lettered | misogyny round #5,638

likeadeuce linked to two articles about sexism in media. I found them fascinating partly because both articles seem to be a point in the middle of larger arguments that cycle through fandom (and elsewhere) constantly, but imo neither article does a great job of setting up those larger arguments. They left their straw men at home, either because they assumed we’d encountered the arguments so frequently we didn’t need an introduction, or because they didn’t think context was important.

What interested me most about these articles was that they’re talking to each other from opposite sides of an issue, without really seeming to acknowledge or understand each other. I think context is the most important part of these arguments, and part of the reason people so often disagree.

The first article is Kicking Ass, Taking Names, Bubblegum Optional by Sigrid Ellis over at Apex Magazine. Excerpt:

False consciousness is the idea that the oppressed (you, me, women, queers, people of color, most of the planet) cannot recognize the tools of our oppression. That the downtrodden participate in oppressing ourselves while falsely thinking we are making free choices. The lack of diversity in female action heroes means that we are forced into upholding unrealistic standards of appearance, youth, and gender. False consciousness is the idea that we don’t know this — that we can’t see the problem. False consciousness tells me that I can’t admire female action heroes without buying all the rest of the crap. This is, frankly, bullshit.

[. . .] Could I wish that not every female action hero be scantily clad? I could. I do. But I refuse to agree that the clothes a woman wears — even a character in a film, dressed by corporate filmmakers — somehow makes her less of a fucking badass.

The second article is Escher Girl’s post, On Female Characters. Excerpt:

I am tired of being told to like female characters.

(This post has been edited a little to more accurately define false consciousness :o) Thanks, lynnenne!

Take any random movie; Ellis’s example, Sucker Punch, is a fantastic case study. Take two common responses to this movie--Person A, who says, "OMG so sexist!" and Person B, who says, "OMG so empowering!" And then Person A will asked Person B, “Hey, did you know your text is sexist?” ¹

As someone who has been Person A, I’ve interacted two different “types” of Person B: i) People who have considered the idea that the text might be sexist, but disagree or have decided to enjoy it anyway. These people have encountered the “invisible oppression” argument but for one reason or another think their text isn’t oppressive, or think it is but like it anyway.

ii) people who haven’t considered the idea that the text might be sexist, or don’t understand how it could be read as sexist. Many of these people (whom I’ve met) say they’ve never even really encountered the "invisible oppression" argument before. Some even say they thought sexism and racism were over, and when you talk to them about the –ism in their text, they tell you, "I hadn't thought about it that way; this makes me rethink some of the assumptions I had."

In short, sometimes false consciousness exists: sometimes we don't know we're oppressed and/or understand oppression when we see it. As a woman who for a period of time sort of thought sexism was kind of over and that most feminists were just finding things to complain about, this is definitely my experience. Some forms of oppression are so deeply entrenched that people don't recognize them. If this invisible oppression does exist, there's no other way to reveal it than to go around saying, "There it is." Not saying, “There it is” might in fact be part of the problem.

Saying to someone, “Hey, did you know there’s sexism in your text?” may sound like I have The Knowledge and dispersing it among the unenlightened, but hey, I'm "unenlightened" about plenty of things. I appreciate it when people share knowledge with me. If your definition of oppression is really just different than mine, it's definitely not my job to change your mind or tell you what to do. But if you just haven’t really thought about it before, then I’d like for it to be okay for me to talk to you about it.

Now, another part of the problem is that often, the motivation of Person A is unclear, even to Person A. I've seen single conversations in which Person A waffled between saying, "I just want you to understand and acknowledge this!" to saying, "But you're wrong for liking this!" I have in fact probably been that person, because it's hard to know what to do to when you like a text and feel that it's problematic. You want not to like it but you can't help yourself, so you feel ashamed; you want other people to feel your shame; you maybe even want other to help convince you to stay away.

If your motivation as Person A is to tell people they’re wrong for liking what they like, you’re probably an asshat. Your heart might be in the right place: you don’t want to support institutions that perpetuate these problems and the only way to do that is to stop giving said institutions money. However, it’s not your place to tell people where they should put their money; you are not a moral authority; your opinion is not objectively superior. So STFU.

If your motivation as Person A is to try to get someone to acknowledge your POV, you might still be an asshat, because you might be assuming they haven’t thought about something they have, in fact, thought about. You might be assuming ignorance or a lack of perspective when that person is informed in all the ways and has looked at the text from all the angles. You might be wanting them to acknowledge your POV without acknowledging theirs.

It depends on whether you asked, “Hey, did you know . . . ?” And it depends on whether they said, “Yes,” because if they said yes and you went and explained it anyway, then you just wanna hear yourself talk. But if they said, “No,” I just don’t see anything wrong with talking about it, as long as what you’re trying to do is get someone to see how the text can be read as sexist—not convince them that the text is, in fact, sexist, or that they should condemn or reject the text, etc.

My guess is that there are a lot of People B who are pretty goddamn tired of People A trying to tell them they’re wrong, or trying to change their minds, or trying to tell them things they already know. Lots of People A have great big problems; it’s true.

But dude, not all of us are always trying to say that what you like is wrong; we’re not saying you shouldn’t like it; we’re not saying you’re secretly sexist; we’re not saying you’re part of the problem; we’re not saying you should change your mind. We’re saying, “Hey, did you know . . .?” Because dude, some of us didn’t know and we really appreciated it when someone talked to us about it.

And part of the problem, imo, is that when I say, “Did you know?” sometimes I get a whole lot of hostility. People just assume I’m being an asshat. I mean, look at what Ellis says about false consciousness. She says that “the idea that we can’t see the problem” is the same as the idea that we “can’t admire female action heroes without buying all the rest of the [oppression of the kyriarchy ] crap.”

This reads to me as false causality. Just because I think that someone doesn’t see how a text is sexist doesn’t mean that I think they’re buying into sexism if they enjoy the text. Just because I’ve talked to half a dozen young ladies who didn’t see any problems with Sucker Punch doesn’t mean that said young ladies uphold unrealistic standards of appearance, youth, and gender. It just means that they didn’t see the sexism in the text, and I would like for them to acknowledge that it is there.

I’d like for them to acknowledge that it is there because the more we acknowledge these things, the better we can recognize sexism. That means we can better speak out against sexism; it doesn’t we have to speak out against that particular text. It means we can talk to the creators of this text and say what we liked and didn’t like about it. We can talk to each other about this text and talk about what its problems and strengths are. We can talk to people who do buy into sexism (whether they are audiences for this text or not) and tell them what we think. We can create our own texts that are not sexist.

I said I got two responses from People B: i) “I’ve never considered that!” ii) “I’ve considered that and disagree, or enjoy it anyway.” I didn’t mention this response, iii) “you’re wrong!”—which I’ve seen just as much or maybe even more than the other two. And that last response is just as assholic as all the People A who trying to convince people B that they're wrong for liking what they like.

Maybe, as Person B, you refuse to consider the sexism in your text because you refuse to acknowledge that there is sexism in our world, which makes me think you’re part of the problem. That doesn’t mean that I should try to “fix” you; you’re entitled to your beliefs, but I will think you’re sort of an asshole for refusing to even acknowledge my opinion. Or maybe you refuse to consider the sexism in your text because your text is your escape, and you want to just enjoy it. That’s fine, but it would be more constructive if you said that (which some people do; don’t get me wrong) instead of just telling me to STFU.

Or maybe you’re just really fucking tired of People A’s being asshats, which is understandable. You’ve been told you’re wrong; you’ve been told what to do; you’ve been told to reject what you enjoy . . . so you’re going to turn around and tell People A they’re wrong, you’re gonna tell them what to do, you’re gonna tell them to reject what they enjoy.

I don't like Sucker Punch, and I don't like its heroines. The movie makes me feel icky and gross and depressed about the state of sexism in our world. And I've encountered People B, who see to think, "Maybe she just hasn't considered that Sucker Punch is empowering!" And People B who seem to think, "She should think Sucker Punch is empowering!" And People B who tell me, "You are in fact wrong and part of the problem if you don't love Sucker Punch and admire its heroines!"

They also tell me I should like Amy Pond because she’s a fucking hero, even though I find the entire premise of her character icky and misogynist. They tell me I should like River Song because she's a female, when I feel like she's a female clone constructed merely because someone on the show realized Doctor Who is problematic. They tell me I need to love the female characters of Sherlock, because Sally and Molly typify oppressed females who are dealing with their oppression in different ways and so actually break the molds of oppression.

Sigrid Ellis isn’t saying this. All she’s saying is what she personally likes. And there are some really awesome people on my flist who love the females of Supernatural, a show that is imo deeply misogynist. They acknowledge the misogyny; sometimes they use the misogyny to show that characters may be oppressed and mistreated, but women can rise above; they are still their own people. They love the characters, find what's cool about them, sometimes use them to subvert the sexism in the text and sometimes just ignore the sexism in the text completely. These fans are finding ways to recognize, acknowledge, and respond to sexism, and they're doing a damn good job of it. They’re not trying to tell anyone else what to do.

Those aren’t the people I’m talking about. I’m talking about the people who tell me if I’m not fannish about those characters, then I’m part of the problem. I’m talking about the people who tell me I should be writing fic about those characters, or people who tell me I’m wrong for liking slash, or people who tell me my fic needs to pass the Bechdel test. Guys, it’s just as wrong and twisted for People B to say that if I don’t like these female characters, I’m part of the problem, as it is for People A to say that if you do like these female characters, you’re part of the problem.

Anyway, as far as I can tell, that’s where Escher Girl is coming from. And my guess is that if Sigrid Ellis didn’t have so many people saying, “You’re wrong for liking that!”, and if Escher Girl didn’t have so many people saying, “You’re wrong for not liking that!”, then we wouldn’t be having this discussion.

Both Ellis’s and Escher Girls posts are responses to censure, to people telling them they’re wrong for liking or not liking something. If you’ve encountered more people telling you you’re wrong for liking something, you may identify with Ellis. If you’re typically a Person A and keep seeing people telling you you’re wrong for not liking something, you may identify with Escher Girl.

There's peer pressure involved, not that anyone is consciously doing it, but if you like BBC's Sherlock and yet want not to like it because of its treatment of female characters, it's hard because all your friends are all about John and Sherlock and Mycroft and Lestrade and no one in your playground is talking about all the problems; it would in some ways be way easier if no one liked it and you didn't have to think about it. Or maybe everyone in your playground is talking about all the problems and what they’re doing with it is loving on Sally and Molly, and you hate Sally and Molly; Sally and Molly hurt your feelings because the way they’re treated by the text is just icky to you, and it would be easier in some ways if those characters weren’t there at all.

We get these posts that are part of the larger conversation that everyone is having, but nowhere can you see the whole conversation. Sometimes when I want to talk to someone about an -ism in a text I feel like I have to do a little dance to figure out—are you Person B? Have you encountered me a thousand times before? Do you know what I’m going to say? Will it annoy you?

I'm interested in everyone's thoughts on this.

¹ I’ve talked about Person A and Person B as if you’re always one or the other, when really I just meant we take up these different modes of interaction in response to different texts—I’ve been both A and B, and sometimes might be both within one conversation, and sometimes will just play the opposite against whoever I’m talking to, since I like all sides of an argument to be examined.

misogyny round #5,638

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