Not all men

[AskBasil]

Interesting article here

So far as I know, this is true throughout history. I may be wrong - there might be instances where an oppressed group were freed purely because someone made their oppressors see reason. Actually, I can believe that may be true because it's true on the microscale, with captives who have Stockholm syndrome. So perhaps, whole oppressed groups might be like that.

However, I do not think it is broadly true.

If Dr King had written a pedestrian speech and delivered it in mumbling tones punctuated with 'fuck the whites', yes, I'm sure it wouldn't have had the impact. But I firmly believe that some other person, at around that time, would have made a speech that had the same impact - and the reason was, people were ready to hear that speech.

Buffy/Kim - I read your comment earlier:

"I fear men as well. I fear their potential violence. I always have."

This is something my wife has said to me at various times. I know it is true.

I often feel that on 'feminist threads' that this fear of men and what they might do is the fundamental stance of many of the feminist posters. It comes across in the words and language used.

It is why men who read those posts feel you are talking about ALL men - because you are. You fear ALL men. You fear what ALL men could do.

From your point of view, it matters not what type of man I am. As far as you are concerned, men are a single group of potentially harmful people.

I am not going to try and change or criticise your fear of men. You feel that way. That's is all that matters.

However, I do not think that feminists and men (in general) will ever be able to come to a common understanding. That fear of men will always get in the way.

I think they will. I think this is where small, personal analysis has its place.

I do not fear all men. Therefore, I can see how we could get to a place where none of us feared men.

I'm not 100% sure, but I seem to remember that the civil rights movement didn't feel the need to qualify every single class analysis statement with the word 'some' or 'not all'.

I could be wrong, but it would have made their speeches longer!

People who are supporters of the oppressed but are members of the oppressor class, tend not to need too many reminders that 'not all' of their class want to oppress. They are the exceptions. Perhaps then, it might be more appropriate to look at why people from the oppressor class want to keep reminding the people they oppress that 'not all' of them behave in certain ways. Could it be that they want to bog down real discussions about the ways they oppress others in semantic swordplay?

Now, what could that possibly achieve?

"I am happy to join with some of you today in what will go down in the history of some of us as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of some of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow some of us stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to some of the millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of some of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, some of the Negros still are not free. One hundred years later, the life of the some of Negros is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, some the Negros live on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of some people's material prosperity. One hundred years later, some of the Negros are still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself [or herself, Dr King!] an exile in his own land. And so some of us have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense, some of us have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which some Americans were to fall heir. This note was a promise that some men, yes, some black men as well as some white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as some of her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given some of the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds."

...

You know, I just don't think it has quite the same flair.

If we are analysing how people go about trying to gain human rights and equality, the UN document on the World's women might be a place to start. I think it is clear that when they say 'men' or 'women' they mean men and women as classes, and do not need to add 'some' at all, simply to avoid offending people who don't like generalisations:

'In all regions, women live longer than men.'

'In spite of the changes that have occurred in women’s participation in the labour market, women continue to bear most of the responsibilities for the home: caring for children and other dependent household members, preparing meals and doing other housework. In all regions, women spend at least twice as much time as men on unpaid domestic work.'

'At the same time, in many regions of the world, longstanding customs put considerable pressure on women to accept being beaten by their husbands, even for trivial reasons.'

'Women are more exposed than men to smoke from burning solid fuels because they spend more time near a fire while cooking and more time indoors taking care of children and household chores, thus increasing their likelihood to develop respiratory infections, pulmonary disease and lung cancer.'

'Violence against women throughout their life cycle is a manifestation of the historically unequal power relations between women and men. It is perpetu- ated by traditional and customary practices that accord women lower status in the family, work- place, community and society, and it is exacer- bated by social pressures.'

almond, it's off topic but that last-but-one paragraph is appallingly sad. I didn't know.

I think it is important to have hope, and often it's very hard to with so many quite frankly horrifying things going on around us. However there are historical examples of big important changes happening for the good. When the Quaker movement challenged the slave trade of the British Empire, it was in the Empires's economic interest to keep it going, but the moral dimension kept at it until it was abolished. People have already mentioned King and Ghandi.

Speaking as a member of the oppressor class I wouldn't expect my posts here to be listened to, and if something I say causes a derailment or offence considering the point of this forum I'd say any woman's right to tell me to butt out is more crucial than my desire to feel all warm, liberal and progressive. Regardless I have learned a lot here and had a smorgasbord of food for thought, so personally thank you. I hope you don't take it the wrong way when I say it is a privilege.

Actually, kim, I've used it for both.

Funnily enough, my sense is that when Dr King referred to white Americans, he wasn't seeing them as the oppressed group ...

Or are you saying that it's absolutely fine to use 'some of' so long as you only use it for the group who're doing the oppressing? Because while it's fine to generalize about oppressed groups, it's terribly terribly wrong to generalize about oppressors?!

LRD, the whole section on violence is incredibly sad, but I tried to keep to the milder bits from the general introduction to the whole report. It is here if anyone wants to read any parts of it at some point:

unstats.un.org/unsd/demographic/products/Worldswomen/WW2010pub.htm

dervel - agree with you on hope, of course.

I was surprised at what you say about the slave trade and Quakers. My understanding was that the north of the US (excuse the wrong term there) was already getting much more economically powerful than the south, and slavery was one more push? Not my thing, so I would like to know if I'm wrong.

almond - it just hit home because I am looking at evidence of the same nearly a millenium ago. It is shocking. The idea that if we'd just said things more diplomatically everything would be ok ... I don't know what to say to that.

But, kim, you are arguing language is important.

How do you think it makes women feel to be told their default status is 'victim'? And to have no word for the people who victimise them?

This is the mindset that has survivors of abuse struggling horribly. There are testimonies of women who felt, obscurely, that they had suffered something traumatic, but they'd been told that their brother or father or friend was a fine and lovely man. So they become victims of anonymous crimes at best, or unable to name and identify the people who hurt them, at worst.

That's really not ok.

Yes, the second statement is 'provocative' - if you are keen to deny the statement. And many of us are, because we don't want to believe our loved ones could do something like that.

But what is more important? Our feelings - or the feelings of men who secretly know they did these things, but don't see them as completely wrong - or the feelings of women who have suffered these things?

For me, there's no possible ambiguity here.

Sorry I could have made that clearer. I was referring to the Slave Trade Act of 1807. Which was the start of the process of making Slavery illegal throughout the British Empire. Although the US had the Act Prohibiting Importing of Slaves that same year, it was the result of a grass roots Christian movement in Britain that Slavery was wrong. At the time we in Britain were still making huge sums of money off of importing slaves abroad. It of course took much longer for the US to fully abolish it with the 13th amendment of 1864. I'm just referring to the beginnings of slavery's abolition.

The part I take comfort in is that it was at least an example of the ethical winning out over the economic. Although of course would have been better had it never occurred! Nor does it excuse the practice in the first place.

Oh, no, I was asking for clarification because I wasn't sure.

I hope it was ethical over economic. It'd be daft for me to say I know it wasn't - I do know about some of the very successfully emotive campaigns. I'm just as cynic, as well.

I wonder if perhaps it's like the situation with equal marriage. Yes, someone had to pass the law and they did so, but also, all of us as people have gradually shifted our views. When I was a teenager I knew very few gay people who imagined marriage could possibily be made legal in their lifetimes. I genuinely think it has changed because enough people came to believe it could change.

Also I think something else occurs to me, on top of being a social rights movement isn't feminism and woman's studies a pretty in depth academic subject these days? I wouldn't dare post on any board even if I had an interest in it as a layperson and speak as if I were an authority and expect to be anything other than laughed at and told to bugger off. Sure I guess it would be fine to engage in the periphery of discussion, but to be quite frank it is quite clear this is an incredibly large topic with only some aspects I am superficially familiar with at best.

That's before the emotive nature of what is discussed comes into it.

I haven't read the whole thread, to my shame. But I have to say there is something incredibly ironic about women spending hours discussing the best language to use to articulate their oppression so as not to upset men.....

Yeah, but it's also a grassroots movement. I don't think you have to be very academic about it. Maybe in the 70s, but not now.

mant - tell me about it. Why do I bother?

It just makes me think - imagine if, in a conversation about rape or violence or crimes committed by men, your only reaction or agenda as a man was to say "not all men!". Imagine being that way? It's crap.

Well there were less barriers to presenting a case that people of colour were anything other than full human beings in Britain as we didn't really have slaves, so the othering that happened in the colonies hadn't happened here or at least not quite so endemic.

The othering that happened in the colonies was deliberate. In the early days white indentured servants were kept with slaves, and frequently they all revolted as the conditions were similar. Eventually plantation owners segregated them, and gave the whites a bushel of whatever the plantation produced along with a rifle to start their life when they had finished their period of service. By establishing a clear hierarchy it was an effective divide and rule tactic.