I, too, get tired, because it’s always the same questions, and comes off like someone coming into an advanced cake-decorating class and asking “how do you make icing? Where do I get icing tips? Why won’t you help meeeeeeee?”, except that the class is interrupted constantly by a chorus of people in the back all asking the same question over and over again, though it’s been answered multiple times.

This is what well-meaning men do in these comment threads; it’s not just that they’re asking for a personal education tailored just to them and their needs, they’re asking the same questions that have already been answered. It’s not enough to listen to the current conversation, men need to go back and read previous conversations.

It’s funny that many men get very put off by the refusal to answer basic questions in these spaces, when those self-same men would react with intense mockery and disdain for a newbie coming into their spaces (say, for technological stuff, or video gaming) and asking 101 questions.

All I can surmise is that men assume they deserve the attention, and when a woman tells them something they don’t like, it gets characterized as “yelling”. Once again, women can’t win, because White Male Privilege holds all the cards.

In explaining the difference between simple rudeness and mansplaining, you said:

I described some of my own past rudenesses… [explaining] someone else’s religion to them… But in both cases I was not speaking from a place of privilege… [The Jewish friend] was white middle class and female just like me.

The implication here is that since both you and your friend where white, middle class, and female that you are on a level playing field and therefore it was rudeness and not privilege at work. But there are many more privileges than just race, class, and gender (heterosexual privilege, cissexual privilege, and able-bodied privilege, being few of the more commonly known ones) so saying, “we were both [list of privileges unrelated to the subject]” is not really useful in determining whether or not an action was rooted in privilege, and can easily descend into oppression olympics.

The salient privilege at work here is Christian privilege. Now, I don’t know what religion, if any, you subscribe to. I don’t know whether or not you were coming from a privileged position in that conversation, but a non-Jew explaining Judaism to a Jewish person — even if they are also part of a minority religion (or are an atheist or agnostic) — isn’t just rudeness, it’s Jewsplaining.

It may seem like I’m harping on a non-essential point, especially since the incident caused no ill-will between you and your friend, but as a Jewish person who has grown up with my culture and heritage being constantly marginalized (even by other anti-oppression activists, most of whom overlook Christian privilege) when I saw Judaism being overlooked as a factor in determining privilege I felt the need to speak up.

Fwiw, I live in Berlin and blithely spent the first year not understanding the antisemitism around me. Then I started understanding German. Now, when Jewish tourists tell me how there isn’t any here, I laugh hysterically. For the woman who disn’t see the antisemitism in Poland, I assume she didn’t speak Polish. I was out with a Polish(Catholic) friend when another (Jewish)friend met us, who I introduced as Russian. My Polish friend turned to her husband and said some things about Jews in Polish- when my friend answered in Polish. Lots of embarrassment there.
Racism, sexism, antisemitism, the other -isms: they are there. Its amazing how people who aren’t sensitized call the victims of it oversensitive. Americans (North) seem not to notice it as much, because it’s often not as egregious there. That is, it’s not acceptable to openly revel in it, though it exists withing hearts and minds.

And by mentioning men being attacked by angry feminists, you’re making it all about men again. Just thought I’d mention that.

But currently it is and so I do feel that to have
effective conversation with men about the issue right now it is important for me to keep my feelings way, way, way in check, but I long for the day when they will finally get that just because a woman is passionate about something doesn’t make her irrational, it doesn’t mean you can stop listening to her. If she starts spitting out crazy, wrong ‘facts’ along with her passion, or personally insulting you, then you get to close down and step back, but if what she is saying is true but loud you have to push through and hear and try to understand the reasons behind her anger.

In this context, I read it as a privilege differential. The guys in question (and they were all guys) have often asked good questions and presented good thoughts from their perspective, but in each and every case they have assumed that their personal tuition needs on matters related to sexism and racism takes precedence. It’s like a student in a class of 100 insisting on private tuition from the professor immediately. I wonder if that differential in learning expectations lies at the heart of some of those unintentional blog derailings.

It’s a quandary. How do the well-intentioned get the style of learning they’re used to, without reinforcing underlying problems?

http://www.uakron.edu/centers/conflict/docs/whitepriv.pdf

The first part is increasing awareness without freaking out about it. (Which is also useful if you have writing inclinations.) Male actors can show up on the red carpet, for instance, in a decent suit and whatever their build or appearance, they’re set. But female actors even in their sixties, like Helen Mirren, will still be judged by what they are wearing, how young and sexy they still look, etc. From the time she is young, every girl is very clear that the first and quite often foremost thing she will be judged on is her appearance. Whether she is a tomboy or becomes a business executive or astronaut, the chief thing that will be focused on is how cute and sexy she is or isn’t (including critical kudos for actresses who “uglify” themselves for a role.) And for non-whites, the situation is much the same with regards to their skin color.

In John Scalzi’s blog, we tried to have a conversation about it one time, and there was unfortunately a woman who was very angry and strident, which didn’t help the conversation, but that was partly because the men in the conversation used her stridency (acting like a man instead of us more reasonable and less confrontational women,) to therefore discount and negate what she was saying. The argument was over a joke that had been told involving Princess Leia costumes and a parallel was made by the guys to a Mac computer ad using supermodel Gisele Budchen. Both were funny but were about the desirability of women in sexy clothing for straight men versus guys in women’s clothing.

These were nice guys, who saw their female partners as equals, so they frantically mansplained that no women should be offended by the joke because it was making fun of men in the Princess Leia costume in contrast to women in the Princess Leia costume, and the fact that the joke and the humor in the Mac commercial relied on the idea of the beautiful, sexy woman was incidental. We had analyses of humor theory and everything. They enlisted the help of sympathetic gay guys in the conversation. It was in fact possibly the most extensive example of mansplaining I’ve encountered. By feminist guys. Because they were really uncomfortable with some women not liking and being angry at the joke and other women not being upset at the joke and being huge fan of Princess Leia, but still noting the sexist aspect of it.

So the next thing is a willingness to accept female anger and exasperation without trying to deflect or minimize it. And that’s really hard, and no one is perfect at it, but it will count for a lot. So when you are analyzing a piece of literature in class, look at what roles the female characters may be forced into, even in a contemporary story, at what the constraints on them are there that aren’t on men. And in most works of fiction, female characters are given more detailed physical descriptions than male ones are, which is something you can look for and comment on. And it might not hurt to read some of the articles by females who used to write for the late night shows who talked about about their experiences after the Letterman scandal, because those show you some of the Catch-22 situations women can be in in terms of social interaction, which are also often reflected in fiction.

(Apologies for the length of the post.)

Firstly just wanted to say that there is no need to apologise at all. I really didn’t read any hostility in your reply to me, and was very glad that you took the time to write it.

In response to the content of your post though, I think I should probably clarify something from my own post. First, I think listening can teach anybody a whole lot of things. It doesn’t, however, necessarily teach someone the answer to their question if the answer to their question is not being talked about. In the discussion that was going on I was certainly learning a lot about men who were capitalising upon their privilege to be assholes, but not about my (related-to-what-Justine-had-said) question. So I asked.

I don’t know if learning through discussion is an especially ‘masculine’ way to learn, but it’s certainly a very ‘me’ way of learning. And we all learn differently – that’s cool. I’m studying to be a teacher so I understand that people learn in different ways. I don’t think I was combative, simply curious (though you may disagree?). I know it might be frustrating and boring for women who have to give the Feminism 101 talk hundreds and hundreds of times, but I was asking for extrapolation on something Justine had hinted at in the blog, so I thought it was relevant to ask for her opinion – which I thought was an okay thing to do.

I was about to say there aren’t any “feminism 101” books out there, but a quick Google search will come up with a lot of links, lol. That said, pretty much all of these things are just the individual writer’s opinions. I was hoping to engage in a discussion with a writer who I have an immense deal of respect for, and who I know is well versed in these issues (both academically and practically), but clearly the kind of post I made is a kind that frustrates Justine – so I decided not to post again in that particular thread.

On the opportunity for discussion, while I agree that our culture doesn’t make enough room for bringing up the issue of feminism – the same goes for a lot of controversial issues. This is, basically, because most people (myself included) don’t know how one goes about bringing these issues up in a sensitive fashion? “So… you’re a poc/a woman/gay/Muslim/Jewish/have a disability… how’s that working out for you?”*

And while we live in a culture that does unfairly suppress the female voice, when discussions of feminism are actively brought up, well, let’s just say that not everybody is as diplomatic as the people who post/are allowed to post on this blog. Men often (not all the time, but often enough in my experience) end up getting verbally attacked, which has a tendency to turn off our responsiveness to polite and intellectual discussion. This isn’t to say it happens all the time and that all women are rude (as with Justine and men, I know some extremely wonderful women in this regard), but as is with any sensitive issue one is tentative to actively bring it up – especially if they fear that they might not know what to say and might inadvertently offend someone. Maybe this fear is unfounded and unreasonable? Who knows…

Anyway, thank you once again for being great with your response. I really do mean that – I’m glad you took the time to answer my questions and talk to me.

@Claire: I think you may have misunderstood Bookewyrm’s analogy. What I understood from it** was that it was a hypothetical scenario where a man was hired instead of a woman because the employer thought he was the most qualified and best person for the job (ie. had the academic qualifications, had the experience needed and/or conducted a better interview etc) and that gender was not a factor.

I believe what Bookewyrm was saying was that in such a scenario where one is the rejected woman and where one doesn’t know the reason they were overlooked for the job, it might tempting for to cry sexism. However, reading sexism into a scenario when one doesn’t know the motivations of the employer is not necessarily accurate, helpful or fair for the employers. It might even prove counterproductive to breaking systemic discrimination if one was to vocally accuse someone of being sexist when they really weren’t. I know I’d be extremely upset if someone accused me of sexism like that when I was most definitely not being sexist (a hypothetical, employer version me this is). It might just entrench the (extremely unfair) stereotype of all feminists as unreasonable, rude and highly emotive in the minds of those listening to the woman’s cries.

So the point is that without knowledge of why they overlooked the woman it might be entirely possible that sex was a factor (which, if true, is certainly unacceptable), but it’s also entirely possible that it was not. And it’s certainly unfair to actively accuse someone of sexism without knowing their motivations.

*Okay so obviously that’s hyperbole, but most of the time it feels a bit like that.
**And I may be completely and utterly wrong, so Bookewyrm – please correct me if I am.

If you’re really interested in learning, all you have to do is research. It’s all out there. Google, for example, “male privilege” or “feminism 101,” and you can learn a lot on your own.

Colin, I definitely recommend you read “Unpacking the Knapsack” and “The Male Privilege Checklist,” and I’m even linking to them to make it easier for you.

White is a race, and male is a sex. Anyone who has a race can experienced racism. Anyone who has a sex can experienced sexism.

Most bartenders don’t treat paying customers so outstandingly badly. When they do, it is ALMOST ALWAYS because they want to get a power trip out of making a customer who can’t fight back uncomfortable. And why did they choose this particular customer? Usually because of something about the customer’s appearance that declares her to be lower status or socially weak. When men do it to women, it is usually out of sexism. When whites do it to poc, it is usually out of racism.

My point with this story was not that she was wrong, but that she was RIGHT IN GENERAL PRINCIPLES, AND WRONG IN THIS PARTICULAR. But my story also illustrated something else: the people who challenged my friend’s interpretation of this incident were FELLOW WOMEN OF COLOR. We were able to see that her interpretation was correct in general principles while being incorrect in this one particular. And because of this discussion, the white male friend with us learned something he never would have otherwise.

And Justine’s response to me was pretty much spot on: always be careful because intentions are pretty hard to parse out.

An example would be, hiring a man over a woman, not because he’s a man but just because he’s better qualified. If I was the man, and didn’t get hired (and knew about it, which of course is unlikely) I’d be pissed. And you would think that the woman would be reasonable enough to realize she just wasn’t as highly qualified as said man and let it go. But some women immediately cry “sexism” in that situation. And that tells the employer that hiring women is not a good idea, because they’re too much trouble, and therefore makes it harder for the rest of us.

Okay, *deep breath*. How the hell would YOU know what an employer was looking for? How do you know that the employer isn’t specifically looking to hire a woman because they’ve been having a hell of a time appealing to female markets and are finally copping to the fact that having no women managers was exactly why they had this problem? How do you know that the employer wasn’t looking at the woman’s, say, lesser experience in the workplace and was rather more interested in the woman’s greater volunteer experience … say because they were looking to hire someone to manage their pro bono work? How do you know that you didn’t rub EVERYONE the wrong way during the hiring process and the supposedly less qualified woman got along with everyone like gangbusters? Or you didn’t seem to get the company’s mission and she did? Or you didn’t seem to have any vision and she had it oozing from her pores?

You’ve obviously never been in a position to hire somebody, or you wouldn’t imply anything so ignorant of the hiring process as that there is only one, single. universal set of criteria in operation when a person gets hired. All that matters in terms of looks-good-on-paper criteria is that a person is qualified, and NOT that a person is “more qualified” than everyone else. Once you’ve established a field of qualified people, then the questions go more in this direction: who can contribute most to our institutional culture, and whom do we need the most? And for many enlightened employers, yet another high-scoring, white man isn’t always the answer to those two questions.

Also the idea that men don’t have the opportunity for these discussions is a rather skewed way of looking at things, I personally am bursting to have a serious conversation with men about feminism/sexism but it’s impossible because men don’t create the space for these kind of conversations. It’s either never brought up, brushed off if it is, or derailed so women can’t talk about it. The opportunity for learning about this kind of thing is there – if you want to know what you should do simply ask ‘what should or shouldn’t I do’ and wait for answers that you can listen to.

I realise that may sound rather hostile (and yes I’m totally apologising for myself which makes me feel icky, but that ingrained ‘please like me’ thing some up again) especially as I think you’re coming from a good place looking to learn, but you say you want to hear what women think about engaging in a dialogue and this is what one woman feels right now.

First, I want to thank you very much for not deleting my posts in the previous thread. Considering the record number of posts you’ve had to delete I’m very glad you allowed my posts to stay (even if only so they could be examples of what you would consider ‘what not to do’ posts). I would also like to thank Scott and the various other commenters for taking the time to reply to me – all in a very courteous manner. It really did help me understand better.

Since this post is a discussion-about-the-discussion, I was wondering if it would be alright if I brought up why I decided to post in the previous thread despite being a man? I don’t know what the other deleted comments by men were like, but my post was out of genuine curiosity about what kind of behaviour is appropriate for a man in discussions about sexism/racism/etc. Inevitably IRL these discussions do come up, and particularly when I have to engage in them for things like university I can’t simply sit back and not say anything at all (like, literally – many of these courses have participation marks). And this asking links in to my next point (which is relevant to both the previous post and this one, and is more of a question than a point) – how do we learn if we cannot ask?

When someone is discussing you or groups to which you belong, it’s all well and fine to suggest listening – which is what I was doing (or trying to do) – but sitting back and listening doesn’t necessarily teach me what I need to know. The vast majority of the discussion by women on the previous thread was sharing stories of male d-baggery. The solidarity oppressed people find in sharing such stories is extremely helpful with coping with the unfortunate state of the world, and it gives me examples of how I shouldn’t respond, but not always about how I should in certain situations.

If I’m genuinely interested in knowing more and engaging in two-sided discussion – isn’t that a good thing? Is there a more appropriate place to ask questions about privilege than a thread about privilege? Sure, I could write about them on my own blog where me and two other people might read it, but if there’s a discussion with passionate and interested parties participating I’m going to get more answers there. I don’t think such questions are derailing threads off women and putting them on to men because while the threads may be about the female experience of men, it’s still the female experience of men.

What’s the point of talking about me if you won’t talk to me? What does that achieve? Though women have to essentially live Feminism 101 every day, most men don’t get a lot of opportunity to discuss this kind of thing. If discussions of feminism are reserved only for women, then where can men find out about the structures that privilege them in society? Like Kate said, wouldn’t it be great if more men were eager to discuss sexism?

So… yeah. There were a lot of questions in there, and I hope that my tone came across as curious and interested instead of patronising because, again, curiosity is why I asked these questions. I’m genuinely interested in the answers. I totally understand the frustration (or boredom) one would feel from someone telling them that certain behaviour isn’t sexist, especially if they try to reverse-sexism you. You’re also well within your rights to delete any comments you want to on your own blog (particularly rude and offensive ones), but I’m finding it difficult to wrap my head around the idea that well-intentioned people wanting to learn more is a bad thing.

Anyway, this post is already long enough – thanks for taking the time to read it.

Justine suggests that we privilege-bearers “want to be told that you’re the exception to all those bad nasty men” (or whites), but this is only half the story. In fact what many people want to be told is that they are victims, too. Not out of compassion or empathy but because victims get sociological (if not in fact literal) handouts, the value of which is exacted from the legacies of people who worked and fought and even died to put themselves and their descendants in a favorable position.

I bear no responsibility for the “unearned privileges” society affords me based on the color of my skin. I will take every advantage that is offered me, earned or unearned, as would any other rational human being. The world is enough against us.

And so I cannot blame anyone for turning victimhood and pity and guilt to their advantage through clever rhetorical tricks like the myth of “privilege.” But let’s not pretend it’s some kind of egalitarian dream being preached by benevolent scholars for the good of the human race as a whole. It is an attempt to conquer the conquerors by making them ashamed of the remarkable world their forebears have built, through their strength and ingenuity.

A while ago, I went on a Jewish tour of Poland, and got into a disagreement with some other members of the trip. I couldn’t believe every Polish person who stared at us or yelled something at us was necessarily an anti-semite! I was told I was just naive. I did see some nasty graffiti in Jewish cemetaries there, I know problems exist. But I came home from the trip saying I only saw a few small instances of anti-semetic graffiti, while someone else on the same trip with the same experiences came home telling everyone how she just couldn’t believe how obvious and virulent the antisemetism was. Who’s right?

And now I’ve just done what you mentioned- taking a general problem and applying my own personal story to it. Human nature, there you go.

Also it wasn’t the comments that I let through that were the problem more the ones I didn’t. I am letting everything through in this post to give people an idea of what kind of responses you generate when you try to talk about gender, race or class. Though, of course, now that I’m letting them through there are fewer egregious ones. Always the way.

Little side excursions into Feminism 101 are pretty much inevitable. And anyone who’s read my blog for any amount of time will know I’ve engaged in it many many times. (Used to be an academic, didn’t I?)

Rebekah: Feel free. All my posts on this blog are for public consumption. All I ask is that you acknowledge the source. I’m dead chuffed that you think it will be useful!

As a white man, I know that I’ve benefited in all kinds of ways from gender and race privilege, and that I need to try to keep that into account whenever I join a conversation about those subjects. That said, it can sometimes be frustrating and uncomfortable to be told that certain discussions or virtual spaces “just aren’t for you” and that your contributions are automatically less valuable. It feels just a little bit too similar to the former bastions of white, male exclusivity that people have rightly been busting open for decades now.

I don’t think Ms. Larbalestier is discounting the validity of contributions of people from within privileged groups when speaking of the oppression that comes from said privilege, but rather that not having to worry about it has slightly blinded them to its effects, and that oftentimes, a privileged party (say, a man) explaining how something couldn’t possibly be discriminatory (sexist) to the oppressed party (women) is often exhibiting said discriminatory element by feeling entitled to lecture someone on something they don’t have to worry about/have probably never experienced. Privileged parties should engage in discussions on discrimination, but they shouldn’t automatically assume correctness on an issue as they have not had to live with that discrimination, and comandeering the discussion is just another form of it.

That bartender in the other anecdote, for instance. How does he pick who he’s going to be deliberately rude to that evening from his positon of power as the owner who cannot be fired? It’s got to be at least partly on appearance. Sure, he may pick a white guy to be rude to because he doesn’t like his clothes or attitude or reminds him of someone he didn’t like in high school. But choosing the Asian woman that night may very well have been because she is an Asian woman, even if he also tortures white guys.

So the guy who is having a bad day and so acts like a jerk, that person did not think, hey, this is a woman, non-white, etc. person from a disadvantaged group and so I shouldn’t take my anger out on this particular person because they have to deal with this sort of thing all the time from others? Nope, the need of the white guy to vent his anger takes precedence, without even thinking about it, how such a venting is likely to hurt the woman or non-white more than a white guy because they do run into these attacks more often and are more vulnerable to that type of abuse. And who’s to say that the white male having a bad day didn’t, consciously or unconsciously, pick the woman or non-white to vent on, to be the last straw, because the woman or non-white was a safer target than a white man would be to be rude to.

It’s not about blame. It’s not a game of gotcha, though I agree that conversations can turn into that. It’s about seeing that people in other groups are regularly vulnerable to abuse, are more sensitive to it and that you may accidentally and thoughtlessly contribute to it because you don’t notice or feel what they do. That when you have, by birth, the loudest voice that is most listened to, you try to be more aware of the potential impact in using it, and try to listen to the less loud voices without dismissing their complaints. And from that, we get a society in which more voices are heard.