bitch and babble

writer wrote:

In another thread, one about sexual assault, there was a post linking to a porn site, asking which of the acts would count as rape.

I think it's important to note that this one wasn't from a babbler, just a drive-by troll.

Thanks for sharing, writer.  For me, it was the grilling of Sonia Sotomayor by those white male Repuglicans that was personally dispiriting.  What really got me was how they were not the slightest bit apologetic about it; that they felt completely entitled to behave so hatefully.

They not only feel so, they are.

 

I believe I am the poster that so offended writer. I had posted after a long night of refreshments; I was impaired and so was my judgment. My sincerest apologies; I had hoped few people had seen said post.

My only excuse is that the woman in question has infuriated me for years, particularly with her ongoing campaign to see Toronto schools even more impoverished. That said, I realize the language used was not in any way excusable or appropriate.

 

Oh,  you  live that example Michelle.  It's what  I've always liked about  you, from the start, and still do.

Women who have reclaimed words such as "bitch" and "cunt" are not what this thread is about.

 

"Sadly, the instances of everyday sexism, racism, ableism and classism, to use some recent examples, have become normalized. Few male allies respond and challenge sexism."

 

I gave that some hard thought.   When someone here says something sexist or racist, I have to admit that I don't always jump in.  In fact, I'll be amused because I know that person is going to be given a knew corn shute very shortly, or already has been. 

I would not describe tehe women of babble as helpless in terms of message boards, nor needing my help here.

But, on the other hand, it is correct to say that this kind of silence sometimes sends the wrong message.  I will try to be more aware of that factor.

LTJ had a bad moment.  I've had at least one, also.  Maybe others I've expunged from my memory.   But neither of us are bad, and if we are imperfect allies, we are certainly not enemies.

But sometimes I feel here that the highest standards, and sternest rebukes are saved for allies, and not enemies.

Maysie, perhaps singular in this, mentions classism from time to time.  I don't think we can separate classism from sexism or racism.  But here, we do.

I rant, still rant, will always rant about Pathologist Charles Smith.  I think I've taken the wrong tack with that issue, putting the accent on class as opposed to running it through the lens of sexism or racism.  But take a look at Smith's victims. Most were women, and perhaps the worst crime was against a Native Canadian.    

What's the distinction between some freak mysogyist who kidnaps a woman, and keeps her locked in his basement, and a Dr. who has the system do it for him?   I don't think there is any.

But yet, we make that distinction here.  Because of a few letters before and after the name.  Because of good suits, and erudite vocabulary.  No one chooses to see it that way.

No one.

I don't think anyone understands my deep bitterness that erupts when Bob Rae is mentioned.    But go and read his own words about the reasons he offered up for cancelling public auto insurance.  How he gets a pass as still being "progressive", let alone not sexist and classist here is beyond me.

THAT is the patriarchy.  THAT is your enemy.  And mine. 

Ours.

They are the piss in your morning cornflakes.

 

"What's the distinction between some freak mysogyist who kidnaps a woman, and keeps her locked in his basement, and a Dr. who has the system do it for him?   I don't think there is any."

Absolutely correct Tommy, "class" seems to excuse a lot of misogynist behaviour, or perhaps is viewed somehow as a protector from the masses of "riff raff" out there. We are indoctrinated to believe that "suits"  and "education" are more than, or better than, and are less of a threat to our safety.

This brings me back to the internalized conception that "professionals" always know and do what is best, when they don't and on a individul basis are just as subject to sexism, classism and racism as everyone else, but they hide it behind their surface exterior, knowing it will be excused or even go unrecognized for what it is.

 

remind wrote:

 Absolutely correct Tommy, "class" seems to excuse a lot of misogynist behaviour

Yes, I agree completely. 

And from the side of class oppression, class is used, in exclusive ways, to explain behaviour that is also explained by sexism and racism (the depiction of William Picton is one example of this).

Which is also, not okay.

In terms of separating "class" out, I will name it specifically if I see it play a factor in a dynamic or phenomenon, but I also need to be clear that the class analysis on babble rarely takes into account factors such as race and gender. And I've argued with babblers, after I've posted something that has racist elements, that they feel that it's not about race, but about class and class only. I wlll channel remind on my response to that: pffft.

As for who are our allies and when allies need to speak up: anti-oppression activism, the way I've learned it and (try to) live it, requires activists to speak up and to put the bullseye on our own butts to be allies with others. If you're straight, challenge the majorly or minorly homophobic comment/behaviour. If you're a man, the sexist comment/behaviour. White person, the racist comment/behaviour. Able-bodied, ableist comments such as the over-prevalent use of the word "lame". Have class privilege, the classist comment/behaviour. This is the challenge I put out to the world when I do my workshops, and it's a challenge I take to heart as well. It's hard as hell to do, and yes, Tommy, you will occasionally get "yelled at" by some who may say they don't want to be rescued. As for me I've been called to task by failing to act, and at other times because of acting and fucking it up. That's how it goes.

Tommy_Paine wrote:

 I would not describe tehe women of babble as helpless in terms of message boards, nor needing my help here.

I understand your point. Please note that I've not used any word like "helpless" around these issues, or of peeps who are marginalized "needing help". If only white women and women of colour complain about sexism, if only men and women of colour and Aboriginal men and women complain about racism, if only those who are marginalized by class complain about classism, if only queers denounce homophobia and heterosexism, isn't that indicative of a divided movement? And isn't this a relatively easy place to learn to practice being an ally? It's not really real, and yet it is, the world of discussion boards.

Yes, here on babble certain posters, including me, are known as the "mouthpieces" or perhaps "ornery loud mouths"    on certain issues. So what? When other babblers take up the call to denounce something, or to support something or someone, I'm so very happy about it. 

Those are my happy and optimistic thoughts on this summer Friday morning. 

"If only white women and women of colour complain about sexism, if only men and women of colour and Aboriginal men and women complain about racism, if only those who are marginalized by class complain about classism, if only queers denounce homophobia and heterosexism, isn't that indicative of a divided movement? And isn't this a relatively easy place to learn to practice being an ally? It's not really real, and yet it is, the world of discussion boards."

 

All true.   And it's an important part of the struggle.  But it's the only part of the struggle, it seems to me,  anymore.  Not just in terms of feminism or racism, etc, but look at the environmental issues, which isn't necessarily "left wing", but by and large is seen as so.  The entire address towards what is likely a looming disaster is recycling.  And, if we hit the tipping point and the tundra warms up and floods the atmosphere with methane, hundreds of thousands of people are going to say "how did this happen?! I recycled all those cardboard thingys from my toilet paper rolls!  Oh cruel fate!"

We know that if there's to be any meaningfull change in environmental policy that has any effect on our climate, it will mean that corporate power will not only have to be challenged, but made to submit.

Yet we dance around it.

Similarly, the next time stats can releases numbers, and it shows inevitably that the brunt of the economic downturn has been met by women and aboriginals, people here will wonder how this can be, after all, we got men not to use the "B" word on babble.  Yet we know that meaningfull change for women and POC will not happen until government and the establishment are brought to heel, and thier power reduced.

And we dance around that.

I'm not trying to down play, make fun of or otherwise denegrate anyone's efforts.  Particularly people who I think are smarter, braver and more persistant than I.  Like you, Maysie.

I'm searching for a quaint aphorism here, and none comes to mind.  I think we are focussing all our attention on too fine a point, and not seeing the big picture, and letting people who have real power off the hook while we demand perfection from people who, in the final analysis, can change little.

 

 

 

 

Excellent Rosa!

Tommy_Paine wrote:

 I think we are focussing all our attention on too fine a point, and not seeing the big picture, and letting people who have real power off the hook while we demand perfection from people who, in the final analysis, can change little.

You've said this before Tommy and I struggle to stay engaged when you do so, so I will say this. There is no perfection expected in any of the suggestions for action that I posted above. I said it's hard, I said I try to do it, I said I fail. Not sure where perfection comes in, and I say this not in anger, but sincerely.

Issues such as the environmental justice movement that might seem to certain leftists as not being about power, race, class and gender, are indeed very much so, as you said. Looking to the grassroots movements and struggles of people affected by, for example, gross environmental degradation, would lead to much solidarity. Very little of these kinds of movements and actions happen in NA, except from FN communities. There's a lesson right there.

And it's who defines what the big picture is that needs to be interrogated, and changed. IMO.

There are more of us than there are of them. If we can bond together, and work across and through the difference that "we" have, as I describe above, we can and will, literally, change the world. My suggestions are about making our movement stronger. There are many smaller examples of the success of this tactic globally.

And maybe I just rephrased what you said Tommy, I don't know. Damn I'm optimistic today. What's up with that?

Thanks for your thoughts, Tommy.

remind wrote:

Quote:

I wlll channel remind on my response to that: pffft.

It is my view that class distinctions over ride racial bias and experiences to a great degree.

Educatd WOC, for example, have little in common with First Nations women trying to survive and live life after their residential school experiences. The same of course is true, or perhaps greater, for  the majority of white women. Though we all can share the empathy of what it feels like to experience abuse and exploitation, because of who we are.

Indeed it has been my experience that even FN's women, who have not shared the residential school experience, most often cannot relate to those who have. There is a stark difference in perceptions  of life and living. And indeed this can be viewed as a "class" distinction between them even.

 

 

Im tryna put it in my perspective where the people being compared are all the same age like lets say mine lol.

 

otherwise there could be an age gap as well as other stuff and I probably wont get that but someone else will and explain it

 

Lets continue from there. Now ima put it how it is. There would be certain shit that both would get because both lived it but the person who been through more would look at shit dif (like you said) as well as know shit that the other wouldnt want to. The other person may think that the res person is either weird/messed up or that they grimy as fucc and have mad respect for them.

 

That's if im correct about if you could compare going to a res school and growin up in a 3rd world warzone cuz you would have trauma, fucced up expieriences etc. But Im probably wrong if I am correct me.

 

I guess you could call it a class distinction but it would be more then that too bare times.

 

But the thing is also that it doesnt override race because of the fact that 1st of all no white woman ever went to a res school as a child because of her race. And never faced discrimination because of her race which means that like you said some of it can be understood but not all of it. You could argue that any non-white woman would understand it better esp depending on their childhood circumstances but, probably only someone who went there too could really feel them on that.

 

You could also say a male of color would get a lot of it simply cuz of how shit works.

like my sisters words basically was this "im a blacc woman not a woman who's blacc".

She said more too but yall get the point cuzz

Obviously McEwan's piece should be disseminated as much as possible, but just fyi, rural_Francesca started a thread on it here.

I didn't know it was picked up by the Guardian. Sometimes the Internet is a good place.

Quote:

"Why do you have to take this stuff so personally? ask the intellectual, clever, and engaged men, who have never considered that the content of the abstract exercise that's so much fun for them is the stuff of my life."

How many threads in this particular forum, going right back to the beginning, does that quote bring to mind?

Women of colour have written excellent essays about their experiences of sexism - including from men of colour - so you could start from that. I am thinking, for instance, of Alice Walker's "Coming Apart", a 1979 essay about how. in a sexist/racist world, pornography splits black men from black women, reprinted in Take Back the Night (William Morrow, 1980), that I had the privilege of translating. 

You could also rethink the notion that a sexist man of colour expressing sexism has to be "doing his thing". Is it really his? It could be ingrained privilege and not specific to him or even to men of colour. One thing is certain, white men doing sexismare using the same excuse...

 

 

Thanks for this michelle, I am very very upset, about writer, and the marginalization/exclusion, or attempts to, of women's voices at babble.

I too would like to thank writer for her time and contributions here; and to apologize for having contributed to her sense of unease at least once. 

I'm with Michelle in hoping she'll grace us with her presence again, preferably sooner than later.