Girls thread cont.

FT - I don't know if there's anything else I can say other than what I already have. I'm sorry that it's felt that way and will try to better clarify that I don't mean to delegitimize other people's experiences. In some ways though I've felt the similarly insofar as what I was saying earlier where is often seems like people have responded to things I've said in such a way as to suggest that I haven't experienced certain things/feelings because I just don't know or am not enlightened enough to realize certain things when I feel pretty firmly that, while surely true sometimes, is not always the case.

Also, I need to say this because I was really upset at the time but you were really horrible to me and all of the other women in this thread not that long ago. I know it was in reaction to the situation you’re describing above but I don’t really think that makes it OK. I was hurt and extremely upset when you completely dismissed my academic/work experience in a post that can only be described as a personal attack. I needed to mention this because it seems strange to me to be having these discussions without at least acknowledging that whole thing happened. I mean, you also took it outside ILX which just wasn’t on. I also realize that I responded in a pretty cruel and perhaps harsher way than was necessary but I was really upset (and understandably so imo) at the time.

WRT WS I understand that it makes some people uncomfortable and they don't want to participate and that's fine. Personally I'm OK with the judging part of it though, especially when it's positive. It's pretty undeniable that (while women certainly feel the brunt of this a lot more than men and also in completely different ways) we all make judgments about people's physical attractiveness all the time whether it's on a conscious level or not. Appearance is the first thing you notice about someone and a judgment is instantly formed somewhere. Denying that would seem a little strange to me. I don't really have a problem with someone saying "This is someone I find attractive." and find it pretty interesting a lot of the time.

When you say "prostrate cancer is a male disease" - are you saying that ~every~ man has prostrate cancer? Or just that it's a disease that mostly men get, because it's 99.9% (cis) men that get it?

That's kinda how I think about terms like "mansplaining" - while still recognising that the point you make is valid, oc. But I don't know how to get that across.

x-post because I need to read that properly and digest it.

xp I wd just like to say, though, that in certain ways that blow-up precipitated the revival of the Girls Only thread as a way more serious conversation about gender and less of a nail polish comparison manual (an awesome thing which has its OWN thread on normal ilx) and I think the GOT has become many times more active and supportive and brought something back to the conversation(s) on ilx that had kind of disappeared without anyone saying anything.

And I need that, because I can only fight the battles that I perceive to be present, and I need other people to provide meaty discussion topics that I'll never think of, and drop facts I don't know, and remind me to be kind and work for something better for everyone and not go down my personal rabbit-hole of anger.

Yeah, what FT said. There's also a parallel between that sort of objection to "mansplain" and the "Schrodinger's Rapist" phenomenon (it's too hard to post links on Zing, but search for sh@pley pr0se and schrodinger's rapist and you'll find the post.

While recognizing the many problems inherent to the term (including the one E articulates) I am unmoved by men's objections to the term because said objections change the conversation from "here is a thing that men often do to women that is a symptom of and also perpetuates sexism" to "your experiences are invalid because this word is imperfect and makes me feel bad."

I'd rather be able to have the discussion than spend that energy spraring men's feelings.

idk, i started out in the 'mansplaining is the correct term for this thing, it is an ugly but unavoidable term' camp but hmmm

i feel like "mansplaining" could be unfolded to "explaining, the way men do it" (which does not necessarily mean all men but certainly suggests a 'typical' man)
but you can't really say "getting prostate cancer, the way men do it" unless you are doing stand-up of some kind

(i have been thinking about the man-prefix quite a lot recently, after deciding to retire 'manwhore' from my vocabulary)

(because while it is a funny thing to say about dudes it implies a whole world of seriously unfunny things about women)

Sorry, I'm not ignoring what you're saying, E, I just need to think about it.

...

but seriously, on another topic, there comes a point where I just have to disengage when someone keeps repeating something ~as truth~ that has like 30 to 40 years of academic debunking of, and I just can't keep having that conversation without going crazy. I can't. I know this seems like I'm bowing out of the argument and letting them win, but it's like... there's 40 years of research on it. Go look it up! I know I brought up this subject, but, like - I have to remember. I am not ILX's personal Womens Studies Professor. If someone has a brain, go look it up. It becomes derailing for dummies - and I feel like, if I don't have the stamina to have these arguments I shouldn't bring it up, but really. I try but... I can't.

That's fine!

No, Foth, I think putting the info out there is all you can do. I ran into this blank wall w a male acquaintance the oth weekend and posted about it as well--people that should be allies still have some seriously fucked up and purposefully ignorant habits of thought and comment.

It is 6pm the day before I go on holiday and I am still staring at a report I haven't finished because I've been having these arguments, yet again, and I hate this feeling that yet again, I've got that "if you actually cared about this, you would explain 30 years of study to me instead of quoting authorities" which makes me feel like I've lost but really : I HAVE A LIFE I WOULD LIKE TO BE LIVING.

FT - get your stuff done and go home. Don't feel the need to respond to that post of mine now btw. I just wanted to put that out there but I understand needing to think about it. I thought it just deserved and needed to be mentioned and not in a malicious way either. I would have felt too fake not at least acknowledging it in some way.

seriously, do not let this get in the way of your awesome holiday! you having a gloriously beautiful break is way more important to the world than pandering to someone's argument-delaying tactic.

er xpost, i meant the explain 30 years of study stuff to me, we're all clear on that, right

This is so exhausting. Need to close the window before this happens:

http://www.gabbysplayhouse.com/?p=1444

Talk Show Host just came on Spodify so I'll be waiting with a gun and a pack of sandwiches, I'm READY.

(Yeah, I was talking about the "explain 30 years of feminist lingustics to me at 6pm on your last day" topic, not the unresolved stuff with E - just making that clear too!)

I prefer to use "condescension" as a catch-all for people explaining things to me that I already know, or acting like I'm stupid, or don't know what a churro is, or whatever. I am also the sort of person who will hold back like 498 of the 500 things I actually know because I like to have an arsenal of secret weapons at my disposal.

Anyway, my $0.02 is this: the ws thread has never really seemed as malevolent to my eyes as "women's magazines" in general -- ws says "this is attractive" whereas SELF/Cosmo suggests "this not-real picture of a humanoid is attractive and here are some lies to achieve that look, which btw you will never EVER achieve"

objectification vs focused self-esteem squashing, basically

LOLing a little at the idea of someone explaining a churro to you. Has that happened?

a mere two days ago!

There's a scene in Sheriff where the sheriff goes hunting with his daughter, and he sees some turkey shit in the path, and he says, "Jessica. You see that? That's turkey droppins. A turkey left that." The camera later pans to Jessica, and you know she is still pissed about the turkey droppins incident. She doesn't say a word, but you can tell. I love that part!

I mean lots of times I really don't know shit -- and at those times I like to have people explain things to me. But I know turkey droppins. Most of us do.

I sure as hell don't! Turkey droppings? Never seen 'em!

It looks like goose shit.

Oh I know what that looks like. DAMN YOU CANADIAN GEESE!

"A turkey left that" is what gets me.

Yeah. That's amazing.

"A turkey left that...for YOU."

when a male turkey loves a female turkey ...

A turkey left that precious gift...for you.

...(whispers) turkey droppins

but on the serious side -- i've spent a lot of my life being "one of the guys" -- and half the time I didn't really think about my gender at all. In moments of insecurity (that are too frequent tbh), I feel/felt that that status wasn't a privilege, but consolation for being fat and ugly.

When something is designed to exclude you, there's no end of ways it can make you feel bad abt yourself, sometimes with a lot of your own help.

AND BY "YOU" AND "YOUR", I MEAN "ME" AND "MY."

I feel/felt that that status wasn't a privilege, but consolation

i decided at quite a young age that since i was never going to be pretty i would have to be 'one of the guys' in order to be accepted

and, you know, it worked all right.

I was going to say "haha me too", but I was one of the boys before it ever occurred to me that pretty was a thing that might be expected of me and was unattainable.

I was one of the boys throughout primary school to such an extent that puberty was a big shock to me - I think I'd been assuming that somehow I would grow up to be Man, or at least Not Woman*, and there I was, suddenly facing this whole being a woman thing, and realising that I wasn't very good at it

(* like all the protagonists in all my favourite books were boys without it ever needing to be pointed out, and any girls were spelt out at great length as Girls and were all a bit rubbish too.

I had one treasured exception, a book where the protagonist is cool and funny and hard as nails, ringleader of a gang of boys, and you don't even find out until the last chapter that it's a girl, when a teacher is talking about her in the third person - I'd name the book, but I've just spoilt it! but I still think of that book often, 24 years after first reading it. Thank you, Gene Kemp. And ironically it took me 20 of those years to realise that Gene Kemp was a woman too...)

xp Ime it works out okay as long as the guys you're placing yrself among are polite and fair-minded and sensible/educated about gender (or just too well brought up to say anything offensive in the first place). But when dudes you trusted start being batshit about feminism or "pussy power" or language or w/e, you have to be the police all of a sudden and it can totally suck for you.

I was one of the boys throughout primary school to such an extent that puberty was a big shock to me - I think I'd been assuming that somehow I would grow up to be Man, or at least Not Woman*, and there I was, suddenly facing this whole being a woman thing, and realising that I wasn't very good at it

omg yes! like getting boobs and having to wear a bra was kinda traumatic -- and i've probably posted about when i first got my period -- but i was crying and asked my mom, "You mean, I have to go through this every month, for how long?"

spudette, there is a charming book called Keeper of the Bees that is probably really racist in a 1930s way and sexist too but actually not for its time? And there's a rabble-rousing character in it of about age 9 or so who wins all the fights and shoots all the pretend Indians and tends the bee hives and catches the bugs and makes the campfires and is called "the Scout" and doesn't turn out to be a girl until the very end.

omg yes! like getting boobs and having to wear a bra was kinda traumatic -- and i've probably posted about when i first got my period -- but i was crying and asked my mom, "You mean, I have to go through this every month, for how long?"

― sarahel, Friday, December 16, 2011 2:39 PM (43 seconds ago) Bookmark Permalink

Were you really young?! I was 16 so by that point I was downright thrilled because at least it didn't mean I had secret testicles like the girl I saw on some true life medical story show.

xp At which point of course a big deal is made of the fact that her male cohort is going to outgrow and out-strengthen her and she has to stop taxing herself trying to stay ahead of them. Sigh Gene Stratton-Porter, sigh.

xp - i was 9! it was the day before my 10th birthday and I was omg having a slumber party!

there's a line in some Xiu Xiu song from years back, where Jamie says/sings "This is the worst birthday ever!" and it always reminds me of that incident.

OMG nine! Yeah, that would have been really scary even though I think by that point I knew about all that stuff in at least a very basic sense.

I was not a tomboy and didn't have any boy friends through about 8th grade. In fact I was ridiculed mercilessly to the point of having to change schools and said bullying was done mostly by boys. It was awful. Went to an all-girls HS so no male friends then. Went to college and getting a lot of male attention for the fist time in my life was completely overwhelming. I think maybe that's when I sort of started being one of the guys mostly to deflect that attention and make it more bearable somehow. Like, "I'm not gonna fuck you but we can totally hang out!" only that didn't always work and I wound up in some pretty awful situations along the way and made some really bad decisions. I don't know where I'm going with this. I guess I talked a bit about this the other day too - the mostly having more male friends thing. As an adult I have found that for the most part it's worked out and specifically for the reasons Larrel stated in terms of the guys I consider my friends.

I'm on a bus on a diversion through Clapham(?) so I just wanted to add to Cis & Sarahel - I know that feeling. Like, I did that, too and I wish I knew when it changed and it stopped being OK?

Was it when I went from being a session bassist (the old joke of "what you call a girl who hangs out with musicians") to being in mine own band and discovering I no longer played music but "women's music"? Maybe it was developing disordered eating (drunkorexia?) and found myself suddenly at the age of 31 actually conforming to the stereotype of "hot girl" for the first time in my life? Maybe it was the constant wearing down on the Internet (not just stuff on ILX but a host of other sites after I got sick of being misgendered bcuz of my interests? Maybe it was ageing and seeing exactly how I transformed from "one of the guys" to ugly old hag as I watched my prospects narrow while dudes' stayed the same or widened? Maybe it was just reading on the endless Internet that my experiences were not just isolated incidents easily explained but part of a wider system that was too regular to be coincidence and I was sick of making bargains about it?

It's complicated. It's complicated for all of us but I think the only way to deal with it is to talk about it to one another instead of pretending it doesn't matter if - if, because everyone's mileage varies - it bothers us?

xposts to Keeper of Bees: Awesome. I would very much have loved that book as a kid! Too bad about the ending, but I might still track it down. I've been harbouring some thoughts of going on a massive kids'/YA fiction kick, not least because I never seem to make it to the end of adult books these days.

fewer xposts: Urgh, 9! That sounds horrible. Mine was the summer between primary school and secondary school, adding to the sense of a whole new terrible chapter in a way, though not completely accurately.

Was this the thread with the girls-kissing-for-practice thing on? I'd been in a group of three best friends aged 8-10, but age 11 the other 2 were pairing up for "exploring" (as they called it) while I was the gooseberry. Went to a different secondary school and never saw them again, but that feeling of being left out hung around.

(sorry I'm on iPhone so I couldn't edit that and it didn't show x-posts from Cis on)

Also I don't think that being "one of the boys" or having mostly male friends precludes having an awareness of feminist issues in any way shape or form and don't see why one can't do both. Of course I'm not really sure what we exactly mean by being "one of the boys" here and assume it's different in each person's case. I realize I didn't address that part of FT's post to me earlier because I don't really think that's what I was doing on the WS thread - at least not intentionally so. I think it was more the other stuff about inserting myself.

Is it time to go home yet? Early birthday dinner tonight!

yeah - and one of the things that made it (the being one of the boys thing) better was knowing that other women had also been there/done that, and that i had role models or at least partners in commiseration. Like when my life fell apart 2 years ago, I had a female acquaintance (friend-of-a-friend) that I almost immediately contacted, "Hey L****, i know you've had the experience of starting and running an arts space with your husband, who then cheated on you. Guess what I just found out! Ugh!!!"

i was really proud of being mistaken for a boy by adult strangers while i was a kid, for as long as i could be - and then i moved to a school with uniform, so i was marked as a girl. boys weren't particularly better friends to me or anything (in fact i really suffered trying to make myself fit in with a gang of boys, trying to impress them, trying to get them to let me in), maybe it was because i idolised my big brother, I dunno. and then puberty happened, and girls' school, and so i was a girl but the people i wanted to be were always male. and so "being a girl who is one of the boys" seemed to be my one option for being a person, since it was clear i would never be "a girl" the way other girls were doing it.

looking back i'm sad that i could only see it as a binary choice. and how much bullshit i internalised and invented myself that made femininity 'bad' (especially given that i was brought up by feminists, and tbh most of my friends were female). but... i don't know, it really could have been worse, i guess? and i spent enough time doing all that bullshit as an adolescent that i don't have to do it as an adult.