la_vie_noire (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
la_vie_noire) wrote2010-03-10 12:34 am
la_vie_noire) wrote2010-03-10 12:34 am
Entry tags:
I feel VERY uncomfortable about this, but I will make it public, be cautious commenting here
A lot of the time I feel like an object when people who are progressive, liberal and more privileged than me talk about my oppression and how bad it is. No matter who they are, no matter what their intentions are.
It happens because I'm oppressed. This is tangential and kind of personal, but it never happened to me with things like gender. I experience discrimination because I'm a woman, but I have an advantage, I'm a cis woman. I feel anger when I'm experiencing sexism, but if a cis man goes and says something "feminist," I never really felt like an object. (This is my experience alone, it could happen to other cis women of course.) Maybe it's because I have privileges the "equal rights for women" movements are big and very diverse for women like me. Maybe it’s because chances are that what a cis man says about "Feminism" or “Gender Equality” won't be more heard inside the movement than what other cis women say. I don't know, I sometimes wonder about it. The thing is I can just roll my eyes and be amused at liberal cis men.*
Things aren’t quite like that when I know I'm in a small group of people. I don't even know if the group size is relevant at all, but that's how I always felt.
Someone I respect wrote something that made me feel like an object just now.
I can't really find big faults in what she wrote. Well, yes, I can. What I mean is that technically she said the truth, but she did something, something even I do a lot. She focused on the people who were the oppressors. My oppressors. As she is. She was complaining of people badmouthing and being racist towards people like me. She was talking to them, not me. She was defaulting them, I was The Other to be defaulted against.
My first thought was "what the hell do you know." A lot of privileged people won't understand it, but when society makes you feel shame of even talking, when you know what is to want to be like your oppressor; when you first feeling isn't even anger, but shame (something about my advantages is that I lived a long time without noticing that feeling anger was a privilege, a luxury that's not for everybody), is not that nice when someone who doesn’t have this disadvantages and never were in the situation you are is complaining about YOUR oppression, the one YOU suffer and they don't. They are in a position you sometimes wish to be just to feel more comfortable sometimes. Heck, and they actually are having a pretty nice time looking like good people. Why did I feel objectified? Because this person never showed any interest in my particular oppression, in talking to me about that, she never linked or quoted or even named other people in my situation (who are oppressed by people like her, let me remind you). But she talked about it as if she knew, as if the oppressed wasn't the person who taught her. She complained about other people who say shit about me as if I weren't there, as if other people like me weren't there.
Here's the issue: if you want to sound like you are addressing a problem? Address it. Link to people like me, talk to them and about them. I'm sick tired of hearing about you. You don't know shit about that. I know shit about that. Just telling you.
I know your intentions are good. But you still know shit about that. And you still aren't even linking to people who know shit about that.
And believe me, this pretty annoying thing? It IS something I do a lot. That doesn't make it any less objectifying.
* (Things may be different for me if we talk about what privileged women said bout less privileged women; if we take into account things like race, class, disability, but I still feel like no other group of women are ostracized inside the "women rights" movements in quite the way trans women are.)
ETAdhobikikutti says
And I think that pretty much is. It's about who dominates certain discourses on activism, and you really really can talk of oppressed people like they are there for you to feel pity and/or make you look better.
This is public so do whatever the hell you want with this. But if you talk here? You are in my space. You are getting banned if you annoy me. Even a little.
It happens because I'm oppressed. This is tangential and kind of personal, but it never happened to me with things like gender. I experience discrimination because I'm a woman, but I have an advantage, I'm a cis woman. I feel anger when I'm experiencing sexism, but if a cis man goes and says something "feminist," I never really felt like an object. (This is my experience alone, it could happen to other cis women of course.) Maybe it's because I have privileges the "equal rights for women" movements are big and very diverse for women like me. Maybe it’s because chances are that what a cis man says about "Feminism" or “Gender Equality” won't be more heard inside the movement than what other cis women say. I don't know, I sometimes wonder about it. The thing is I can just roll my eyes and be amused at liberal cis men.*
Things aren’t quite like that when I know I'm in a small group of people. I don't even know if the group size is relevant at all, but that's how I always felt.
Someone I respect wrote something that made me feel like an object just now.
I can't really find big faults in what she wrote. Well, yes, I can. What I mean is that technically she said the truth, but she did something, something even I do a lot. She focused on the people who were the oppressors. My oppressors. As she is. She was complaining of people badmouthing and being racist towards people like me. She was talking to them, not me. She was defaulting them, I was The Other to be defaulted against.
My first thought was "what the hell do you know." A lot of privileged people won't understand it, but when society makes you feel shame of even talking, when you know what is to want to be like your oppressor; when you first feeling isn't even anger, but shame (something about my advantages is that I lived a long time without noticing that feeling anger was a privilege, a luxury that's not for everybody), is not that nice when someone who doesn’t have this disadvantages and never were in the situation you are is complaining about YOUR oppression, the one YOU suffer and they don't. They are in a position you sometimes wish to be just to feel more comfortable sometimes. Heck, and they actually are having a pretty nice time looking like good people. Why did I feel objectified? Because this person never showed any interest in my particular oppression, in talking to me about that, she never linked or quoted or even named other people in my situation (who are oppressed by people like her, let me remind you). But she talked about it as if she knew, as if the oppressed wasn't the person who taught her. She complained about other people who say shit about me as if I weren't there, as if other people like me weren't there.
Here's the issue: if you want to sound like you are addressing a problem? Address it. Link to people like me, talk to them and about them. I'm sick tired of hearing about you. You don't know shit about that. I know shit about that. Just telling you.
I know your intentions are good. But you still know shit about that. And you still aren't even linking to people who know shit about that.
And believe me, this pretty annoying thing? It IS something I do a lot. That doesn't make it any less objectifying.
* (Things may be different for me if we talk about what privileged women said bout less privileged women; if we take into account things like race, class, disability, but I still feel like no other group of women are ostracized inside the "women rights" movements in quite the way trans women are.)
ETA
dhobikikutti saysI think the difference between gender and race that you might be feeling the way I feel is that there aren't a tonne of men actively dominating the 'good ally' discourse the way that white people are
And I think that pretty much is. It's about who dominates certain discourses on activism, and you really really can talk of oppressed people like they are there for you to feel pity and/or make you look better.
This is public so do whatever the hell you want with this. But if you talk here? You are in my space. You are getting banned if you annoy me. Even a little.
no subject
poorpeople like that!" and all you can do is stay there and feel like those people. I don't even know how to say it better.