As I was watching this, I was thinking about how the same idea is applicable to telling someone they did or said something sexist or homophobic, and how often when I have these conversations I do exactly what Jay is telling us not to. I need to work on that.
It's really hard, though, to talk to someone about why I don't shave my legs when he's a sheltered straight man who has never had to think about these things and thinks that just because he has a dick he doesn't have to shave his legs, but just because I have a cunt, I do. Or to convince a female friend who says "I'm not a feminist, I'm an equalist" that they are the same thing. Does anyone else have strategies for talking to people who just don't get it?
3 comments:
I feel ya about trying to talk to people about why I don't shave.. I mean, what defense do you have against something as strong as a social norm?
Yeah... that last part was diverging a bit from the "how to tell people they sound racist/sexist/homophobic/whatever" thing and going into some conversations I've had recently... but how can you tell people they sound sexist (or homophobic) when they refuse to accept that sexism (or homophobia) is even a problem? I think that by now most people have accepted that a person's skin color doesn't make them any more or less competent or intelligent, but a lot of people still think that a person's sex does make a difference. And sadly, people see these views as more justifiable because there are physical and hormonal differences between the sexes. Obviously racism isn't over either, but there seems to be more forward progress in that realm than about sexism or homophobia. The fact that so many people don't even think sexism and homophobia are problems goes to show that we've got a long way to go. And now I'm depressed.
Adding to that-- and I'm certainly not the first to point this out-- many of the arguments made against same-sex marriage in recent years are the same arguments people made in the 60s about why interracial marriage was supposedly wrong. On the one hand, it gives me hope, because these arguments were overcome before so hopefully they can be overcome again. But on the other hand, it's depressing to think that, although the queer rights movement was only shortly after the African-American civil rights movement, it's still so far behind. And the same goes for second-wave feminism...
Post a Comment