Dear friends,
I've been thinking of this blog more as therapy than as protest, mostly because protest would require that those against whom I'm protesting actually read it. And I'm more or less indifferent as to whether or not they do, because, well, who are they?...I think they are almost literally the entire world, and this is too large of a group for me to manage or even think about (notice the subtitle of this blog is something like "you could put them on almost everything"). After all, this little blog was built through exasperation. It's a shelter.
But let's consider audience for a moment. Isn't it within my rights to choose as my audience fellow dissenters? Were I to attempt to widely publicize this blog, why should I prioritize changing the minds of those who make these signs over rallying those who protest--or wish they had more politically powerful means of protesting--against them?
Does it even make sense to direct my words to individuals, groups, and organizations that use images of women to exchange products and power among one another while silencing or ignoring the women whose images they exploit? And with how many different individuals must I begin anew an argument directed against the same inanely sexist position? Well, well, well. I don't have the energy for that. It. is. so. boring.
Perhaps, too, there is a difference between raising consciousness and protesting: personally, I can't very well stage a protest against anything without feeling like a hypocrite (actually, to tell you the truth, almost any sort of participation in daily life, and most especially speaking, tends to make me feel like a hypocrite...), but I can raise consciousness about how pervasive sexism continues to be, all around us, in so many ways, all the time. I'm raising consciousness for myself and for my six or so friends who read this, I suppose, because even those particularly conscious of and attuned to sexism need this as long as dominant cultures continue to reiterate the normalcy of female degradation/non-agency on the daily. It just feels nice to sort of do something, to say, "Nope."
NOPE.
SORRY.
WRONG.
Ah, there is something extraordinarily therapeutic about this kind of repetition.
To put this another way: I am the kind of person who owns a gavel. It's a really good idea. You should get one.
Finally, just to be clear, I'm also not really in the business of making people feel good about themselves for believing that they believe in and are operating according to egalitarian principles. Because I'm not sure that's even possible. I'd rather alienate that erroneous belief and make these such ones uncomfortable, even if I risk their hypothetical readership, since again, I'm not writing with them in mind (not that I don't appreciate their readership).
And so, anyway, I've been reading what sociologists have to say about the construction of social problems for my social policy class, and I've begin to see this blog as what Malcolm Spector and John Kitsuse called (in 1987) a "claims-making activity." It's interesting to think of this blog as a claim, not, let me emphasize, against men, or against heterosexual men, or against white, heterosexual men, but against gender oppression perpetuated by all sorts of people and groups. Albeit a weak one. But it's something, right? Oh, I love the space of the Internet.
Here are some excerpts (emphases and parenthetical expressions mine):
----
"If we conceived of social problems as claims-making activities (as opposed to objective social conditions)...we can easily locate such activities and the people who engage in them in any community or society. We could find the people who write to their congressmen, petition their city council, sign petitions, stage protests, make complaints to local administrative agencies, and so on. One common and seemingly sensible question that comes to mind is: Why do these people do these things? What causes people to complain, protest, demand change, join organizations, and lead movements?"
"When such questions are raised, attention is almost invariably directed toward the individual and social characteristics of those involved and the differences between those who do and those who do not participate in those activities. What background characteristics produce people who join groups, demand change, and engage in protest? When groups or movements are considered the focus of analysis, the characteristics of leaders are often presented."
"To study claims-making activities by drawing samples of participants to find individual and social characteristics that predict participation in those activities deflects attention away from the organization of claims-making itself...."
"A claim is a demand that one party makes upon another....claimants construct notions about the causes of the conditions they find onerous, assign blame, and locate officials responsible for rectifying the conditions. Alternatively, claimants may decide that no one is in charge of doing something about the condition, and that may become the substance of their complaints. Consequently, they may seek out those they think are in charge of creating and assigning such responsibility. Third, they may ask who benefits from the condition in question and look for vested interests--groups that actively perpetuate and profit from it or support it for personal pleasure or convenience. These options, not necessarily mutually exclusive, may lead to different strategies about how the claim should be phrased and to whom it should be directed."
---
Yeah. In this case, I might send emails that I then post to this blog and that serve as claims to particular individuals or organizations, and when I put a sticker on, say, someone's face, that's sort of a claim to that person--but for the most part, I'm literally reversing the meaning of the sign by making it into my own sign of sexism-consciousness so that I turn their claim into my claim, so BOOYA. Must get larger stickers...
I'm also a fan of this:
"The establishment of an agency authorized to deal with certain conditions generates dissatisfactions among populations about conditions that previously were unseen or routinely accommodated. That is, the awareness of availability of services leads to definitions of--and activity about--conditions as troublesome or disruptive."
So..you're saying that my eventual feminist watch dog agency/community center for creative writing, the arts, and entrepreneurship run by adolescent girls is going to incite boatloads more anger and dissatisfaction? Fantastic news.
No comments:
Post a Comment