Why I write not of men
posted by A White Bear
Anytime any women get together to have a conversation about women's problems, there's always a man there to say, "That happens to men, too!" or "You just want to take away what we have!" or "You have no idea how your feminism makes me feel!" Men who say these things are not feminists. Why do we still listen to them? Why do we bother letting them catch us up in stupid arguments about whether it's worse to be forced to have babies or to be forced to go to war? No one's drawing any comparisons, sweetheart. We're just dealing with these women's issues right now, you see, and if you'd like to help us solve these problems, please do. If you want to go solve the problems of the dominant culture, you're welcome to do so any time of any day. Most men have had the luxury of dealing with their own goddamned problems for, oh, at least 5,000 years.
When feminists get together online or in person to talk about our problems, the focus is on us. If we decide to deal with a different or more specific group's problems, you can bet straight white men's problems are not on the emergency to-do list. We might talk about men of color or gay men or impoverished men, but for some reason, straight white bourgeois men rarely take up a lot of our activist time. Some of us feminists happen to be straight white women who are involved sexually with straight white men. In my love life, I do care for a straight white man and we treat each other with complete respect. In my work, I deal all the time with straight white men, and I treat them all with exactly the respect with which I treat everyone else. But in my activist life, when dealing in abstracts, I don't think, "You know who desperately needs my help today? Straight white dudes."
When men derail a conversation about feminism, they are not interrupting a conversation in which privileged little girls are sitting around bitching to hear our own voices or even to solve our own problems, necessarily. They are often interrupting a conversation in which we are concerned with the least fortunate among us, the ones who have to struggle to get through a day because of who they are. When we talk about abortion rights, it's not because each of us desperately wants to have an abortion. It's because we know that the people who suffer most from abortion bans are almost always poor women of color who don't have anything like reasonable representation in government.
Anyone who has really suffered learns to comfort themselves by thinking, "And yet others have it worse." It is the ugliest of bourgeois privileges to burst into a conversation about discrimination to talk of your own dilemmas, because, somehow, the most privileged person in the room always gets the floor while the others are expected to stand back and say, "Perhaps I've been selfish." It's what they have been told their whole lives, so why should they expect better, even in a "feminist" environment?
Here's a story. When I was in college, I spent over a year in a relationship with someone who tried to kill me, over and over and over. It broke my spirit. I stayed with him because he was mentally ill and I thought that the murderous him wasn't the "real" him. We fought and fought and I wore lots of long sleeves to cover up places where I'd been cut. For two years after I finally got out of this relationship, all I thought was not "poor me" but "poor him." "Is he alive? Has he gotten help? Did I do everything I could?" Of course he's fine. He's a charming young bourgeois white man with a mental disorder and a large family who loves him, so plenty of people want to help him.
Eventually I got to the point where I could think "poor me." I did for a little while, but it wasn't long before I realized that just about every woman I knew had been in some similar situation. It soon became "poor us." But among us, I realized that those women who were not white and/or straight and/or financially self-sufficient had it worse just about all the way down the line. "Poor us" became "I don't even know the half of what it means to hurt for being a woman."
Just a week ago, I was on the phone with a student of mine from a year ago. She's a brilliant young lesbian who will go far in her activist career. She grew up in New York City, and before I knew better, I used to think, "Wow, what a privilege she has to be a lesbian in the most open queer environment in the world! These kids today are great." That was before we started hanging out. From talking to her, I learned that not only has she suffered constant alienation from her family and practically ritualized abuse at the hands of men, but she also gets the shit kicked out of her in public pretty regularly. "Oh, I got jumped last week," she said over the phone. I was frantic. Did she go to the police? Were there passersby to rescue her? "Naw, it happens kinda a lot." What provocative lesbian thing was she doing, you ask? Walking down the street with short hair. A bunch of drunk white guys yelled at her from a block away, "Are you a boy or a girl?" When she didn't answer, they chased her for two blocks, threatening her sexually, and then held her from behind while they punched and kicked her.
The thing that I always must keep in mind is that no matter what happens to me, no matter how many abusive men I know or sexist guys I have to face in my career, I don't have to worry about walking down the street. The most upsetting thing I've ever "come out" about to my conservative parents is that I've chosen not to marry or have my own children. I may not be able to afford fancy rich women's clothes or tanning vacations, but I can make my rent.
There is a reason for the poem "Those Tears." To interrupt a conversation about the struggles faced by an oppressed group is to become the oppressor. As someone who has never had to walk down the street afraid that my haircut will get my ass kicked, as someone who's never been refused a job for not being the right color, as someone who's never faced losing the love of everyone I know just for being who I am, I do not have the right to derail others from talking about these issues, no matter what my own problems are. In fact, it's my job as a feminist to help ensure that a safe space for those conversations exists. It is not my fucking job to ensure at all costs a space for a more dominant culture to discuss their struggles. There is a reason that Blac(k)ademic and Angry Black Bitch and brownfemipower don't sit around talking about how awful straight white men and straight white women have it. We already have representation in newspapers, the magazines, most of the internet, the government, and every public space in America. Do we really need our problems represented in every venue on the planet?
Is it that hard for men who don't care about women's problems to just let us talk? I am delighted to see that so many of the men who read this blog do seem genuinely to care about women's lives. They listen, they ask, and they have in the past listened and asked and read and thought. Thank you for recognizing that women do need to hold conversations about women's issues. I know you already know why I don't post about men.
When feminists get together online or in person to talk about our problems, the focus is on us. If we decide to deal with a different or more specific group's problems, you can bet straight white men's problems are not on the emergency to-do list. We might talk about men of color or gay men or impoverished men, but for some reason, straight white bourgeois men rarely take up a lot of our activist time. Some of us feminists happen to be straight white women who are involved sexually with straight white men. In my love life, I do care for a straight white man and we treat each other with complete respect. In my work, I deal all the time with straight white men, and I treat them all with exactly the respect with which I treat everyone else. But in my activist life, when dealing in abstracts, I don't think, "You know who desperately needs my help today? Straight white dudes."
When men derail a conversation about feminism, they are not interrupting a conversation in which privileged little girls are sitting around bitching to hear our own voices or even to solve our own problems, necessarily. They are often interrupting a conversation in which we are concerned with the least fortunate among us, the ones who have to struggle to get through a day because of who they are. When we talk about abortion rights, it's not because each of us desperately wants to have an abortion. It's because we know that the people who suffer most from abortion bans are almost always poor women of color who don't have anything like reasonable representation in government.
Anyone who has really suffered learns to comfort themselves by thinking, "And yet others have it worse." It is the ugliest of bourgeois privileges to burst into a conversation about discrimination to talk of your own dilemmas, because, somehow, the most privileged person in the room always gets the floor while the others are expected to stand back and say, "Perhaps I've been selfish." It's what they have been told their whole lives, so why should they expect better, even in a "feminist" environment?
Here's a story. When I was in college, I spent over a year in a relationship with someone who tried to kill me, over and over and over. It broke my spirit. I stayed with him because he was mentally ill and I thought that the murderous him wasn't the "real" him. We fought and fought and I wore lots of long sleeves to cover up places where I'd been cut. For two years after I finally got out of this relationship, all I thought was not "poor me" but "poor him." "Is he alive? Has he gotten help? Did I do everything I could?" Of course he's fine. He's a charming young bourgeois white man with a mental disorder and a large family who loves him, so plenty of people want to help him.
Eventually I got to the point where I could think "poor me." I did for a little while, but it wasn't long before I realized that just about every woman I knew had been in some similar situation. It soon became "poor us." But among us, I realized that those women who were not white and/or straight and/or financially self-sufficient had it worse just about all the way down the line. "Poor us" became "I don't even know the half of what it means to hurt for being a woman."
Just a week ago, I was on the phone with a student of mine from a year ago. She's a brilliant young lesbian who will go far in her activist career. She grew up in New York City, and before I knew better, I used to think, "Wow, what a privilege she has to be a lesbian in the most open queer environment in the world! These kids today are great." That was before we started hanging out. From talking to her, I learned that not only has she suffered constant alienation from her family and practically ritualized abuse at the hands of men, but she also gets the shit kicked out of her in public pretty regularly. "Oh, I got jumped last week," she said over the phone. I was frantic. Did she go to the police? Were there passersby to rescue her? "Naw, it happens kinda a lot." What provocative lesbian thing was she doing, you ask? Walking down the street with short hair. A bunch of drunk white guys yelled at her from a block away, "Are you a boy or a girl?" When she didn't answer, they chased her for two blocks, threatening her sexually, and then held her from behind while they punched and kicked her.
The thing that I always must keep in mind is that no matter what happens to me, no matter how many abusive men I know or sexist guys I have to face in my career, I don't have to worry about walking down the street. The most upsetting thing I've ever "come out" about to my conservative parents is that I've chosen not to marry or have my own children. I may not be able to afford fancy rich women's clothes or tanning vacations, but I can make my rent.
There is a reason for the poem "Those Tears." To interrupt a conversation about the struggles faced by an oppressed group is to become the oppressor. As someone who has never had to walk down the street afraid that my haircut will get my ass kicked, as someone who's never been refused a job for not being the right color, as someone who's never faced losing the love of everyone I know just for being who I am, I do not have the right to derail others from talking about these issues, no matter what my own problems are. In fact, it's my job as a feminist to help ensure that a safe space for those conversations exists. It is not my fucking job to ensure at all costs a space for a more dominant culture to discuss their struggles. There is a reason that Blac(k)ademic and Angry Black Bitch and brownfemipower don't sit around talking about how awful straight white men and straight white women have it. We already have representation in newspapers, the magazines, most of the internet, the government, and every public space in America. Do we really need our problems represented in every venue on the planet?
Is it that hard for men who don't care about women's problems to just let us talk? I am delighted to see that so many of the men who read this blog do seem genuinely to care about women's lives. They listen, they ask, and they have in the past listened and asked and read and thought. Thank you for recognizing that women do need to hold conversations about women's issues. I know you already know why I don't post about men.
Posted at 8:32 AM
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