This weekend, we all received an e-mail from an extremely thoughtful, eloquent, and righteously angry young feminist named Samantha. We all wrote back to her privately, but asked if we could run her e-mail so that everyone else could join in the discussion. All the Harpies have had some variation of the experiences she describes, and we’re sure you have too. So let’s activate the sisterly hive-mind…mine your own personal experiences, air your views, and give some advice, not just to Samantha, but to all of us angry feminists . K thx.
Dear Harpies:
I’m a new feminist. I’m making mistakes.
I’m sitting here in tears at the moment, over a thoughtless tease from my mother. She caught me unawares, and found me reading the book “Quiverfull” by Kathryn Joyce. She laughed, told me “Don’t be hating!”
I was near the end of the book, enraged at a system that equates women to wombs and elevates abusive men–at points excommunicating women for bringing up their husbands abuse because, though their husbands were “wicked” in hurting them, the women were “even more wicked” for speaking badly of their husbands in public. It’s a subject dear to my heart. My introduction to feminism (and atheism) came from reading and analyzing my own thoughts in response to the NoLongerQuivering website.
But what my mother didn’t see were the days before, hiding the book from her under a blanket or behind my legs. My recent foray into feminism couldn’t have come at a worse time in my family, and unbeknownst to them, was a lead into the situation we’re currently in. It was feminism that opened my eyes and made me realize I had thoughts of my own, worthy thoughts, against gender roles, etc. It was feminism that made me aware of the extent of the abuse going on in my family–which lead to, with extenuating medical circumstances, to a near suicide attempt. That in turn led to my mother having the courage to kick my father out of the house and return to college. (Together, we’re learning Spanish). That exacerbated the situations with my brothers. My older brother was already verbally abusive toward my mother. My younger brother has recently become so, angry that the family is falling apart.
The entire family is angry.
And now I am, too. Now I am angry when my brothers spout out misogynistic language, objectify women, make homophobic, transphobic, and racist jokes. Now I call them out on their behavior. Now I am adding to the yelling.
My brothers call me a feminazi or easily brush aside my rants and attempt to analyze their behavior–and why it’s wrong–with a eyeroll, sigh, and “Oh, God…” or even more common: “Shut up, Sam.”
My mother tells me to pick my battles. Let it go. Don’t get angry. At least not over the “small stuff”. Now she’s found me with a book I’ve tried to hide from her, knowing she wouldn’t understand why this is so dear to me. Reactions I’ve tried to hide from her. To keep in my mind and stew over and analyze and wonder…
…her first comment is “Don’t be hating!”
I’m not allowed to get angry.
I am. I’m an angry feminist. I’m angry that I can’t get angry! Angry that I spent so many years in SILENCE because my brothers were angry and loud enough on their own. Angry that now I can’t use the vocabulary I’ve learned, or the articles I’ve read, that so clearly explain why these bother me… Angry that I’m not allowed to keep my anger when my younger brother jokingly refers to me as trash, and, when I calmly point out it was offensive, refuses to apologize. It was a joke, after all.
So was what she said…
So I mustn’t get ANGRY over humor! I mustn’t get angry because the root of that humor is disvaluing human opinions and experiences, usually of a minority…I mustn’t get ANGRY when everyone else laughs–when we talked tonight, my mother pointed out that I shouldn’t even give it a second thought! They’re JOKES…
…however can you be happy, Samantha, if you can’t laugh at jokes?
If you can’t find them funny?
What a sad life…
…oh, what a sad life it is, that my younger brother can’t walk into Bath and Body Works for fear of “someone seeing him.” He used to love that store, when he was younger. But now he is older and wiser and knows to be a man, he mustn’t go into Bath and Body Works. Not willingly. “But wouldn’t it be more ‘manly,’ to be able to go into a store you don’t like to pick out a gift for someone you love?” I point out.
No, he happily tells me. In other conversations, he’ll tell me there are “guy things,” I just can’t understand….like the want to “get a girl,” though I point out women aren’t prizes to be won.
But I’m told my brothers won’t change. Men and women are wired in a certain way, don’tcha know. My mother loves to bring up “some study” about young kids who, when given opposite gendered toys, the boys would find some way to pretend to have a gun and the girls would pretend to cradle whatever they were given.
(What IS this study? Can anyone find it? Is there any truth to it?)
She brings this up often, proof that “that’s the way things are,” never mind the fact that her own personal experience is different: I, her only daughter, made my Barbies into dinosaurs.
tl;dr?
I’m an “angry”, “humorless”, “man-hating” “feminist”, in an already volatile household.
I’m too angry.
It’s upsetting my mother.
It’s upsetting my brothers.
I feel like I’m ruining nights…instead of watching ER with my mother, I’m angry at being told not to be angry, angry that I can’t get across to my mother WHY I’m angry (because after all, she is quick to tell me how often I make her angry with my feminist rhetoric), WHY it matters…why it should matter…
I hate myself. I hate that I’m feminist, but I can’t let it go: I hate more the comments my brothers make, my mother makes, my family makes…sprinklings of “little battles” I must let go…I hate the disrespect and inequality and “the way things are”. But my raised fist does nothing but hurt the people around me and add unneeded fire to a house burning down.
I’m changing nothing, though I see so much to change.
Help me.
Find some feminist way to tell me to be quiet. Some coping mechanism to once again accept the abuse. Some better way of speaking. Some way to stop being humorless or man-hating.
I don’t want my brothers to feel I hate them for their penis…anymore do I like their current attitude about me and my vagina.
Help me find some outlet, so I can get some semblance of my life back…without returning to a life of Silent, Submissive Samantha, always the peacemaker and listener and reassure-r.
A reader and a lurker,
Samantha
You’re allowed to be angry. Your mother is asking you to accommodate everyone else while no one else is expected to consider your feelings, let alone what you’re saying. That’s unfair.
Your mother and brothers have their attitudes because of your father. They’re response to his abuse was to internalize his beliefs unthinkingly. Suggest some sort of family counseling to help everyone deal with their anger.
Also try to think of more humorous ways to call out your brothers when they make offensive jokes. They use humor to put down others, you can use it to call them on it. For example, a manager I worked for once said something offensive to me to make a joke and I responded with “Excuse you!” and I got a bigger laugh than he did.
And tell your mom that you’re perfectly capable of laughing at jokes that are actually funny.
I had a similar experience with my younger brother about the time when he became bigger and stronger than me. We were both just developing our ideas about life and gender roles, feminism etc. He made a smart ass comment to me about women and abuse and I went off on him. I ended up pummeling him worse than either of us expected I would. I do not excuse my behavior, but it did lead to a turning point in the way my brother and I related to each other. He told me years later that he had no idea the weight of what he was saying but after much introspection realized that if his sister could react like that- that he had said/ thought something very very wrong. I dont suggest that Samantha beat the crap out of her brothers, but I do like the idea that the commenter (jen) before me suggested family counseling. Sam may not be able to get her brothers to sit down and talk to her, but maybe her mom will.
It could be that your thinking is more developed than your family’s thinking. It sounds that way from the outside.
In the case of abusive relationships, you need to act even if it means only to educate. I’d visit the local women’s shelter for advice on what to say and when and how.
In situations like when your brother and mother make comments to you that make you angry, it may be that you are just too far ahead of them. It may be that you need to direct your energies where you can make a change, and just honor the fact that it won’t necessarily be in your own family.
It’s frustrating because you may think, “look family, look what I just figured out, lemme share this with you!” and they just look back at you with empty eyes or worse.
Maybe share your knowledge with other women like your yourself or at that shelter or elsewhere to promote feminism and change. It will be worthwhile if you can alleviate even one small portion of misery in the world.
AUGH! I hear and share your anger, Samantha – you are more than entitled to it, it’s essential that you get in touch with it.
I totally second the above suggestion about learning to use humor. Not all defense mechanisms are bad if they actually help to protect us from things that are harmful.
Does your family have access to resources like counseling? It sounds like you could all benefit from an outsider who can help all of your family members be heard.
If it helps, your brothers might be sick people, not bad people – internalizing misogyny is like drinking from a poisoned well and it’s not going to get better overnight. If you can approach them one at a time and let them know that you feel the tone they take towards you is hurtful, and don’t laugh if they laugh it off, you might be able to get through to them eventually.
Or you might not, and that’s an outcome you have to let go of. We can’t control other people. As I found my activist feet, I had to let go of people who would try to hold me back. It sucks that the people around you who should be supportive are the ones undermining you, but you’re not alone. It feels like it’ll last forever, but eventually you’ll find your way to a community that will give you that support.
*hugs*
Can you find people outside your family to talk with and share your newfound feminism? At least some friends who understand, and will help reassure you that you’re not the backwards, crazy one? A book club, maybe? or a feminist group at a local college? Meetup.com has a whole lot of random groups that might be worth looking in to.
For me, moving out made a big difference. It helped my family’s craziness not seem so big and all-encompassing, and made it so I could limit it to small, controllable doses.
Until that happens, though, just be where you are, and don’t let anyone make you think it’s not okay to feel what you feel.
I don’t know you IRL (probably), but damn I am so proud of you for being such a strong, vibrant woman despite the oppressive atmosphere of your family. That’s amazing, and genuinely impressive. Seriously, you’re an inspiration to me to do better as a feminist.
I can definitely sympathize with your anger and frustration. I’m lucky enough that I’ve never had to face such blatant misogyny and silencing in my own loved ones, but I’ve faced offences of a lesser degree — and been presented with the same dismissive silencing tactics you describe.
The only real advice I can offer is to practice responses that communicate how these “jokes” are not merely “offensive” (which makes your objections easily dismissed as PC whining) but are genuinely harmful. I am a huge fan of memorizing certain turns of phrase that respond to common misogynist rants, and then presenting them to people as calmly and eloquently as I can. My favourite source is Shakesville’s “Feminism 101″ posts, found here: http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2010/01/feminism-101.html
I can only hope this is a phase for your brothers, and that you’re able to somehow surround yourself with supportive and loving people in the future. Keep on being an amazing and vibrant young woman, and don’t let them grind that spark out of you!
Having grown up with two very supportive parents who are incredibly proud of their two daughters, I’ve thankfully never had to experience this kind of attitude inside the home. But obviously they’re very hard to avoid in general and the only advice I can give is this: educate yourself. Read as much as possible, books and blogs. Make sure you are better informed then the person disagreeing with you on any feminism-related topic. That way when your mother or anybody else mentions that they’ve read a study somewhere that says so-and-so, you can counter that with stronger, better-founded arguments that prove the opposite (a couple of good articles I read recently on the differences between the sexes (or lack thereof) are on the neuroanthropology blog and are listed here: http://neuroanthropology.net/2009/01/12/greg-downey-top-twenty-2008.) Learn the statistics, quote studies, provide references. If they ever claim evolutionary psychology crap, explain why the entire field is discredited (a good place to start for that is this Newsweek article: http://www.newsweek.com/2009/06/19/why-do-we-rape-kill-and-sleep-around.html.
As for the anger, no reason to be afraid of that. It can be therapeutic, but just try not to let it consume you… If it does get too much from my own experience I can tell you that, if you can afford it or are insured, therapy (if you find the right practitioner) can help LOADS.MKP mentioned family therapy, and it your brothers are up for it, that might also be very helpful. If it’s an option, I also second the moving out suggestion!
For me, I have two types of anger: constructive and destructive. Constructive anger focusses you; you become more determined and resolved and you can kickass argue. Destructive anger turns you into a quivering mess and serves your opponents. I’m 26, and I still get into idiotic (really idiotic) heated arguments on forums and news sites; this is why I’ve limited my exposure to forums etc. I know how it feels – you want to take on the world, but at first you don’t realize the cost is your sanity.
I second what the other commenters suggested – find a support group. I’ve managed to convert my SO to feminism – he was already naturally inclined towards it since he is so terribly fair-minded. I pointed out the inherent unfairness in the kyriarchy and he came around pretty quick (although we still have arguments about affirmative action.) Having people online or in real life who have your back is a tremendous booster.
Oh, and humour helps. Really helps. It keeps you sane, and it makes your opponents look silly. Never underestimate the power of pointing out the ridiculous.
When all else fails, I mutter “I am a leaf on the wind, watch how I soar” under my breath. It’s stupid, but it works. (Helps if you’ve seen Firefly.)
Samantha,
I know how you feel. I am angry a lot, myself. Angry at my kids, who seem to be totally disconnected from the stresses of maintaining a home, of working, of responsibility. Angry at the profusion of idiots in this world, who have more than enough energy to question our President’s birth, ban gays from the military, and harass confused and frightened girls who are getting legal abortions. Angry at myself, for not being able to provide more for my family, to give more to my community, and to keep my emotions in check. Ask my kids — Poppa yells a lot.
You are past the crest of a wave, as you have discovered that you are part of a wider world that values you and your contributions, and you want the smaller world of your home to conform to that larger world. And it doesn’t. It can’t. Not so easily, anyway. You probably have thought more than once, “If I could wave my magic wand…”
You’re confused, you’re conflicted, and the psychic distress causes you to lash out. This does not make you unusual, or any less human than anyone else would be in your situation. Take a deep breath. Now another. It will be OK.
First, you must accept your revelation for what it is: personal. Your eyes have been opened, your life changed. This is good. Embrace it. Pursue it. Let nothing distract you.
Second, you have changed and others will notice this and react badly. We so want everyone to stay the same as they were, that we cannot handle it well when they don’t. Your broadening of horizons causes others to see the narrowing of theirs.
Third, you cannot convert everyone. For your brothers there might be hope, but it is an uphill battle against social mores that tell them they are of a privileged class. It would take a strong male role model to divert them, and even that is no guarantee. For your mother, she has lived her way her whole life; to change now, even a tiny bit, is to expect too much. Take any little change they evince as a good thing, but lower your expectations.
Fourth, stay out of the poisonous atmosphere. Since home cannot supply you with the affirmation you need, seek it elsewhere. Find groups to talk to, people who think as you do, continue to read and grow and explore. You cannot run away from home, but you can minimize it as a source of distress.
Fifth, and most important, don’t give in to anger. A powerful emotion, anger is, but its power is false. Concentrate on the positive feelings you have now that you have discovered these things; pity those who cannot see the light as you do, but do not lord your newfound vision over them. They will not see the path unless they want to.
It’s hard, it really is. When you are different, when you see the world differently, when you think and act against the accepted norms, you feel isolated, alone, and upset that so many others do not see the truth. You cannot worry about the rest of the world — you must worry about yourself. Continue to seek the truth, and your path will take you beyond anger.
NefariousNewt
My first response is Stop Yelling. Quiet, cold, comments are harder to ignore than someone yelling. It sounds like your family still has issues related to the abuse your father subjected you all to. Yelling is behavior that abusers use effectively, so when you stop yelling, your family will eventually see that you aren’t aping bad behaviors, but deadly earnest. See if you, with your family or not, can get into therapy. Therapy helps the anger, and can help give you a measure of peace in the maelstrom of your home frustrations. And most importantly, remember to love yourself. You are an amazing, strong, fearless woman. Do not hate anything about yourself.
It’s okay to be angry. It’s okay to hate injustice. It’s okay to yell when your siblings insult you (overtly or covertly) for not being born with an oh-so-precious penis.
Here’s my personal, completely non-psychological-professional assessment of the situation: Anger is a natural human response to wrongness (injustice, pain, etc). What subconsciously bothers your family is fact that you’re angry means that something is wrong, which (ideally, for the good of the community) the wrong should be found, acknowledged, and fixed. But change is hard, and internalized misogyny is, by definition, a difficult thing to recognize and even more difficult to fix. So they’re trying to dismiss, joke away, and otherwise get rid of your anger, because that means everything is okay and nobody has to change.
Obviously, no one’s going to be happy for a while. >_<
BUT! There are others out there like you, so you are not alone! *hugs* Definitely find safe places to speak and try to remove yourself from the toxicity as much as possible. Own your anger, be secure in the knowledge that you have a right to feel that way, but don't let it consume you. Whenever your bros start their nonsense, explain (as calmly as possible) that they are hurting YOUR feelings by making assumptions about women–and therefore YOU–based on the body rather than the mind. (If they really care about you, they'll tone it down after a while. If they don't…I'm so sorry, love. ;_;) As for your mother, find a time when you're not mad to tell her that you are not going to change your feelings just to make everyone else happy because that's not healthy. And then refute all her little claims with science. ^_^
First, what you are feeling is very, very common among feminists, perhaps close to universal.
I even think even if you had a storybook childhood the difference between the world we were told that we live in and the world we find out we actually live in is quite a slap in the face. The anger that you are feeling is a natural, rational way to begin to process that discrepancy, and a natural and rational way to respond to people who continue to tell you that things that are contrary to your own observations and expect you to believe them without question.
I have this advice:
You can’t choose your family, but you can choose your friends. And you should choose friends who support the things that you believe in and who support you. There is absolutely no reason to fight this fight on two fronts.
Pay attention to how good we, as women in 21st century, have it. It’s easy to get caught up on the injustice of the world, the terrible things that happen, and the battles which have not been won, but that is not the whole story. We have things to celebrate.
If you can stand it, desensitize yourself to the other side’s opinions. I listen to a lot of talk radio and watch Fox news, and have often been told that I do so because I like being angry. But really, I do it so I will not be angry, so I can listen to people with different opinions and world views and just say, “This is what some people think.” Then, when I am sitting on a plane next to someone who thinks Obama might be a Muslim or at a family gathering where someone is being sexist, I have already practiced listening to people who I believe are wrong. I’ve gotten good at it, and can say, “I think you are mistaken and this is why . . .” instead of, “You are a horrible person! How could you possibly think that?!”
Realize that by coming to feminism what you have done is abandon one worldview and replaced it with another. That is a huge thing; a lot of people never do it once in their lives. But once you realize that worldviews can be changed and outgrown, it is impossible not to keep shedding your beliefs over and over as you grow and learn new things and have new experiences. This is hard and it hurts every time. It means that we will come to realize that many of the things we love believing (even as feminists) are wrong or incomplete. It means that over and over again we will come to see our previous actions with frightening and embarrassing clarity. When people you love are wrong, be as gentle with them as you can, because they may eventually come to that place as well.
Finally, be gentle with yourself too. You’re doing what you can, and you’re not alone.
-Bella
wow Bella there is so much awesome packed into what you said
Hang in there, Samantha. It’s often very lonely being a feminist, even when surrounded by people who are supposed to love and at least try to understand us, or among people of whom we expect better.
I think we have two options: exist miserably in the patriarchy and remain resistant to feminism, or exist miserably in the patriarchy and embrace feminism. At least with the latter option, we have the chance to recognize that we have choices and that things don’t have to be this way, even if others don’t get it.
I can’t explain just how thankful I am that I am alive as a feminist during a time when the internet exists. At least here I can find other like-minded people and read uplifting material from amazing bloggers like the Harpies. I think back to how much harder it must have been for women’s rights crusaders to connect with each other 100 years ago. No matter how bad things get in “real” life, remember that you always have a whole universe of genuine, decent people at your fingertips.
@bella – what you said exactly. I would especially like to echo the suggestion to desensitize. For one thing, as a general rule, what people say to your face will almost never be as bad or as unambiguous or as harsh as what they’ll say online, when they’re faceless. Second, as you say, you learn much better how to craft a rebuttal when you observe how whatever individual stance that you encounter in person is part of a whole system that depends on a few key lies. There are many different battles to be fought but it’s all the same war.
Also, I don’t know if you have the resources for this, Samantha, but if you do, you might find it very useful to learn how to look up and read scientific papers specifically so that when people pull this “oh, some study a couple of years ago found this I think…” thing, you can legitimately say, “there was a study about this, this was the methodology, these were the findings, and this is why it (is or isn’t) valid”. If you really want to pursue debate with your brothers, learn about argumentation, logical fallacies, and how to craft a point that’s both correct and cutting. Rhetoric is just as important in debates as logic is (somewhat unfortunately). If, as Ms. Pinot said, you can manage to deliver your points in a controlled tone, especially if you can make them pithy or witty, you’ll get a lot further (especially in front of any sort of audience) than if you approach it in a tone of righteous anger.
As for your mother: I’m not trying to excuse her actions, which are doubtlessly hurtful and isolating. However (and this is something I’m having to learn myself as my family has recently gone through an…episode in which my older brother said some incredibly hurtful things to me), she has different priorities than you do — it’s probably much more important to her that her children have some semblance of a relationship and that her family is able to all interact in a loving way than it is to you, and in the service of that goal, she’s asking you to let go of some of your principles when it comes to interactions with your brothers. It seems likely that she knows she has a better chance of prevailing on you to let things drop than to prevail on them to not be asshats. This is unfair. It sucks. But on some level, you have a much better chance of helping your mother and having a healthy relationship with her if you are willing to see things from her perspective. She did something really scary and hard — she ended an abusive relationship. She is not, it seems, ready to risk ending her relationship with her sons by recognizing and condemning how they are mistreating both of you. She may never be ready. I think it would not be the best use of your energies to try to make her be ready. Guard yourself, protect yourself — partition yourself if you need to. Try not to look at your mother’s actions as a betrayal of you but as a result of the system that has shaped her her entire life and that she cannot, now, entirely escape.
Samantha, I admire and support what you’re doing. Stay strong!
Your brothers are being confronted, probably for the first time, with a challenge to their male power. And they don’t like it, so they respond with loud voices and intimidation and belittling and silencing techniques. In other words, they fall back on all the tools of the trade.
I agree with everyone else who says that we can’t beat them at their own game, so we have to play our own. Letting them know, coolly and consistently, that you see through their privilege will give you strength, even if they never get a clue.
And I have no problem cutting off family or friends who are hurtful or abusive. You didn’t choose them and they don’t deserve you. You may not decide to remove yourself from contact with them, but just knowing you can might make you feel more in control.
We’re all with you! *hugs*
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by eccentric yoruba. eccentric yoruba said: Help Me Harpies: I’m ANGRY! http://bit.ly/h2Il1x [...]
This is the reason I love the Harpies’ Nest!
Everything that everyone else has said.
So I thought I would share what I have learnt about anger, and how my understanding of anger has helped me live a life a little less agro and stressy, but no less feeling angry and indignant.
Anger is an emotion, and as I understand this emotion, it’s about setting boundaries (whether for yourself or for others with whom you interact). This emotion says “I won’t tolerate xyz thing”. And in this way anger helps to protect and preserve you (physically, emotionally, morally, ethically), and it also helps to identify when you think there is something wrong and it pushes up against you (physically, emotionally, morally, ethically).
But I learnt, as anger is an emotion, it also means that my actions in response to this emtion do not necessarily need to lead to a loud shouty angry Mackey.
], in an even tone let someone know that what they did and/or said was inappropriate to me, and of course do activist things.
Instead when I feel angry, I am able to recognise and own what I’m feeling, and then work out what I will do: leave, let the other person know I no longer want to discuss xyz, witty quip [at least I like to think they are
Though there are times when a loud shouty angry Mackey are of course reasonable.
Everyone else’s advice has been spot-on. What I want to add (perhaps echoing a few other comments here) is what to do if you decide that you’re emotionally exhausted and your family is not going to be converted, either temporarily or permanently.
In that case, emotionally detach yourself. Recognize that they’re not going to see the destructive patterns in the world, in the family, or in themselves. Their worldview benefits them in some way, even if just through fear or habit, and they’ve chosen that benefit over other potential happiness you might see for them. If you want to you can see it as a small or sad life, but it’s what they’ve chosen and it’s not your problem.
Move away when it’s possible, visit when you think it’s valuable, and during those visits enjoy your family for what you love in them. Rise above it all (though try not to sound snooty): Don’t get mired in arguments trying to see your family’s perspective when they’ll only dismiss yours. Be confident in your adult self around your folks instead of regressing into your frustrated teenage self. Don’t laugh at offensive jokes, but don’t argue either. If they pick on you too much, visit less often.
Follow your strong feminist mind, find friends and partners who validate your strong feminist mind, and focus on what makes you feeling happy, accepted, and productive rather than diminished and angry. Best wishes, and thanks for breaking out of the mold.
I really, really want to thank all of y’all for this advice! I hope Sam finds it helpful but I know that I’ve learned a lot reading this thread and will be returning to it when I need a little feminist fortifying!
To counter your mother’s arguments that women and men are differently wired I suggest “Delusions of Gender, How our minds, society, and neurosexism create difference” by Cordelia Fine. Great book that devastates the myths of gender differences and Ms Fine has a sharp, sarcastic, funny style I am sure you will enjoy.