Feminism

A “hostile work environment”

I don’t think I would have considered talking about this, probably ever, if it hadn’t been for the fact that I was doing some training courses for my day job (more on that another time). One of my recerts was workplace sexual harassment. And oooh, boy, did that open a can of worms.

I see a lot of people ask why folks don’t report an incident when it happens, and answers vary. But one thing I don’t see discussed all that often is how it might be difficult to know if harassment has happened.

Last fall, I was working in a particular place for a couple of months. It wasn’t a friendly place to begin with, but there were a few people I connected with and some I could work with comfortably even if we weren’t friends. Being new to the job, I had to rely on others around me for support.

One of the people I considered supportive-but-not-a-friend asked me one day during my lunch break if I had some time. I said sure. In hindsight, I should’ve said no, but it’s not like I could have predicted what happened. He disclosed to me some personal information about his relationship and said he needed a “wife’s perspective.”

What followed was details about his sexual exploits at work in a way that made me uncomfortable. Would I have said it was harassment? Not at the time, no. Weird and awkward, yes. But on the level of a reportable offense? Well, I didn’t report it, so there you go.

Until I watched the training video for a different job (the one I’m currently in). I know I’m being vague, but trust me, when I saw the video, the specific things this person said to me and the way he cornered me alone and manipulated me during the conversation were absolutely and without question harassment.

This is the sort of thing I have dealt with since junior high school. Boys (then) and men (now) tend to say things to me that are definitely not acceptable. Nine times out of ten, it’s someone I barely know: a coworker I just met, a casual acquaintance from a class, a virtual stranger on the internet. There’s also a vastly different tone than a close friend talking about something personal. This includes threatening me or stalking me if I say I’m uncomfortable or I walk away. I once blocked a man on social media for the things he said to me, and he proceeded to stalk my website and send me angry messages because he “opened up” to me and I was being “cruel” for rejecting him.

I really don’t know exactly why this happens. Maybe I’m particularly gullible when it comes to the manipulation tactics these men use to get my attention before they drop the pretense. Maybe they either think of me as “one of the guys” (odd, since I’m definitely not particularly masc) or they see me as an unfuckable sounding board and figure it’s “safe” to tell me their sexual woes. Maybe it’s the fact that I’ve written books that include detailed intimacy, particularly queer sex, so people think that I’m available to listen to their real stories.

Some of the problem is that I don’t always recognize the harassment immediately. As I mentioned before, I didn’t even think it was more than just uncomfortable until the specific things said to me came up in the training video. The people who have done this to me often phrase it in a way that makes me think it’s not that big a deal, at least at first. I once had a man message me because he wanted to thank me for being open-minded. He started off by telling me he’s had a lot of bad experiences with women not liking that he’s bisexual. And of course, I’ll always defend my bi brothers, so I had no problem with him sending me a quick note. Sadly, that exchange ended with him sending me a dick pic.

But I think there’s another layer. Without exception, every single person who has approached me in this way has been from a marginalized community. It’s almost exclusively men, but I have experienced it from a couple of women and a couple of nonbinary people. Only two (to my knowledge) of the men who have done this to me in my adulthood have been cisgender heterosexual, and while most have been white, not all have been. I think that this makes me particularly vulnerable because I try not to be seen as someone unsafe for marginalized folks. Yes, I’m part of some of those communities myself, but I’m also keenly aware of places where I have privilege. So no matter how uncomfortable I might be, I’m wary of doing harm by reporting these incidents or even saying no to lending an ear. I didn’t want to report Dick Pic Guy because I didn’t want him or anyone else to think the problem was his sexuality and not the fact that he sent a perfect stranger an uninvited image of his schlong. On top of that, the one person I told that this had happened excused the behavior and made it clear they did not think I was aware of how things are “really” done in queer circles.

Except that this type of behavior is doing harm to me. Being sexually and romantically liberated does not magically confer the right to exploit other marginalized people, to create unsafe and hostile environments. My work as an author does not make me a therapist or available to anyone who asks. And as much as I know I need to use caution when someone wants to speak to me, that does not in any way excuse the behavior of the other parties involved.

Unless we are good friends, have known each other for years, and have had conversations about many other topics that don’t involve sex, I do not want to hear it. I am not your therapist or your partner. Even if we know each other, please use care when sharing things with me. Ask first, don’t assume. And don’t put me in the position of having to decide if my trauma or yours takes precedence in matters of sex and intimacy. Definitely don’t send me pics of your genitals no matter how well we know each other.

Real men are…

Dance, Feminism, LGBTQ+, Women

A few days ago, I came across a photo posted to one of the pages I follow on Facebook. For some context, this was in response to a previous photo meme about boys who take ballet growing up to be strong, healthy, and surrounded by women. I found the original meme funny, as the mom of a boy who takes ballet, tap, jazz, and Irish dance and seems to have no problem at all being the only boy in most of his classes.

The comments on the original photo included some by a few men who posted that boys who take ballet will turn out to be gay (they used words I prefer not to share here, thanks). Another commenter posted his photo with this caption:

FullSizeRender — Hello my name is Jason. I am a 35 year old father of 4 who is a hardcore metal 7 string guitar player and also an Army veteran. Oh yeah…I also took ballet and jazz for 5 years in my youth.

Now, I have no problem at all with whoever wants to take dance classes. I’m very happy for Jason Whoever and his dancing feet. What I do have a problem with is how this is framed. It puts a certain kind of masculinity at the top, emphasizing a stereotype of manhood: physically strong, muscular, interested in culturally-approved manly pursuits such as rock music, and employed in a culturally-approved masculine job.

In other words, it’s perfectly fine for boys to take ballet so long as they turn out to be like him: not gay and not too feminine.

As much fun as it is to punch the air and go, “Take that, haters! Look at this badass dude!” it’s ultimately not the most helpful response. It’s still rooted in both homophobia and misogyny.

Because of my work as an author, editor, and reviewer, I see this all the time, especially in m/m fiction. It’s one of my pet peeves—men who assert their manliness page after page. This is done in a multitude of ways:

Large, muscular bodies
“Manly” jobs or hobbies (military/police/fire, sports, rock music, anything that requires a power suit)
Large penises (sometimes even in works that aren’t sexually explicit)
Emotionless, incapable of expressing emotions, or limited to anger and arousal
Sexually insatiable (again, this is even sometimes true outside erotica)
Literally telling us they are men, often repeatedly (especially if they don’t meet one of the previous criteria)
Disgusted, bothered, or simply not interested in other men who don’t fit the above
Disgusted, bothered, or explicitly not interested in jobs or pursuits perceived as “feminine”
Biphobic and transphobic
Openly misogynistic and directly hostile toward female-identified characters

It’s not the first two things on the list that bother me. Are there muscular, culturally masculine gay and bi men? Yes, of course there are. In fact, I love that they are part of the total picture because there’s a tendency for straight people to think they don’t exist. Showing athletes and hero-types is a way of breaking down a certain type of barrier. In and of itself, that’s not the problem. It’s the lack of diversity and the disdain for men outside those boxes that disturbs me. When it becomes the ideal, not merely one representation, it feeds into other forms of misogyny and queer antagonism.

The same is true when talking about men in the arts, especially dance and theater. It’s fantastic that tough military men and powerful football players have taken ballet classes, but they are not the reason it’s acceptable for boys to dance.

Imagine being a boy who takes ballet and sees something implying he must grow up to be a certain type of man or he will surely “turn out gay.” That pretty much hurts every boy who takes dance class ever, including the ones who are destined to be big, muscular military men. It implies there’s something very, very wrong with being gay or more feminine or even just not built like a linebacker; it erases bisexual men entirely; and it implies that those who are wired toward cultural masculinity cannot possibly be gay (or even just enjoy culturally feminine pursuits). No one wins in that scenario.

At what point will we stop defending certain hobbies and jobs on the grounds that they’re not too gay or too feminine because big, tough men do them? When will being gay and/or culturally feminine be considered just as awesome as being culturally masculine? The only good answer to “But he’ll turn out gay!” is to say, “So what?” and leave it there.

FYI (if you’re a mom of teenage boys)

Christianese, Feminism, Parenting, Sexuality and Gender

Dear moms,

I have some information that might interest you. Last night, as I sometimes do, I sat on my couch and looked at social media on my phone.

I’ve been on vacation, so naturally there are quite a few blog posts and news articles to wade through. Wow – the Internet sure has been busy with the slut-shaming this summer! Some of my friends brought this to my attention, because as Christians and/or feminists, we notice shit like that.

I noticed other things, too. For one, it appears that I’ve been on the wrong path when it comes to raising my own son.

I get it – you’ve seen ~~all those shameless hussies putting their pictures up on Facebook~~ how our culture exploits women’s bodies, right? I can’t help thinking that maybe I’ve failed by trying to raise a son who respects women regardless of how they’re dressed. Clearly, I should have been protecting his eyes. I should remedy that.

So, here’s the bit that I think is important for you to realize. If you are the parent of a teenage son, you should definitely make sure he never, ever sees a half-dressed girl. Half-dressed boys are okay, though, because naturally, none of your sons are gay or bisexual. Posting half-naked pictures of your own sons flexing on the beach is also totally fine, since no one ever equates strength and virility. We all know that unless we see a penis, it’s not sexual anyway. Besides, it’s not at all exploitative to parade their bodies on the Internet for your own gain; everyone knows that’s much better than making one’s own choices about what to post.

Please understand this also: you are not responsible for making sure your sons know that regardless of what a girl is wearing, she deserves respect. All you need to do is assure they don’t see those pictures. After all, if they don’t see them, then you can relax in the knowledge that your sons do not know what girls’ bodies look like or that they won’t satisfy their curiosity by looking at the Internet at a friend’s house.

Not to mention that those “sexy” selfies your sons’ friends are posting ~~don’t reflect who they are~~ clearly demonstrate that they are temptresses who want to cause your sons to fall into sin. You need to be sure to remind them often so that you can ~~keep your sons from acting like animals~~ protect your sons.

And now – thank God – you have a good excuse to select who your sons are friends with. You can also have awkward family dinners during which you remind them that ~~masturbation is a sin~~ ~~teenage girls are sluts~~ they should probably not see a female-bodied person in her nightgown until they are married.

I know you’re concerned that these girls’ parents would be disappointed if they knew their daughters were causing your poor, defenseless sons to ~~get hard~~ think impure things when looking at them on the Internet. Obviously, you know that once a boy sees a girl in a state of undress, he turns from a respectable, nice kid into a raging, hormonal beast. You don’t want your sons to only think of girls in this “sexual” way, do you?

Of course not.

You’re also probably aware that girls don’t fantasize about boys’ bodies, so you’re free to put as many objectifying pictures of them up on your blog as you like. No worries–you won’t be causing any teenage girls to lust. That’s because girls don’t really have any sexual feelings unless they are a)married or b)they weren’t properly guarding their hearts. Naturally, they never masturbate or look at naked men on the Internet. And they’re not ever lesbians, either.

Good thing you’ve resolved not to give any of these teen temptresses a second chance to corrupt your innocent little men. I’m sure you’ve also installed nanny software and have a firewall so good no one could ever hack it. You’ve probably made sure that your sons’ friends have these things too. Don’t forget that awkward conversation you had with all their dads to find out if any of them had a stray magazine or several that you needed to confiscate before you allowed your sons into their homes.

I know that sounds harsh and old-school, but that’s just the way needs to be if you want to raise your sons right. Blocking, banning, and shaming is so much more effective than merely having open conversations about how your sons treat women. Remind yourself that you are raising men, while their female counterparts are mere girls. That way, you can convince yourself that your sons are mature enough to make adult decisions while these girls are not–and apparently don’t have any parents to help them learn and grow the way you’re helping your sons. Their parents will probably be grateful that you implied their daughters are tramps anyway.

Meanwhile, you should have in mind the kind of women you want your sons to marry. Your gag reflex probably prevents you from realizing that they may be gay, which is why you need to imagine them with women. It’s not creepy and weird at all that you are making these plans for them when they’re only halfway through high school. It’s never too early to control your children’s future adulthood. Besides, there’s no chance whatsoever that your sons will go behind your backs and date or have sex or whatever. And did I mention that these “men of integrity” are totally not ever, ever masturbating? Oh, I did? Well, I said it again.

Moms, it’s not too late! If you think you’ve made a mistake in raising your sons (we all do – don’t fret – I’ve made some doozies), RUN to your boys’ social media pages and block every single one of their girl friends. There are pictures of them that make it easy for your sons to imagine them naked, including that lovely senior portrait. After all, girls don’t even need to be in a state of partial undress to tempt boys to lust after them–all it takes is their mere existence.

Will you trust me? Your boys are crying out for you to teach them that girls are the cause of all their adolescent hormone surges as well as any other behaviors they may exhibit. Deep down, they are uncontrollable cavemen who cannot possibly learn how to respect and love women unless you protect them from the grasps of those alluring young things. (And also, they are NOT gay, so you probably don’t need to worry about protecting them from other boys.)

You are raising MEN.

Teach them guilt, sexism, and blame.

I’m glad could have this talk. Maybe we’ll talk again sometime about how we can raise our girls into women who feel ashamed of their bodies.

Mrs. Mitchell

It’s not about the sex

Feminism, Racism, Sexuality and Gender

Courtesy of http://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/miley-cyrus-sexual-exploitation-vma-2228134 *(this was the least offensive photo I could find)*

While some people are busy fretting over how they can’t let their kids watch the VMAs because of performances like Miley Cyrus’, I’m shaking my head and wondering how it’s gotten boiled down to arguments about whether her parents did their job or whether she’s just acting foolish because of her age/fame. There are problems with her performance (which I didn’t watch live; I saw the video this morning). None of them have to do with what she wore, whether or not she’s trying to be “sexy,” or whether or not she has gone from wholesome to trashy.

I didn’t find her performance sexy (and what was wrong with her tongue? Does she have a condition?), but I’d be happy to chalk that up to personal preference. That is, if not for two glaring problems:

It was racist.
It wasn’t empowering for female sexuality.

I’m not the best person to explain what was racist about it. You should just go read this (and the several articles linked therein). It explains perfectly what was wrong with Miley’s performance from an intersectional feminism perspective. I was glad to read that; I’m not always sure that I’m on the right track, so I was happy to have confirmation that my initial reaction wasn’t off-base. There is obviously more wrong than this, but my first question after watching was, “Why are all the back-up dancers black?” It didn’t seem right, so I dug a little deeper. I’m glad I did.

I can speak a little better to the second point. Other women have performed in less clothing than Miley wore and have had equally sexual dance moves. Why is hers somehow worse? The short answer is that by itself, it’s not. If it were just Miley up there (preferably minus the objectification of black women), it would have been less of an issue. In one sense, Miley is trying to find out who she is apart from her family and her childhood. When other child stars do the same, they are often shamed for their mistakes because they can’t screw up in private. But there’s a special kind of venom reserved for “wholesome” girls who grow up into women with sexuality. For some reason, the finger-wagging always seems to crop up around things like the VMAs, with parents lamenting, “What about the chiiiiiildren????”

Young men don’t seem to have this problem. One of my friends was kind enough to point out that Daniel Radcliffe didn’t get the same treatment when he was naked. On stage. With a horse. I mean, I guess parents probably figured that wasn’t something to take the kids to see, but still–he got more flak when people thought he was gay than for his performance in Equus. Right there, that says volumes about people’s priorities.

The real problem with Miley’s performance is adding Robin Thicke into the mix. A few years ago, I had a grad school professor who mentioned in class that he’d done some research on pornography (yes, that’s actual research, people). He evaluated pictures in magazines based on several criteria–pose, facial expression, etc. He discovered that in many photos of women, they were pouting and passive, and there was often a fully clothed man in the photograph. This was in sharp contrast with photos of men, who were mostly smiling, active, and alone. It was the last one that surprised me (and bothered me) most.

As it turns out, I wasn’t wrong about that. The presence of a fully-clothed man feeds into the idea that women are bodies that exist solely for men’s pleasure. Miley Cyrus and Robin Thicke played that out on national television. The excuses were strange, too–that this is his “thing” and he’s never been a Disney star are hardly important when he’s perpetuating a degrading view of women with someone half his age who’s barely an adult. His sexual freedom and aggression are celebrated; she’s shamed for not living up to her status as a role model (which, by the way, she is not obligated to do).

The two problems (racism and misogyny) that I mentioned are linked by the fact that Miley Cyrus and Robin Thicke have intentionally joined them. This is their view of what it means to be sexual, and it hinges on exploitation and the blatant appropriation of a subset of black culture–along with a host of horrible assumptions about black women. Combine Miley’s own admission that she wants to try on “black culture” with a man singing about “blurred” consent while a woman mimes sexually pleasuring him and you should get a good idea why this is so disgusting.

The whole thing made me feel sick, and many of the reactions have made me feel sicker still. It was gross, and it was wrong, and we need to ask ourselves why we’re more concerned with the fact of Miley’s attempts at being sexy than how she’s trying to achieve it or why it’s so wrong. It’s not about teaching our daughters about what’s “appropriate” when it comes to clothing or dance moves. It’s not about another former child star “gone wrong.” It’s about how we’ve failed as a society to stop exploiting people for profit and how we’ve failed as a society to teach our children that growing up means knowing the difference between empowering people and continuing to subjugate them, even when the line seems thin.

Today, I’m not a good feminist.

Feminism

Anti-feminist symbol. By Ahmadi (own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

I think I haven’t been a “good” feminist for a while now. I’ve been thinking about it, and maybe I’m just not cut out for this gig. Oh, I don’t mean that I’m not into equality and I’ve suddenly gone backwards to the world of women having a proper place. I just mean that I don’t really fit in with what looks sometimes like the Ideal Feminist.

When I stopped believing in the typical conservative evangelical version of Christianity, the first thing to go was the notion that there is some ideal standard out there. This isn’t Jesus, this is Plato. That’s not to say there isn’t “better” and “worse,” just that there’s not some magical fairytale Perfect Being with such an impossibly high standard that all of humanity disgusts the Perfect Being.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I discovered that this notion exists outside Christianity. Evangelical Christianity is at least honest about it–if you don’t agree that you’re bad and repent (with the appropriate belief in the magical Perfect Being), you get a one-way ticket to Hell. The rest of the world is not quite so open about what will happen to you. From what I can tell, though, if you don’t get it right (there’s no Perfect Being to rescue you), you get ejected from the club and placed on the list of People Who Piss the Gatekeepers Off No Matter What They Say. I have a feeling there are some people who could say, “The sky is blue” and they’d get an argument about the specific shade.

The reason I say I’m a lousy feminist these days is that I want to concentrate on the big picture and not the minutiae of precisely how someone said something or what an individual woman chooses to do. I’ve been guilty of hair-splitting myself, and I think it’s time to be done with that. I’m not convinced the right way to be a feminist is to demand that we consider every damn detail of the decisions we make, analyzing it all to make sure it conforms to the Feminist Policies and Procedures Manual.

There’s this list of rules (sometimes spoken, sometimes not) that exists somewhere, and I just don’t think I can keep up anymore. This is by no means exhaustive:

Don’t do or say anything that could be construed as “what about the men” (the details of what that entails will be explained to you after you screw up)
Define anything men say that sounds corrective as “mansplaining,” even when it has nothing to do with feminism (because there’s no possible way you could be wrong if you studied it, read it, or wrote about it)
Grill women about the choices they make (taking husband’s name, having babies, working for pay, etc.) and tell them there’s a right answer for anything you think isn’t “feminist” enough
Police people’s methods of healing from abuse (but expect them not to do the same to you)
Make violent threats, use verbally abusive language, and do the same creepy things you complain men do, but say you can do it because your threat is “empty”
Find the most mild examples of your own privilege and say, “See? I check my privilege!” (this applies exclusively to white feminists and mostly to straight feminists)
Complain about “creepers” on social media but don’t bother blocking them the first time they make you uncomfortable
Do all this to others while claiming you have no issues to work on

I am not in either therapy or recovery, but I know plenty of people who are. The steps above are aspects of what’s called “taking someone else’s inventory.” The essence of it is that you’re finding fault with other people and assessing their motives without examining your own. The problem with this approach when it comes to feminism is that it separates women from each other. I’m not saying every feminist I disagree with does all of these things, but a fair number of them do at least two, one of which is usually the last item on the list.

A good example of this behavior is an article I linked some months ago about women’s reasons for taking their husband’s names. The writer didn’t see any valid reason to take one’s husband’s name except for being religiously conservative and believing it was the right thing to do. Any other reason, including “because most people do it and I didn’t think that deeply about it,” were game-show-buzzered automatically.

Name-changing is not a primary issue, yet somehow, it’s been put on the Throne of Importance. If I’m not railing against the oppression of changing my name, I’m apparently an idiot and a faux feminist. You know what? I honestly do. not. care if you change your name to your husband’s, hyphenate it, make up a new name, give him yours, or drop the last name entirely, Cher-style. You could insist on having your birth name (which may be your father’s anyway) and still be part of a complementarian marriage or have a husband who abuses you. That’s because the name isn’t the real problem.

Another one I saw the other day was a tweet asking why people had kids. No, seriously. Because it’s totally invasive to ask people why they don’t have any but not at all violating to demand we explain ourselves as to why we had them. (Before you ask, yeah, I answered the question, because I didn’t think anything of it until later, when I realized how much it upset me.) Anyway, the tweet also said that “because it’s what people do” is not a valid reason. Again, I’m not making this up. I love the attitude that says someone else can evaluate my choices but God forbid I evaluate theirs. As with the name change, I do not have any interest in whether you have kids or you don’t. That’s your choice. But it’s a super-duper privilegey thing to do to ask people why they reproduced and blast people you think didn’t consider it hard enough. (Pro tip: it’s classist.)

I feel more in feminist spheres like I don’t measure up than I ever did in religious ones. That’s probably owing to the fact that I wasn’t abused in church like some were, so I acknowledge that. There are also some feminists (even of the more extreme sort) who don’t do this. It seems to be, for the most part, limited to (strangely) Christians who claim the feminist label. I chalk that up to the need to rebel against an anti-feminist system, but it doesn’t make it right. You know what I want out of my feminism? I want to work toward making sure that all people have opportunities. I want equality and justice. I want women of color to be paid the same thing as white men for doing the same job. I want my son to be a ballet dancer and my daughter to be an engineer (if that’s what they want). I want our culture to reflect the beauty and diversity of women’s contribution to the arts. I want all forms of human-against-human violence to end. I do not want to argue about names and babies and the definition of “job.”

There’s an attitude among some women that they are better than others because hey, at least they aren’t anti-trans like some people or at least they don’t use the word “c*nt” like some people.* ‘Nother pro tip: taking other feminists’ inventories is also bad. Stop doing it. Stop nit-picking my decisions and asking me rudely personal questions in order to prove that you’re the better feminist. If that’s what you want, then fine. You can be the Queen Feminist. I’m out, though. I’m claiming my fourth-prize ribbon for being a lousy feminist and calling it a day.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

*Last pro tip, I promise. The word “c*nt” is really, really bad in the U.S. Don’t use it if you live here or are visiting here. I understand that it doesn’t have quite the same impact in other places, though. So we in the U.S. really don’t have the right to tell non-Americans whether to use it or not. For some reason, there’s a boatload of policing that particular word because “Zomg! Someone used it on Twitter and Americans read Twitter! And they used it IN THEIR TWITTER HANDLE OMG I AM SO OFFENDED!” Yeah. Get over it. We have words that are equally offensive to other cultures.

Healing, forgiveness, and redemption

Bullying, Feelings, Feminism, Life, Relationships

Joseph Forgives His Brothers, by the Providence Lithograph Company (http://thebiblerevival.com/clipart/1907/gen45.jpg) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

I recently had the privilege of connecting with Stephanie Drury (of Stuff Christian Culture Likes) through an online community we both belong to. I’ve long appreciated what she has to say because even though I don’t agree 100% with everything she says, she’s one of the people who comes closest to expressing more or less where my own faith is right now. I don’t have the history of spiritual (and other) abuse she’s endured; my stay in the conservative evangelical world was comparatively short and uneventful. My leaving was mostly for the sake of my children. I saw enough to know that even in the best-intentioned evangelical spheres, abuse is a natural outflow of certain teachings. It wasn’t something I wanted my children to have long-term exposure to. Trust me when I say I’d have been happy to foot the therapy bill knowing I could have prevented the damage and didn’t.

That said, yesterday, I read Stephanie’s post, hugo schwyzer’s suicide attempt, the feminist response, and the tension of holding horrible things alongside possiblity. While again, I don’t agree 100% with everything she says, it resonated with me. Bear with me as I attempt to explain why, keeping two things in mind:

Stephanie writes from a place of having been harmed. No one should accuse her of failing to understand what it’s like to be victimized.
I am not writing from that place. I’m writing from the place of one who has both done the harm and seen the harm.

A lot of people were pretty angry about what Stephanie said in her post. I understand that. There was a time when I would have readily jumped on that train. I have my own experiences with being told to forgive someone who had wronged me–to the point of not being able to express my anger because both Christianity and “psychology” told me that the burden was on me to “own” my reactions. I wasn’t supposed to hold past misdeeds against people who continued to hurt me. All of those things are lies; it’s not on me to do anything, and a person’s history does inform his or her present actions. So believe me when I say I get it that some of what Stephanie said could trigger a lot of feelings.

On the other hand, her post did make me consider two things that are very important for me. I emphasize that last part because I recognize myself to be pretty near the top of the privilege food chain. I’m white, I’m cisgender, and I’m straight. I’m a married stay-at-home-mom (to me, that’s like the height of economic privilege, that I can choose to do what I want). I’ve never been spiritually abused, though I have a long history of other forms of bullying, and there were certainly abuses in my family. What Stephanie’s post made me think about wasn’t how I treat those who have wronged me but how I, as a person who has wronged others, have had my own redemption story.

First, I have to really, truly, deeply own my history of fundamentalist ideas. When I was 15 or 16, I was in the car with a couple of family members. I cheerfully told them that “sin is sin,” a line I was repeating from church. They already knew that my church had taught me that gay = sin. The conversation went like this:

Me: Sin is sin. One sin is no better or worse than any other.

Family member 1: So, lying and murder are equal.

Me: Yep.

Family member 2: You believe it’s wrong to be gay.

Me: Yes.

Family member 1: So, being gay is as bad as being a rapist.

Me [now very uncomfortable]: Yeah, I guess, but it’s just because all sin keeps us from God.

Family member 2: So I’m as bad as a rapist.

Me: I don’t know. I guess so.

And that’s the most mild and printable of the ways I hurt this person.

Ten years. It took me ten years to get to a point where I didn’t still believe that. I have no idea how that particular family member stuck it out with me. All I can say is that from the time I was old enough to remember, she’s been one of my favorite people in the whole world. She’s been one of my biggest advocates. Because she (and other family members, who have also been wonderful) loved me and waited patiently for me, we made it past all that. I changed.

It’s that belief that people can–and do–change that keeps me blogging. It keeps me searching for new ways to be an ally and it keeps me reading on Twitter to see where my privilege is showing and what I can do to make it right. It keeps me searching for justice and my part in it. It keeps me pointing to the voices of others and asking people to listen. I express all that in different ways. Sometimes I’m angry and bold; sometimes I use Scripture; sometimes I write about how deeply I love the people in my life. I keep going, though, because someone, somewhere may be reading and might just find the spark to change.

The second thing that occurred to me is that I’m a harsh critic of people. I don’t actually like people very much. Perhaps that’s the result of my history with peers at school or with some of my family. It could be because I’m pretty introverted. I don’t really know. The problem is that I often have trouble separating what people say and do from who they are. This is particularly true when those people are public figures.

I have little difficulty accepting and loving ordinary people, even when they aren’t perfect. The real people in my everyday life get the benefit of my ongoing forgiveness. My two closest friends (other than my husband) are very different women, but I love them both so, so much. Have we ever hurt each other? Sure. Do we do things the others think are probably bad ideas? Of course. But there is a lot of good history that none of us are willing to throw away. We make things right and we move on.

That can’t be done with these big-name “celebrity” bloggers, pastors, and speakers. I’m not at all condoning what any of them say or do. We need to keep calling them out on their behavior because they are doing these big, public things and using their fame to gain followers who will then turn around and do the same things. We need to stop them. We need to be angry, we need to be pushy, we need to be bold. We also need to be gentle and persuasive and kind–not because that’s the “best” way to do it but because our natural personalities make us respond in our own ways. I cannot imagine some of my fellow bloggers being polite about Mark Driscoll or Hugo Schwyzer’s latest pile of poo. On the other hand, there are many bloggers I can’t imagine writing a scathingly funny take-down or an angry rant; they normally write very differently than that.

Where we may be able to agree is that we can say what a person is actually doing without assigning motive or making assumptions about who that person is or whether there is any hope for change. We can say with certainty that Mark Driscoll, John Piper, Hugo Schwyzer, and others have said and continue to say terrible things. We can worry about their families. We can tell anyone who will listen in whatever way we need to that their words are damaging. What we can’t do is know why they do those things or whether they will ever change.

I also feel uncomfortable with name-calling, as that speaks to who or what we think someone is at their core. I admit to having done this; I imagine that I learned to do it as a child. My mother used to call me names when she was angry, and I was bullied mostly with name-calling for years. Whether or not anyone else agrees, I believe no matter what abuse someone has committed or appears to have committed, it is, in fact, bullying to call people steaming piles of shit or assholes or fucktards or douchebags. I don’t really care that you think it’s not hurting them because they hurt you first or that you’re just expressing your anger. It’s still not right. They are humans, not poo or body parts–regardless of the evil things they’ve done.*

There is one place where I strongly disagree with Stephanie (and I hope this does not hurt her, in the same way that I hope not to have hurt others with my words above). In the specific case of Hugo Schwyzer, his past is applicable. He may have apologized for what he did, but the fact that he keeps on doing it says volumes more than his apology. Perhaps he wouldn’t try to kill an intimate partner now, but he isn’t demonstrating respect for women. This is the same man who penned an article (which I will not link to) about removing a tampon from his soon-to-be ex-wife. If that’s not a violation of her privacy and her womanhood, I don’t know what is. If he wants people to stop bringing up his past, then he needs to stop behaving that way in the present.

I know this post is already too long; I hope you’ve stuck with me. I honestly don’t want to hurt anyone with my words. As I said near the beginning, this was mostly about the things I believe I’ve done wrong and now wish to amend. It won’t change the fact that I’m going to continue to use my words to fight injustice. It does mean that I want to be careful not to conflate actions with unknown motives or words with people.

I’d love to know what you think; leave me a comment and tell me what’s on your mind.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

*I maintain that name-calling can be ok for institutions (which are not thinking/feeling beings) or in certain humorous contexts, such as the post I linked in my News last Friday about being a better douchebag (it wasn’t connected with a specific individual).

A “hostile work environment”

Real men are…

It’s not about the sex

Today, I’m not a good feminist.

Healing, forgiveness, and redemption

Let's Be Friends

Sharing

Tip Jar

Shopping Cart

Your Shopping Cart

Supposed Crimes Publishing

Beaten Track Publishing

More Content