Edman: The Blog

Feminism 101: Helpful Hints for Dudes

madamethursday:

grrrlpower:

1. Every woman is an expert on her own life and experiences.

2. No woman speaks for all women.

3. No woman speaks for all feminists.

4. Because of the way cultural dominance/privilege works, marginalized people are, by necessity and unavoidability, more knowledgeable about the lives of privileged people than the other way around. Immersion in a culture where male is treated as the Norm (and female a deviation of that Norm), and where masculinity is treated as aspirational (and femininity as undesirable), and where men’s stories are considered the Stories Worth Telling, and where manhood and mankind are so easily used as synonymous with personhood and humankind, and where everything down to the human forms on street signs reinforce the idea of maleness as default humanness, inevitably makes women de facto more conversant in male privilege than men are in female marginalization. That’s the practical reality of any kind of privilege—the dominant group can exist without knowing anything about marginalized group, but the marginalized group cannot safely or effectively exist without knowing something about the privileged group and its norms and values.

5. Which is not to say that men can’t become fluent, with effort. But it is important to remember that it does take effort. Even though men’s and women’s lives can look so similar at first glance, it is shocking how very different they can actually be. (For example.)

6. A woman with intersectional marginalizations cannot wrench herself into parts. Asking a woman to set aside her race, or disability, or sexuality, or body size, or stature, or whatever, in order to discuss a “woman’s issue,” is to fail to understand that one’s womanhood is inextricably linked to the other aspects of one’s identity.

7. It is similarly unfair to ask a woman to leave aside her personal experience and discuss feminist issues in the abstract. You are discussing the stuff of her life. Asking her to “not make it personal” is to ask her to wrench her womanhood from her personhood.

8. You are not objective on women’s issues because you’re not a woman. Your perception is just as subjective as hers is, but for a different reason. Either we stand to be marginalized by privilege or stand to benefit from it. That’s the reality of institutional bias; it compromises us all.

9. Don’t play Devil’s advocate. Seriously. Just don’t.

10. Listen.

All of this. Just all of it. I can’t count how many times I’ve wanted to hand something like this to dudes and douchebros who get into feminist/womanist/woman’s liberation/gender equality discussions and think that they’re being helpful or worthy of praise if they think they’re objective or if they play devil’s advocate or if they say that women need to strip away what they’ve lived and not talk about it or bring it to the table before they talk about SOMETHING THAT IS PART AND PARCEL OF HOW THEY LIVE.

Also, yes to the intersectionality bit. Even some (mostly white privileged) dudes who get feminism re: white privileged women fail when it comes to understanding that womanhood and other intersectional oppressions are never distinct and separate. It’s like asking a biology teacher to teach you things without mentioning any kind of chemistry. At some point you’re at least going to need to talk about things like oxygen and carbon. So, too with the other things.

Bookmarking.

Love.