harborshore (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
harborshore) wrote2009-11-29 10:27 pm
harborshore) wrote2009-11-29 10:27 pm
Entry tags:
the post I promised on Friday
Writing about white straight male privilege here is very much preaching to the choir. But I need to make something real and worthwhile out of the fail that was last week but especially Friday. I'm furious, so I got lengthy, and it is perhaps very incoherent at points. If I fail anywhere, please tell me.
This post is about the perceived threat to white male heterosexual privilege that lies in, well, a lot of things about our modern existence today. And thank fuck, I say, because I actually don't think a world where I don't have the right to vote or decide when I want to have sex (or who with) or what I want to do with my life is somewhere I want to live. And a world where my best friend is read as a charity case because she happens to be from Zimbabwe--when she earned that medical school fellowship—well, it's a dumb world, but one of the reasons it's so threatening to see her in the school is because she will be a black female doctor. Doctors have power. Of course they're going to think of things to say about her that makes her place there less of a threat and more about them being nice.
But I digress. I do that when I'm angry. See, I'm very tired of having white straight men push their ideological positions on me, and last week was so full of that, I barely even know where to start.
Let's start with the perceived threat, again. Most of you probably know Adam Lambert kissed a guy on stage last week? I didn't see the performance, but I've seen the pictures, and I DID notice ABC cancelled his appearance on Good Morning America (for the children? Or something?) whereas they're going ahead with Chris Brown's appearance (because obviously what he did was less offensive—it's not like he was convicted of beating up his girlfriend—oh WAIT). And this makes so much sense (if you live in white straight male privilege-land, anyway), because Adam's performance represents a serious danger to the equilibrium of the male gaze (if he was forcefully kissing a woman, that'd be a different story, but he's dominating a man, as it were), whereas Chris Brown, well, perpetuating patriarchy is the least of what he did. So having him on Good Morning America reestablishes the "appropriate" world order, as it were.
(The next post I'm making about issues like this one will include how fucking offensive I find it that my sexuality is basically porn for straight men. Not that I mind porn, obviously I don't, but hey, I'm not a fan of being asked to a threesome because the guy thinks it would be hot, especially since his girlfriend is straight and therefore he doesn't have to worry about losing her.)
And speaking of threats. I had my weekly philosophy seminar on Friday (for those of you not around for the earlier fail, it hasn't been very great in terms of progressiveness so far), and my professor puts up a picture on the over-head. The topic is interpretation. Now, as anyone who has ever done anything sort of academic knows, most of academic disciplines are in the business of interpretation, most notably the vast majority of academics in Humanities, because there are very few "correct" answers. I am, of course, generalizing—if you want to argue the semantics of this, you're more than welcome to. The point is, you might expect a professor of scientific philosophy to have a lot of examples to choose from.
But he goes with this picture.
In case you're not up on your missionaries, this is dr Albert Schweitzer. We weren't told who he was, but someone happened to know in the class, and so there we were, discussing colonialism on a level that had me so fucking frustrated and inarticulate. Guys, according to my professor it's "natural to read this image and see a threat". Natural, right.
He didn't go anywhere with that, he just sort of let the discussion keep going, and I just—it's natural? What? Why? Because the world where white men represent everything enlightened and unnatural, and black men are threatening, yes, that's a natural one. Newsflash, darling professor, it may be the one you think you're living in, but a) it is changing and b) there is nothing natural about it. Nothing.
Also, I don't see a threat in this picture. I mean, what?
So there we are, we're back to the threat again. An implied physical threat that is read out of nothing but prejudice. It still feels intensely ironic to me that we were discussing interpretation, and yet no one thought to talk about the interpretation of the world that the photographer made when he created this picture (it's a combination of two negatives). No, I lie, a couple of us attempted to go there, but that was apparently not "relevant". Because god forbid we discuss the actual reality of any situation, especially if the reality is likely to get into anti-racist discussions about the evils of colonialism—it's not like the white male assumption that their way is Natural and Right is relevant to a course on scientific ethics? No?
Continuing the streak of illustrating his lecture with inappropriate examples , the last one he brought up during the class was that of rape trials. He was trying to figure out a way to illustrate the idea of taking a relevant whole instead of looking at everything when doing your analysis (as my sister put it, "you mean every scientific study ever? It's impossible to look at the whole whole, you have to look at part of the whole.") and hit on the example of rape trials. Because "you look at a relevant whole there." Like the entire sexual history of the victim? What do you mean, professor?
Except I didn't have time to ask him. He said his bit about a relevant whole, told us rape trials were an example of "being convicted because of what you thought you were doing" and then class was over. And before we even think about discussing the fact that in many ways, it is not a relevant example (how does any analysis generally made during a real rape trial count as taking a relevant whole? And right, the perceived intention of the attacker sometimes becomes important, but it often shouldn't.) let's remember that it is also a deeply inappropriate one. Statistically speaking, in a class where there are fifteen female students, at least three will have been victims of some kind of sexual violence, and even for the women who haven't, we've all grown up in a world where rape is the greatest threat we face, where we get to be frightened when out late at night alone, etc. etc. ad nauseam (you all know this part).
So for my professor to just offhandedly bring it up, merrily generalize about it, be very wrong, and then end the lecture before we can even discuss it, well. It was one of the more blatant expressions of male privilege that I've been directly exposed to for quite some time. He can talk about rape trials like they're nothing; I cannot.
So let's recap. We have a form of censorship, trying to control the general public's exposure to alternative sexualities (trying to maintain the status quo as far as the male gaze goes—sexuality should always be expressed in a way straight men can look at and be turned on by—after all, the kiss between Britney and Madonna was a-okay), we have missionaries in Africa (and I don't pretend to know everything about this, but the way Albert Schweitzer presented himself was very much as a helper of those poor underprivileged and ignorant peoples—which, okay, thank you ever so much, white man) and we have rape (gotta keep those women down, right?). The comedian I saw Friday night was on a similar track: he insulted every group in the audience—except for the white straight men.
Hi, white straight male privilege, I am impressed by the lengths you go to in order to keep the world functioning in a way that you can handle. Here's your problem (and I'm quoting![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
colouredmango): "You are dying out. You are losing the war of attrition for our bodies and minds and rights to love. We have already won."
There is something deeply, deeply triumphant and true in that. It echoes what was said when Iowa passed their gay marriage law, it echoes what I do see, sometimes. This doesn't mean we shouldn't be furious (there are so many things that are so fucking wrong with the world in terms of sexism and violence and homophobia and racism that sometimes I want to set things on fire or scream loud enough that everyone, everyone would hear) but you know, We're here, we're talking about it, we're not fucking crawling to anyone, that is something. No one laughed at the comedian Friday night, that is something else. And I'll quote Mango again—if sometimes it's hard to see that we're getting there, we're winning, "it's just that the victory party is planned for a time when you and I will scoff about girls these days, when no one will have told us what to do for so long we will be confused what we're celebrating."
I will see all of you at that fucking party; I'll be the one dancing, I don't care how old I am when we get there.
This post is about the perceived threat to white male heterosexual privilege that lies in, well, a lot of things about our modern existence today. And thank fuck, I say, because I actually don't think a world where I don't have the right to vote or decide when I want to have sex (or who with) or what I want to do with my life is somewhere I want to live. And a world where my best friend is read as a charity case because she happens to be from Zimbabwe--when she earned that medical school fellowship—well, it's a dumb world, but one of the reasons it's so threatening to see her in the school is because she will be a black female doctor. Doctors have power. Of course they're going to think of things to say about her that makes her place there less of a threat and more about them being nice.
But I digress. I do that when I'm angry. See, I'm very tired of having white straight men push their ideological positions on me, and last week was so full of that, I barely even know where to start.
Let's start with the perceived threat, again. Most of you probably know Adam Lambert kissed a guy on stage last week? I didn't see the performance, but I've seen the pictures, and I DID notice ABC cancelled his appearance on Good Morning America (for the children? Or something?) whereas they're going ahead with Chris Brown's appearance (because obviously what he did was less offensive—it's not like he was convicted of beating up his girlfriend—oh WAIT). And this makes so much sense (if you live in white straight male privilege-land, anyway), because Adam's performance represents a serious danger to the equilibrium of the male gaze (if he was forcefully kissing a woman, that'd be a different story, but he's dominating a man, as it were), whereas Chris Brown, well, perpetuating patriarchy is the least of what he did. So having him on Good Morning America reestablishes the "appropriate" world order, as it were.
(The next post I'm making about issues like this one will include how fucking offensive I find it that my sexuality is basically porn for straight men. Not that I mind porn, obviously I don't, but hey, I'm not a fan of being asked to a threesome because the guy thinks it would be hot, especially since his girlfriend is straight and therefore he doesn't have to worry about losing her.)
And speaking of threats. I had my weekly philosophy seminar on Friday (for those of you not around for the earlier fail, it hasn't been very great in terms of progressiveness so far), and my professor puts up a picture on the over-head. The topic is interpretation. Now, as anyone who has ever done anything sort of academic knows, most of academic disciplines are in the business of interpretation, most notably the vast majority of academics in Humanities, because there are very few "correct" answers. I am, of course, generalizing—if you want to argue the semantics of this, you're more than welcome to. The point is, you might expect a professor of scientific philosophy to have a lot of examples to choose from.
But he goes with this picture.
In case you're not up on your missionaries, this is dr Albert Schweitzer. We weren't told who he was, but someone happened to know in the class, and so there we were, discussing colonialism on a level that had me so fucking frustrated and inarticulate. Guys, according to my professor it's "natural to read this image and see a threat". Natural, right.
He didn't go anywhere with that, he just sort of let the discussion keep going, and I just—it's natural? What? Why? Because the world where white men represent everything enlightened and unnatural, and black men are threatening, yes, that's a natural one. Newsflash, darling professor, it may be the one you think you're living in, but a) it is changing and b) there is nothing natural about it. Nothing.
Also, I don't see a threat in this picture. I mean, what?
So there we are, we're back to the threat again. An implied physical threat that is read out of nothing but prejudice. It still feels intensely ironic to me that we were discussing interpretation, and yet no one thought to talk about the interpretation of the world that the photographer made when he created this picture (it's a combination of two negatives). No, I lie, a couple of us attempted to go there, but that was apparently not "relevant". Because god forbid we discuss the actual reality of any situation, especially if the reality is likely to get into anti-racist discussions about the evils of colonialism—it's not like the white male assumption that their way is Natural and Right is relevant to a course on scientific ethics? No?
Continuing the streak of illustrating his lecture with inappropriate examples , the last one he brought up during the class was that of rape trials. He was trying to figure out a way to illustrate the idea of taking a relevant whole instead of looking at everything when doing your analysis (as my sister put it, "you mean every scientific study ever? It's impossible to look at the whole whole, you have to look at part of the whole.") and hit on the example of rape trials. Because "you look at a relevant whole there." Like the entire sexual history of the victim? What do you mean, professor?
Except I didn't have time to ask him. He said his bit about a relevant whole, told us rape trials were an example of "being convicted because of what you thought you were doing" and then class was over. And before we even think about discussing the fact that in many ways, it is not a relevant example (how does any analysis generally made during a real rape trial count as taking a relevant whole? And right, the perceived intention of the attacker sometimes becomes important, but it often shouldn't.) let's remember that it is also a deeply inappropriate one. Statistically speaking, in a class where there are fifteen female students, at least three will have been victims of some kind of sexual violence, and even for the women who haven't, we've all grown up in a world where rape is the greatest threat we face, where we get to be frightened when out late at night alone, etc. etc. ad nauseam (you all know this part).
So for my professor to just offhandedly bring it up, merrily generalize about it, be very wrong, and then end the lecture before we can even discuss it, well. It was one of the more blatant expressions of male privilege that I've been directly exposed to for quite some time. He can talk about rape trials like they're nothing; I cannot.
So let's recap. We have a form of censorship, trying to control the general public's exposure to alternative sexualities (trying to maintain the status quo as far as the male gaze goes—sexuality should always be expressed in a way straight men can look at and be turned on by—after all, the kiss between Britney and Madonna was a-okay), we have missionaries in Africa (and I don't pretend to know everything about this, but the way Albert Schweitzer presented himself was very much as a helper of those poor underprivileged and ignorant peoples—which, okay, thank you ever so much, white man) and we have rape (gotta keep those women down, right?). The comedian I saw Friday night was on a similar track: he insulted every group in the audience—except for the white straight men.
Hi, white straight male privilege, I am impressed by the lengths you go to in order to keep the world functioning in a way that you can handle. Here's your problem (and I'm quoting
colouredmango): "You are dying out. You are losing the war of attrition for our bodies and minds and rights to love. We have already won."There is something deeply, deeply triumphant and true in that. It echoes what was said when Iowa passed their gay marriage law, it echoes what I do see, sometimes. This doesn't mean we shouldn't be furious (there are so many things that are so fucking wrong with the world in terms of sexism and violence and homophobia and racism that sometimes I want to set things on fire or scream loud enough that everyone, everyone would hear) but you know, We're here, we're talking about it, we're not fucking crawling to anyone, that is something. No one laughed at the comedian Friday night, that is something else. And I'll quote Mango again—if sometimes it's hard to see that we're getting there, we're winning, "it's just that the victory party is planned for a time when you and I will scoff about girls these days, when no one will have told us what to do for so long we will be confused what we're celebrating."
I will see all of you at that fucking party; I'll be the one dancing, I don't care how old I am when we get there.
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The next post I'm making about issues like this one will include how fucking offensive I find it that my sexuality is basically porn for straight men.
Amen, sister. It takes a lot to piss me off usually, and I find that talking about my sexuality to the kind of people who do think it's just porn for their amusement generally helps (because, you know, it's not their fault that they grew up in an isolated, shit-hole, narrow-minded town any more than it is mine, and if I can provide that exposure so they actually think some of their own thoughts, well then, aces) but honest to God, wtf is wrong with dudes who tell me all about how juicy my little sister's rack is (verbatim, Vee. VERBATIM.) when they find out I have a girlfriend? Ew, and also fuck you very much.
There you go again, making me think Thoughts.
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The what now? Seriously? That's worse than the idiot I mentioned above, who dated one of my closest friends (she has dumped his ass at this point, thankfully). I've known her since I was six, and yet it was somehow appropriate to ask me to join them in bed. (That evening also included him waxing loudly about the bartender's breasts, at which point I told him to shut up, apologized to her, and told him he was being an asshole.) But what? Your little sister? UGH UGH UGH FUCK HIM SO MUCH.
♥ I'd apologize, except you do it so well.
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Hey, I'm a pretty big fan of your post last week as well. ♥ Intelligence is totally sexy,
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I'm jetlagged and exhausted, but I love feminist posts turning up on my friends page ♥
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I'm always happy to fulfill that need, man. I was (still am) really angry, there was no way not to write it. ♥ And welcome back, darling!
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You better save me a dance at that party. ♥
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And of course I will! ♥
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I would like that so much, as well. ♥
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And yeah, no kidding. I plan to be ill on Friday, because we're discussing a researcher that maybe wasn't the greatest researcher, but her topic was men abusing women--I'm just not going to be able to sit through the levels of fail that that discussion will entail. Because I don't believe for a minute that the class and he will be able to stick to discussing the scientific aspects of what happened.
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Y'know, I got so used to being told by the majority that I was wrong (I was the only pro-choice, key word being choice, in a class of pro-lifers when I was twelve, and even though that teacher was cool and tried to keep it to a civilised discussion, even though he totally didn't agree with me at all, as a devout Catholic - the class just tore me up, and I was practically in tears. The only good thing to come out of it was that the teacher told my mother at Parent's Night - he was my Biology teacher, and he'd been covering my Religious Ed class - that he was really impressed with the way I stood up for myself and my beliefs) that at some point? I just stopped listening to them. I think that's so dangerous, in so many ways.
Then I left school, and things happened. Catholic school did a good job in one way - I'm pretty well prepared for any argument. And boy, do I argue.
I shouldn't have to, mind. We shouldn't have to keep fighting like this. But then you make posts like these, and I'm glad we do, glad you're able to make these posts. :) You're one of my very favourites, and this may not have made much sense - mostly because of four hours of sleep, hi, but I did understand everything you said, which is another reason why you're my favourite - but I don't think there's any help for that, because even if I had slept, my main reaction would still be, oh, thank God.
You're one of the most articulate people I've ever encountered on the internet, and one who obviously cares about what you talk about. That's pretty much why you're my favourite. No matter what happens, don't ever change. Because it can't be much longer now. It can't. Not with people like you here.
♥
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I think knowing your inner convictions is the easiest thing and the hardest. Because of course you have to be able to listen, you have to, but you also have to be able to recognize when somebody is dead wrong, like you already knew how to do at twelve. The way you describe it and yourself--this might sound weird, but you remind me of my mother. She knows how to beat them with their own argument, has known that since she was twelve and had a teacher who was conservative and nuts and used to send her out of class every day in the hopes she'd fail (she didn't). Thank goodness for your teacher though, oh man.
And the next part of your comment actually made me cry, a little. All I've ever wanted is to use my writing in a way that does something (quick, three guesses who in MCR I over-identify with) for someone and oh, thank you for telling me it meant something to you. Thank you so much. And I don't think I would know how to be any other way than how I am. (Don't you change, either.) ♥
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Because of course you have to be able to listen, you have to, but you also have to be able to recognize when somebody is dead wrong Oh God, yes, this. It is incredible how often I sit there and think, wait, what, did they actually just say that? It's easier than it used to be to fight that, easier as in I just, don't think about it anymore. It may be big-headed, but I'm proud of myself for that now. I'm proud of everyone who can, and does.
Okay, so. You are, utterly incredibly awesome, in so many ways, and I'm kinda making starry eyes at you over here. Would you mind if I friended you? Feel free to say no, of course.
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I never mind being friended. ♥
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Consider it done! ♥
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Hi, white straight male privilege, I am impressed by the lengths you go to in order to keep the world functioning in a way that you can handle. Here's your problem (and I'm quoting [info]colouredmango): "You are dying out. You are losing the war of attrition for our bodies and minds and rights to love. We have already won."
There is something deeply, deeply triumphant and true in that. It echoes what was said when Iowa passed their gay marriage law, it echoes what I do see, sometimes. This doesn't mean we shouldn't be furious (there are so many things that are so fucking wrong with the world in terms of sexism and violence and homophobia and racism that sometimes I want to set things on fire or scream loud enough that everyone, everyone would hear) but you know, We're here, we're talking about it, we're not fucking crawling to anyone, that is something. No one laughed at the comedian Friday night, that is something else. And I'll quote Mango again—if sometimes it's hard to see that we're getting there, we're winning, "it's just that the victory party is planned for a time when you and I will scoff about girls these days, when no one will have told us what to do for so long we will be confused what we're celebrating."
Yesyesyes.
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Ha, a girl in my class said "But do you really think boys think that way?" when me and Katy were discussing the fact that if women talk more than a third of the time, men perceive it as women talking most of the time. There's research on it, so much research on it, and it's structural, not personal. SIGH.
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Man, if I only knew the answer to that one. I mean, I know the mechanism that leads to people perpetuating structures because it's easier that way, but I don't know how to change that. The only way I've ever brought people over to my perspective has been through a truckload of patience, which is difficult as fuck. But differentiating between arguments and conversion helped me enormously.
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...OH WAIT.
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