Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Not listening to women is a misogynist act.

Via Shakesville:

this is a statement of fact: Not listening to women is a misogynist act. [...] This is not an argument that women are always right, or wise. It is an argument that, even if a woman is wrong, the wrongest that any wrong person could be, she still deserves to be heard, and her wrongness dismissed on its merits, which requires listening in the first place.

Not too sure what I should think about that post. Generalisations (almost) always have an exception (and apparently by even thinking about that I am a misogynist as well). For instance should one listen to the religious woman protesting in front of a Planned Parenthood, when wanting an abortion? Or to the girl bullying you in high school? Or not walking away and listen to your significant other scream obscenities at you during an argument instead of walking away so that the situation does not escalate? Especially when you live in an abusive relationship?

I may be nitpicking here, because certainly she has a point, especially with:

Actively tuning out women is a misogynist act. Passively failing to seek out women's perspectives is a misogynist act. Shouting down or talking over or reflexively contradicting women is a misogynist act. Treating women as though they are not experts on their own lives and experiences is a misogynist act. Appropriating women's ideas is a misogynist act. Tokenizing women in lieu of making room for meaningful participation is a misogynist act. Marginalizing women's voices, through systemic and deliberate exclusion or a careless failure to practice diversity, is a misogynist act.

If we think about misandry for a moment and the often used "What about the menz" interjection, one can reach the conclusion that a whole lof of feminists are indeed manhaters.

5 comments:

  1. You know, I almost made a post exactly like this one. But I read the post a few more times and realized what I think that Melissa was trying to say - and it's not what you think.

    The difference is "not listening to women" versus "not listening to a woman."

    There's no thing wrong with ignoring an individual. There IS something wrong with not listening to a member of a group of people because they are a member of that group.

    It's subtle, but it's there.

    I'm sorry - I'll bet you were kinda enjoying that opportunity to get a little riled up - but don't worry - I have something that'll get you even angrier than the OP.

    Read it and weep:
    http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2011/10/feminism-101-listening.html#comment-331302129

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  2. Actually, I think she means both. Because she declares thinking about not talking to some women is a thought crime, lists reasons why we don't listen to some individuals ("One woman's ethnicity makes her too loud to be listened to. Another woman's fatness renders her too invisible to be listened to. etc.") and especially the last part:

    "It is an argument that, even if a woman is wrong, the wrongest that any wrong person could be, she still deserves to be heard, and her wrongness dismissed on its merits, which requires listening in the first place."

    Both (not listening to a woman vs women) go hand in hand and are kind of hard to separate. If listening to women is a feminist act, it is a feminist act to not ignore the poor (classism), crazy (ableism) woman on the subway. To practice what she preaches will be tough however and I assume most posters agreeing with her hear "people should listen to me" and not "I should start listen to women I normally do not listen to (because they lack several privileges I enjoy)".

    My first objection is something that can be dismissed as common sense. I don't believe she argues that you should listen to someone if you feel threatened. That was mostly me pointing out that generalizations suck, especially when you declare thinking about exceptions a thought crime.

    What was more interesting to me was the second part. Especially

    "Passively failing to seek out women's perspectives is a misogynist act. Shouting down or talking over or reflexively contradicting women is a misogynist act. Treating women as though they are not experts on their own lives and experiences is a misogynist act."

    When applied to men's experience on feminist blog, if you get what I meant that would be an argument for "feminists are misandrist" which of course would be dismissed because "duh, Patriarchy". Ah well.

    I am as chill as Germans get these days (not really riled up Easy E.) so not going to thing your link will upset me much.

    *clicks link*

    Hm, don't get it...

    ReplyDelete
  3. That's weird - it's gone. It must've gotten edited or something.

    It was along the lines of "if we FEEL we're not being listened to, then we're not being listened to!" and then some rant about how being subjective, rather than objective is a feminist virtue. Or something.

    I dunno, I wasn't listening.

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  4. Ha. The implication on that one would turn any discussion between a female feminist and a female MRA into an even worse flamefest.

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  5. There is nothing wrong with ignoring a self-identified group of entitlement queens? They have never listened to men, at least not seriously; they have never valued men, individually or as a group, that did anything other than kiss their butts; their open and unconcealed misandry is called empowerment...the natural and fully justified response to it is called misogynist.

    They have the ear of government, of judges, of lawyers...men are not beholden to listening to their deceit and whining.

    I am deaf to each and every one of them. If their panties are in a bunch, then they can turn to their d*ldos who won't argue with them.

    ReplyDelete