Learn the Lingo

"I don't understand feminist language."

This is something I'm starting to see, more and more, as I move through feminist spheres.  And I don't like it.  Now, I get that there are a lot of things to talk about a learn, especially if you're going to do feminism correctly, where you support trans women and women of color and asexual women and disabled women and neurodivergent women and sex workers and teenagers and homosexual women and polyamorous women and any combination of the above and more.

Y'know, actual feminism, where you support ALL women?

There's a lot of lingo, cis, dfab, dmab, biromantic, alltistic, I could go on for pages, I really, really could.  And I understand that learning it takes time and effort, but I should point out that it takes time.  And effort.  I learned the vast majority of what I know from Tumblr over the course of a year or more, and though I'm still learning, because there is always something new to know, I was able to learn it.  It involved reading a lot, and a lot of time, which I had when I was getting into Tumblr, as well as an internet connection.

I understand that not everyone has internet access or a lot of time to read everything, or even the ability to read at all.  That is not what's grinding my gears at ALL, like what kind of asshole would I be to get upset about that?  A huge one, that's what kind.  I have a lot of privilege, I know that.

What gets me is people, on the internet, talking about articles they read.  On the internet.  Google exists, friend.  Hell, use Bing or AskJeeves or even the virus Groovario if you like, there are search engines out there.  If you have the ability to read articles online, you have the ability to search for words you don't understand, and you know what you do if your search turns up contradictory results?  You search more, and you read more.  That's how it works.

I can understand, if you're new to things, that you might not be able to understand why Men's Rights Activists, or MRAs, are so reviled, because it would seem, on the surface, that they are just men trying to help other men escape the backlash of misogyny, by saying things like "Men can be raped, too" and "Men can wear dresses, if they like."  It takes reading and time to see that MRAs are actually men dedicated to forcing discussions about misogyny to focus on how men are hurt by it, rather than on how men can stop using misogyny to stop hurting women.  And men.

Now, I'm not saying there isn't a place for discussions of men being raped, but that place is not in the middle of a conversation about how rape culture crushes women.  And that is what MRA's always talk about.  That, and alimony, which comes about because our society devalues women, even ones working in the same field as men.  MRAs don't seem interested in gay rights, transgender issues, or presentation, and they remain remarkably silent on those issues.

And that is the tip of the iceberg on things that can be confusing and misunderstood, such as dfab, or "designated female at birth," versus afab and "assigned female at birth."  People make mistakes, there's always something new to learn, which can be both frustrating and exciting, depending on your personality type and mood.

But something I've also noticed is that the people most commonly complaining about not understanding feminist jargon are white, cishet people.  For anyone who might want to complain about not understanding any of those terms, I don't care.  This entire article is about my frustration with people who don't take the time to search for themselves.

I even understand that some people need examples to understand something, rather than straight-forward definitions, need to comprehend it in practice, rather than pure theory, but I really don't think that's the problem here.  It seems to me that the problem here is that white cishet people don't want to think about their privilege, but they also know that not "being a feminist" is also something that will get them slammed, so they say, "I'm totally a feminist, I just don't get all that jargon, make it easier for me," putting the onus of their education on the oppressed, rather than taking up the mantle themselves.

Now, I won't deny that it's not just white cishet people doing this, people of all manner of privilege, able-bodied, alltistic, neurotypical, college educated, people who don't live with food insecurity, there are people in all of these groups of privilege, and more, who will put the onus of their education on those oppressed by their privilege, but you know who I hear the most?  White cishet folks.  Because they are at a crucial intersection of powerful privilege, and feel entitled to speak the most, speak the loudest, and argue the longest.

Of course, if you're reading this, chances are that you already know this, you already understand that this is a truism of our world, but I'm saying something about it because I am frustrated by it, and because I'm hoping to give words to someone who doesn't know why it's so frustrating when someone on the internet, or even offline, says "I'm totally this thing, I just don't understand the language used," when it's blatantly obvious they are not what they claim to be.

Having words to describe my experiences and frustrations has always helped me, so when someone says "I don't understand the language used here," it always sounds to me like, "I don't need to care enough about this language to learn what it means," and when I hear that, I just want that person to stop claiming to be standing with me.  You don't even care enough to learn how to talk about what is important to me.  How can you possibly be on my side?

On Strength

 I volunteered at an event some time ago. It was a tactic I learned from an overachiever friend of mine, so that I could get into an event for free, and also avoid the vast bulk of socialization, just volunteer to work on staff to get all of the advantages, and very few of the detriments. Staff sometimes even get perks general attendees don't, so that was a plus.

The event in question doesn't particularly matter, it was an amateur event by a local group, in a place I'd been to many times before, with people I largely knew, so really, none of that factored in, none of it really mattered. The event was interesting enough for me, especially as a staff member, and as someone who picked up some interesting things, but the duration of the event isn't what stands out most strongly.

What stands out most strongly are the beginning and end of the event. Because I was helping a friend, one who was something of an overachiever, we ended up having to bring forty metal folding chairs up from his basement, pack them in his car, then move them from his car to the event location. And there were only the two of us to move them. If you've ever moved folding chairs, you know how frustrating it is, the chairs are unexpectedly heavy, if they're different styles, you can't grasp them easily, so on and so forth.

Now, I'm fat. Not Bridget Jones pleasingly plump, but the kind of fat that gets pointed and laughed at on every sitcom, in every movie, the kind that gets shown in photos and video with face and head cut out of the shot to warn people of the dangers of obesity and to remind everyone how much they need to get on a diet, exercise, and lose weight. I'm black, on top of it, so I don't even get to be comedically funny, not that I haven't tried my hand at it, like everyone. I think I'm hilarious, and I still crack myself up, but I'm definitely not getting sitcom laughs.

But me, I get dragooned into every Medea-type character ever played by a black man in a fat suit: Mother, nurturer, sassy and bold. I would never say there's anything wrong with being that type of person, it's just not me. I have never wanted children or anyone else who might be dependent on me, because I can barely take care of myself, an introverted anime geek with anxiety and bad money management skills, I'd rather sit in a blanket-filled closet and read manga online than host any kind of gathering ever.

I have always known, always been shown, that as a fat person perceived as a woman, the best I can hope for is being disregarded, because otherwise, I would be subject to mockery, not just what I heard from my classmates, but the kinds of things said to and about fat women on television. But the plus side to being ignored was no danger of stalkers, rapists, and murderers coming after me. I was safe from all of that.

With that kind of background, I had to find my own way to be ok with myself, because I'm not exercising, not giving up the type or quantity of food I eat to lose weight. I've never had that kind of determination, and I don't want to learn. When I was a teen, an older woman, who was also black and fat, encouraged me by talking about how she couldn't be kidnapped, how her weight, and mine, was a strength we could use to protect us from the dangers people perceived as women face: assault, kidnapping, murder, rape.

I took that to heart. Fast forward to years later, when I was moving heavy chairs up and down stairs. As most fat people know, stairs are not friends on the best of days, and there were a lot that I had to be up and down all day, going down to retrieve chairs and carrying them back up. It was exhausting, but I was the only one to help my friend, who I've failed to mention, up to this point, was a man.

What really upset me was the fact that he could somehow carry two chairs under each arm. I tried. Even when the chairs were the same style, the weight and awkwardness of the chairs frustrated me, causing me to nearly drop multiple chairs, and making it difficult to get up the stairs or move anywhere. I just couldn't get my fingers under that many chairs at once. I tried moving three chairs at a time, and that was still frustrating and exhausting for me.

My friend, however, rather easily moved four chairs each trip. I know it was exhausting for him, because he was as fat as I, and stairs are draining when you have to travel them more than twice, but exhausting or not, he was able to do it, and I was not.

At the time, I was too busy being tired and rearranging chairs for easy access to the back door and the car to have an existential crisis, and I would have been fine, had another man had not helped my friend move the chairs back to the car after the event my friend and I were volunteering for.

See, my friend worked with moving office equipment, so in many ways, I mentally brushed off his ability to carry so many chairs as practice I didn't have, strength in action, familiarity with traversing stairs, really an enormous, ridiculous number of excuses for why him being stronger than me was a fluke.

Then another man helped my friend move chairs. He was tall and skinny, the kind of guy I would certainly never consider a threat to my safety, because I could very literally sit on him. I could break him and call it a day, or so I thought, until I realized he had four chairs, two in each hand.

I experienced a moment of very visceral terror. Not of this stranger at a public place full of people, but in general, my sense of safety was shattered, because I suddenly realized that this man, who I never would have judged as a threat, was physically stronger than I am. He could hurt me. I know this isn't a novel thought for most people raised as women, that a man could hurt them, overpower them, but it was one I'd never had before, safe behind my shield of invisible fatness and aggressively defensive blackness.

For a moment, I was stunned, unable to breathe, because how many men had I judged as not being a threat, who could have hid such deceptive strength? I am strong enough to move couches and dressers and armoires, heavy furniture that I've seen many men tap out of moving with help, I can move alone. And this man was stronger than me.

I was only stunned for a moment, because chairs needed to be moved, and I had to help carry and organize them, moving two chairs at a time, one in each hand, all that I could handle in my post-event exhaustion, or at all, and with the help of the other man, added to the fact that there were no stairs to accommodate for, the task was done in a quarter of the time, and I was happy to bury my thoughts in television and dinner, to sleep and let the thoughts go.

But it haunted me, and it still does. I've always “known” that I was the strongest person in any room, that I could protect myself. It was my consolation prize for not being beautiful, for not being able to find clothes that fit me, except in specialty stores for exorbitant prices, for only seeing people like me being portrayed by men in fat suits as a joke.

If I'm not physically strong, then what else do I have? Logically, I know that I have a lot going for me, but emotionally, I'm afraid that I will incorrectly guess a man's strength, and that mistake will end painfully for me. I'm afraid that without physical strength, I don't have anything else to make me worthwhile.

This article can also be found on Feminspire.

White Allies

I had the racism argument a few weeks back. You know what I'm talking about. The one that happens when black folks think they can hang out with groups of white people. It always seems to start with some white person, usually one who's younger than me, saying something that I know is racist. Every now and again, it's the other black person in the room.

Sometimes it's the second or third time they've said something like this since I've met them, usually it's the second or third time that day, or they're the second or third person I've heard say something like it that day, and I'm just tired of hearing it in that space.

Frequently, I already don't like them, so I know in advance that I won't care if they never speak to me again, but just as often, it's just so blatant to me, even though it might not be to the other white folks in the group, that risking the friendship is worth not having that said in my hearing. I can't control what people say when they're not around me, but I do my best to not care, as long as it's not said around me, just because even if they don't think about it anywhere else, they're thinking about it with me.

Either way, I have take a deep breath because ok, it's time to say something. I never want to, because I always know how the argument's going to go, and it's never anywhere good, but I can't let it slide, because it will stick in my craw and ruin my time in this group. And that's assuming the argument doesn't go badly enough that I find myself completely sick of these people and feel that I have to leave what is suddenly an unsafe space for me to be in.

Then, I usually take half a second to look around the room, see who else is around, and usually, there is only one other black person in the room, and I can generally be guaranteed they won't be helpful to me in the coming argument. Even though it's incredibly frustrating, I understand why they behave the way they do.

I begin this argument knowing that I can lose friends, or even entire groups of people for speaking up, and not everyone is comfortable doing that. More than that, I begin this argument challenging everything I, and the other black people in the room, have been taught by the news, billboards, commercials, television shows and saying that we deserve to be noticed and appreciated.

By challenging what's being said, I am saying that I have a right to not only contest the premise of the conversation, but the person saying it. I am saying that I have a right to exist and take up space in the group I am in. I am saying that I will demand more than the “honor” of existing in a tiny corner of white spaces, that I will demand equal space for myself and, by the law of racism that refuses to take me as an individual and forces me to be part of a unit, for blackness as well.

And that's difficult to deal with, especially for black people who understand that my actions will reflect on them, while simultaneously hoping that by setting me away from them, by either intense argument or half-hearted protest, they can keep exactly that from happening. It's difficult for them to see me drawing attention to myself and my differences, when all they can do is hope they will go unnoticed long enough to reap the better crumbs of overflow, when they get the constant message beaten into them that they will be given more for protesting less.

I can't really fault them for it, even though I might want to, especially after spending half an hour arguing someone down over semantics only to realize that I've not only forgotten where I was before I got interrupted, but that the person I was originally arguing with has quietly excused themselves from the space, and didn't hear the last five things I said.

I think I could honestly deal with having the same arguments with white people, over and over again, repeatedly ostracizing myself and losing friends, if I knew I had someone in my corner, or, at the very least, if I didn't have to worry about how other black people would make the argument more difficult for me.

But to be honest, this isn't about black people upholding their own oppression, it's about the fact that I had the racism argument a few weeks back, and not like I've ever had it before. It's about how different it was, how refreshing and relieving it was to have the departure from the usual argument.

For background, I am part of a Homestuck group chat, on Skype and on a Homestuck-specific site called MSPARP. I'm unemployed, so I don't really have anything better to do with my time right now. I've voice- and video-chatted with these folks before, so I knew I was in a room full of white folks, with one other black gal. This was where I had the argument.

Before the argument, I was having a Homestuck-specific argument with this one white guy. For the Homestucks reading this, the point of contention was "Did Vriska help Tavros?" He fell on the side of "Vriska wasn't trying to help Tavros, but Tavros needed to learn the things he did to survive Sburb," I fell on the side of "Just because Tavros learned from Vriska's abuse, it doesn't mean she helped him, as helping implies that she was not abusing him." He eventually stopped arguing against my points, so I'm chalking that one as a win for me, but that conversation is one for another day.

So we're coming out of that argument, both of us shaky from getting so emotional, and I was talking him down, because I think he'd rarely ever been so emotionally invested in an online conversation that it got his adrenaline going, whereas I've done this before, on multiple occasions. Somebody said something that registered to me as something I couldn't let pass, though I can't remember what it was now. It might have been about Ferguson, but I am honestly not certain at this point.

What I am sure of was that I had to say something, and I didn't like this person, so I was ok with the thought of them not talking to me anymore. I typed up my response, and threw it out into the conversation, receiving one of the stock answers I'm accustomed to getting from every white person, but from another person joining the argument, at which point, I wearily typed up a counter, mentally preparing myself to leave this group if other people joined in against me, as it was already two against one. Then I realized I wasn't the only one who'd said what I'd said. And then I realized who said it.

The white guy said almost the exact same thing as me, at the exact same time.

I'm sure you can imagine how shocked I was, that this white guy I'd just been arguing with was saying the same things as me. And he was a teenager! I'm 25, and he was a teenager! I was suitably stunned, because white male teenagers tend to be worse about handling racism than white male adults. He kept going in the same vein, and I was so relieved, I truly don't even have words for it. I felt like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders, like I didn't have to risk losing my place in this group by saying "That is problematic, and I don't want it around me."

I know vanishingly few white people who I can trust to listen to me when I say "This is problematic, and here is why." He is the first and only white person I have ever met who I felt could help me carry the conversation, who I felt knew what the problem was, why it was a problem, and how to talk about the problem without minimizing my voice and my presence.

And when I was finishing up the conversation by griping to a white girl in the group about how no one listens to black people, especially black women, arguing our own case, because we must be trying to bring race into it, or something along those lines, but white men get lauded for it, he went "Ohshit, I'm sorry, did I make it seem like I was trying to win awards for fighting with you?"

He hadn't, amazingly. I let him know he hadn't, and that I was just making a point. But just the fact that he heard a criticism that could have been directed at him, and checked in, asked if he had done it or not? Just the fact that he didn't brag that he hadn't done such a thing or cry out that it wasn't his fault, that things just went that way? It was so novel, and such a relief. It made me trust him more than I have ever trusted another man, before especially a white one.

I've gotten to the point that I ask white people what they know about critical race theory before I even have a discussion about race with them, so I know if they even understand the basic premises I am working from. Very few know about it, and even fewer are willing to hear me when I say it is actually true. So the support was an incredibly unexpected, amazing relief. It felt so good to feel like I wasn't shouting into the white supremacy alone, that I had help, at least for that conversation, in that group.

My original intent was to direct this to black people, to say "This can happen, and it's awesome," but unsurprisingly, I realize that my audience must be white people. Any black person who's experienced this already knows what it feels like, and any black person who has never experienced it can never understand until they do.

So to white allies speaking up about racism: Educate yourself, and speak up when you've learned how to speak on topics that come up, especially in spaces with very few people of color in them. That goes double for when another white person is arguing with a person of color in a space that is mostly white, because that person of color has already fought an uphill battle to open their mouth. Even though it's nice to have another person of color speaking with us, the tragic but true fact is that we all know white people will listen better and longer to another white person saying the same things we are.

Also posted on Feminspire.