat of my post much more directly than you think.


The objections might be old and tired to you and other feminists, but not to them, and they'll never be able to get past some of their blinders if they aren't engaged in a non-angry non-dismissive way.

Yes -- exactly. So when i see them i try to let them know i understand where they're coming from.

People who don't have privilege think that it should be the easiest thing in the world for someone with privilege to see what it is they're doing.

But, you know, i have conversations and arguments with non-transgender people where they just. don't. see. their. privilege. I can point it out in the plainest terms possible but they still won't see it. I can make analogies to other kinds of privilege and they will insist "that's different." It's hard in many critical or feminist circles to keep in mind just how strongly we've blinkered ourselves to the effect of our own privilege and i kinda think it should be seen as a requirement for anyone who's feminist or otherwise radical to promise to look and see if maybe the privilege that's being pointed out to them is real.

WRT to sexuality and body issues i find that a lot of people come to feminism motivated not by interest in social justice but by interest in restrictions on individual freedom. To the latter, any demand for personal restriction based on ideology, whether than ideology is Christian or feminist, looks exactly alike. And i think this difference in perspective is responsible for a lot of the disagreement in feminist circles around issues like BDSM, pornography, prostitution, and transsexuality.