I’ve spent the last couple of days absolutely kicking myself. Not literally, that would be something to see.
At the start of the week, I had a couple of misogynistic experiences that I swallowed and smoothed over at the time. I’m feeling the burning shame now, and regret that I didn’t do anything. Of course, women are socialised to not “make a fuss” in social situations, to keep calm and laugh it off in order to be considered sports. Otherwise, you’re just hysterical and overreacting, so says this script. That’s why the freeze, the laugh, the making oneself as unnoticeable as possible. To be approved for the next round of sport.
And I know that, to use one of the experiences as an example, I don’t deserve to commented upon as a potential sexual conquest in a game of macho social oneupmanship. It’s horrible, it’s reductive, it’s disempowering, it makes me feel like shit. No woman deserves that. It’s up to the people who make those sorts of comments to not do it, and, if they do, to make amends. One is not obliged to tell people exactly what they did wrong by one, and risk further harm, or ruin one’s night, or whatever.
But there’s another kind of shame going on for me; I’m kicking myself because I didn’t give the wrongdoers a good feminist talking to. More than I’m embarrassed at being treated like a sexual goalpost, I’m ashamed that I couldn’t overcome the Nice Lady socialisation in that moment to tell that man exactly how I feel about it. It felt like I couldn’t deliver what I stand for.
Neither of these are flavours of shame I should have to taste. I know I’m in no way to blame; the thing is that it’s hard to think of my strong feminist self helpless and compliant in that moment of being caught off-guard. It’s hard think of it as an ethical failure on the wrongdoers’ parts, because I keep thinking of not fighting back as a failure of my politics. It’s taking a lot of effort to remember that that’s not how it works.
Backing down from your own defence in the moment is no feminist failure. The two shames are two sides of the same coin. It’s a coin that places the fault with women, for existing, for not having fixed the world up feminist style quick smart, for being sexual or not in particular ways: for being in the room. Women are not individually responsible for telling off those who have done wrong by them. Feminism is about changing the system so that wrongdoers don’t feel comfortable doing wrong anymore. The only obligation you as the wronged party have in this kind of circumstance is to take care of yourself.
I hope you don’t find yourself in this kind of situation. You probably do, though, and I hope you remember that being aware of social injustice doesn’t mean you don’t internalise unjust societal messages. It doesn’t mean you have to carry on your shoulders the entire weight of making the world better. And it doesn’t mean you’re a bad person if you shrink away in a threatening situation. You’re never to blame for someone doing wrong to you, whatever the circumstance and however you make your way through the world.
((((hugs))))
In practice I find I can only effectively fight back if I’m already in a bad mood for some reason. Those situations rarely coincide, although attacks of that sort are themselves thankfully rare. Which is lucky because some days I’m cranky a lot. Although I have to say that the shame still comes, just in a different flavour. Damn socialisation!
Absolutely.
You are NEVER to blame for someone doing something wrong to you.
You are responsible for your actions and solely your actions, not for the actions of others.
In addition to the socialization that says we should just let it go, does anyone else ever not say anything simply because you feel like it would be useless? What I mean is that in many situations like this where I have stood up, I have been met with shrugs and indifferent or even hostile comments. So sometimes I just lack the energy to put myself out there and get nothing back. That is where my shame in these situations usually comes from.
Backing down from your own defence in the moment is no feminist failure.
Thank you for writing. I needed to hear this today.
In a lot of harassing-type situations (where that term is used pretty liberally), confronting the other person — even relatively politely — really trips my “I will dissociate now” trigger switches. So, a lot of times, I say little or nothing in the moment (or even play along) but feel the need to write it out and/or rant about it later to people I hope will understand.
So it feels doubly damning to hear those trusted people respond with, “Well, I would have…” (in an I-know-better tone, which is not always) or, “Next time, you should…” (which feels shameful to me regardless of intent or tone). I could start in on, “I did the best I could at the time,” but I don’t feel like I should have to defend myself twice.
Hmm
I found your post interesting but It would help me understand why you are so upset if you would be a little less vague about precisely what inspired thsi missive because what you have written here is mainly about your emotional reactions rather than the actual wrongdoing.
That’s the focus of the post, yes. I’m not going to repeat what happened, both because I’d rather not put an upsetting experience out there for general public gawking, and because I think it would be more ethical to confront the oneupman privately.
I know I’ve kicked myself a thousand times for not standing up to inappropriate conversations by bosses and such. However, most times I’ve found my instincts were correct. I saw quite clearly that I could not trust these people to accept my boundaries without punishing me for setting them. Sometimes your lack of reaction makes sense, because there are certain penalties for resistance. The penalties can range from being seen as “troublesome” by potential clients, employers, supervisors or coworkers, to losing support for ventures or causes one cares about passionately. These fears are not exaggerated. They’re quite real. Unfortunately. The consequences can be material and lasting. However, there is often no way of “proving it.” There are vague global studies on how the anger of women is perceived within the general culture, but very few, if any, studies on specific negative consequences of boundary-setting.
Iain Hall: if you need to know the specific details of what happened in order to make sense of Chally’s post, you’ve rather missed the point she’s making. Or do you simply not believe that humiliating sexist abuse happens often enough that other women can recognise the situation?
Thanks, Chally.
Aqua
I am but a humble bloke who likes to know clear specifics before offering an opinion on an incident but I also accept what Chally says about being unwilling to share them so I was unsure that the crux of the matter was the humiliating sexist abuse that you are talking about.
Yes, it is; I wasn’t soliciting opinions on the particular incident – something which, incidently, always seems to draw speculation as to whether an emotional response was justified – but using it to talk about a wider trend of humiliation.
*hugs*
I’m sorry this happened to you, and you’re absolutely right. The title is a good reminder of something we tend to forget :)
I’m glad you didn’t write exactly what the incident was because that just sets you up for the responses you mentioned “Well, I wouldn’t have put up with that!” or “Why didn’t you (fill in blank)?”
I hate it when people respond that way. People are typically a lot braver in their imaginations than in reality.
Thank you for writing this.
Some further reading, something I wrote in 2010: Unreality and the politics of experience.
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@Johannah: yes, I do that, too, especially as I spend a lot of my time in an environment where an indifferent or hostile reaction to activist-y comments is pretty much guaranteed.
What I am teaching myself to do is to make neutral-sounding observation-style comments, deliberately phrased so as not to invite a response, and often followed by something which does invite a response (and which continues the conversation we are otherwise having). So, for example, “Saying [comment] sounds a bit sexist. Anyway, what happened next?”
If someone responds to my comment, I then have the choice to discuss it in more detail, or to just attempt to shut it down, eg “Look, I just think [comment] is a sexist thing to say. Maybe you disagree with me, and I’m not saying you’re sexist. But anyway, I’m really interested to know about …”
I’ve only done this in situations where I feel fairly safe anyway, ie with people I would actually be willing to have the broader conversation with if it happened, and where the offensiveness is not directed at me. I’m still doing the “say nothing because I don’t have the energy to deal with the fall-out” in many situations. However, I have had a couple of situations where the end result was a pretty good one (had the broader conversation, felt like I made someone at least think about it a bit, didn’t feel like they hated me, didn’t feel like it cost me too much energy) and that is encouraging me to do it more. FTR I’m not suggesting that this is something we all should do, just mentioning it as a middle road I am often finding myself on.
@Jo Tamar
Thank you so much, that sounds extremely helpful and is definitely a strategy I will try in the future!!!