"To quote John Lennon, 'I don't believe in -isms, I just believe in me.' " - Ferris Bueller

[digitaldiscipline]

I am going to commit a great taboo, and kick over what may be a large and messy can of legless invertebrates here, and discuss the F-word at some length.

No, not "fuck." (What the fuck, are you new?)

Feminism.

So, chernobylred has this LJ icon. She is smart and interesting and says things worth reading; you should check her LJ out[1].

I find myself, if not actually embroiled in feminist struggles (which, by dint of my gender, I think I can reasonably and rightly be excluded from; other than being a short and somewhat bald atheist, I'm about as steeped in positional privilege as one is apt to be), then at least getting behind the car and pushing, if not at least standing nearby and cheering folks fighting that fight on and offering to behead those who wrongly oppose them. The entry linked there was not the beginning of this journey, but it's certainly an obvious splashdown, and link-chasing for it put me in touch with the inimitable bloggess Requires Only That You Hate, with whom I've had some enlightening, if prickly, conversations over on Teh Twitterz (mostly with ReqHate & Feminazgul, who, it must be said, has an awesome handle).

Some of that prickle comes from, to engage in some coy wordplay, the existence of my prick. There's a hardline stripe of feminism that simply excludes men; I'm less informed on whether that's a blanket statement about all genetic XY types, or if it's purely the cis-gendered. I take their point, but it's not going to stop me from shooting my mouth off for equal treatment for everybody; and a vigorous middle finger in the eye of anyone who attempts to Animal Farm their way into "more equal" territory. Whether that makes me a "feminist," a "feminist supporter," a "feminist ally," or just "not an asshole," I don't much give a shit. Of course, I'm not going to stop needling anyone who takes themself, or their -ism-identity too seriously, either; maybe that will end up with ReqHate wanting to fling me into a pit of angry bees or something, but that's okay. I recognize a kindred spirit who is willing and eager to say, "No, BECAUSE FUCK YOU," to get their point across.

As it says on the profile page: "Fuck this shit of 'respecting everyone's political opinions' - I'll respect your goddamn political opinions when your political opinions respect queers, minorities, women, the poor, and marginalized people everywhere. I have no obligation to be nice to assholes." - raeling

So, there's that; this has suffused a lot of the secondary conversations cassandrasimplx and I have, usually about the disappointment we feel towards the bottom half of the internet, primarily in comments made on Facebook by various folks of her extended social circle. I am, generally, bouncing between wanting to smack these people in the face with a lawnmower or brush up on my Proper Southern Etiquette and unload some mil-spec "Bless Their Heart" on 'em because they are, in general, working from the socially and intellectually handicapped position of being from Texas. (Look, I know some very nice Texans, by birth and by choice, but, goddamn, y'all elect, appoint, and tolerate some hideously back-asswards motherfuckers and their gender politics make the entire region (shit, the entire *country*) look bad.)

All of which is a big fucking pile of table-setting for a very animated conversation I had with a couple of women at my office on Friday afternoon. Nobody here ought to be surprised to hear that, if I work out with colleagues, I push them a little bit; a month or so ago, I went out with a couple of folks for a walk/run interval sojourn (they're newly active, I'm wearing my 40# weight vest; it was a reasonable workout for all of us), and in the wake of that, they (being a mother/daughter pair) have subsequently taken my name in vain turned me into a verb to mean "physically challenge with implied arduousness."

"You're not gonna Rafe me, are you?"

("That sound you hear is the sound of ultimate suffering; my heart make it when the six-fingered man kill my father. The man in black makes it now." - Inigo Montoya)

Sooo... yeah. They're popularizing the term among other gym-goers at my office, and becoming an unofficial cheerleading and marketing grassroots movement.... which I happened to walk in on Friday. "I've gotta say, I'm not really that comfortable with the term. I mean, my ego is robust and all, but... I really don't think that branding a difficult physical task with a close homophone to sexual assault is really anyplace I want to go, especially since it's my fucking name[2]."

I had the further realization that I've only worn pants to the office once in the last three and a half weeks. Utilikilts got OK'd by HR as being dresscode-compliant. A friend of a friend posted a "Kilt Etiquette 101" rant online, and, unsurprisingly, there's a lot of enthusiastic support for guys in kilts, not leastwise from the portion of the populace who thinks it's an attractive look. But there were comments made by guys who have been inappropriately kilt-checked, or who have heard, directly or indirectly, some pretty off-putting things said about their sartorial choices.

It's no shock that I don't put up with that kind of crap, and recognize that my pantslessness is doing double duty: on the one hand, changing perceptions of masculine presentation; while on the other, making the point, both to myself (as the object) and to those around me that the objectification of someone else is unsavory, dehumanizing, and generally not a cool thing to do. I have yet to bring out the rhetorical "nuclear option" of mentioning, "Would you say something like that to a woman because of something she's wearing? And if so, what the fuck is wrong with you?"

I find it a little weird that I am championing women's rights and fighting sexual victimization when, by all accounts, that conversation should be happening the other way. Just being acutely mindful of how pervasive this is, online an off, gives me an almost constant headache.

This shit needs to change. We're the people who need to make it happen.

[1] You should also totally get hip to the LJ of her paramour and partner in crime, mckitterick, who is both an SF dude and a muscle car aficionado; come for the astro-porn, stay for the V8 burnouts and chassis rebuilds.

[2] Later, one of them came up to my desk on other business, and I had to further point out that I had spent twenty years dealing with the fact that my given name is a synonym for "vomit," so, yeah, that's something I've got experience with and fitted luggage for baggage handling purposes.

Comments

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

You're right - I'm a man, so don't have experiences being a woman in a skirt. I had no idea this was a common event! I made that comment because I've never witnessed non-consensual skirt-checks of women by men, but I have seen such (and experienced) women doing it to men. I suspect the guys who do that to women make sure no one can see when they do it, so they don't have to face community chastisement, and I suspect that the women who do it are, as you suggest, just the female version of the men who behave like that.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

Either through good luck or simple inattentiveness (my money's on the latter[1]), I haven't witnessed this phenomenon, either, but did have to quiet down a boisterous coworker who was making loud, facetious lamentations about having to walk up the stairs behind me on our way around the office.

"OH MY GOD, YOU'LL SEE THE BACKS OF MY KNEES! No, wait... I'm not going upstairs. Wiseass."

The message was delivered to her, and the folks around us. "I will put up with good-natured bullshit up to a point, but when you approach redline, the fuel cutoff *will* be invoked, and you'll get shut down before you do anything line-crossingly stupid if you're paying attention. If not... well...."


[1] I honestly didn't realize my last girlfriend was seriously interested in doing sexytime things with me until she was literally astride me. I am, how you say, neutron-star dense about some things.

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

I honestly didn't realize my last girlfriend was seriously interested in doing sexytime things with me until she was literally astride me. I am, how you say, neutron-star dense about some things

This is TOTALLY me, too, with most every girlfriend I've ever had. How many passes have we missed over the years? *sigh*

Perfect message, and I love the metaphor, of course ;-)

[cassandrasimplx.livejournal.com]

Thank you for a response much calmer and friendlier than I was afraid it might be. I don't want to come across as attacking or chastising you after your courtesy, but I'm further stymied by your lack of experience with the behavior.

I've never witnessed non-consensual skirt-checks of women by men...
I suspect the guys who do that to women make sure no one can see when they do it...

There may be a regional difference involved here...?

I've seen plenty of men not notice when something like this is done to a woman. Beyond not actually seeing it, there's a whole spectrum of reactions available in that circumstance, from cheers and high-fives to quiet winks-and-smiles to simply ignoring the whole event. (Only the very unusually brave would speak out against it). The more-enlightened men here will generally choose to ignore the whole event as stupid and childish -- which is partially true; the offender's behavior is stupid and childish. However, the offended woman's reaction gets written off in the same stroke, so the behavior itself isn't specifically condemned -- only the presence of "drama", which is foisted off on the reacting woman by those inclined to blame her instead of the person harassing her. Because this mild, ineffective shunning of all involved is the most common actual protest, the effect is the same if a man genuinely doesn't see as if he simply decides to pay it no mind. It's very tempting to believe this does happen around you, and when you don't see the action itself, you're also simply not picking up on the ripple of choosing-not-to-notice spreading out from the event. That may be unfair, though; perhaps not every region is as hostile as my own.

I live in an area where, when a group of male acquaintances or friends are walking behind me, one of them will see nothing wrong with grabbing and squeezing my butt. It only happens in groups, so I don't know who did it. Anyone I single out will point out that the odds are against me and scold me for making false accusations. There's definitely awareness that I won't like it, or defensive clustering wouldn't be part of the setup. I'm usually certain they've all seen it happen, because they're all wearing the same ridiculously-overdone expression of innocence: lips pursed in a whistle, eyes rolled up and off to one side, hands in their pockets. If nobody had seen it, there'd be nothing to act mock-innocent about. But nobody says anything, ever, unless I do. This has happened as recently as the last time I let more than two men of my acquaintance walk within arms' reach behind me. (I don't let that situation happen any more, because this was such a common result.) Even when previous boyfriends have been in the group of guys walking behind me, the butt-grabbing occured. My boyfriend would be making innocent-face with the rest of them and chiming in to tell me to calm down and not be so sensitive. If nothing else, there are still regions where men do see other men do such things and defend their "right" to do it.

I would adore living in an area where a guy doing such things would face community chastisement. And yes, I do suspect that women who grew up in the environment I did, and many women growing up now in areas like mine, are not receiving the message that it's not okay to do that to men, because they're still being told it's okay to do to women. If that's not the norm in your area, or where the elsewhere-poster got kilt-checked, I can only stifle my impulse to apologize for areas like mine exporting such ill-behaved women. I don't think they're "just the female version of the men who behave like that," though. There's much stronger defense of men's entitlement to that behavior. Women here can only get away with it by tying it to men's entitlement to behave that way, using the men's justifications they've heard*. End defense of men's entitlement, and I suspect the women would stop, too.

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

Holy Creepy-Guy-Region, Batman! Yeah, I have to assume this is a regional thing, because if a man behaved like that where I've lived as an adult (Minnesota, Seattle, Kansas), he'd get chastised at a minimum, probably slapped, and possibly punched in the throat.

I understand the notion of male entitlement here, but, geez, what you describe is considered way over the line, for this century, in the Midwest. Just... wow. And I don't think it's just me being oblivious, because if I witnessed such a thing, I'd have a word or two with such a jerk - especially if I knew either of the parties involved.

[cassandrasimplx.livejournal.com]

Sounds like time for me to move, then.

I'm so conditioned to accept it I was honestly prepared to justify comparing a guy grabbing my butt to a woman kilt-checking a guy because, you know, butt-grabbing, not that big a deal. (sadface)

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

I was thinking about this after I replied, and my experience might partly reflect that I don't hang around the kinds of people who behave like that, the bars I frequent don't appeal to frat-boy types, and my workplace is a university. Maybe what you describe is happening around me all the time, but in places where I don't see it.

[cassandrasimplx.livejournal.com]

* There's actually an entire 4000-character-comment-plus behind that assertion, that I simply didn't have room to write. Essentially, it's this: I live near a large Renaissance Festival, and half my acquaintances are strongly associated with its culture and population. I've seen women kilt-check men before, and heard other women scold them for it. The scolding invariably, in the dozen or so times I've witnessed it, reminds the offending woman that she wouldn't like having it done to her. Her defense is invariably made up of the following, in some combination:

(Arguments used to defend men's right to mess with women's bodies as public property or as subject to implicit consent: "If he didn't want me to grab/check him, he wouldn't put himself on display like that! He must have wanted the attention, or he wouldn't have worn a kilt.")

(Arguments used to defend men's right not to be scolded for violating women's personal space: "He's just being too sensitive! It's not like I meant anything by it! He took it all wrong!")

(Arguments used to deny men's personal responsibility for controlling their own impulses: "I didn't think he'd mind. He's just so gorgeous I couldn't help myself! Do you really blame me? I bet you'd have done it, too, if you could.")

(Arguments used to defend prioritizing the male/mixed-group mood above individual women's well-being: "We were just having fun and joking around until he decided to get all offended and bring everybody down.")

(Recognition of the double standard regarding men's and women's personal space and bodily autonomy: "Men grab my boobs/butt all the time, and I don't make a big deal out of it! Why isn't it okay for me to do the same thing? Nobody would support me if that had happened to me and I complained; why is everyone defending him?")

(Dawning recognition of the valid "you-don't-like-it" parallel in the form of comparison of threat: "But he's a guy! It's not like I'm a threat to him or anything! I mean, I can't do anything to him that he doesn't let me do. It's not like when a guy grabs me and I don't know what he intends to do with me!") -- I find it significant that this is usually the first context in which a female offender begins to allow the male/female parallel to occur in the form of empathy, and even then it's not "He must have felt like I do," it's "He can't have felt like I do, because he wasn't afraid for his safety or his life."

Eventually, the woman in question usually realizes that she's acting out the part of a sleazy villain in a bad 80s chick flick about sexual harassment, and feels really horrible, while retaining a smidgeon of outrage that it still isn't fair.

My point here isn't that these women's bad behavior is men's fault. My point is that some of these women's bad behaviors are in part the result of moral reasoning skewed by the arguments used to excuse men's bad behavior. Women know, viscerally, how unpleasant it is to be grabbed or exposed without consent. But we're told so often that our own reactions to those things are less important than men's reactions (or a mixed group's reactions) that it seems profoundly unfair when we try to scoot under the same umbrella and are told those justifications don't apply to us, when we discover that men's bodily autonomy is protected by the group even when ours isn't. This is so distressing that it can honestly seem like the world would be better if nobody were protected, because even if that was wrong, it would at least be fair. I suspect that if there were no quarter given men in this respect, there would be far fewer women willing to do something they know they dislike when it's done to them. To state that unilaterally and without reservation might seem naive, but to me, it's very believable.