Co-opting the Discussion.

[pyrephox]

I've been thinking for a bit about the tendency of some men in discussions about the difficulties women face to 'take over' the discussion, or 'turn it around' and make it about men's issues and problems. First of all, this is REALLY annoying, so my first thoughts were pretty much, "Grr. Stop doing that."

However, being of a psychologist's bent, I'm fascinated enough by thought patterns that I wanted to really think about why this happens. It is the easy answer to say, "They do it because they're uncomfortable with the discussion being about women's issues, and refocus it on men as an unconscious expression of male privilege." And, yeah, I suspect that quite often, there's a lot of that in play. However, I wonder if there aren't other issues coming in, as well, particularly when we see this happening with men who are, on the whole, allies to feminist ideas.

I suspect that there's a step-ladder of consciousness raising in male feminism (and take everything further with the caveat that I ain't a guy). First is the idea that women are not treated equally in blatant ways (rape, shut out of jobs, assaulted and insulted, etc.) and that this is wrong. This tends to be a pretty basic understanding, but it can still be a revelation if you came from a certain kind of background. Second is the idea that there are inherent, systemic issues that shape the way we discriminate people based on sex...and that these affect men adversely as well. This is when the male feminist starts to realize that gender roles don't just oppress and limit women, but men as well. Not just his mother, girlfriend, sister, daughter, or friend, but /him/. This is a necessary awakening, I think, for a full understanding of and advocacy against gender discrimination.

However, I also suspect that there's a time period, varying by person, where some people get stuck there. They start seeing every issue regarding feminist ideals by how it also affects men, and thus their own lives. To be charitable, this is a way to internalize the damage that is done, and an attempt to relate to their female allies suffering through a shared experience. And, for men in the stages of awakening gender consciousness, there can be a tremendous urge to share how the status quo affects them: how it feels to know that their female friends probably, at some point, wondered (if only for a moment) if they could be a rapist. How it feels to be mocked for showing too much emotion, or the role-inappropriate emotion. How the rape of males is downplayed, or even a source of humor. And all the ways that, yes, our current gender inequality hurts men as well as women.

Unfortunately, it's the /third/ level of consciousness where a male feminist tends to realize that there are times and places for those discussions, but the varying social context behind the silencing or coopting of women's concerns means that what might have consciously be meant as an attempt to relate and support ends up being a dismissal or downplaying action. (Of course, if someone doesn't get this after having it calmly explained, or insists that it might be like that when Those Guys do it, but not when HE does it, then there's a bigger problem than delayed growth). In the third level, male feminists understand that women need a place to talk about women's issues...because all too often, everything else in the world ends up being about men's issues, whether it started out that way or not.

And, then, somewhere in here is the progression between understanding that pointing out that an action, culture or subculture has a strong, female-hostile streak is not necessarily a condemnation of individual members of that culture, but rather of systemic properties of the cultural norms that make it more likely for women to be made to feel uncomfortable or unwelcome...and thus, protestations of How You're Not Like That and kneejerk defense of the good intentions of members of the subculture are pretty much less than useless. Because, quite often, sexism (racism/classism/and other forms of unwarranted discrimination) isn't about what you do deliberately and with malice aforethought...but what you fall back on when you're /not/ thinking.

Comments

[cpip.livejournal.com]

So what's the recommended solution, other than a terribly irritating constant cycle of self-examination lest something that might just be perceived as unwarrantedly discriminatory slip through? For if the system so ingrained in us, must we never relax vigilance?

[archangelbeth]

I'm betting... Once again, it becomes context-dependent. Someone with a history of "not doing X" gets cut more slack for accidentally doing X. Someone with a history of being cool about being told, "Hey, you're doing X -- quit, 'kay?" gets fewer angry "quiddit!" responses. Someone with a history of being persistently oblivious and unchanging or not taking criticism well... does not get that slack.

There are a lot of squeaky wheels around who are just so bloody angry that yes, being really quiet and self-examining is the safest thing to do. (Not all women, not all self-identifying feminists, think the same way; there are some very squeaky wheels who are way beyond what I think is reasonable, because they are just that hurt, angry, and/or scared.) There's probably a larger, quieter group who only occasionally get so angry that there's no good answer that doesn't involve "here is the controls to the death ray I built and put in orbit; shoot at anyone you want," and that group... I dunno. I think that's the group which wants sincerity and trying. Just identifying habits (physical or speech) and changing them to ones that aren't likely to be considered dangerous/diminishing/whatever, say, or adding new ones to try to change the environment around you...

Habit making and breaking -- as pyrephox says, "what you fall back on when you're /not/ thinking."

If that makes sense?

[cpip.livejournal.com]

Ultimately, though, isn't EVERYTHING context-dependent? So if you have to know someone's history before knowing what it is you're saying, to know if what you're saying MAY be troublesome...

Of course, that's really the problem with humanity in general, is that words have only the meaning the listener assigns.

So if you know that invariably, SOMETHING is going to offend SOMEONE... it can be really, really tempting to quit trying to edit yourself to match the desires of the audience.

[archangelbeth]

Well, it depends on why you're trying to change your habits, too. Are you doing it because you believe the world would be a better place? Because someone will like you better? Because someone will respect you better? To win praise? To feel better about yourself?

Sometimes, the best way to get out of a nasty conversation is a fast, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend you. I'll be going now." Or, if you can't escape, "I'm sorry, I didn't say that right. I'll shut up now." (With the sincere tone and not the "halp, halp, I'm being oppressed!" one, of course!) If you make a habit of "lurking" in a conversation till you find out who's just Too Angry To Cut Anyone Slack, then you don't get bit.

And, yes, it's work. I fear that that the angry response is "so cry me a river." I don't know if verbal/social skills do come more easily to females or if they're socialized that way more intensely. (I'm having to give my socially dyslexic daughter really overt instruction in things like personal space, and other stuff that kids -- especially little girls -- are apparently supposed to get instinctively. Ha. Ha.)

You have the privilege that, if you feel that the work isn't worth what it might do in the rest of the world, you don't have to alter your communication strategies, or even think about them unless they're really outrageous. Me? I get to try to teach communication strategies to my kid, and wonder if her teacher'd be meebling about holding her back a grade if she were a boy, or if it'd be a "boys will be boys; they're just not as socially ept as girls" thing.

No way to tell. *sigh* But either way, I don't really have the luxury of failing to teach my kid how to communicate when those about her aren't willing to adapt to her. Which sucks, because I am an introvert and no social butterfly and at least half the social networking that women are supposed to do so easily... is no more understandable to me than Swahili. I'm crabby.

[pyrephox.livejournal.com]

Archangel pretty much nails it.

The best bet is just that if someone says, "We're not talking about guys right now, we're talking about women," you just shrug and accept it. Because, usually, it's not just someone bringing up men's issues that gets the rain of fire brought on their head, it's when someone does point out that this conversation is not about that, and then the guy gets all huffy and "reverse sexism!" that the flames start coming out.

[cpip.livejournal.com]

Well, that's why I don't normally get involved in these discussions if I can help it in the first place. It strikes me rather as sticking a hand into a dark hole. Maybe there's a snake, maybe there's a bear trap, maybe it's just going to get your hand muddy, but it's highly unlikely to get you anything you want out of it.

[maladaptive.livejournal.com]

Well, it's really a matter of "does it matter, in this context?" If I talk about the sexualization of women in video games (to pull up a recent example I blogged about) it's one thing to say "yeah, it assumes that men don't care about character depth because apparently men are dumb" and another to insist that it's not an issue because "men are shirtless and attractive which is the same thing as the hypersexualized female figures." Y'know?

But yeah, you pretty much always have to pay attention to what you say-- everyone has to do it, because it's always like sticking your hand in a dark hole. And you have to sit and think if you get corrected. Sometimes you might dismiss the correction as dumb, but you still thought about it.

[cpip.livejournal.com]

Hm. Or you could go the path of just saying what you think.

I'm not sure I agree with the path of absolute honesty, but it would make for an interesting experiment ... for someone else to try.

[undauntra.livejournal.com]

I suspect that when men try to change the subject of a discussion about women's issues to a discussion about men's issues, it's nothing so fancy as male privilege. People, male or female, like to talk about themselves. They like to be the center of attention. And they don't like to be marginalized by discussions that explicitly exclude their concerns.

[chayatapa.livejournal.com]

Well said.

[tearraws.livejournal.com]

I agree with you that, not only is people stealing conversational topics away in general very rude and frustrating, but especially on topics such as this, where there's a very real problem that gets stolen away by an attitude which helps to contribute to that very problem. All of these points you make are very valid points, and very true reasons why men do such things.

However, that being said, I'd also like to point out that they're all *negative*. I don't like it when *all* the reasons come out negative, because people rarely do things for solely negative reasons. I usually like to try to look for a more understandable reason why people do things, more sympathetic. Give people the benefit of the doubt - and while I agree, many men do this action for exactly these reasons, I feel there are many, less reprehensible reasons that they do this.

You've even touched on several of them, without realizing it.

They feel uncomfortable, or unwelcome. And because sexism is about what you fall back on when you're /not/ thinking.

When speaking on sexism and discrimination, how many men might we alienate if we ignore men's issues? If we make men feel like their own problems are ignored, or not thought about? I understand, of course, that historically and currently, women are vastly more mistreated than men, but if we want to look for understanding, should we not show understanding, as well?

No, they're not doing the right thing when they steal a topic of discussion like that ... but how often does their subject get brought up in the first place? What subjects get the most attention, and the most discussion? Yes, men's issues, historically and currently, have gotten the most attention, mostly because men dominate all the most discussion-prompting fields of discussion (which is, itself, a subject of sexism), but specifically on sexism, we'll find that these days, it is rather reversed. I have frequently heard men bring up how women are mistreated. I have almost never heard women bring up how men are mistreated.

I don't like it when the discussion gets co-opted, no. I find it rude. I find it to be a problem, in how it distracts from the worse problems. It shouldn't happen. And many of the reasons it happens are bad. But I don't think it's entirely fair to make *all* the reasons be bad ones, because obviously they're finding things distressing, too. We need to understand each other, that understanding needs to go both ways, and while the frustration and even concern at how the conversation is being stolen away is very valid, and obviously we want men to empathize with what women have to go through... we also want this to be an equal thing.

I'm nervous bringing this up. I often word things poorly, when it comes to politics rather than fiction. It's a touchy topic, and part of me is scared that, by even bringing up this topic, I'm just helping to contribute to a problem. :( Or co-dependently 'cleaning up' after a mess they're making. But I always try to look at things fairly, and give people the benefit of the doubt.

However, to look at things positively rather than negatively... to look at what to do better instead of what not to do...

We have this problem - the stealing of a conversation. If we focus on negative reasons why men do this, we're likely to just alienate the ones doing it, all the more. If, however, we focus not on the men doing it, but instead on the reasons why it makes the problem worse, we can take those sympathetic men who don't realize that they're doing something wrong, and help them to understand why it's wrong, and why they shouldn't do it. We can try to make a positive impact by helping them understand, instead of just throwing blame and possibly driving them away.

Does that make sense at all? Or am I just over-thinking this, and making the situation worse?

[pyrephox.livejournal.com]

Not at all.

And, honestly, I was trying to portray something other than just the negative; like I said, I think that the revelation that men ARE hurt by gender inequality is an important thing. And I think there /should/ be spaces where men are welcomed to speak of these issues.

What tends to be the problem, though, is when men come into discussions about women's issues and co-opt...and then refuse to understand what they're doing. And it's that latter part that's the real problem, more than just wanting to share how that issue affects them.

I wasn't trying to be entirely negative, but it did end up like that, I fear.

[tearraws.livejournal.com]

(breathes a sigh of relief)

Thank you for understanding. I was so nervous about posting that, my stomach was tied up in knots.

I understand exactly what you're saying. I've seen it happen, myself. Sometimes it's appropriate, if the conversation is specifically about 'this only happens to women', which I've also seen, but there's also quite a few times where the men just assume that, since the topic is under conversation, obviously it must be assuming it doesn't happen to men.

And as far as rape discussions, unless it's the 'men are all inherent predators' claptrap, there's really no point for any man to pipe up, "Men get raped too!" It's a small fraction of the number of women who get raped, and the number of women rapists are a tiny fraction of the number of male rapists. It's like saying, "you don't jump out of an airplane without a parachute! You'll die!" And they go, "Well, there was that one guy in World War II ... or, if you're still on the ground..." It just makes you want to give 'em the good ol' comic-book 'smack' upside the head.

I think that's probably why it's so easy to focus on the negative. Because it *is* so annoying, because it's frustrating, because it effectively takes what can be a very good conversation, and derails it entirely, and it happens over and over again. I think more than honest-to-goodness problems, more than ethics, more than morals, frustration is really one of the biggest driving factors in why we all do things, in this world. Frustration turns what we know, in our head, to be wrong, and flares it up in our hearts for some sort of action.

[chayatapa.livejournal.com]

Honestly? While I understand the need to have space to discuss the reality of issues that disproportionately affect women without the discussion being co-opted by egocentric men, I think that ultimately, the ghettoizing of "women's issues" is counterproductive.

At the risk of appearing to co-opt your discussion, I'm a "man", sure. I have a Y chromosome. But defining my experience as a human being as "men's" issues (unless they are clearly issues particular to being male) not only objectifies me, but objectifies all men and women by suggesting that women and men are somehow qualitatively different in their needs and desires, that their viewpoints are determined primarily by their physical sex, which seems to me to be fundamentally at odds with post-positive feminism. I don't identify with most of the definitions of the "male" gender; I don't feel as if it defines me as a person or my experience of the world, except for how society might react to my physical appearance and my non-gender-typed behaviour.

What am I saying? That yes, there needs to be safe space for everyone to be heard, especially if their physical sex creates unique issues in their lives. I understand that it's frustrating when women's issues or queer issues get co-opted by people who don't necessarily share their experiences or their social position. But ultimately I don't think feminism will have been successful until everyone recognizes that "women's issues" are actually equally important to everyone, and that "feminism" really means "gender equality".