Not enough
Sep. 11th, 2013 04:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livA few months ago, just before I got very busy and then went away, several people made locked posts discussing the issue of not having enough capacity to address all possible problems in the world. This connects to a bunch of stuff that I've been thinking and reading about lately, and I am particularly interested in the question of how to interact productively with people who have different priorities. Also a lot of issues to do with intersectionality seem to be very relevant here. I will try to keep this post moderately focused but I'm rather at the swirling ideas stage of thinking about this.
I think it's rather striking that all the posts which got me thinking along these lines are access-locked. There are numerous reasons for this, but I think one factor is that these conversations can go really badly if you have them in public. Simply admitting that someone's pet issue is not your priority can mark you as the enemy, if your comments happen to come to the attention of passionate, vocal activists for that cause. So maybe I'm being foolhardy in stating openly on the internet that, for example, I'm not a committed anti-racist ally, let alone an activist. Maybe, but one of the reasons I am doing so is that I really want to have a conversation about how people of goodwill can negotiate this kind of thing in public and community space.
Now, I'm not asking for anyone to absolve me for being insufficiently committed to anti-racist work. It is a failing that while I do very much believe that all people of all ethnic backgrounds are equally deserving of respect, I'm not personally doing very much to address the areas where the real world falls short of this ideal. It isn't because I think racism is unimportant (that in itself would be a rather racist position, if I assumed that POC are somehow less worthy of my energies than white people). In some ways it's not even a conscious decision to focus my energies elsewhere, it's more that the course of my life so far has left me with substantially more skills, knowledge, experience and opportunities useful in contributing to other issues. Which of course is not just random chance, it's the result of a series of choices and responses to the circumstances I find myself in, and I wouldn't be surprised if some of those choices were informed by subconscious or systematic racism, but however it may be, I can't do everything.
And of course racism is just an example, there are all kinds of issues where I have a vague feeling about how things should be but I'm not doing much to bring that about. The whole broad range of things that come under the heading of environmentalism, for example. I try to make personal choices which are relatively environmentally responsible, but I'm not highly educated on the technicalities and I don't ever campaign to convince other people, or large organizations and states, to tackle the problems of climate change, habitat destruction, resource depletion etc. Global inequality, poverty and development: my main charitable giving goes to development charities, notably Kiva, but I don't give all that much in direct charitable donation and I haven't done a lot of research into whether Kiva is the best possible charity, it's just one that emotionally appeals to me. And I don't do anything beyond giving money to promote better conditions for people in the global south, not because it's unimportant but because frankly I have absolutely no idea what actions or campaigns are effective and if I took the time to educate myself on this interlocking set of complex issues sufficiently (let alone actually acting on my understanding), I wouldn't have time to do my job or to contribute to other causes I care about or be the sort of friend I want to be to the people I love.
There are likely to be some causes out there I actively disagree with, but for the most part, I want to make sure I don't obstruct people who have chosen different priorities. I don't, for example, go around yelling at people who are trying to have conversations about anti-racism that they're wasting their time and should be tackling GSM causes instead. The thing is, it's not enough to simply avoid such obviously unhelpful actions (though I have to say that some activists don't meet even that bare minimum, especially on the internet!). It's very likely that I am actively harming causes I know little about through my ignorance, and worse, harming the actual people the cause is supposed to be supporting. If I come across some anti-racist activists proclaiming that racism is "gay" or "lame", is it obstructive for me to point out that this kind of language is harmful to GSM and disabled people?
I'm picking rather simplistic examples here. Some of these conflicts can and do exist between different broad causes, certainly, but perhaps an even bigger problem is different, possibly even conflicting, priorities and goals within the same broad area of effort. For example, the conflicts I've been discussing here recently and seeing discussed in lots of my circles around the fight for legal marriage equality for same-sex couples. This could be couched as an issue of priorities; perhaps resource is being taken away from suicide prevention for gender non-conforming teens, or trans* equality, in order to support same-sex marriage. But it can also be about direct conflict, because there is a strong argument that legal marriage equality itself is actively harmful for many groups of Queer people. Or it could be that the activism (as opposed to the desired outcome) is harmful to minority groups; an example would be blaming African-Americans for the disappointing decisions on same sex marriage in California, which is, well, kinda racist, not to mention ignoring the existence of African-Americans who are themselves in same-sex relationships or identify as LGB.
The ongoing intersectionality debate within feminism falls squarely within this sort of thing. "Feminism" is a huge and interlocking set of different causes, if only because the category "women" includes people in just about every imaginable state in life. I have great sympathy for Dzodan's intersectional or bullshit view of feminism, but a the same time I have to admit that no one person can be equally active for and knowledgeable about all possible feminist-related causes, just as no one person can be equally active for all possible causes in general. Non-intersectional feminism, the kind of feminism which promotes the rights of upper-middle-class, white, cis, able-bodied women in rich countries is absolutely a valid and worthwhile cause. Because financially well-off women, even when they are cis and able-bodied and young and attractive, absolutely do face significant workplace discrimination and exclusion from positions of influence in all kinds of fields, and I absolutely do care about rampant discrimination against mothers in the society I'm living in, that alone is a cause one could devote one's whole life to.
Actually the main reason I started calling myself a feminist even though I had experienced a lot of feminism as being about a relatively narrow special interest group was that I began to perceive rape, sexual assault and domestic violence as gendered hate crimes as well as acts committed by one individual against another. That's most certainly an issue which affects women with any number of other advantages in life. And I'm not aware of any political movement other than feminism which directly confronts rape and rape culture. (Talking of conflicting priorities, please don't take that statement to mean I don't care about rape of men or other non-female people; I think feminism can be somewhat helpful in addressing those issues, and I don't know of many other forms of activism which are doing anything about rape of non-female people at all.)
One problem is that all too many non-intersectional feminists not only don't make it a priority to deal with issues affecting women unlike themselves, they go around actively attacking trans women, or sex-workers, or women who simply disagree with them politically. I'm afraid I don't have anything very subtle to say about that kind of thing; I think it's just a case of people who agree with me on one cluster of issues (that women should be given equal chances in education and employment etc) also being extremely unethical and bigoted. It's just unfortunate that "agreeing with me about women's employment rights" has a particular identity label, namely "feminism", which means that when people who agree with that proposition behave badly, it reflects on all the rest of us and causes trans women, sex-workers and others to be very reasonably reluctant to trust feminists.
I'm more concerned about non-intersectional feminists who hurt women (and men) from other minority groups out of ignorance rather than deliberate malice (and the same the in the case of other forms of activism which is more for one cause than the rest). That's partly because some of the social changes that may be seen as desirable for eg white, upper-middle-class women are negative for poor women and women of colour, and it's also partly because people who know nothing about racism are liable to be accidentally racist in the ways they go about campaigning for their cause. And even though I'm taking the position that everybody has to prioritize the causes they work for, there does come a point where ignorance is culpable, if your words and actions persistently lead to harm to the people whose concerns you're ignorant about and you refuse to do anything about it. I'm not really particularly picking on feminists here, it's something that all activists are prone to, it's just that there has been a lot of discussion about the problems with non-intersectional feminism recently. For example![[tumblr.com profile]](https://www.tumblr.com/favicon.ico)
karnythia has had some very incisive things to say about racism coming from the white-dominated feminist blogosphere, including starting the #solidarityisforwhitewomen hashtag.
I also want to talk about how disability and disability rights fit in to other kinds of activism. I am somewhat more vocal about and interested in disability issues than some other causes, but I'm also a very long way from being an expert or a committed activist. I am seeing some really interesting but also disturbing discussion about the harmful effects of activism that ignores the realities of disability. Part of it is that a lot of activism, at least in the anglosphere and contexts that I'm most familiar with, is implicitly or directly working towards the goal of offering people from whatever minority every possible opportunity to succeed, to attain power and autonomy. But for many people with chronic illnesses and disabilities, this goal can be in itself negative, because the definitions of success, autonomy and so on don't mesh with the realities of living with some kinds of limitations. I am definitely in favour of improved equality, legal rights and social standing for disabled people! But I'm considering the idea that being treated "equally" with able-bodied people may not necessarily be positive for all disabled people if that implies being treated "like" able-bodied people.
Another powerful essay that was much linked at the time I started thinking about this was Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg laying out why this disabled woman no longer identifies as a feminist. Interestingly, she doesn't focus very much on ableist assumptions and rhetoric within mainstream feminism, but more points out that much of the feminist movement completely fails to acknowledge disability and disabled women at all. [Cohen-Rottenberg personally rejects person-first language so I am respecting her preferences in discussing her article.] On reflection, I'm not even convinced that disability is a special case here. While prioritizing a small subset of causes is absolutely unavoidable, there needs to be real awareness of other causes for multiple reasons. Partly to avoid obstructing the equally valuable activism of people with different priorities or different approaches. Partly to avoid using language or taking actions which harm people through ignorance of their issues. But also to avoid pursuing harmful and counter-productive goals through simple lack of information about the range of different goals that different people can have.
The thing is that in order to avoid these pitfalls, activists have to be able to engage with people who support and are knowledgeable about other, perhaps conflicting causes. So the discussion I want to have is, what's the best way to connect to causes that you personally are not committed to, don't have room in your life or abilities to be committed to? Is there any way to achieve this without just devolving into everybody yelling at everybody else for not being (sufficiently or at all) on the side of good? I note that I'm presuming goodwill here; there is always backlash, there are people who are actively trying to undermine any given worthwhile cause as opposed to not happening to be involved in supporting it. I'm not really talking about how to deal with that sort of actual malice. But I would very much welcome any thoughts.
And thank you to the people who have been having interesting conversations about these issues; I'm not acknowledging you by name because I want to respect the choice to restrict access to your take on potentially controversial discussions.
I think it's rather striking that all the posts which got me thinking along these lines are access-locked. There are numerous reasons for this, but I think one factor is that these conversations can go really badly if you have them in public. Simply admitting that someone's pet issue is not your priority can mark you as the enemy, if your comments happen to come to the attention of passionate, vocal activists for that cause. So maybe I'm being foolhardy in stating openly on the internet that, for example, I'm not a committed anti-racist ally, let alone an activist. Maybe, but one of the reasons I am doing so is that I really want to have a conversation about how people of goodwill can negotiate this kind of thing in public and community space.
Now, I'm not asking for anyone to absolve me for being insufficiently committed to anti-racist work. It is a failing that while I do very much believe that all people of all ethnic backgrounds are equally deserving of respect, I'm not personally doing very much to address the areas where the real world falls short of this ideal. It isn't because I think racism is unimportant (that in itself would be a rather racist position, if I assumed that POC are somehow less worthy of my energies than white people). In some ways it's not even a conscious decision to focus my energies elsewhere, it's more that the course of my life so far has left me with substantially more skills, knowledge, experience and opportunities useful in contributing to other issues. Which of course is not just random chance, it's the result of a series of choices and responses to the circumstances I find myself in, and I wouldn't be surprised if some of those choices were informed by subconscious or systematic racism, but however it may be, I can't do everything.
And of course racism is just an example, there are all kinds of issues where I have a vague feeling about how things should be but I'm not doing much to bring that about. The whole broad range of things that come under the heading of environmentalism, for example. I try to make personal choices which are relatively environmentally responsible, but I'm not highly educated on the technicalities and I don't ever campaign to convince other people, or large organizations and states, to tackle the problems of climate change, habitat destruction, resource depletion etc. Global inequality, poverty and development: my main charitable giving goes to development charities, notably Kiva, but I don't give all that much in direct charitable donation and I haven't done a lot of research into whether Kiva is the best possible charity, it's just one that emotionally appeals to me. And I don't do anything beyond giving money to promote better conditions for people in the global south, not because it's unimportant but because frankly I have absolutely no idea what actions or campaigns are effective and if I took the time to educate myself on this interlocking set of complex issues sufficiently (let alone actually acting on my understanding), I wouldn't have time to do my job or to contribute to other causes I care about or be the sort of friend I want to be to the people I love.
There are likely to be some causes out there I actively disagree with, but for the most part, I want to make sure I don't obstruct people who have chosen different priorities. I don't, for example, go around yelling at people who are trying to have conversations about anti-racism that they're wasting their time and should be tackling GSM causes instead. The thing is, it's not enough to simply avoid such obviously unhelpful actions (though I have to say that some activists don't meet even that bare minimum, especially on the internet!). It's very likely that I am actively harming causes I know little about through my ignorance, and worse, harming the actual people the cause is supposed to be supporting. If I come across some anti-racist activists proclaiming that racism is "gay" or "lame", is it obstructive for me to point out that this kind of language is harmful to GSM and disabled people?
I'm picking rather simplistic examples here. Some of these conflicts can and do exist between different broad causes, certainly, but perhaps an even bigger problem is different, possibly even conflicting, priorities and goals within the same broad area of effort. For example, the conflicts I've been discussing here recently and seeing discussed in lots of my circles around the fight for legal marriage equality for same-sex couples. This could be couched as an issue of priorities; perhaps resource is being taken away from suicide prevention for gender non-conforming teens, or trans* equality, in order to support same-sex marriage. But it can also be about direct conflict, because there is a strong argument that legal marriage equality itself is actively harmful for many groups of Queer people. Or it could be that the activism (as opposed to the desired outcome) is harmful to minority groups; an example would be blaming African-Americans for the disappointing decisions on same sex marriage in California, which is, well, kinda racist, not to mention ignoring the existence of African-Americans who are themselves in same-sex relationships or identify as LGB.
The ongoing intersectionality debate within feminism falls squarely within this sort of thing. "Feminism" is a huge and interlocking set of different causes, if only because the category "women" includes people in just about every imaginable state in life. I have great sympathy for Dzodan's intersectional or bullshit view of feminism, but a the same time I have to admit that no one person can be equally active for and knowledgeable about all possible feminist-related causes, just as no one person can be equally active for all possible causes in general. Non-intersectional feminism, the kind of feminism which promotes the rights of upper-middle-class, white, cis, able-bodied women in rich countries is absolutely a valid and worthwhile cause. Because financially well-off women, even when they are cis and able-bodied and young and attractive, absolutely do face significant workplace discrimination and exclusion from positions of influence in all kinds of fields, and I absolutely do care about rampant discrimination against mothers in the society I'm living in, that alone is a cause one could devote one's whole life to.
Actually the main reason I started calling myself a feminist even though I had experienced a lot of feminism as being about a relatively narrow special interest group was that I began to perceive rape, sexual assault and domestic violence as gendered hate crimes as well as acts committed by one individual against another. That's most certainly an issue which affects women with any number of other advantages in life. And I'm not aware of any political movement other than feminism which directly confronts rape and rape culture. (Talking of conflicting priorities, please don't take that statement to mean I don't care about rape of men or other non-female people; I think feminism can be somewhat helpful in addressing those issues, and I don't know of many other forms of activism which are doing anything about rape of non-female people at all.)
One problem is that all too many non-intersectional feminists not only don't make it a priority to deal with issues affecting women unlike themselves, they go around actively attacking trans women, or sex-workers, or women who simply disagree with them politically. I'm afraid I don't have anything very subtle to say about that kind of thing; I think it's just a case of people who agree with me on one cluster of issues (that women should be given equal chances in education and employment etc) also being extremely unethical and bigoted. It's just unfortunate that "agreeing with me about women's employment rights" has a particular identity label, namely "feminism", which means that when people who agree with that proposition behave badly, it reflects on all the rest of us and causes trans women, sex-workers and others to be very reasonably reluctant to trust feminists.
I'm more concerned about non-intersectional feminists who hurt women (and men) from other minority groups out of ignorance rather than deliberate malice (and the same the in the case of other forms of activism which is more for one cause than the rest). That's partly because some of the social changes that may be seen as desirable for eg white, upper-middle-class women are negative for poor women and women of colour, and it's also partly because people who know nothing about racism are liable to be accidentally racist in the ways they go about campaigning for their cause. And even though I'm taking the position that everybody has to prioritize the causes they work for, there does come a point where ignorance is culpable, if your words and actions persistently lead to harm to the people whose concerns you're ignorant about and you refuse to do anything about it. I'm not really particularly picking on feminists here, it's something that all activists are prone to, it's just that there has been a lot of discussion about the problems with non-intersectional feminism recently. For example
I also want to talk about how disability and disability rights fit in to other kinds of activism. I am somewhat more vocal about and interested in disability issues than some other causes, but I'm also a very long way from being an expert or a committed activist. I am seeing some really interesting but also disturbing discussion about the harmful effects of activism that ignores the realities of disability. Part of it is that a lot of activism, at least in the anglosphere and contexts that I'm most familiar with, is implicitly or directly working towards the goal of offering people from whatever minority every possible opportunity to succeed, to attain power and autonomy. But for many people with chronic illnesses and disabilities, this goal can be in itself negative, because the definitions of success, autonomy and so on don't mesh with the realities of living with some kinds of limitations. I am definitely in favour of improved equality, legal rights and social standing for disabled people! But I'm considering the idea that being treated "equally" with able-bodied people may not necessarily be positive for all disabled people if that implies being treated "like" able-bodied people.
Another powerful essay that was much linked at the time I started thinking about this was Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg laying out why this disabled woman no longer identifies as a feminist. Interestingly, she doesn't focus very much on ableist assumptions and rhetoric within mainstream feminism, but more points out that much of the feminist movement completely fails to acknowledge disability and disabled women at all. [Cohen-Rottenberg personally rejects person-first language so I am respecting her preferences in discussing her article.] On reflection, I'm not even convinced that disability is a special case here. While prioritizing a small subset of causes is absolutely unavoidable, there needs to be real awareness of other causes for multiple reasons. Partly to avoid obstructing the equally valuable activism of people with different priorities or different approaches. Partly to avoid using language or taking actions which harm people through ignorance of their issues. But also to avoid pursuing harmful and counter-productive goals through simple lack of information about the range of different goals that different people can have.
The thing is that in order to avoid these pitfalls, activists have to be able to engage with people who support and are knowledgeable about other, perhaps conflicting causes. So the discussion I want to have is, what's the best way to connect to causes that you personally are not committed to, don't have room in your life or abilities to be committed to? Is there any way to achieve this without just devolving into everybody yelling at everybody else for not being (sufficiently or at all) on the side of good? I note that I'm presuming goodwill here; there is always backlash, there are people who are actively trying to undermine any given worthwhile cause as opposed to not happening to be involved in supporting it. I'm not really talking about how to deal with that sort of actual malice. But I would very much welcome any thoughts.
And thank you to the people who have been having interesting conversations about these issues; I'm not acknowledging you by name because I want to respect the choice to restrict access to your take on potentially controversial discussions.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-14 07:55 am (UTC)On the other hand, anything useful you do is better than not doing anything. If *everybody* picks up one piece of litter, stops one friend from saying something -ist, refuses one needless plastic bag... when you multiply it by millions of people, that's still a lot of goodness, even though each of them could theoretically do ten times as much or more.
And a lot of intersectionality lies in pattern recognition, I feel - once you realise *how* people are gaslighted, marginalised, ignored in one area, it becomes easier to recognise the same things happening with different arguments in another.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-17 10:29 am (UTC)I definitely like the idea of making small contributions where possible, because it's true that lots of little things multiply. And yes, pattern recognition; I am wary of just assuming that all oppressions are interchangeable, but sometimes what you learn working for one cause can be generalized.