Corner of Bourbon & Division

One Shade of Grey: A Feminist Fantasy

Word.

I'm a little depressed that we still need this, but oh well.

Doubtless everyone on the internet has already seen this video, but I love it, and so I am reposting it.

Are We Equals, 007?





The other day some of my (white, male) coworkers complained about having to take the mandatory class on harassment in the workplace (it's roughly a one hour online course, with a 15-minute quiz at the end: a real hardship, you understand). One of them bitched that it wasn't necessary because it's not like it exists anymore, right? We live in a society where men don't harass women at all.

You should have seen the look on his face when I told him that I and several other women had been harassed at my previous job, that one girl had filed a complaint with the Régie des Normes du Travail, that the rest of us had testified, and that we had won.

Newsflash: just because you didn't see it yourself, doesn't mean it didn't happen.

As most of you no doubt know, Dr. George Tiller was murdered yesterdaywhile attending his church.

Now, I don't usually care what people's politics are. As I've said before, I'm anti-abortion, but pro-choice. I don't like the fact that abortions are necessary, but I firmly believe that it's every woman's choice to make.

This killing? This was murder. This was the murder of a good man, who not only stood up for his convictions, but lived by them, every single day. He went out of his way to perform a service for women that many others could not, and would not perform. Calling him a mass-murderer is, as lightcastle put it, a particular flavour of viciousness. It's not subtle to encourage people to invade people's sanctuaries, no matter how you try to couch your threats in terms of "peaceful" protest.

I don't know if it makes it somehow more heinous that someone violated holy ground in order to perpetrate the murder. The act itself was so heinous that I am hard-put to see how it could be made more so, but whoever the suspect is, he certainly gave it the good old college try.

Every time I think we might be going forward, something like this happens.

:::ETA:::

Here are a few posts by friends of mine, both of which offer particular insight into the matter:

Meallanmouse's perspective, as the daughter of an ob-gyn, with useful links too.

Lisa Small's entry, complete with links.

Working in the field of security/law enforcement has, in the past two-odd years, thrown me smack dab against a huge freaking pile of Those Guys.

I was reminded of this forcefully last night when talking to Excitable!Puppy, and had it pointed out to me by the ever-vigilant and eloquent aislingtheach. I was also reminded forcefully of how ill-equipped I am to argue with a Guy Like That.

Let me state for the record, before I continue down the road where this train of thought is taking me, that I am pissed off at the thought that I constantly feel guilty when I don't call guys (and occasionally girls) who spew misogynistic bullshit on their bullshit every single time they do it. It makes me fucking angry that I feel as though I'm betraying all three billion women who share this planet with me every time I think "I don't have the energy to deal with this today." The old if-you're-not-part-of-the-solution-you're-part-of-the-problem song and dance is old and patently fucking unfair. Why is it that women are OBLIGATED to rise to the defense of their gender (lest they be-part-of-the-problem) but all men have to do is remain silent in order to be considered neutral at the very least, or a silent ally at best? A woman who doesn't immediately speak up is betraying her entire gender, simply by ducking her head as a means of self-defense.

FUCK THAT.

*pant pant*

Okay, that being said, I would like to move back to my original problem. Since I *do* feel that it's important for me to argue with the jackasses at work, who genuinely don't consider themselves jackasses, I need help. Often enough I have no rational argument to come back with for these people. I just feel, instinctively, that what they are saying is fallacious in the extreme. Hell, even my mother occasionally spews misogynistic garbage that she genuinely believes is Right and True (and my mother is a hell of a force of nature: she worked in advertising for forty cut-throat years, and would eviscerate anyone who tried to take away her right to vote). What I want to know is: where can I go to find the people who have rational arguments that will help me?

Let me provide examples, to illustrate my problem.

1- "The balance of power has shifted. Women are more powerful than men now: look at all the TV commercials in which men are presented as idiots and women have to come to their rescue."

Me: AUGH! You understand that commercials aren't real, right? The same goes for television/movies in general. It's just a cheap ploy of the advertising agencies to pat women on the head, make them think they're clever/powerful, and encourage them to buy crap.

2- "Women want it all: they want to be treated like men in the workplace, but they still expect men to buy them dinner and hold doors for them."

Me: AUGH! Why is it that if you open a door for me, it automatically invalidates ALL MY OTHER RIGHTS AS A FUCKING HUMAN BEING? I don't expect people to buy me dinner, but god damn it, why does holding open a door/otherwise being "chivalrous" somehow constitute my immediate capitulation and acceptance of a role as a lesser being?

3- "All the men I know are afraid of their wives. Everyone knows women hold the true power. Haven't they always said that behind every great man stands a strong woman?"

Me: AUGH! I can't even begin to tell you how much that statement is made of WRONG and FAIL. Have you ever noticed that the woman in that saying is never allowed to hold her own goddamn seat of power? The man's rightful place is in the seat of power, whereas the woman, regardless of intelligence or merit, must be content to lurk in the shadows, where she fucking well belongs.


The list goes on and on and on.

My mother's favourite argument is that women brought all their troubles on themselves. She likes to use construction as her metaphor: "If women want to use jackhammers and act like men, it's their own fault if men treat them badly afterward." My mother's logic is not earth-logic. I'm usually able to point out that it's not *just* construction that women want to do: how about science? How about medicine? (My mother doesn't like going to male doctors, but doesn't see the irony there)

Every week (sometimes every day), I am subjected to comments about women being on the rag, women being bitches, women being airheads, women "oppressing" men with their feminism. "Feminist" is a dirty word where I work: it means you're a lesbian man-hater. I have been coming out slowly at work, when the opportunity presents itself, and you should SEE the damned shock on people's faces: "You're a lesbian?!? But... but you're nice! You wear makeup and skirts! You haven't tried to castrate me with a ballpoint pen!" It makes me SICK.

( Random tangent about heterosexism and heterosexual privilege )


I'm tired of being the Bastion of Feminism at work, but since that's my role, I want to damned well be better-equipped to tell people (in particular the men, but also some of the women) why their sexist assumptions are wrong. Or at least make them think twice about their position of privilege.

To a certain extent, I'd like to be able to do this wrt to race as well, but I am well aware that in that area I, too, speak from a position of privilege. I am leery of getting too involved in an elaborate discussion in an area in which I probably have any number of blind spots due to said privilege.

I would just like to find a way to make an impact with these people. To make them stop and reconsider, and think "You know, it never occurred to me to look at it that way before." I don't think I'll ever change them completely —some of these guys are nearly sixty and have never thought differently in their lives— but I'd like at the very least to be able to stand up for myself in an argument with them.