(no subject)

[sessifet]

I'm sure my brain should come up with a clever and insightful post to do these links justice, but it can't. I've never really been able to express why some people push my 'Yikes!' buttons, but she's managed to word it pretty much perfectly.

Don't Be That Guy.

"sex-positive". what a loaded term.

Both of these are looooong posts, but worth reading.

Comments

[sierra-le-oli.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the links, the second article was particularly informative.

[ciciaye.livejournal.com]

I only have time to have a tiny read of those at the moment, but will bear them in mind for later on, and especially the second one.

CCA

[swaldman.livejournal.com]

With much of what she says, I can see where she's coming from.
With much of it, I can't see where she's coming from because I don't have the right background, but I can respect and appreciate what she says.

However... as I see it[1], she seems to be saying "normally everything is about men, therefore you should try to ensure that you don't let *anything* be about men". Keep quiet in case you are That Guy. It is probably more realistic than just asking people to ignore gender[2], but it pisses me off. It's a massive overreaction and is unfair the other way.

Let the flames commence...
(or have I missed the point? In which I'd welcome a flame-free, or at least only mildly charred, explanation)



[1] And by writing that phrase, and what follows, I'm probably about to fall foul of her rules
[2] An ideal which is, sadly, doomed to faliure. Blame culture, hormones, whatever, it never actually works that way. Though it's a nice thought, and some people can get close. I walked close to that line fairly successfully for a number of years, but the flip-side of the coin was that I was basically asexual.

[sessifet25.livejournal.com]

Interestingly enough, I'm having that self-same discussion with someone else. It is something she's implying and I personally am unhappy about it. She is right, though. So are you. It is a massive overreaction and skirts the edges of the 'all men are potential rapists' mindset I abhor.

Personally, I vote we blow up the whole bloody lot and start again with amoebes...

[swaldman.livejournal.com]

There's a Greg Egan story where through nearish-future medicine, people have the option of becoming "asex". They have their sexual organs removed, "turn off" the relevant hormones, and have something reversed in the brain to remove gender-specific hard-wiring.
In the story, most of the people who decide to take this step are people who have got fed up with the whole gender politics thing, and decide to step outside the whole issue.
(Also people who get annoyed with "interference" by the sexual part of their person in what the rest of them would like to be their behaviour. I can sympathise with this one sometimes.)

[rjw76]

Not letting *anything* be about men looks like positive discrimination to me.

And there is a reason that the second word of "positive discrimination" is "discrimination". Personally, I'm after equality.

[flippac.livejournal.com]

It's not quite said explicitly enough, but she's saying don't /make/ anything about men that wasn't already.

[swaldman.livejournal.com]

Nothing starts off "about men" any more than it starts off "about women". If we followed those rules we'd never get anywhere... things have to be about *somebody*! :-)
(as a serious aside, while things usually have to be about somebody, their gender doesn't often have to be relevant)

[flippac.livejournal.com]

"as a serious aside, while things usually have to be about somebody, their gender doesn't often have to be relevant"

I'm afraid that one and its equivalents belong on privilege checklists for at least two good reasons. One of them is that it isn't about whether someone's gender /has/ to be relevant - it's enough that they want it to be! Otherwise, how does anyone discuss what relevance it has? The other is that it's very easy to see things as irrelevant when it goes in your favour - if I had a tenner for every time someone'd tried to tell me that there's no way my disabilities were relevant to a situation where they very definitely were, it still wouldn't start to compensate for some of the crap I've gone through precisely because people won't listen to the possibility!

[swaldman.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I don't really understand your point. Which is probably me being thick - care to explain further? Because it sounds to me, like the post that we're discussing, that it's an elaborate way of saying "you're 'privileged', don't you dare disagree with me". And I'm pretty sure that's not what you meant :-)

To pick up on certain bits: Fair enough if somebody wants something to be about their gender - but why is it only OK for women to want this?
Yes, fair point, gender does have to be relevant in order to discuss the relevance of gender ;-)
Yes, it's easy to see the bad things and not the good. That works both ways too.

[flippac.livejournal.com]

What makes you think it's only okay for women to want their gender to be relevant to a discussion? Men's gender being /accurately/ relevant is plenty welcome as far as I'm concerned. What isn't is wading into a conversation about how women's gender has been relevant to their experiences and turning it into one about men's experiences. Sometimes this means leaving it and bringing your own experiences up later (on LJ this is pretty easy: post about it in your own journal).

And no, it doesn't work both ways re seeing the bad things and not the good. That's rather the point. Oh, it looks like it at first glance - but one side's issues carry more weight in practice. To pick an example, it's not that prostate cancer doesn't have an awareness issue these days - but it won't take the same level of campaigning that breast cancer did. This is perhaps more obvious in cases where the non-privileged group is significantly smaller than the privileged one. I think most people know that talking about how lucky I am as a disabled person because I get benefits is stupid and unpleasant, for example (where I'm lucky is in getting the level I do - in practice the welfare system in this country is nigh-on inaccessible to people with my issues and I'm lucky to've had the help I have in getting the level of support a lot of other people are also entitled to but don't get).

You may disagree that this is the case, of course. In many cases, getting as far as someone saying so rather than it merely being an obvious assumption behind what they're saying is progress though - until that stage you're not really actually debating the point!

[swaldman.livejournal.com]

What makes you think it's only okay for women to want their gender to be relevant to a discussion? Men's gender being /accurately/ relevant is plenty welcome as far as I'm concerned.

Fair enough. My apologies, I must have got two different points confused.

What isn't is wading into a conversation about how women's gender has been relevant to their experiences and turning it into one about men's experiences

Weeeeeellll... in some ways yes, if it's done explicitly (Hey, my topic is more interesting than yours") this is simply common politeness (and the same would obviously apply the other way round). On the other hand, conversation drift happens, especially to relevant topics. For instance, it could be argued in your post you entered a conversation that was primarily about male and female experiences[1], and turned it into one about disabled peoples' experiences. I don't have a problem with this - it was a relevant and illustrative point - but it is very similar to what you are condemning.
If what you're saying is that many people tend to not notice topics that are not relevant to them as being significant, and thus tend to move away from them, you're probably right. Do men tend to do this more than women? Maybe... being a man, I don't have an objective place from which to comment.

And no, it doesn't work both ways re seeing the bad things and not the good. That's rather the point.

But how do you know? We all see things from our own viewpoint, and we all tend to note unfairness against us more than we note unfairness towards us. Of course we're both aware that it happens in both directions, but I wouldn't presume to judge who, if anybody, does it more.
You point out that even if men and women do this to equal extents, it is still unfair if mens' complaints are listened to more, which is true. If this is the case then it's certainly wrong, but it's not a good reason for men to avoid complaining! Saying "Group A's complaints aren't given as much weight as Group B's complaints, therefore Group B should avoid complaining to make sure that they don't get preferential treatment" is a way of thinking that wouldn't really get us anywhere... :-) ("let us be equal in being ignored together").


[1] Well, kind of a meta-discussion about this.

[flippac.livejournal.com]

"For instance, it could be argued in your post you entered a conversation that was primarily about male and female experiences[1], and turned it into one about disabled peoples' experiences."

Not really. For example, nobody other than myself is talking about disabled people's experiences and they're not being raised as a counterargument. Additionally, I don't think this is a conversation about male and female experiences - it's one about female experiences and how they differ from non-female ones. Big difference in focus there.

"But how do you know?"

Special circumstances. Also, see what Graycat has to say below.

"Saying "Group A's complaints aren't given as much weight as Group B's complaints, therefore Group B should avoid complaining to make sure that they don't get preferential treatment" is a way of thinking that wouldn't really get us anywhere..."

It's also not what's being said. What's being said is that Group B shouldn't do their complaining when and where it swamps out and derails Group A's. If you want to talk about sexual assault against men, bring it up yourself without waiting for a conversation about how women are affected by sexual assault. Post in your own journal, create your own threads, bring it up when nobody's particularly talking about anything. Just don't co-opt existing conversations, and be careful about when a conversation really is about the experiences of both genders.

[swaldman.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I don't think we're going to agree here.

Of course, one person shouldn't ignore, trivialise, swamp out or detail another person's discussion. That's common courtesy. Should they try to contribute, if they feel that they have something to contribute? Yes, I think so. That's how conversations happen. The problem comes when there is disagreement over whether they have something relevant to contribute... and folks here are getting very close to saying "if it's about "womens' issues" and you're not a woman, you have nothing relevant to contribute".

[shriker-tam.livejournal.com]

Well, it kind of does when the male experience is assumed to equal the human experience. And if a woman then comes and says "it's not like that for us", it's dismissed.

I'm not saying this happens all the time - but it does sometimes.

[swaldman.livejournal.com]

Sorry for the multiple postings, I keep having fresh thoughts[1].
It's interesting that I was very, very hesitant about posting my first reply here. I nearly deleted it twice before posting, and I qualified it over and over with "I'm probably wrong, flame me now".

I find that daring to criticise a point of view such as this one tends to be unacceptable, in the same way that criticising somebody speaking against (for example) racism would be. People tend to listen to somebody saying "I disagree with this point" and hear "Bring back slavery" or "keep all women underground".

Fortunately this readership seems more rational - but I can't imagine I'm the only one who finds this, and I'm not sure whether it is a bit of a counterpoint to what the linked journaller is saying...?

[1] I may also be bored at work. Ahem.

[sessifet25.livejournal.com]

You're not. I commented in another person's journal where someone expressed the same hesitancy and 'go ahead, flame me now.' when they made a point that was very valid but unpopular.

You should not have to make disclaimers to your posts or comments. We should be willing to argue and discuss and exchange thoughts about these things, not being scared that what we're saying might offend the 'other side' or 'my side' or 'that side'.

I hate sides. I don't want to pick them and I certainly don't want my friends to think they should.

[rjw76]

But when I made the point, I made it as a woman. I bet if a man had made it there'd have been more outcry :(