An actual fucking X
Overall, I like situated criticism - the idea that being a part of X group gives you a lived experience inaccessible to those outside X, and makes you more qualified to speak on X than someone who doesn't know anything about it. I think it's a good thing. I think historically lived experience has been discredited as subjective and thus not worthy of attention.
However, I don't like certain ways it's used. Namely, I really, really do not like the fact that it can make someone into a token.
For example, let's say that I'm the only woman in a room full of men (a really common situation for me, because of my area of study). Let's also say that I'm the only woman in a room full of men talking about feminism (this has happened). At some point, one of them will get nervous and ask "as a woman, what do you think?".
As a woman, here's what I think: Think for yourselves. You're grown adults. You can deal with criticism from another grown adult. I recognise that as a woman I'm probably going to know womanhood better than a cis man. (Men also know what it is to be a man better than I do, trivially, because I'm not one.) But I don't like being treated as the Authority on All Womanhood. It feels dehumanising; I'm not being treated as Osnat the individual, I'm being treated as the Token Woman we Have to Get Approval From. Doing this makes me feel interchangeable...with 3.5 billion other female humans. It's supposed to be a step towards undoing oppression. It feels like my individual personality has been scrubbed out and replaced with categories.
(Plus, I'm not here to coddle you if I disagree with you. I wouldn't say I'm an especially rude or harsh person. That said, I don't pull punches and I don't enjoy being put into the role of the person who forgives you, or absolves you of your feelings of guilt.)
There's another problem: what happens if two people, who are both actual members of X fucking group, disagree? And what happens if you can't resolve this by looking at who's more privileged than the other?
My partial solution to this is to treat both parties by their individual rules. It's fairest to them and their lived experiences, in my view. (And sometimes people are just clearly, unequivocally wrong.)
The problem is that I'm an actual fucking X for some actual fucking groups which are actually fucking disregarded. And that I don't always agree with other actual members of X fucking group, because we're human and have different experiences. It makes me feel like I'm not a "real" fucking X, which my rational side knows is bullshit but my emotional side still feels.
Part of it is my own insecurity. Part of it is me feeling that I have to list aaaaalllll my privileges and oppressions openly to be deemed a "real" member of group X, else I'm a member of [generic oppressor group here].
At this point, the socially conscious reader is probably done with my shit. (The socially contrarian reader was probably done with my shit a long time ago.) This is just white tears/male tears/cishet tears over having my privilege checked, right? Because I'm used to being coddled?
...Nice try, but not quite. There are good reasons for not publicly listing your privileges and oppressions; for example, it might involve telling people about deep-seated trauma, or the potential to give away identifying information that would get you assaulted or killed. Nobody owes strangers on the internet their health or their safety to avoid being labelled as something they're not. Nobody owes strangers on the internet any information about themselves, full stop.
We might all be members of the same group, but we have different experiences. We're not interchangeable, nor does one of us represent all of us. Hell, "us" as a group might be ludicrously ill-defined, or we might have absolutely zero sense of unity (which seems to be the rule rather than the exception).
We are humans. We are individuals. In individual conversation, treat us that way.
However, I don't like certain ways it's used. Namely, I really, really do not like the fact that it can make someone into a token.
For example, let's say that I'm the only woman in a room full of men (a really common situation for me, because of my area of study). Let's also say that I'm the only woman in a room full of men talking about feminism (this has happened). At some point, one of them will get nervous and ask "as a woman, what do you think?".
As a woman, here's what I think: Think for yourselves. You're grown adults. You can deal with criticism from another grown adult. I recognise that as a woman I'm probably going to know womanhood better than a cis man. (Men also know what it is to be a man better than I do, trivially, because I'm not one.) But I don't like being treated as the Authority on All Womanhood. It feels dehumanising; I'm not being treated as Osnat the individual, I'm being treated as the Token Woman we Have to Get Approval From. Doing this makes me feel interchangeable...with 3.5 billion other female humans. It's supposed to be a step towards undoing oppression. It feels like my individual personality has been scrubbed out and replaced with categories.
(Plus, I'm not here to coddle you if I disagree with you. I wouldn't say I'm an especially rude or harsh person. That said, I don't pull punches and I don't enjoy being put into the role of the person who forgives you, or absolves you of your feelings of guilt.)
There's another problem: what happens if two people, who are both actual members of X fucking group, disagree? And what happens if you can't resolve this by looking at who's more privileged than the other?
My partial solution to this is to treat both parties by their individual rules. It's fairest to them and their lived experiences, in my view. (And sometimes people are just clearly, unequivocally wrong.)
The problem is that I'm an actual fucking X for some actual fucking groups which are actually fucking disregarded. And that I don't always agree with other actual members of X fucking group, because we're human and have different experiences. It makes me feel like I'm not a "real" fucking X, which my rational side knows is bullshit but my emotional side still feels.
Part of it is my own insecurity. Part of it is me feeling that I have to list aaaaalllll my privileges and oppressions openly to be deemed a "real" member of group X, else I'm a member of [generic oppressor group here].
At this point, the socially conscious reader is probably done with my shit. (The socially contrarian reader was probably done with my shit a long time ago.) This is just white tears/male tears/cishet tears over having my privilege checked, right? Because I'm used to being coddled?
...Nice try, but not quite. There are good reasons for not publicly listing your privileges and oppressions; for example, it might involve telling people about deep-seated trauma, or the potential to give away identifying information that would get you assaulted or killed. Nobody owes strangers on the internet their health or their safety to avoid being labelled as something they're not. Nobody owes strangers on the internet any information about themselves, full stop.
We might all be members of the same group, but we have different experiences. We're not interchangeable, nor does one of us represent all of us. Hell, "us" as a group might be ludicrously ill-defined, or we might have absolutely zero sense of unity (which seems to be the rule rather than the exception).
We are humans. We are individuals. In individual conversation, treat us that way.
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