[this is written with no one in particular in mind; it's a response to a composite of events that have happened in general. so relax.]
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Things are a little messy right now. To the point where we can all kinda laugh at it (I hope).
Lately, I'm not prone to discussion or graceful acceptance. If you know me well, you know (hopefully) that this is not my norm; I hate feeling so volatile, and so guilty for it. I'm told it'll pass, and good god, it'd better, because more often than not, lately, I really can't stand myself, and I hardly blame you if you can't, either. I miss my objectivity; I miss the parts of me that invested in making sure everyone felt heard, not as much for the sake of kum-ba-ya as for the fact that safety, openness, and vulnerability are the foundation of real, honest communication, and within that framework is where real dialogue, real connection, real bonds occur, when people really challenge each other, and really learn from each other, all within a context that values safety and respect. All coffee-table talk of world-changing ideas aside: this place is where the world changes.
Admittedly, I'm dealing with the after-effects of a lot of trauma right now, and it informs the way I interact with most things. I am apparently a poster child for post-traumatic stress; when, on the advice of a therapist, I read the following description, I actually laughed out loud in half delight/half relief/half horror (it's math, you see):
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| they should edit this to add "extremely scattered writing" |
So, yeah, when we're discussing a topic that can be as touchy as sexism, I'm coming at it from a disadvantage right now, because lately, if I am nothing else, I am touchy, if by touchy, I actually mean irrationally, explosively murderous. Something to work on.
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I know there will always be people who consider a feminist resistance to sexism overreacting; there's always going to be someone who will call me a dyke for offering my name and saying you can call me Lisa, not 'sweetheart.' Always be guys who, upon first meeting a well-spoken woman with a strong personality, will immediately think I bet she's a great lay and will value her solely at that level. Always be that guy who decides to ratchet up his rage because you dared loudly call him out for being grabby. Always be rapists. Yeah, the lines between all these behaviors are thinner, and more blurred, than you'd think. And maybe it's defeatist, but I honestly don't see these things changing.
And I really don't get bent out of shape over it often (and, just so we're all on the same page: calling it out when it happens is not the same thing as getting bent out of shape). I'm a freakin chef working in the freakin food industry; if every person needling me with sexist humor truly got under my skin, I'd have track marks from here to you.
When it comes to sexism, I find that I've somehow shifted from think what you like, and please feel free to tell me about it, so we can dialogue and learn from each other to think what you like, and keep it to your damn self.
Because a lot has happened to me. Some recent, some not; some of it is your business, and some of it isn't. I don't bring it up, because I'm not fit to discuss it right now. So that's on me.
But my instantly-angry reaction when someone attempts to shame me (that's what you get) for being angry with jokes at a system of treatment that makes things like dyke and groping and rape and denied opportunities okay, a system that necessitates I demand to be called by my own name and not whatever sexy nickname someone else dreams up for me:
What I would say to The Universal You is: Think what you want, but keep it to yourself, for the foreseeable future.
Because whether you want to believe it or not: Depending on your background (everyone's is different), there's a lot of complication in being born a girl, and there's a lot of conflict in being raised in a tradition that constantly tells you you're inferior.
Can you imagine it? Being born to a father who penalizes you for how you operate as a person - he sees it as in spite of your gender, while you see it as the skin you live in. To this day, you're penalized for complicating his life, his sense of order, his hard-held ideas; you're penalized for being the face of his fascinated hatred for women; although there are no "good" women in his world, you, in particular, just won't behave.
Can you imagine it? Being born to a mother with narrow ideas of femininity, who rejects.
Can you imagine it? Growing up in a culture that prizes your compliance, while despising and/or sexualizing your power. Your niceness, while despising the way your point of view complicates the big picture. Your virginity while despising your sexuality. Your beauty, while vilifying or penalizing you for it.
Joke at me about it. Go ahead. I'll wait right here. Every time, Universal You, you resent me and want me to bear the burden for your discomfort when I don't laugh. Every time it's just emotionally, physically easier to force a chuckle and don't make a thing, just let it pass.
Would you ask a Black person to laugh at a "nigger" joke?
Would you chide him or her to "lighten up" at references about separate drinking fountains or monkey jokes?
Would you expect him or her to laugh at your joking about a Latino person's unsuitability for a particular job, by virtue of ethnicity?
Would you expect them to grant you a courtesy chuckle, for your own sake, so you can absolve yourself of knowing that you're behaving like a person who makes light of generations of oppression and torment?
Would you dismiss their disdain with geez, so touchy; that's just how They are?
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| This has nothing to do with anything; it just makes me laugh. |
You're not making a joke, Universal You. You're making light of some of the most painful, and most formative, themes of my life; you're making light of the work it takes to shed those themes and become who I really am. Those themes don't mean the same to you, and that's fine. But The crux of it is: It doesn't matter if I know you don't mean it. It's not about you. It's about what you're saying, and what it means to me. And you don't get to decide what things mean to me; you don't get to bank on your reputation as a "nice person" mitigating the horror what you're joking about. Most important advice, for anything, anywhere: Consider your audience.
And, like so many things that have happened in my recent life, this is all I ask: If you can't understand, then believe me when I tell you.
My days of welcoming dialogue on this subject are done, or, at least, suspended. Because while part of me knows that there's still so much talking to be done, and really, that's where my heart is - most of me is just plain damn NOT TALKING ABOUT THIS ANYMORE IN TWO THOUSAND FREAKING THIRTEEN.
That is all.
And if you've read this, and are now shaking your head at my overreactions to things that are harmless: don't ever tell me so.
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