Team Valkyrie FTW

A friend and I were talking about gender fluidity and the problem of people getting perpetually mis-gendered, and the rage that can result when you’re just mis-gendered like all the goddamn time, and the occasionally-resulting backlash against cis people as a result. I mean, this comes in all forms. People of color getting fed up with white people, women getting fed up with men, gay/bi/pan people getting fed up with straight people, you name it. Sometimes you just get so overwhelmed with crap that you just lash out.

And lashing out in rage, well, it doesn’t help further the conversation. Sure. The moments where some of us scream “Fucking men, I swear to God!” don’t really help the “feminists hate men” thing, does it?

But man, sometimes, you just get mad.

Here’s the way I see it. Someone walking along, gets stung by a bee. Pending they’re not allergic, they will say “Ow!” and check out the injury, and say “I got stung by a bee! Can someone help me take out this stinger?”

But maybe they get stung again. And again. And then they’re being chased through the woods by an angry swarm of killer bees, and all they can do is scream BEESBEESOHMYGODHELPBEES.

Now, what are you as a bystander going to do? Are you going to get mad at the person being stung by ten thousand bees for not being able to communicate anything more than BEES? “I can’t help you if all you’re doing is being angry about bees! If you’re just shouting about BEES you’re not furthering the conversation!” Coz Imma be real, if you do this, you’re kind of an asshole.

People have a right to be mad when BEES. And no, BEES doesn’t help further the conversation. But when someone is BEES they aren’t really thinking about the conversation, the bigger picture. They’re thinking about the ten thousand bees chasing them through the woods. So what you need to do is step back and not hassle them about the whole BEES thing. Acknowledge the fact that BEES. If you can help with BEES then you probably should help with BEES, but if you can’t, man, just back off and don’t go adding to the BEES.

(Note: I want to be absolutely clear here. When you are talking with someone who is BEES about a situation, you must still treat them with respect. Don’t pat them on the head and say “Yes you are angry and so I will not treat you like a rational person until you calm down, but I won’t tell you to calm down, aren’t I so thoughtful?” The anger is not irrational, and they are not irrational for being angry. Their anger deserves your respect and consideration, not your patronizing BS.)

How often has this happened to you? You’re having a conversation about some specific incident as it relates to feminist issues. Some new study revealing the violence inherent in the system. Some specific, particular issue that serves to be a bullet point in the ever-expanding list of incidents. You’re having that conversation. You’re exploring it, discussing it, discussing how to identify it, adding your own personal experiences.

When suddenly someone jumps in saying “Why are you picking at this specific example? Don’t you realize this problem is so much bigger than this tiny thing you’re picking at?!”

And they’re sitting there looking at you feeling all

And meanwhile you’re like

Oh really? Yes, please, explain to me how I, in discussing this particular instance of misogyny (or whatever) am missing the big picture of sexism (or whatever). Please, let us talk about how this is actually a bigger problem than just this little dark thing we are shining a light on. Because we have to have every conversation all the time forever.

If you haven’t pieced together for yourself why this kind of statement is both (a) offensive and (b) showing very clearly how much you are missing the point, then please read on.

First of all, here’s why it is offensive: you have entered into someone else’s conversation, of which you were not originally invited to be a part of, and have decided that the direction of this conversation is not to your liking, so you change it into something that is. Perhaps it’s because you felt personally attacked (“gosh geek guys pick on geek girls a lot”) or because you feel like you have to defend a thing you love (“geek culture sure has a lot of racism in it”). You never once attempted to engage the actual conversation. And this philosophy also applies to, say, blog posts. If you jump in the comments with a completely different topic in mind, sheesh, at least own up to it.

If you think picking on a specific subject is not helpful, then start your own, different conversation on that subject. Don’t hijack mine.

And second of all, here’s why it’s showing how badly you’re missing the point.

You’re jumping into a conversation where a woman is talking about sexism, and shouting down her opinion. You’re jumping into a conversation where a black woman is talking about racism and sexism and the intersectionality therein, and shouting down her opinion. You’re jumping into a conversation where a trans* person is discussing transphobia, and shouting down their opinion.

You may think you’re really enlightened when you’re talking about the “big picture” of problems in the world. But in this instance, you yourself are becoming the exact problem you claim to be rallying against.

So, yeah, instead of talking so much

But the thing is, this argument gets held up over and over, demanding people look at the “bigger picture.” And the reason it keeps being held up is, there’s a kernel of truth there. There are in fact bigger problems. This single issue is not the only issue that happens in the entire world. Nor is it the worst.

However, if you don’t understand the need to discuss specific instances of –isms, then I’m not entirely sure you want to hear my opinion of your critical thinking skills.

When you are dealing with someone who doesn’t understand that –isms are a real thing, a really solid way to counter their opinion is to have an arsenal of examples. Some examples are very clear-cut and obvious, but a lot of them are not. In discussing these specific examples, we are able to flesh out exactly what they mean in terms of the –ism(s) they pertain to. For instance, these persistent “fake geek girl” debacles that resurface every few months like a bad rash are simply steeped in misogyny. But it’s like an overstuffed suitcase, filled with layers upon layers of stale-smelling clothes: it requires some unpacking.

The process of unpacking these instances is important in working to fix the bigger issues. You can’t solve a problem if you can’t address the symptoms. By talking about these issues in a more calmly controlled environment, we can fully analyze what’s going on and develop our reasons for why this particular event is problematic. That way, when we’re out in the real world, full of the issues that you as a person of privilege don’t have to deal with, we have the ideas and the words to point out what is and isn’t bullshit. We are prepared, so we don’t just sit there in stunned silence, feeling uncomfortable and threatened and hurt and not able to articulate why.

You might come at us with the argument of needing to look at the bigger picture, but I think perhaps you should be looking at the facts on the ground. We’re both talking about the zombie apocalypse here. Instead of standing there philosophizing about the greater problem of the T-virus and how best to stop it, maybe you should pick up the bat and help us fight the zombies chasing us the hell right now.

Caveat: This post is discussing sexism. It’s going to use a lot of gender-binary language. I’m sorry about that, but I have a distinct point I’m trying to prove, and the statistics gathered which support this are all in terms of men-v-women, and well. Also this is focused on the United States, because that’s the context that I can speak from, confidently. And while this post is going to focus primarily on sexism, please understand that it can translate just as easily to any other -ism we see. You can replace the statistics, but the core point holds.

Normally I try to keep it geeky here, but this came at a personal request, so sure. It’s an important topic, and something a lot of people Don’t Get.

Here’s an argument I hear a lot: “Sexism doesn’t really exist. It’s about people being awful to other people. That’s the real problem.”

I’m going to be up front: if you think the “real problem” is people universally being horrible to one another, and don’t understand the underlying problems of sexism/racism/etc-ism, you are really shitty at root-cause analysis.

So I’m an engineer by trade. This is what I am paid to do. I write software all day, erryday. One of the skills I posses is a certain tenacity when it comes to bug-fixing, where I refuse to stop at a band-aid, where I will dig into the architecture until I find the source issue, and fix it in such a way that I resolve the core issue and do not break other things in the process. Related to this is my ability to observe and analyze whole systems, to understand the interactions between them, and to spot potential problems in those interactions, all while keeping a clear idea of the end goal, of making the system useful, of making things clear for the user.

Being an engineer, I look at the world with an engineering mindset. The world we live in is not a collection of discrete, independent components. Everything relies on everything else. And because the world we live in is so incredibly complex, it can be challenging to see how anything impacts anything else, and to understand the real problems we face.

So let’s talk about real problems.

1 in 6 women in the United States is a survivor of sexual assault. Contrast this to the statistics for men: 1 in 33. Only 3% of rapists will ever spend a single day in prison. (RAINN)

Women earn less than men, across the board. Whether the stat you get is 77 cents to every dollar or 81 cents to every dollar, it doesn’t matter, there is a wage gap based on gender. (wiki) And those stats get worse when you consider race: black women earn 69 cents to the dollar, and Hispanic women earn 59 cents to the dollar. (infoplease)

“But although women make up over half of America’s labor force, as of 2009, only 12 Fortune 500 companies and 25 Fortune 1000 companies have women CEOs or presidents.” (infoplease)

Women are sexually assaulted at significantly higher rates than men are. Women are paid less (despite currently being the percentage-majority graduating from higher education). Women struggle to reach positions of power in the professional and political world. I could keep going, but I feel like this gives you an idea of real, actual problems.

You may be wondering how this could possibly relate to objectification. These are real-world problems with gender lines, but none of them appear to have anything to do with treating another human being as a sex object, except maybe the rape one, right?

To which I will say: you suck at understanding system interactions.

Imagine we live in a world where the above problems don’t exist. There is no significant divide between men and women in terms of sexual assault, of leadership, of wages earned, of media representation, anything. Your CEO is just as likely to be a man as a woman. Women earn the same as men, on average. Women are no more likely to be the victim of sexual assault than men are. Let’s pretend this is the world we live in.

If this were the world, then objectification would be the same, both ways. It would be just as dehumanizing to objectify men as it is to objectify women, because men and women are coming at the problem on equal footing. There is no inherent power balance going on here.

However, this is not the world we live in. And everything has context.

There is a pervasive thrum in media of women as an object to behold. Women are used to sell products to other women as well as men. Women are “booth babes,” not men. Women are the prize for men at the end of the film. They are to be seen, and not heard, and certainly not followed or respected.

A woman is something to be possessed, to be claimed as a prize at the end of the journey. She is an object, a reward, and little else. Why pay her more? She’s just there to look pretty. She can’t do the same work as a man, and whatever, she’s probably just going to get pregnant and quit anyway. And don’t even think about putting her in power, she doesn’t belong there, what would she even do with it. And if you want to have sex with her, well damn, go have sex with her, that’s your right. If she doesn’t want it, well, get her a little drunk, get the bitch to loosen up, amirite? All she’s good for.

These aren’t conscious thoughts most people have. These are unconscious biases. And this is, in fact, the world we live in. Women being objectified so pervasively translates to unconscious bias, which translates to real-world bias. Sexism’s language has become more coded and less obvious, but it’s still there. You just need to dig at the root cause.

When a man objectifies a woman, he does it in the context of being more financially secure than her, of being in professional and political power over her, of being statistically more likely to perpetrate sexual violence against her. When a man looks at a woman as an object and not a person, he is coming from a position where this is an actionable perspective. If a woman is not human, she doesn’t deserve to be treated as one.

When a woman objectifies a man, she does it in the context of being less financially secure, of having less power, of being more likely to be victimized. It isn’t necessarily “all right” for a woman to objectify a man, but there are not real-world ramifications for men as there are for women.

It is not the same. It is not “people being horrible to people.” Not when the results are this imbalanced.

To the people who claim that sexism isn’t the real problem, it’s just people being awful: when you see this, when you see these problems, when you see that women are paid less, treated as less, respected less, that there are fewer women are in power, in leadership roles, when you see this world we live in with its very real problems, this long history of abuse, erasure, imbalance, all this inescapable context… how can you think anything divided on gender lines is going to be equal?

What about this do you not understand?

So both Dr and I are going to be at SDCC this year, and we were wondering… are any of you out there who read this blog going to be there too?

Should we, perhaps, arrange a luncheon hangout in the park?

This post is to gauge interest. Please to comment if you would like such a thing, and we’ll figure out what works best for schedules.

And because it’s not a TeamV post without a reaction gif: