Not all men

[AskBasil]

Interesting article here

kim the thread is about how or whether the statements "not all men" derail feminist discussion. There has been little opportunity to have that, very interesting discussion (i.e. even if men believe this, should they / could they STFU for five fucking minutes and let women have a discussion about their lived experience) due to getting into the NAMALT derail. Again.

I would 'check my privilege' (to coin an overused phrase) kim. Because I am a white woman and I very probably have been guilty of that. And if I haven't I could probably do it very easily.

And actually, thinking about it a bit more, I would probably analyse it if a black man said it too because I still have white privilege over him. Even though suggesting women talk over men is a traditional way of shutting them up.

I have honestly never seen or heard men defend or argue on behalf of women, the way women on this forum do for men. Yep

Sorry, went to take a phonecall and I've only caught up so far, but WTF?

'So class analysis is the privilege of the oppressor?'

That's not in response to my post pointing out that black men suffer oppression for their race as women do for their gender, is it?

Cos if so, please, tell me how the heck black men figure as 'the oppressor' here?!

Ah, thank goodness.

No, class analysis isn't necessarily the privilege of the oppressed - dervel is demonstrating that pretty well here - but it is about power structures.

Why do we need the oppressor class to listen all the time? Why are they more important than everyone else?

I'm still paying attention, this is an important conversation.

Or rather: why is it our responsibility, when talking to everyone, to change our speech such that the women we're most worried about don't hear the message, on the offchance that the people who are the most misogynistic might, possibly, hear it and mostly ignore it?

It's a trade-off you can only accept if you already think the voice of those men is more important than that of the women.

Without class analysis so much would not have been achieved. The welfare system for a start.

If we think of the benefits that class analysis has given women: the equal pay act, recognition of rape in marriage, child benefit, women's DV shelters. In fact pretty much any advance in women's rights has been on the back of class analysis instead of looking at individuals actions without the context of patterns and trends.

"It's a trade-off you can only accept if you already think the voice of those men is more important than that of the women." Yes this.

kim - oh, please, do teach me more about history.

Actually, you will find, what brings about real, long-term change is a gradual shift in social attitudes. That involves everyone. We are not living in some dystopian novel where 15 men rule over everyone else and we must change their minds one by one.

What really happens is that gradually, people come into contact with new ideas. Many of those people are oppressed. They talk, they campaign, they bring up their children and gradually, society shifts its sense of what is right. And that goes up to the people in power.

That is what works. I know stirring rhetoric seems as if it's hugely powerful, and it is - but it's the tip of the iceberg.

Conscious-raising is a massive part of it I think.

I also think not compromising is incredibly important otherwise what gains you get are on the terms of the oppressor. On the flip side of that I think things can be achieved in steps providing there is no compromising of the end goal by those oppressed.

Ok, take a tiny example.

Imagine Martin Luther King making his 'I have a dream' speech, if in all of the US throughout the 20th century, there had not been one single family willing to let their child go to an integrated school.

Imagine all those families had said no, not my child, I don't believe in this. We are less than white people and we don't want to change things. We won't do this.

How much lasting change would have happened?

Of if, having won the vote, the suffraggettes found that women were simply apathetic and refused to cast votes?

It is hugely important to talk to people whose rights you want to win. Because that's how, gradually, everyone's rights change.