insert feminist rage HERE

[cimorene]

so i went to class today for what was, to me, a fairly old-hat lecture on the history of feminism.  and oh my god, i am now really full of feminist rage. 

i don't think i've ever been in a discussion about feminism involving more than a few people--even in female-centric environments like the fucking girl scouts--that i didn't leave pissed off.  and here, an introductory level course in the social sciences?  we're talking auditorium mostly full of white male first-year college students.  finnish ones.  feminism has never really been in fashion here, from what i've been able to gather, and boy, did it show.

this reminds me vaguely of something aralinde said last week about a kerfluffle on blackfolk.  shuffling it around a bit:  when did it get to be the responsibility of the minority to educate the majority, or to defend the reasoning behind their movement? 

is it so completely acceptable to question and attack the very existence of feminism that after an hour and a half lecture tens of young men have no problem with addressing their discussion "questions"  to the foundational principles covered in the first two minutes of that lecture?  it didn't even apparently occur to them that there was anything out of the ordinary about using the question period as an opportunity to attack feminism as a movement instead of to, you know, ask questions about the lecture. 

the high points of my rage came when:

1. the teacher resorted to cake metaphors:  "if someone has a big cake, and someone else comes along and asks for half of the cake, well, obviously it's much more unpleasant for the person who's giving up the cake than the one who's taking half of it, because he otherwise could have eaten the whole thing himself--" and a guy interrupted, "but it's men who have baked the cake."  she actually tried to respond within the metaphor ("because they were the only ones who could afford ingredients or an oven...").

2. "you give all these statistics about women who are the victims of violence from men, but women can be violent too sometimes."

3. "but who gets sent out to die in all the wars?"

can you please take your ignorance, your defensiveness, your guilt and your goddamned sense of white male entitlement (even to reassurance and polite engagement in response to the most offensive and disingenuous questions!) elsewhere?  because the poor guest lecturer probably gets that a lot when people find out she's a doctoral student in women's studies, but she just signed up to give a lecture today, not to stand trial for the most eye-rollingly basic bits of feminism there are, and the other women in the room are just here to get our five credits.

Comments

[omega-h.livejournal.com]

3. "but who gets sent out to die in all the wars?"

The women, children and the old folk who don't have guns to defend themselves ...

[phineasjones.livejournal.com]

but women can be violent too sometimes

damn straight. ::kicks him in the fucking balls::

ugh. i'm so sorry you had to sit through that. ::shudders::

[buddleia.livejournal.com]

What really annoys me about this kind of thing is that I can't be bothered to be rational in response.

Idiot boy or sometimes girl: "wrongheaded arrogant bollocks antifeminist argument"
Me: "you smell and I hate you"

[annlarimer.livejournal.com]

All those strong, burly men in London, Hiroshima and Dresden.

[bibliotech.livejournal.com]

Pretend I said something intelligent. This made me a little incoherent with "I CAN'T BELIEVE THEY JUST WON'T SHUT UP".

[sweetvalleyslut.livejournal.com]

NRGH.

Yeah, I really don't have a rational response to all that. If someone is still *that* dumb after that many years on this planet, my instincts tell me that they should probably be exterminated for the good of all humankind.

[frahulettaes.livejournal.com]

I should be furious but your response so made me laugh.
You smell and I hate you. Has Icon written all over it, ne?
I also tend to say:
stupid person: grand generalization signifying not having heard my point.
me: phehhh, what-EVER.

with lots of hand throwing up and eyerolling.

idiots.

[buddleia.livejournal.com]

Has Icon written all over it, ne?
Yes! I could use it while wearing a 'boys are stupid throw rocks at them' t-shirt.
There could be a club and everythng.

[frahulettaes.livejournal.com]

oooo and a manifesto...we could have a sekrit handshake...

[cimness.livejournal.com]

and also, i wonder how many wars there would be in a female-dominated society? it's not like women are sending them. just--gnnnaaah.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

yeah. for a moment i considered raising my hand to say that we hadn't come there today to defend the premise of feminism but to learn about it on the assumption that it already exists and contains some basic logic. fortunately before i got it phrased in my head i cooled off enough to realise i didn't want to talk if i couldn't say something slightly more witty and cutting than that. mostly i was full of "you bastard pigs" and "you thick-headed, incapable-of-reasoning morons".

[cimness.livejournal.com]

it's totally excusable. that was my main reaction, and i could see the lecturer having a bit of trouble answering the questions because she was thinking the same thing. and trying to phrase "your question is illogical and rude" politely.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

but that's a good idea! i didn't even think of it, except... well... no, i'm kind of tempted to count my initial "KILL DIE RAGE" reaction as that, but it wasn't so much concerned with the gene pool as with my own personal satisfaction.

[penm.livejournal.com]

Seriously?

it didn't even apparently occur to them that there was anything out of the ordinary about using the question period as an opportunity to attack feminism as a movement instead of to, you know, ask questions about the lecture.

Headdesk moment.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

i was pretty flabbergasted too. how do you explain to someone that they've broken a giant social rule when they don't even seem to grasp that it exists? i suppose "this was supposed to be for questions ABOUT HER LECTURE" would work, but i was just opening and closing my mouth.

[bibliotech.livejournal.com]

I wish there were more lectures and discussions where half of the Q & A portion didn't have to be about trying to defend the very shit the lecture was about in the first place. Or even better, repeating half the lecture because people keep asking the same things over and over.