That little freakin’ devil that’s always around…

That little freakin’ devil I’m talking about is everyday sexism, obviously. However, today I would like to talk about acceptance of everyday sexism. We as a society are slowly starting to be sensitive to open and hostile examples of sexism – domestic violence, hateful comments,  etc. but we are still either ignorant or passive towards these small displays of sexism that seems like nothing. But they are something. Something actually quite big. And very serious.

Because even the smallest example of sexism, such as jokes or remarks indicates that there is prevalent tendency for treating women with contempt and at the same time undermining their circumstances, successes, achievements, themselves.

The worst thing is that we’ve learned to ignore the exhibits of sexism so not to be perceived as uptight or, even worse, feminist! Especially women are quietly putting up with all the jokes, pinches and insults delivered by men in a “non-serious” fashion, because we are conditioned that women and their issues are perfect subjects to joke about.

So we are told to lighten-up when we hear a joke about rape (because obviously it’s the best subject to joke about) or domestic violence (“taming your woman”) or vaginas (because something that gives a men so much pleasure and holds so much power needs to be laughted at) or lack of professionalism (“If you were a man it would be done better”) and being overly emotional in a conversation (“Control your hormones”). Jokes are a part of everyday interaction, so we should just accept them and come to terms with this sad reality.

Sometime ago I went with my boyfriend to hang out with his friends. At one time it became apparent that there was a feminist in a room (Oh my God, it’s me!) and sexist. I bore some of the remarks (even though those wasn’t really sophisticated), but I cracked up in one point. The abovementioned sexist ask my boyfriend a question:

“What would you prefer: to be with very sexy woman who cheats on you or with a normal good girl who is faithful to you?”

My boyfriend at first had no idea what’s the deal, so he said that basically he is with the sexiest and bestest woman ever who is faithful to him, so it’s no brainer (Awwwwww, he’s a sweetheart!). But the sexist pressured him to give an answer, so my bf replied that of course he would prefer to be with a girl who is faithful to him.

Than the friend asked again: “Well, but would you prefer to eat cake with friends or eat shit alone?”

WTF?!

I was shocked. For me it was like a slap in the face. With a chair. How could ANYBODY feel entitled to compare another human being to shit? How full of yourself (or shit) you have to be to even allow yourself to make this kind of comparison of another people? And feeling that you are in a position to make distinctions between “pretty” and “shitty” woman and subsequently have a real power over validation which women belong to which category.

I’m embarrassed to say as a result of shock I said few stupid misandrist jokes (I hate those, but I really wanted to make him shut up in a most belittling way possible). I achieved my goal (he shut up), but I still feel bad for saying insults towards men (it’s really not my style).

But that’s not all. The situation got even more shocking when, after all of this, I got to talk with other women in the room. They told me to not care about him and his jokes, because it’s just the way he is. Their solution is to just ignore his jokes and then everybody will be happy (because we don’t want to create a tense situation, because somebody might get offended).

If you don't want to listen
to me, then listen to
Ryan Gosling

Why people are so reluctant to object when another person displays sexist and misogynistic attitudes? Why is hardly anybody ever standing up to this kind of jokes and let others know that it’s not funny? Why we keep accepting sexist jokes, even though these are hurtful, offensive, prejudiced and most of the time absolutely unfunny?

I’ve been in various social situations when some controversial jokes where said and somebody stood up to a joker. Those included racist jokes (Man, it’s racist, it’s not funny), jokes about dead foetuses (that’s disgusting, I don’t find this funny), jokes about handicapped people or with some illness (Sick people are no laughing matter, not cool, dude). etc. But I’ve never been a witness to man standing up to sexist jokes. As if those existed in some kind of realm of immunity – a person can be openly sexist in jokes and nobody says anything in fear of…

Yeah, of what? Being called uptight? A bore? Oh wait… a feminist? What’s so terrible about that?

I had this rule about the jokes that if they are about a group of people (men, women, blacks, Chinese, Mexicans, etc.), I find them funny only if you can substitute a certain group with any other (usually the main privileged one) and the jokes will still be funny.

Of course, there are some jokes where the main character cannot be exchange into anything else (jokes about talking parrot), but those are usually not insulting to the main subject of the joke. But that’s beside the point.

Let’s take the abovementioned joke and apply my rule (and let’s make it even more stereotypically womanish).

Vespertilio: Inanna, what would you prefer: to be with this sexy and super rich guy who cheats on you or with a normal, quite poor, but good man who is faithful to you?

Inanna: Well, Vespertilio, I would most certainly prefer to be with a faithful guy.

Vespertilio: Seriously? Well, but do you think is better to share caviar with friends in a posh restaurant or to eat shit alone in a shack?

(To be honest, I feel ashamed to even write this to prove a point). 

Ashamed lion to show you how ashamed I feel.

What are your feelings towards this joke now? Is it offensive? Too aggressive? Too man-hating? Does it treat men as objects?

Now the big question: How many men do you know that would feel offended by this joke?

And if you were a part of audience, would you say something to a woman who said this joke?

I know I would, but I did remark the first joke as well. How about you?

Let’s get back for a second to the deliverer of a joke. The sexist. I just don’t get it. Where does this masculine sense of entitlement come from? How can any man feel to hold the right to debase ANY woman?

In this case we have to spectrums: me, who never comments on somebody appearance, because I’m not a beauty and besides I feel that everybody is beautiful in way; and him, a man who feels that he has a right to judge.

If you want to have a woman that looks like
Victoria Secret model, you should look like
one of Calvin Klein models.

But after that joke, I looked at him and I saw him with critical eye and the situation just got hilarious and ridiculous at the same time. There he was, this almost middle-aged man, fat, bold, with questionable hygiene and not really pleasant appearance, who has been alone for a long time, unable to pick up a girl (I know it from his various stories), afraid of rejection, who has nothing special to offer to a woman (he was neither sexy, handsome, smart, witty nor well-spoken), and yet he felt that he has a choice of women and he can choose a porn star over a normal, but in his eyes “shitty” woman.

Well that’s just bullshit.

I remember once my friend said that equality between women and men will be achieved when this fat, sweaty, bolding, unattractive woman will be walking down the street and she will be convinced that every men on the street wants to have sex with her. Well, there is nothing wrong with high self-esteem, but when this self-esteem translates into certainty of privilege to somebody’s attention, body and integrity, then we are a witnesses of everyday sexism.

Everyday sexism is a phenomenon which disproportionally befall the women. Staring, catcalling, grabbing, harassing, stalking in public places and belittling, degrading and humiliating in workplace, schools, social gatherings. Just from the top of my head I can describe many situations where I’ve been grabbed, harassed, slapped in the ass. I’ve been a victim of frotters, voyeurs, stalkers and flashing. Countless of times I’ve heard that I’m less intelligent, vain, emotional and irrational – all judgements based on the fact that I’m a woman. And since I’m declared feminist, nobody values my opinion, because it’s perceived as distorted, irrational and overly aggressive (even though I didn’t have a possibility to speak my mind, not to mention raise my voice).

And above all of that I was put into the category “women like shit” by some insolent and half-wit sexist, who believed that he’s male privilege allows him to comment on women in any way he pleases, because it’s his "birth right".

Everyday sexist is serious not because of the level of harassment it implies, but mainly because it’s scope and prevalence. Every woman has plenty stories to tell. But the worst thing about everyday sexism is that it widely unrecognised, ignored and depreciated issue that all of the women of all ages are facing.

Written by Vespertilio

We are not here to fight you

Explaining the most common misconceptions, stereotypes and accusations towards feminists.

I was supposed to write an article where I would provide the counterarguments to the most common misconceptions regarding feminists and their cause. In the process of searching the questions and accusations, I encountered few blogs, which were clearly against feminism. They accused feminist of hypocrisy, discrimination against men, propagating mistrust, tension and hatred between sexes. Sadly, feminism is no longer perceived as rejection of patriarchal system and striving for equality. Stereotypically, feminism is perceived and thought of as a man-hating brand of gender superiority.

As a feminist, I encountered many of these accusation, I heard people saying that our claims are absurd, that we are stupid and only ugly girls can be feminists (yup, heard all of that). That women don't have it so bad, that we have a power over men and we should cherish that and stop complaining about the things we don't have. 

So my first reaction was really defensive against those blogs and people behind them. Yes, words “sexism” and “misogyny” came to my mind. Of course, after reading few lines it became apparent that they have never read anything academic that feminists produced, that they are not following top women’s rights campaigns and that basically they have never read anything about imbalances of power, politics, etc. (basically anything that some smart people wrote, other smart people confirmed or refuted. Their arguments were not properly supported by any work that had merit).

But when I got deeper into the content, it became apparent to me that they are not against feminism per se, they are just against some concepts and some claims that feminist make. Well, they are allowed to. Sure, some women who claim to be feminist are saying loads of crap, they are abusive, offensive and base their arguments on flawed presumptions. However, by clinging onto selected cases of ridiculous feminist articles and causes, anti-feminists are missing the bigger picture.

The problem is that most men opposing feminism are scared. They are simply afraid that our fight for equal rights will mean the limitations of theirs. And as some of the feminists claims concern domestic and social sphere, they believe that better situation for women will mean deterioration of theirs. And I think that’s the biggest misconception of all.

The truth is that most of the feminists love men. We love them. You won’t believe it, but men make the most amazing husbands, brothers, fathers and sons. For instance, I have the most wonderful boyfriend in the world and guess what? He is male, I love him and would do anything to help him succeed and to make his life comfortable. But I won’t sacrifice my dreams, either and I won’t put his well-being and happiness in front of mine.

We feminists want to see all men succeed and prosper, be happy and contempt. But not at our expense and not by neglecting our rights. Empowering women, bringing them to power and allowing them to aspire to great things is not a threat to men. Heck, if someone was trying to limit men’s rights (and by inference, my boyfriend’s rights), I would be the first on the barricade campaigning against it! Because this isn’t the way. By advocating for protection of our rights, we are not forcing governments or others to make a choice “x” or “y” – men’s rights or women’s rights. We are seeing this as an equation: x and y = future.

People opposing to the feminists justifications and claims for inequality can find themselves tangled in a wide variety of terms. Gender inequality, power imbalance, social construction of gender – actually, they are meaningless if you don’t know their context. Without a historical, academic and social context, those are just scare words that people use however they please without any concern for the mess they are creating around it. So I won’t go into depth of this concepts, because I’m not an expert in Women Studies or Feminists Science Studies, whatever you call it. And if you don’t study them, you should ignore them too.

It is true that some of our claims leave men out of equation. By doing this, we don’t want to see men’s rights neglected. But sometimes, by equality we mean equal right to have your needs taken care off. And sometimes we have different needs than men and in order to be healthy/happy/strong we need some type of preferential treatment and assurance that particularly those rights are protected.

Women in Malawi

Let me explain what I mean by providing an example. I remember reading about problems in humanitarian context with distribution of food. In the areas where there is severe malnutrition and the response is designed to provide people with food, people are receiving so called “food baskets”, which is a variety of pulses, flours, oils, etc. to provide them with basic nutrients necessary to survive and fight malnutrition. The food is given to the family to distribute among themselves. It wasn’t much, but it was enough. Some of the families got better, they still were poorly nourished, but they were all getting better. However, there were instances where the children and women were still malnourished and only men weren’t affected. After careful investigation, it was obvious that some families do not distribute food according to needs, but according to the status.

What that meant, was that a man as a head of a family was allowed to get full with the food, while women and children were eating what was left for that day. And it happened regardless of whether mother was pregnant or breastfeeding and whether child was very young or not.

I can already hear some of you yelling that if we want equality than the woman shouldn’t get the special treatment just because she’s pregnant. Well, my question is: why not? There are situations where women should get preferential treatment than men. And it’s not to instil inequality and shift the balance of power. It’s just a human thing to do, to sometimes think about other’s needs. So in this situation, the person, who should have her needs taken care of is woman as she is with baby and she needs to be healthy in order for her child to be healthy. There is no man-hatred here, it’s pure biology. Pregnant women needs healthy diet for their foetus to develop into a healthy baby. And children needs nutrients for their brain development and general health. Adult men, as fully developed and with stronger organisms, they could go without being full for some time and survive only on the amount of food that was necessary to keep them out of hunger.

If the situation was different, that man was working long hours in a field and women had non-exhaustive tasks, I would agree that man needs more nutrients to work more efficiently. It depend on a context and on the needs.

So you see, sometimes putting the needs of one person in front of the other is necessary for the most vulnerable to get a fighting chance for survival. And it never means that this other person is less important or their rights will be violated. It just means that in this particular situation someone else’s needs have to be put in front for the general situation to improve.

My particular area of interest is violence against women and I would love to see more fierce action to stop this type of violence. As a women, I am very passionate about this subject. The sole idea that a man might find it justifiable to beat his wife or rape another women, just because he perceives it as his male right, just boils my blood. And I don’t see any justification for it, nobody deserves such treatment. I want to see it stopped. But advocating for ending domestic and sexual violence or at least for better justice response, feminists are not trying to divert the attention from another crimes. It’s just something we feel passionate about, we don’t imagine that such situation can happen in a civilized world and we will always oppose it. But we are not standing in a way for seeing other crimes receive justice.

I hear frequently the voices saying “what about violence against men”? What about the situation when it is a women who hate men and attacks them?

My answer would be: please, tell me more. I am not a man. I have no idea what kind of threats awaits them. But if I knew, if men were to speak more loudly about their pains and their abuse, I would be again in front campaigning for it to stop. Both situations are unacceptable and both causes can be defended in parallel.

I know that many women abuse their husbands. That sexual violence is not only delivered by men to women, it’s also the other way around. Can’t you see? It’s exactly the same misconceptions and social norms that prevent the victims of these crimes to seek justice and see it delivered. Why? By highlighting and enforcing the stereotypical masculine and feminine values, we are allowing those crimes to occur and we automatically silence all victims. How we construct and reinforce femininity and masculinity does not keep society whole. It keeps us apart, divided, hurt and broken.

I cannot even start to imagine how many boys and man have been raped by their mothers, aunts, cousins, sisters, girlfriends! They have no one to turn to, because the entire society tells them that they should be proud and happy, because experienced women introduced them to the world of sex. That they need to want sex, all the time, anytime, always. But nobody even stops to think whether they were ready when it happened, whether they wanted it at that time, whether they wanted it with HER. And they are forced to live with the memory of experience which feels so wrong and yet everybody tells them that it should (heck, must!) feel right.

Instead of forcing on people what stereotypically they should perceive as natural and normal, we should stop and listen and allow them to admit that what they experienced wasn’t alright. In this particular situation, we are putting victim’s needs in front of the non-affected and non-abused person. And by wanting some attitudes to change, we are not accusing innocent people of being hurtful to others. We just want to see the victims protected and cared for, and guilty people punished. That’s it. There is nothing more to it.

If you want to know what is the vision of equal world that feminists are fighting for, don’t listen to those who scream the loudest, verbally abusing others, their beliefs and opinions. Look and listen to those, who fiercely, but with respect lecture about their views and are open to dialogue. Whose views might be opposing to yours, but who want to see a better world for everybody.

Listen to Jackson Katz, laugh at Ellen show, look at the campaigns of UN Women, Bollocks to Poverty, UNFPA or Girls not Brides. Just think about it for a second, how our world is constructed and what some of us really try to change about it.

And if you still don’t agree with all of that, then that’s your right. 

Written by Vespertilio