Well lots of things, obviously, but right now it's when a privileged person feels the need to derail an entire conversation to cater to their feelings/experience. Let me give you a few examples.
Women are talking about the stigma/victim blaming placed on rape survivors--a dude chimes in with, "Well men are raped too!"
A person of color is talking about racist hiring practices, and a white woman offers, "Oh, yeah, I've been discriminated against during an interview."
A fat woman is talking about the pressure to be thin and a thin woman counters, "As women, we all face body shaming and the pressure to be perfect!"
A trans woman expresses a fear of the threat of transphobic violence and a cis woman offers, "But all women feel unsafe in the street."
In each case, there is nothing factually incorrect about any of the second statements. The problem is that they are delivered in a time/place/manner which derails the current conversation and makes it all about a privileged person's experience. You commonly hear this compliant when feminists will make fun of guy who drops into a discussion with some variant on "what about the menz?" But let me be clear, it is NOT just men who do this.
There is nothing wrong with discussing male rape victims, general discrimination in hiring, body shaming, or fear of violence. There is absolutely something wrong with hijacking a discussion to turn the focus back on a privileged group and thereby silence the original speakers.
I get that the only frame of reference that we truly understand is our own and there is a lot of temptation to bring things continuously back to our personal experiences. But the fact of the matter is that not everything needs to be about you, at any given moment. There is a LOT of value in shutting the hell up for a moment and listening and learning, especially when the original context of the discussion had nothing to do with you.
I thought I would keep writing and explain more about this topic (like how I see these derails as much from within the feminist community as I do from outside) but I don't think there's much more I can say. Except maybe to reiterate to my fellow feminists that we MUST be aware of intersectionality as we navigate our spaces. As I said on Tumblr the other day:
If your primary concern with feminism as a straight, white, thin, able bodied, cis woman is, “how do I make the movement more accommodating to me?” let me just show you the door right now.
Please see the commenting policy before replying to this post.
Reminds me of this new "mens rights" thing. Or people who complain about there not being a White History Month. Or if I call someone out on saying something racist and their response is, "That hurts my feelings."
ReplyDeleteI like your blog! I don't know how to sign in below but I run urbantribesblog.com
I think on the spectrum of horribleness, MRAs and people who want white history month are a few steps down from the people I'm talking about above, but yes, they are cut from the same cloth.
DeleteI really do like your blog, but your male rape victim example I think went a little too far- male rape victims are often stigmatized just as much as women are, and in a different way. I think it can be incredibly helpful to acknowledge that both are rapes, and both are crimes and should not be stigmatized. One isn't worse than the other.
ReplyDeletePlease reread this post in general and this section specifically:
DeleteIn each case, there is nothing factually incorrect about any of the second statements. The problem is that they are delivered in a time/place/manner which derails the current conversation and makes it all about a privileged person's experience. You commonly hear this compliant when feminists will make fun of guy who drops into a discussion with some variant on "what about the menz?" But let me be clear, it is NOT just men who do this.
There is nothing wrong with discussing male rape victims, general discrimination in hiring, body shaming, or fear of violence. There is absolutely something wrong with hijacking a discussion to turn the focus back on a privileged group and thereby silence the original speakers.
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No one said any rape experience is worse. No one said we can't talk about make rape victims (we absolutely should!) but not at the expense of cutting off a specific discussion women are having about the victim blaming/slut shaming THEY specifically face. You have entirely mischaracterized my argument.
Absolutely. I have nothing to add except to say THANK YOU for writing this so succinctly and clearly. I feel like as an intersectional feminist who does social justice work that I am frequently in a position of rehabilitating feminism for people who have met too many of they type you're describing in your tweet and are surprised to learn that I identify strongly as a feminist and approach my work through a feminist lens. We need to speak up about this as often as possible.
ReplyDelete