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Also because I don't have an angry feminist icon, for some reason.
Tonight I'm taking a break from the brain-intensive beer gloves and casting on theGryffindor Argyle State University scarf, now that I've found a proper gold yarn. It's double-knitting and colorwork, two things I've not done before, plus it's a pattern I thought was cool, so I'm kind of excited by it.
This evening's Women as Healers class involved talking about the mpreg story I wrote my paper on. The story in question is a "in the near future" feminist science fiction piece in which there exists the technology to remove a woman's uterus, place it in an artificial pouch, and connect it to someone else via a conduit implanted in the navel. It's a semi-surrogacy situation, without the legal messiness, because the uterus and eggs don't belong to the host and obviously aren't actually inside her. The sidebar has marketing materials, newspaper articles, and excerpts from a scholarly paper all using a rhetoric of pregnancy as a messy, dirty burden that the "busy professional woman" can escape from by havinga poor woman of color someone else to do the work for her. In fact, the host who is interviewed is a woman (from El Salvador, I believe) who wanted more children but had to be sterilized in order to keep her green card, and so this is the closest she can get to actual pregnancy. The "main" part of the story is a man, a scientist, who takes his wife's uterus in order to have a son after the illness and death of their daughter. The wife, incidentally, isn't interested in having another child, and I got the impression that she gave up her uterus because she was tired of arguing with him about it, but Howard convinces himself that there will be a Magical Point at which she will become interested in the baby and then all will be well.
Most of our discussion was focused on the reversal of gender roles, and the way that Howard (and his privilege) processes pregnancy and others' reactions to it, using simultaneously the Mansplanation "I, a man have experienced this thing, so now it is valid" approach (did you know that morning sickness was not something in our heads, ladies? it's REAL! because Man Howard has experienced it!) and the rhetoric of "I am special! because I are a PIONEER! and if you discriminate against me it must be because I am a MAN HAVING A BABY and that makes YOU uncomfortable!"Also I understand racial oppression because my ancestors are Irish. (Yes, Howard seriously reminds me of Privilege Denying Dude. Google it, it will make your morning.)
Speaking of Privilege Denying Dude, I have a particular classmate (Poli Sci major, Women's Studies Minor) who is gay and Asian, and acts like no one in the world could possibly be more oppressed/stereotyped/racialized than him. He's loudmouthed in a particularly obnoxious way, and several members of the class (including me) get into arguments with him virtually every week because of it. Tonight's Privilege Demonstration was regarding Man Howard's attitude toward parental leave (which he turned into an argument about how it was DISCRIMINATION, REALLY, and if he were adopting a child and he got discriminated against, he would throw a fit. Which, I actually had to turn to a human being in real life, face-to-face discourse, and say, "It's not about you. Stop making it about you."
One of my classmates, a fellow knitter who's usually a little more aware than this, opined that she didn't understand why Dorothy (the wife) and Rosa (the sidebar host) were getting so much sympathy, because they both CHOSE to do these things. (Obviously she's never been in a relationship where it was easier to give in than to argue, even if you really didn't want to do something, because your partner was so gung-ho about it they weren't hearing you when you said no.) The professor pointed out that criticizing Rosa was operating from a position of white privilege, because framing her decision to be sterilized to keep her green card as a choice was problematic. (She did concede the point after I re-emphasized that Rosa wanted more children but chose sterilization rather than deportation; obviously returning to her home country was something she desperately didn't want.) So Privilege Denying Classmate stands up for her against the professor, saying that Knitting Classmate can't be experiencing privilege because she's a lesbian, and her oppressed state as a lesbian basically outranks her privileged state as a white person. I could not possibly be making this up. And then, not ten minutes later, he gets into an argument with another classmate about how she shouldn't treat intersectional oppression like a hierarchy. Because it's only valid when he does it, obviously.
He wasn't in class last week. It was so nice and quiet and civilized.
On the other hand, tag-team jumping him for being wrong is kind of fun.
Tonight I'm taking a break from the brain-intensive beer gloves and casting on the
This evening's Women as Healers class involved talking about the mpreg story I wrote my paper on. The story in question is a "in the near future" feminist science fiction piece in which there exists the technology to remove a woman's uterus, place it in an artificial pouch, and connect it to someone else via a conduit implanted in the navel. It's a semi-surrogacy situation, without the legal messiness, because the uterus and eggs don't belong to the host and obviously aren't actually inside her. The sidebar has marketing materials, newspaper articles, and excerpts from a scholarly paper all using a rhetoric of pregnancy as a messy, dirty burden that the "busy professional woman" can escape from by having
Most of our discussion was focused on the reversal of gender roles, and the way that Howard (and his privilege) processes pregnancy and others' reactions to it, using simultaneously the Mansplanation "I, a man have experienced this thing, so now it is valid" approach (did you know that morning sickness was not something in our heads, ladies? it's REAL! because Man Howard has experienced it!) and the rhetoric of "I am special! because I are a PIONEER! and if you discriminate against me it must be because I am a MAN HAVING A BABY and that makes YOU uncomfortable!"
Speaking of Privilege Denying Dude, I have a particular classmate (Poli Sci major, Women's Studies Minor) who is gay and Asian, and acts like no one in the world could possibly be more oppressed/stereotyped/racialized than him. He's loudmouthed in a particularly obnoxious way, and several members of the class (including me) get into arguments with him virtually every week because of it. Tonight's Privilege Demonstration was regarding Man Howard's attitude toward parental leave (which he turned into an argument about how it was DISCRIMINATION, REALLY, and if he were adopting a child and he got discriminated against, he would throw a fit. Which, I actually had to turn to a human being in real life, face-to-face discourse, and say, "It's not about you. Stop making it about you."
One of my classmates, a fellow knitter who's usually a little more aware than this, opined that she didn't understand why Dorothy (the wife) and Rosa (the sidebar host) were getting so much sympathy, because they both CHOSE to do these things. (Obviously she's never been in a relationship where it was easier to give in than to argue, even if you really didn't want to do something, because your partner was so gung-ho about it they weren't hearing you when you said no.) The professor pointed out that criticizing Rosa was operating from a position of white privilege, because framing her decision to be sterilized to keep her green card as a choice was problematic. (She did concede the point after I re-emphasized that Rosa wanted more children but chose sterilization rather than deportation; obviously returning to her home country was something she desperately didn't want.) So Privilege Denying Classmate stands up for her against the professor, saying that Knitting Classmate can't be experiencing privilege because she's a lesbian, and her oppressed state as a lesbian basically outranks her privileged state as a white person. I could not possibly be making this up. And then, not ten minutes later, he gets into an argument with another classmate about how she shouldn't treat intersectional oppression like a hierarchy. Because it's only valid when he does it, obviously.
He wasn't in class last week. It was so nice and quiet and civilized.
On the other hand, tag-team jumping him for being wrong is kind of fun.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-24 07:56 pm (UTC)From:The kids thing...yeah. I look like a kid albeit with grey hairs. What's hilarious is when I get this:
"OMG! You don't have kids?"
"No."
"Why?"
"Well, not with a guy, and my disability might make having kids awkward."
"Oh, then you should never ever have kids if you're disabled, because *stupid failure at Darwin*"
"I'll give that the consideration it warrants."
People are special.
And your summary of why the hell women get misogynist is, I think, spot on. I suspect that white women (of which yrs. trly. is one) will round on, fingerwaggle at, and condescend to less privileged women and fail at intersectionality for the same reasons: society says YA GOTTA STEP ON SOMEONE!
I covet the hammer.no subject
Date: 2010-11-24 09:24 pm (UTC)From:I hate people who ask WHY you don't have kids. For one thing, the reasons behind my life choices are NONE OF YOUR DAMN BUSINESS; for another, it's FAR too easy to step into someone's emotional black hole with a question like that. My choice to remain childfree is rooted in the cons outweighing the pros (I am sad that none of my nieces or nephews live close enough to play with; I LOVE children. OTHER PEOPLE'S children. So I can GIVE THEM BACK.), so it's a decision I made freely, but for many people it's something they were forced into and admitting it HURTS. One of these days someone's going to ask me why and I'm just going to look sad and say, "Oh, we can't" and watch them realize what a huge gaffe it is.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-24 11:31 pm (UTC)From:XD Agreed.
One of these days someone's going to ask me why and I'm just going to look sad and say, "Oh, we can't" and watch them realize what a huge gaffe it is.
DO EET. DO IT TONIGHT.
I swear I need an answer like that for some of the weird questions I get.
Also: I don't think I would last too long in your class. I am not good at debating.
Shakespeare thinks Privileged Dude sounds like he needs a slap with a large and heavy handbag.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-25 02:30 pm (UTC)From:Gah. I don't understand those people either, and that question's...I don't know, it's obvious sometimes that a woman's body and choices are still considered public property and up for public debate. I mean - what the hell does the guy behind me in New York Fries care what I order? And it's not just men, either - I basically had to SCARE OUT OF MY LIFE an especially annoying earthmama wannabe who would never shut up about my dietary choices and how my metabolism would change and I'd be sorry. I remember once telling her "Google 'cystic fibrosis' and then come the fuck back and lecture me, dipshit." And of course she forgot a week later that NO REALLY MY METABOLISM IS STUCK THIS WAY, I AM ALWAYS HUNGRY AND ALWAYS COLD. @_@
And I'm friggin' navelgazing but I mean - the hierarchy in action! Earthmama child would constantly whine and whine about people trying to police HER choices (this included her girlfriend, who struck me as borderline abusive and pretty horrid but who has grown up a ton according to people still in contact), so - there we go with the hierarchy.
And in re: 'we can't' - I FULLY ENCOURAGE THIS XD