andrewducker (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
andrewducker) wrote2009-04-15 11:43 am
andrewducker) wrote2009-04-15 11:43 am
Welcome to the 21st century.
I can understand why there's a stereotype of feminists as humourless.
I mean, if you're used to being able to make jokes about horrible things happening to women and then a group of people start telling you that they don't find this funny then your perception of them is going to be that they just don't have a sense of humour. After all, you don't _seriously_ want bad things to happen to women, you're just having a laugh, right?
My old friend Ed went to this debate in which a controversial comedian debated whether it was ok to make offensive jokes. Frankie Boyle used his moments on the debating stand to tell a series of increasingly unpleasant jokes - all of which got a massive laugh from the audience, except when they touched on a subject just a little too close to home. My friend found himself laughing at all sorts of appalling things, until the subject was (coincidentally) turned onto his own situation, at which point he found himself thinking "but that's not funny".
Because it's never funny when it's about you. It's only funny when it's about someone you don't care about.
Or, at the very least, if you can pretend that nobody you know is like that.
It's much easier when you live in a nice insular environment, where you only really know people like yourself, and you certainly only socialise with people just like you. Then you can bask in in-group/out-group socialisation to your heart's content.
Not to easy when you're on the internet, and people are likely to pop up at any moment and point out the flaws inherent in something you thought was innocent fun.
The question is - how do you deal with it when someone points it out? Do you have to let the flaws ruint it for you because they offend someone else? Do you have to argue that there's nothing wrong with the thing you love?
If you care (and nobody is going to make you) then some very useful hints and tips can be found here. The flow-chart at the end is particularly good.
I mean, if you're used to being able to make jokes about horrible things happening to women and then a group of people start telling you that they don't find this funny then your perception of them is going to be that they just don't have a sense of humour. After all, you don't _seriously_ want bad things to happen to women, you're just having a laugh, right?
My old friend Ed went to this debate in which a controversial comedian debated whether it was ok to make offensive jokes. Frankie Boyle used his moments on the debating stand to tell a series of increasingly unpleasant jokes - all of which got a massive laugh from the audience, except when they touched on a subject just a little too close to home. My friend found himself laughing at all sorts of appalling things, until the subject was (coincidentally) turned onto his own situation, at which point he found himself thinking "but that's not funny".
Because it's never funny when it's about you. It's only funny when it's about someone you don't care about.
Or, at the very least, if you can pretend that nobody you know is like that.
It's much easier when you live in a nice insular environment, where you only really know people like yourself, and you certainly only socialise with people just like you. Then you can bask in in-group/out-group socialisation to your heart's content.
Not to easy when you're on the internet, and people are likely to pop up at any moment and point out the flaws inherent in something you thought was innocent fun.
The question is - how do you deal with it when someone points it out? Do you have to let the flaws ruint it for you because they offend someone else? Do you have to argue that there's nothing wrong with the thing you love?
If you care (and nobody is going to make you) then some very useful hints and tips can be found here. The flow-chart at the end is particularly good.
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It's in the context of constant, omnidirectional subtle put-downs, implications, opinion about "place" in society.
Any one example of a PoC being shown in a subservient role isn't, taken in isolation, hugely offensive.
But when time and time again, that's the dominant portrayal - one you're faced with everywhere you go? And your kids are faced with it too?
It's all part of a culture of subtle prejudice that makes every single example of it an irritation - one which builds to an inflammation.
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I'm sorry that my response is an inflamatory way to take this debate, and I won't be responding further on this, because I don't want to get into a RaceFail re-enactment.
However, I really don't feel, based on the number of people who have mentioned they find it extremely irritating, that anti-prejudice crusaders do themselves any favours with this argument. At base I actually do feel that trying to work against prejudice is a good thing, so, you know, I thought that was worth mentioning.
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I'm not trying to "do myself favours", by the way. If there was a different argument I could use which would get the point across, I would do. If you notice, I then go on to try my best to communicate anyway.
This is an expression of my inability to communicate something as much as me suggesting that "you wouldn't get it".
Perhaps other anti-prejudice activists are better at communicating this thing than me. I ain't one of them, sorry!
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Thanks for the very reasonable response.
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AND men aren’t allowed to complain about it, because they ‘couldn’t possibly know’. Yes I realise that worldwide female oppression and stereotyping is a much larger problem but the hypocrisy of saying ‘you’re a man, you couldn’t know about what it is like to have a gender’ is, to me, sexism of the most extreme level.
Lx
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However, there's one key difference between sexism as experienced by men and the prejudice experienced by the groups I mentioned; here in the west, those are not the groups in power.
Someone else (I think in this thread) said that the problem is "prejudice + power", and I think I agree.
It's one thing to experience sexism in some walks of life but be able to retreat from those areas at will.
The thing which I don't know to describe to someone who is in receipt of most forms of privilege is the experience of being in an environment of ubiquitous prejudice where even the idea of prejudice-free-space (such as women-only spaces, PoC-only-spaces) is still seen as radical by some.
To someone who doesn't experience that - I don't know how to describe how it feels. How much it amplifies the feeling of prejudice.
The key difference is that if you're white, male, cisgendered and above the poverty line, then most of the time when you experience prejudice you can walk away.
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Recently, two separate friends had difficulties joining parent-baby groups because the women there supposedly found it uncomfortable having a man around. So these young fathers have literally nowhere to go to share their experience, and learn from others how to be parents. Never mind, how to be a father.
I've had a similar problem with a friend (at least, she used to be) who said she'd never send expose her children to men in authority. She wouldn't accept male primary school teachers.
Retreating isn't an option. To be honest, that's as useful a recommendation as 'don't wear such a short skirt'.
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