time for a talk

[harborshore]

I've been reading a lot of discussions about sexism and racism and authorial intent in fandom (yes, reading through a series of meta posts seems like an excellent idea when I am halfway knocked out by a cold), and if I weren't utterly exhausted, this post would contain links. As it is, I'm going to keep to what I know, and tell you a story. It happened to me, though I'm fudging a name for the other person. I'm not using it to air a personal grievance, I'm just using myself as text to demonstrate why intent sometimes doesn't matter. I've been thinking about this post for a long time, actually, because the intent argument comes up a lot.



When I was in college, my sister was coming to visit. I was working as an campus guide, and there was a staff movie night where my sister's visit came up, and one of the guys, let's call him Nick, started to make jokes about it, or rather, about her. He hadn't met her or seen a picture, so I knew the fact that he was talking about her breasts was intended to be a joke (I also knew Nick makes jokes about offensive things as a rule), but hey, guess what, I was still offended. And yelled. And THEN explained, once I had calmed down enough to clarify why I had a problem with him making sex jokes about my sister.

The thing is (and you will probably understand, but bear with me), it didn't matter that I knew he didn't mean to talk about her that way. The comments still hurt, because I shouldn't have to listen to someone who supposedly is a friend talk about my sister in a derogatory way, even if he doesn't mean it and I know he doesn't mean it. It's just, you know, it's not funny. I'm never ever going to find it funny.

And the difference between me and Nick in this situation was that he was a tall, broad-shouldered, cis-gendered male, so he had absolutely no clue what it was like to hear certain kinds of jokes repeated about your appearance (I'm not saying this is true for all guys, but he told me this when we discussed it). He didn't mean to hurt me, he didn't understand the hurt until I explained it in detail because he had no context for it, and he both apologized and thanked me the next day when we were having the actual discussion about it (the yelling and the explanation were separated by a day).

In many ways, this is an ideal story, because the fact that he was my friend and also was willing to listen meant we got through it. But I was still hurt by the comments and they were still inappropriate and he was wrong to make them; the fact that he never meant to hurt me didn't change that. I'm going to leave it at that, but I do think the understanding gap between me and Nick applies to more situations than ours. When you're the privileged party in an exchange like this, it's worth thinking about.

Comments

[sinuous-curve.livejournal.com]

Oh my God, a very, very similar thing happened to me just yesterday. I want to print this out and paper the walls of my school with it.

[harborshore.livejournal.com]

It's very tiresome, and it happens more than it should. But it's also very--like, on an intellectual level I understand why it happens, because I too sometimes suck majorly at empathizing with an experience I've never had, and if you've never ever faced the kind of derogatory language or treatment that happens to women or poc or queer people, it's hard to see it because you've literally never been confronted with it. On an emotional level, it's fucking exhausting to even try to understand, because it just leads to things that shouldn't happen. You know?

ETA: And I meant it's exhausting to actively think about why they don't get it. Is what I meant. Because you have these experiences that are so hurtful, and then someone blithely walks past all that and jokes about it, and it makes me so, so furious and sad at the same time. Emotionally exhausting.

[mrsquizzical.livejournal.com]

♥

thanks for putting that in such a clear way. i may refer to this at some time in rl conversations? is that ok with you?

[harborshore.livejournal.com]

Absolutely! It's meant to be useful, that's why I posted it.

[redbrickrose.livejournal.com]

That's a really good way of putting it. I always get so flustered in those conversations because I just don't get why they don't get it. Or intellectually I do, I guess, and I know I've been in the wrong before, but there's only so many times you can have those conversations when there's no guarantee you're going to get through at all. It is nice when you do, though still so exhausting.

[harborshore.livejournal.com]

Yes, precisely, and that is why the repeated, "But why won't you explain?" that happens online and offline is so aggravating. I mean, yes, I explained it to Nick because he's my friend, but it was still immensely tiresome even though he was really, really grateful after and we were better friends for it--I rarely do Feminism 101 or anything like that for a random stranger. Because chances are they won't get it, and then you'll have gone through all that for nothing.

And the only time I don't get flustered is when I've gone past that and straight into complete fury. Which is what happened here. And then I got a day to cool down and think very carefully about what I wanted out of this exchange. Ideal circumstances--and I was still so tired afterward.