Yesterday a man was invited to share his perspective at Jezebel on why women should not complain about women getting hit, for no reason, by men. The title he chose was, “Why is Snooki More Precious Than I Am?“ You can sort of imagine how it evolved from there.
I don’t want to rehash things the commenters adeptly pointed out about how stupid this guy’s argument was in the particular instance of reality television stars behaving like animals. What I want to talk about, and have been thinking about for some time, is this phenomenon of Men Arriving On the Scene of Feminist Discourse to Educate Us All. (I’ll refer to it as “Arriving on the Scene” in the rest of this post.) Understand that I don’t mean men trying to engage, of which there are some, and they comment on blogs like ours and Twisty regularly even though they get some abuse for occasionally being jerks, because frankly I think they want to learn. And I really respect that.
No, what I mean is that dude, you know that dude, who is here to let you know that sometimes feminists are aggressive (sometimes you’re lucky and they cite MLK Jr. or Gandhi), or don’t respect men generally (completely against the rules of the patriarchy under which all men are a priori entitled to respect) or should learn to watch their tone (because men who explain things are always totally starting from a place of respect) or should recognize that men are human beings too (as if it were in actual danger of not being the case among feminists who for the most part are trying to advance anti-racist, anti-homophobic and anti-transmisogynist causes as well, many of which involve, intrinsically, advocating for the rights of men – not that these dudes are ever talking about men of colour or gay men or trans men).
This is, of course, merely a variant of the widespread problem that is the mansplaining phenomenon. But what I find particularly distressing about it in the context of feminist discussion is that this maneuver is frequently the subject of congratulation by other feminists, which boggles me. Feminists will say things like, “we do need to include men’s issues!” and “we need men to be our allies, thanks!” to men like these. It makes me wonder if my reading comprehension skills are poorer than they are traditionally reputed to be. Because these men are not our allies, in my opinion. Why are they not our allies? Below, a list:
1. Men who think that feminists need urgently to know that masculinity is painful have not actually read any feminism. I’d say, despite the standard throwaway lines they usually include with their critiques, à la “I am just as much of a feminist as any woman,” or “I totally think violence against women is a serious problem but,” most of the men who Arrive on the Scene are only interested in feminism insofar as they can explain why it’s wrong. I mean, these guys are not citing other internal feminist discourse to us, though they could had they the least interest in reading any. They’d be shocked to know, actually, that their best sympathizers on this score are usually radical feminists like MacKinnon who say things like that men’s oppression of women will not end until dominance as a mode of social organization is over. But to get to that shock, they’d first have to read some feminism, and this above all, they haven’t time to do. Their pain is in too urgent need of address by the closest self-described feminists at hand.
2. Men whose alliance to feminism (assuming they state one) is dependent on feminism addressing their pain are allied to feminism on highly contingent grounds. It seems frustrating to have to say it, but highly contingent alliances are not alliances. They are quid pro quo bargains. (You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.) Their loyalty is purely strategic, not altruistic; what these men are saying is that the liberation of women alone is insufficient reason to ally with feminism. What big hearts they do have, these men. (This is a point other people have made more eloquently than I, but I say it again because I feel like we’re not internalizing this. We’re still telling men who are lecturing and hectoring and demanding things of us that we consider them allies. Ick, you guys, ick.)
3. Men like this want free cookies without actual selflessness. I know I just said these men want a quid pro quo bargain, but usually they’re not even prepared to make what strikes me as the minimum initial commitment of doing something more about women getting raped/beaten/intimidated/discriminated against, the whole shebang, than writing an internet comment in which one damn line is devoted to lip service. For this – for declaring themselves to be not like totally opposed to feminism, just of the opinion that it is myopic – they think we ought to alter the focus of our work. And while this is not universally true, most of the (internet and otherwise) feminists I’ve ever met are doing in the trenches work, and often it’s with men too. This I cannot generally say for the kind of guy who spends his days internet commenting about why “feminism is wrong.”
4. Maybe one day these guys will be feminists sure, but first, they need to learn about self-awareness. Let’s say you and I are at a party. Let’s say we are identical as regards all the usual suspect axes of power: gender/race/class/sexual orientation/cis/trans. Let’s say you got mugged last week. Is it an appropriate response for me to be all, “Right, but when I got mugged it really hurt”? Or is that the response of a self-absorbed asshole? I kind of think it’s the latter, and I’m kind of confused why, in the views of these men, that is an acceptable response. The acceptable response is to listen, to not ensure that the conversation centers around yourself. Because listening? Actually helps someone else. Talking can too easily become you in love with the sound of your own voice.
I will never forget the first 50 or so responses to that post, which were, with maybe 3 exceptions “Two, Four, Six, Eight, Who do we appreciate? Anybody!! With!!! A PEEEEEEENIS!”
This kneejerk embrace of any dude who says “I’m on your side”, even if the next 90 lines of text prove that he either isn’t on your side or doesn’t know where the lines are, is very distressing to me. And then, after a lot of more or less thoughtful discussion, you get the late-to-the-game round of “Wow, I expected you [implied "of all people"] to be more welcoming, more charitable, more ladylike. There’s a man here, be on your best behavior!” Feminist (or quasi-feminist) websites aren’t 1950′s sororities where we should all run giggling to the rail of the stairs to wave when a boy comes to pick one of our sisters up on a date.
And FFS, let’s all please please please FOR THE LOVE stop pretending like a man’s point of view is a rare triple crested hornblower or some such shit, which needs to be protected and encouraged lest it never be heard again. You have to look pretty damn hard to find anything other than a man’s POV in day to day life. Welcome to the Emmereffing Patriarchy.
I read that thread for a second and thought your response was great and his was totally missing the point. What I absolutely 100% do not understand is why these men never do shit about their problems themselves. It’s the same thing with MRAs complaining about domestic violence shelters for women: if you don’t like it, start one for men yourself. If you don’t like violence against men, talk to OTHER MEN about not being so violent. If you don’t like men making you feel bad for whatever reason, talk to OTHER MEN about it. What’s a bigger problem, dude? You getting punched in the face or women not coddling you afterwards? Because if it’s the latter, maybe you have some issues you should talk to a therapist about. If it’s the former, feminists cannot solve your problem. OTHER MEN can. I swear, it’s like these men cannot comprehend the fact that the people making life bad for them are, in fact, also bepenised.
Ugh. I just read that article. Really? Some creep is inappropriate to your female friend and, through some male comradery you apologize on her behalf, for HER actions?
Ugh. I’ll try to come back later and add more intelligent comments. This post just makes me so angry.
The Jezzie post was bound to be an exercise in futility. There’s no justification for hitting anyone except in self-defense, so there was nothing he could possibly say that would be intelligent or enlightening. The real problem is, why did Jezzie feel the need to issue the invitation in the first place? Are they having a “fair and balanced” attack?
The whole post was incredibly stupid because it was a counterpoint to a nonexistant point. To my knowledge, no one was arguing that Snooki is more precious than A Dude. No one was saying it totally ok to hit dudes. His entire argument was based on a false premise.
Though, can I just say that you and Yvanehtnioj kicked so much ass in that thread, Pilgrim Soul?
There are ways to talk about male-on-male violence in a feminist context, and this is not it. I don’t understand is why his article was presented as a “friendly male point of view” when it was so clearly not.
@ baraquiel: absolutely. I’m not sure what dudes like that are hoping to get from feminists.
It is also worth noting that I had an almost identical discussion with a close lady-friend of mine recently. It was very disheartening.
@mischiefmanager: Jezebel appears to be very concerned about violence against men since the Tiger Woods thing.
@Spark – I’ve heard a lot of people talking about this Tiger Woods thing and I find it very perplexing. For one thing, we don’t even know for sure what happened, and we may never know. I don’t think anyone is saying that it’s okay for her to smack him upside the head with a golf club, but it’s not certain that actually occurred. For another thing, of course people are talking more about Tiger! He’s the famous one! He’d get more attention no matter what the situation was. Who cares about his wife? She’s not the superstar golfer in this situation. So why is it surprising that people are talking more about Tiger’s actions than his wife’s when only one of them has been in the public eye for the past decade?
@Odonata – the love their mothers never gave them, clearly.
What bugged me was that the writer said it was a “handful” of Jezzies who seemed to say that violence against men was okay (I didn’t even see those comments, just people saying “violence is not cool in general, and *particularly* not when done by a person of superior physical strength against a person who does not present an immediate threat to them”. Some people also referenced the historic baggage of male-on-female violence that doesn’t apply in the reversed situation, which I find legitimate). But by his own admission it was a “handful” of people, then he goes on to write as if we all need a good talkin’ to. The post didn’t really read as an attempt to engage in dialogue, just as a “point/counterpoint” type of thing, that assumed we were somehow all totally cool with violence against men.
And the last anecdote was weird. It was like he jumped in to defend his female friend, then got hit by a man, but instead of blaming the man who hits him, he somehow blames women and society for frowning upon violence against women? How about putting the blame where it ALWAYS belongs – against the violent person.
I have the best: some asshole just whined that I was ‘racial profilling’ men, just like black men get profiled.
Seriously, he doesn’t get his ass kissed, or women have to make realistic choices, and it’s a CIVIL RIGHTS VIOLATION!!
God almighty, I need a drink.
I know. Is it vodka o’clock yet? My whole damn day got eaten by this post but I needed a psychic distraction.
@baraqiel: I can think of a hundred plausible scenarios for the Tiger Woods incident (what we know of it) that don’t involve domestic violence. I’m also confused why so many people are leaping to interpret it that way.
I’m just reading the Jezebel thread now. Pilgrim Soul doesn’t respect men HA HA HA. Thank bog someone arrived to mansplain that to me!
Spark: They are leaping to interpret it that way because women be crazy, amirite? It’s the hormones!!!
@Spark, “P Soul doesn’t respect men in general” was the best thing to come out of that whole damn thread.
PS: She was prolly on the rag.
@Pilgrim: It was so painful when Chris Brown forced us to confront the reality of domestic violence. Thank goodness this vague TW incident happened so we don’t have to feel bad about what men do to women anymore. Because men get hurt too! By women! Can’t we all just get along???
Yeah, that’s from the dude with the Asian fetish. ETA: I mean the respecting men remark.
But don’t worry I’m a racist xenophobe, just towards men, so I’m giving myself thirty lashes tonight.
That article made me very angry. I am still sort of seething about it to be honest. I have no idea why the website felt the need to have a special guest writer post such a perspective that seems to so wildly miss the point. As other have mentioned, I didn’t read ANY comments on the original Jersey Shore post that intimated that physical violence against men was acceptable. The lecturing and condescending tone really just set my teeth on edge, particularly since it appeared to be directed toward a commenting community that existed solely in the authors head.
bluebears: To me, what made it worse than simply inviting him on to tell us what-for was the introduction, which was basically “This guy is a Nice Guy (TM), take our word for it, be nice back to him, and you’d better treat him right because we’re doing you an extra-special favor by allowing you to interact with a Good Guy today!” Uh, thanks? No, wait, I meant You’ve Got To Be Kidding Me.
Yes, the whole thing was framed in such an insulting manner. Did they read the post before the published it? Did that title not seem like, gee, a slap in the face? More than the comments that followed I am bothered by the initial post because someone (who most likely considers herself a feminist) approved that post and I just do not understand why. What value did that bring to the website and the discussion? There have been very interesting conversations on this blog about the problems that male violence and misogyny cause in mens lives and that is a valuable conversation to have, but that Cord piece was…not about that
eta: by “this blog” I mean harpyness
I’m sorry it was such an unpleasant discussion to engage in, but Pilgrim, Ginmar, yvanehtnioj, bluebears, you were on point. Excellent work. I’m bookmarking for future reference.
It’s amazing to me that men think they have something to add to feminist thought by the virtue of opening their mouths, as if incredibly intelligent women (and men) haven’t spent the majority of their lives working on these problems since, um, the 18th century.
It’s like me going into an symposium on advanced chemistry and saying: “Lemon juice is sour and acidic.” and expecting to be awarded some kind of prize for my brilliance.
Apparently this guy has also written an article saying that although some men are influenced by porn in how they conduct their sex lives, *he* isn’t. Oh, and no women are, because women watch *lesbian* porn. The article is subtitled “do adult films really ruin men in bed?” and contains the following: “When dealing with women in any scenario, but especially ones in which you’re having sex with them, it’s also important to remember that they’re probably smarter than you.”
And this is who the Jez editors thought was a friendly voice.
@bellacoker: I actually L’edOL at that chemistry symposium image. Win.
Cord actually responded to one of my comments, and the gist of his response was: when a white guy hit me, a non-white person, I didn’t spend days agonizing over whether it was a racially motivated assault. I believed it was just violence unrelated to race, end of story. Thus, I don’t understand why women just assume all m-on-f violence is gender related. Sometimes it’s just random violence.
I think this is, in part, a trust issue. I trust that the experience of living as a POC in a world where whites are the privileged class gives POCs a perspective and insights that I (a white person) will never, ever have. Thus, when a POC determines that a certain incident was, or was not racially motivated, I simply trust hir assessment over mine. Men are often not willing to accept that women have a unique perspective and insight into the world that they will never have, and they certainly aren’t willing to simply trust a woman’s viewpoint. Rather, women’s viewpoints are, at best, questioned, and at worst written off entirely. Being a true ally requires trust. A man who doesn’t want to trust women’s viewpoints is a man who doesn’t want to give up the privilege of always being right, of being the authority. A man who doesn’t want to trust women’s viewpoints is a man who doesn’t want to relinquish the power of being the arbiter of truth. That’s not an ally.
Jesus, I didn’t realize just how bad that piece of shit article was till I went over and read it again.
He knows the guy who punched him did so because he just couldn’t hit a woman? Really?
And I have to say, if after some dude said something so upsetting to me that I felt compelled to take action and my alleged friend apologized for me, like I needed supervision, and then on top of that sympathized with the attacker….I’d be pretty fuckin’ pissed. What did he miss? He could have harassed her, too.
@ginmar–I had the same reaction. I was like, all I need to know about you I learned from the fact that when your female friend responded to sexual harassment, you apologized for her, like you were her father or something. And by father clearly I mean owner.
Jezebel frequently leads to eyerolls and annoyed/angry/amused descriptions of comments to my partner. But despite its feminist-lite discourse, I like that it’s so heavily dominated by women, and I feel like it holds an important place in the culture of the feminist internet, because it’s like a gateway drug. It’s a place for people who don’t understand what I mean when I say that I hate Men or that Men Hate Women, for them to work through their shit until, if they’re clever, they eventually break through the wall to full-fledged feminist. But inviting a man to post just misses the point, and I’m fairly sure that if it keeps up I’ll be bored and stop reading.
Cimorene – Jezebel was totally my gateway drug into feminism. I used to read celebrity gossip blogs all the time and started reading Jezebel when it first started. Now I read no celebrity gossip and it’s all feminist, progressive stuff all the time.
@Tall – I respect that you’re more level-headed than I am, and I appreciated the heck out of all of your posts on that thread. Which is just intro to say: You call it trust, I call it respect. I think it takes a general disrespect for someone to say, “You may think that’s how you feel about something, but it’s not. Here, I’ll explain…” Thanks, Guy.
@ginmar:
He might not have harrassed her, but I’m pretty comfortable predicting that he spent the whole rest of the evening wanting her to get ice for him and give him angel kisses on the boo boo that was inflicted on him while protecting her honor.
@yvanehtnioj: Oh, I totally agree with you! I think respect has to come first, because you certainly can’t trust someone that you don’t even respect. There are myriad reasons why men don’t trust women’s viewpoints and a lack of respect is definitely high on that list.
I spent I don’t even want to think about how much time reading through that thread, and you all have my undying respect for getting involved in the conversation. The oases of sanity were a welcome relief from all of the backhanded, gendered attacks (“hysterical”! “uppity”!)and the sheer nonsense on display. I couldn’t believe the chorus of “why can’t we discuss this? this is an important issue” when the “discussion” was just a massive derailment, hosted by the site itself. Incredibly frustrating.
There are few things that infuriate me more than when some bro takes it on himself to educate me about something. Usually, he doesn’t know what the fuck he’s talking about, but just assumes I’m an idiot because I’m female, and therefore cannot be intelligent or logical. Grrr. JetGirl SMASH!
Bellacoke, when I read that over again, I steamed.
I developed PTSD after I came back from Iraq. You don’t have to include any de rigeur comment in there: it’s just a fact of life. But to make a long story short, I’ve ended friendships because while the PTSD has induced suicide attempts and vivid hallucinations, it hasn’t damaged my IQ one damned bit. So what do they do? “Oh, she’s nuts, she came back from the war fucked up.”
His apologizing for her—to her attacker!—smacks of the same thing. “She’s on the rag, she’s hysterical, she needs to get laid….And amongst us men, you know, we know these things.” I mean….the asshole attacks her and then punches him–and was it just me that got the impression the attacker was aiming for the girl?—-and then his final words demonstrate his mind-reading skills with the dudebros? “I knew he was thinking, “But I just can’t hit a woman.” Because a guy who’d harass a woman to the point where she’d be that upset would totally have scruples about that!
Oh, yeah, and he knows that Elin Nordegren totally beat the shit out of Tiger. Sure. How does he know? Maybe teh peen works like a divining rod or something and…..No, let’s not go there. You get the idea.
Oh, yeah, and something else? It wasn’t just one guy—I guess it was a group. So that ups the fear and intimidation factor and Mr. Feminist asshole there doesn’t even blink in that direction while he’s being all sensitive emo sounds-like-our-sparkly-vampire-friend-Edward with the guys; he’s too busy reading the bullies’ minds to pay much attention to his supposed friends.
Ginmar:
Just to make sure we are on the same page: I agree with you completely. Everything this guy did confirms his complete douche-ness.
OH, hell, yes, although I see I might have gotten your comment mixed up with someone else’s—-boy, every time you look at that piece of shit, it just reveals something ever more awful.
Did anybody at Jez bother to read it? I mean, the title alone would have been enough, but….Did they start drinking a little early today or what? Oh, wait, this was last night. Okay, so the weekend started early.
Pilgrim Soul, I was hoping you would write something about this (great piece, BTW). And to all of the rest of y’all who went to the mats last night in the comments: thank you. I was so pissed I was only able to form four or five coherent sentences.
You all know the “smile” thing, right? All you all HATE it. Well, I was trying to explain it to my husband (who wasn’t aware of it, of course) and I said how insulting it was. And he says, “It’s not insulting, it’s annoying.” And I went off on his privileged ass: Do YOU have complete strangers DEMANDING that you RIGHT NOW THIS INSTANT express an emotion you are NOT feeling? NO? Then don’t tell whether or not it’s insulting. I am capable of deciding that myself, thank you very much. I don’t need a Dude telling me how to feel about other Dudes disrespect for my fucking basic humanity. Fortunately, I did not marry a complete asshole (this time around) and his reaction was to smile and sincerely declare his love for me (he’s not a feminist, yet, but he’s getting there). He now wants me to write a screenplay for his (tiny) theater company about women’s bodies being public objects. And all of this because he STFU and LISTENED to what a woman was telling him.
I’m sorry if that’s off topic but I was just so pissed last night, especially at the Dudebros (with one exception) that I’m still seeing red.
Oh, God, the “Smile” thing. I think you get less able to tolerate bullshit as you get older, because when I was in my 20s I would have been horrified yet not have the confidence to question the practice, whereas now I just growl at guys who do this, “My mother was murdered two days ago.” I think some of the younger women are still thinking that they need to have men like them, that they need to be liked otherwise they’ll be thrown into the outer(?) darkness.
Come to think of it, the whole “Smile” thing is another form of the civility requirement, where women have to pretend that that guys debating our very humanity is just an interesting intellectual exercise because that’s the male way to do things. And of course, there is no other way to do it.
I was on a plane a couple of weeks ago, and there was a guy who was sitting in my seat (the window seat). He completely expected me to give it to him and sit in the middle seat for FOUR HOURS!
I realized that a couple of years ago, I would have given in. I would have made myself suffer so this dude, who I didn’t even know, would be just a little more comfortable. What does that say about internalizing this bullshit?
You know, it’s passive little shit like that that just makes me furious. I wish they’d just be an out-and-out asshole about it, you know? The thing about passive aggression is that it consists mostly of either not doing anything or doing little things, so any response looks weird and overblown.
And, yeah, it’s scary, but you get it from the day they cut the cord. “It’s a girl! Quick! Get the Barbie dolls! Get the Barbie dolls!”
I do think that the smile thing, which annoys the ever living fuck out of me and totally ruins my day and if anything keeps me from smiling but if I had fangs it would make me bare my teeth at the asshole, is really hard for guys to understand.
Because to them, someone saying “smile” is just annoying. Because they haven’t lived their lives as women, they haven’t been told to suppress their emotions, to do what they can to accommodate men, to adjust their own lives to make men’s lives easier, to fucking wear make-up and do their hair or whatever in order to not offend men with the hideousness of the unadorned female face, to get the coffee when a guy asks for it, to fuck a guy when he wants to, to let a guy touch you without you making a scene in the subway, to fucking give up your life for someone else, to do what you are told at all times. It’s like, when I have to wear an itchy dress to mass with my grandmother now, I’m like “whatever” because it happens twice a year, on my grandfather’s birthday and deathday, and it makes her happy, so I do it. When I was a kid, and a teenager, and I had to wear an itchy dress for an especially important church day, it made me so crazy and angry, because my parents made me go to church every damn week when I didn’t want to, and I had no control over my life because I was a kid. So, once I could control my own life, doing this mildly annoying thing stopped making me see red. It’s kind of like that-when men don’t have to be women 24/7 for their whole lives, the way women do, doing something expected of women, or getting treated in a way that women kind of get treated, or imagining this one thing that women have to deal with, seems so un-important. Like, smile? So what? Who cares? Because they are incapable–even the best ones–of understanding, because they are men, and they have not had to be women for their whole lives. They haven’t been oppressed for their whole lives like this, haven’t been a member of the sex class for their whole lives, and haven’t been at the mercy of any given menfolk for their whole lives.
Ok that was not meant to be an angry rant but it seems that I am almost unable to write something about men without turning it into an angry rant.
I don’t want to thread-jack this into an anti- “smile for me, woman” thing, but I think men CAN understand our experiences if they are explained to them in a way they can relate to and, most importantly, if THEY ACTUALLY FREAKING CARE. My husband heard me out because he truly respects me and wants me to be happy, and in doing so, he has learned more about what I face as a woman, every day – and believe me, this didn’t come out of one conversation about the Smile Police – it’s because he was willing to really hear what I had to say. He recognized his privilege. And as Pilgrim Soul said, while lots of dudes have those dudely blinders on – it is even more disturbing to see women being blind to what is going on around them. And to them. I love Jezebel, but I was a little disappointed last night, particularly at (what I assume were) female commenters. The only argument I could come up and express without smashing my keyboard (again, thank you all for you sheer AWESOMENESS in that thread) was the fact that domestic violence is still legal in many, many places, and nowhere (to my knowledge) are there any laws that condone and codify male-on-male violence with the obvious exceptions of war and the so-called criminal justice system.
BTW, while I don’t comment here often, this is one of my favorite sites in the whole Intertubes and I lurve you all!
I think, frankly, a lot of guys are just freakin’ dishonest about it. Um, guys, do you see this in Budweiser commercials? Do you even do this to guys? Then stop and think about it. But they don’t, because women are stupid and silly and unless it affects men, why should they give a shit? And yet they want us to fuck them.
I’m not in a really forgiving mood right now because some dude on Jez who said he wants to be a cop is evidently aiming to be one of those dudes who doesn’t do any damned thinking at all.
I don’t want to veer off topic but I just found this interesting:
“(as if it were in actual danger of not being the case among feminists who for the most part are trying to advance anti-racist, anti-homophobic and anti-transmisogynist causes as well, many of which involve, intrinsically, advocating for the rights of men – not that these dudes are ever talking about men of colour or gay men or trans men).”
It occurred to me that anytime white feminists are talking about men they are referring to white, heterosexual, cis men. You know the default man. By saying men don’t realize feminist fight for the rights of men of “colour”, gay men, and trans men, they are not necessarily saying that minority men, gay and trans men can’t be sexist (although it is implied), they are “othering” these men by excluding them from the issue at hand.
Maybe it is just that for the most part white feminists don’t engage with minority men, gay men, and trans men on sexism very often, because I’ve heard the same comments come out of the mouths of minority and non-heterosexual men all the time.
@Dirty Laundry: I … don’t understand what you’re saying here. Although I will cop to thinking of cisgendered men when I use the word “men”, I generally am not talking exclusively about white men or straight men. And I certainly do engage minority and gay men on sexism, roughly as often (per person) as I do het white men, and haven’t really seen any marked improvement in their views on women as compared to straight white guys. I mean, the dudesplainer this post is all about isn’t a white guy.
Am I missing the point? I feel like I don’t really get what you’re saying.
I think it’s another attempt at derailing for dummies. Let’s face it, it’s not like MOC are some sort of non-sexist group of unicorns. Men are men. Allying wiht white guys, against all women often enables MOC to use women as stepping stones to achieving male status. FRankly, too, too damned many men of all colors seem to buy into the women as possessions crap, and are all too eager to damage some other’s guys possessions in the name of racial revenge. That one time poet laureate of New Jersey who wrote poems about raping white girls as revenge for slavery? Yeah, you. Not to mention Eldredge Cleaver, who owns this damned topic.
Somebody’s just trying to be an asshole.
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I don’t think men of colour are “non-sexist unicorns,” but I do think that in general (if we’re talking general and it seems we are) it’s a lot easier to talk to them on the whole about issues of sexism because there is an epistemological quality to being born as someone outside the universal. This is why, for example, even though I occasionally disagree with TNC on certain things, I find his writing really appealing to me overall because there is always this underlying quality of being outside the dominant cultural narrative that I find it easy to empathize with. That doesn’t mean that many of them aren’t stubborn as mules on the subject of sexism. Many of them are. But I do feel like I’m in a different place with them in the context of such a discussion – I don’t have to spend so much time explaining basic ideas like, “your experience is not the universal against which everyone else’s should be measured” as I do with white men.
I don’t think Dirty Laundry was derailing either because I definitely brought it up in the post.
That said, I am not sure I understand you either, Dirty Laundry, but what I was trying to get at there is this: I feel much more sympathy for an argument that points out that men are, in fact, frequently the victims of violence because they are different in other ways from the dominant class (i.e. white/able-bodied/cisgendered/heterosexual men). The dominant class is afraid, in short, of people who don’t conform along certain axes gaining power in any situation. (Say, by keeping them from “punishing” a woman for rebuffing their advances.) They threaten that dominance at a sort of existential level. Which I think is probably what leads them to violence to enforce the “rules.” What’s scary about all that is how utterly and totally visceral the resort to violence becomes in that context. It’s like an enforcer reflex.
And I do think men who fall on the wrong side of those axes are “punished” for their difference as well. That’s the great insight of intersectional analysis, it seems to me, but then, Cord isn’t interested in making an intersectional critique of violence; he’s interested in giving voice to “men.” For example, I saw, tallgirl, Cord say to you he thought it didn’t have anything to do with his race, which I saw someone else tell him they wouldn’t be so sure to assume. Whether or not he is right, I do think it’s further evidence that the attempt to de-contextualize violence leaves out very pertinent facts, at least in this very racist, very sexist, society of ours. He’s certainly not leading us towards an intersectional analysis of violence against women, which I would find a lot easier to stomach.