This post originally ran simultaneously on two blogs as part of a joint effort, called Project X. A little background:
Towards the end of last year, we (“we” being Simone of Will Somebody Read A Book, Please? and Nikki B. of Women Are from Mars) were motivated, mainly by events at the GMP, to initiate a little joint project.
Fundamentally, we felt that the arguments happening, especially in the comments, at GMP during this time, and reflected across the blogosphere on similar topics in similar circles, were not actually helpful to constructive conversation. They occurred at the surface, involved much misunderstanding, and failed to address the root of the problem(s) or move anyone forward. Most damagingly, they seemed to be between people who might otherwise be in agreement.
We want to initiate a discussion to move beyond this superficial level. And, no, we aren’t out to edjumakate y’all; we think we can learn something, too. Other people, even those whose comments made us an angry, have valid experiences and views. We can learn something from how they see the world.
However, we need to learn how to have these conversations in a more constructive way. To do that, we decided to start at the beginning.
The initial impetus for Project X can be found here, and a more specific introduction to it here or here.
Our first official post was about specific definitions and terms, to ensure understanding and comprehension as we moved forward. You can read it here [link to] or here.
From there, we posted what follows.
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“…the thing we apprehend in one great leap, the thing that, by means of the fable, is demonstrated as the exotic charm of another system of thought, is the limitation of our own, the stark impossibility of thinking that.”
– From The Order of Things, An Archaeology of the Human Sciences
By Michel Foucault, Preface pg xv.
We all know what narrative means in a literary sense; it’s a story; it’s telling a story; it’s “a series of connecting events” (says the Apple dictionary app). We best associate it with novels and fiction.
Here, we don’t mean that kind of narrative. Well, sort of. But not exactly. When narrative jumps off the page and into life, when we start to talk about narratives as they exist in our lives and our culture, it gets a little bit… tricky.
One significant reason is, in life, narratives have more than one author, they expand and spread, no longer told by one person to another, but perpetuated by and existing within social fabrics and cultural constructions. They become creatures we may have created but no longer control.
It’s like a Choose Your Own Adventure book. You may be choosing which page to turn to, but the choices available have already been limited for you by the narrative of the Adventure. There are only certain options at each fork in the road.
What, more specifically, are these narratives as we mean them here? What do they look like? To flesh them out, we decided it’s easiest to start with examples.
Most of us have a family. Whether it’s a Mom, a Dad, and some siblings, two Moms, two Dads, divorced, separated, single parents, adopted or step-siblings, the friends who are there for us more than “blood-relations” – we’ve got it. Yet, we also all know what the “perfect family” is supposed to be like it. A Mom, a Dad, a white picket fence, vacations, and a station wagon. Two-point-five kids.
But that perfect family does not typically exist. We all know that, too. Even families that appear perfect from the outside… rarely are on the inside. The point is, our culture tells us a story about what a family is supposed to look like, regardless of how rooted in reality that is. In spite of that, it also provides a bar with which to measure the family you’ve got.
Another way we tell narratives is around relationships. Ask any single person over a certain age if a committed relationship or marriage is critical to feeling like their life has been successful. The flip side, of course, is that prior to “that age,” the narrative is “have fun! you’re young!” and “it’s only puppy love!”
It’s not just finding a committed relationship, it’s also about keeping it. Because true love lasts forever, right? And while we’re at it…marriage is only between a man and a woman. Which means, duh, that anyone outside that heteronormativity* is, well, SOL.
Now, one of these things, or all of these things, probably feels and sounds wrong to you – and you’d be right. These things are not necessarily reality, but they are narratives in our culture. Do they apply to everyone? Hell nah. But – we all feel their presence, and their pressure.
We’re not saying that narratives don’t play an important part in society – they do. Just like you don’t have to philosophize about whether or not you should brush your teeth every morning, narratives (much like stereotypes and clichés) help us work through and manage our daily lives by knowing what the “norm” is. BUT we need to see them for what they are: stories we tell ourselves about how we act, what we say, how we treat and view others. It’s in the story that the best family is Mom, Dad, and kids, and that a good relationship is a till-death-didya-part marriage. The narrative that the gender binary is essential to the human experience. Our narratives also explain who is acceptable in society, and who is not. Who is like us, and therefore the “norm” and ok, and who is The Other. It’s in the homophobia of straights, and the transphobia and biphobia of gays and lesbians. All of these marginalize anyone who doesn’t quite fit, who is outside the norm.
See, narratives are supposedly about the general human experience of all people in a culture. They pretend to be cultural nonfiction. But they aren’t. Narratives are cultural half-truths, fictions, structures, and characters that are made up and very often perpetuate beyond our control or our vision. They may have roots in stories or characters told by people to other people, but then, the characters and stories…they took over for themselves. And, because we often accept them as a cultural nonfiction, our narratives are doing the talking; suddenly they’re directing our behaviors.
We’re Michael Scott of “The Office” – bumbling around saying racist and sexist things, behaving in ways we would absolutely not condone, if we realized we were doing it.
When someone rolls their eyes at “playing the race card” – they may not be racist, but they are living within the narrative that race isn’t important.
When men’s rights activists get angry about feminism, they may not be sexist, but they’re living within the narrative that sexism doesn’t exist or even that men have it worse than women now.
When a woman is called slutty for her number of partners, and a man is called a stud for his, this isn’t necessarily misogyny, but it is the narrative that good girls don’t and manhood is about having a lot of sex.
When a women tells a friend who was the victim of a sexual assault that, really, she shouldn’t have worn that, she isn’t condoning rape, but she is living within the narrative that trivializes rape and blames the victim.
The key is to see narratives as the stories they are not blindly accept them as reality.
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As the quote that opened this post points out, it’s easy to do this with other cultures – you can see how narratives are confining when you are outside them. You can see the story for what it is. When you read the Choose Your Own Adventure, you realize you only have a few choices, and you can easily think of the many other things you could do.
Why do we never turn that reflection on our selves? On our own culture?
Part of it is our narratives masquerade as nonfiction about our culture. Part of it is that narratives work to uphold current constructs of power and privilege (something we’ll talk about next time!). Part of it is the really difficult work that goes into being self-aware and admitting to being wrong.
But we should all be better at doing these things. The really easy place to begin is to listen to people outside our own narratives who, like standing outside another person’s culture, can provide us with insight we may currently be incapable of.
For future Project X posts, we’re going to be talking about some of the narratives that exist within discussions of feminism – not to make the case for feminism and against men’s rights activists, for example, but encourage awareness of the stories at work in those arguments. The narratives that are not helpful to constructive dialogue, and that derail conversation.
It is only in exposing the narratives and deconstructing them that we truly hear one another, find common ground and self-awareness, and move us forward towards a more true humanism. We hope you’ll join the discussion.
XX,
Nikki & Simone
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As Project X continues, we’re going to explore more specific narratives in the discussion around feminism. The point is to bring the long history of feminist theory and academic study to bear on the conversations in the blogosphere. See, one of the massive problems we’ve both noticed in blogged conversations is a lack of background. In some ways it feels like the blogosphere is reinventing the wheel…and we all know that’s wasted effort!
This could be because academia hasn’t done its job and distributed its ideas and discussions to the mainstream…so our hope is to help that along, provide better understanding, to educate, and to open hearts and minds. Also to stimulate discussion on other perspectives and experiences.
Finally, we will wrap up with discussion on how to move forward from common understanding to engage conversations in a constructive way, one that allows for people outside marginalized groups to talk about how ‘isms, and anti-‘ism movements, affect them. We hope that by starting with everyone on the same page in terms of vocabulary, providing a background in theory and research, and then engaging how to move forward, we might really get somewhere.
Our most recent Project X post is on PRIVILEGE, which can be found here [link to] or here.
Please join us. We look forward to hearing from you.
—Photo Lin Pernille Photography/Flickr
I’m confused about how it gets decided that one point of view is a “narrative,” and another is not. For example, this particular piece stated: “When someone rolls their eyes at “playing the race card” – they may not be racist, but they are living within the narrative that race isn’t important.” Yet, this could be contrasted with this quote from a previous piece run on the GMP entitled “Eating While Black”: “From a race perspective, a manifestation of this mindset is you wondering if all things that happen to you are somehow related to you being black; a too… Read more »
Mike, I would say that yes, all of those things are narratives. I guess we did not make clear enough that we were trying to discuss dominate narratives in our own cultures, first and foremost. Also, I don’t think either Nikki or I would disagree at ALL with people turning a critical eye on their own narratives & re-evaluating their own positions and biases. That being said – we cannot be too deconstructivist or relativist. Not all narratives are bad; not all narratives are good. We must be self-critical – like you said – to make sure we are attempting… Read more »
Simone, I believe all feminist thought to be a form of narrative (including egalitarian feminist thought) because of its methods of inquiry. For the record, I do not usually agree with MRAs, as their methods are, if anything, usually worse. I studied economics as an undergrad, and now I’m working on a JD with a specialization in the economic analysis of law (often just called “law and economics”). In economics, your hypothesis is considered false until such time as you can produce empirical evidence to back it up. Empirical evidence is also the basis for dispute resolution within the field:… Read more »
I think Project X is a great idea…the topics provoke heated, but much needed discussion…with due respect and patience to each side whether someone agrees with you or not…hear each other out! I went to an Anita Hill conference a few months ago to discuss the issues regarding workplace harassment and her latest book “Reimagining Equality” about the housing crisis and how it has wreaked havoc on low-income neighborhoods (but especially the effect on minority women who in such neighborhoods may be the glue that’s holding many families together)…..it was a revelation to hear all these people speak and discuss…they… Read more »
Does Project X have a Facebook page as well? That’s one of the things I love about GMP: I don’t have to remember to visit the site regularly, new articles just populate my Newsfeed. I am really excited about this and hope it sparks some great conversations and debates.
Thanks, Jo! Project X does not, no. But Nikki & I have facebook pages: facebook.com/readabookplease & facebook.com/NikkiB0404 — and of course you can go to our blogs and follow there or on Twitter. Can’t wait to hear your feedback! 🙂
Project X mainly exists at this time in posts Simone and I write jointly, and the post simultaneously on our blogs. We also really only saw them as a side project for a few weeks, touching on some issue, not as a long-term project.
It would be really interesting to see it take off into something bigger… but that would take collaboration from some others… !
Thanks, Julie!
I would love to be involved, and I’ll try emailing you individually. Right up my ally!
A narrative does not only involve how you approach an issue, but also which factors are relevant to an issue. In this sense, the above story has a clear agenda, a clear narrative, and picks a very clear side. Why not talk about the faults in the feminist narrative about these issues: 1) Family court bias against fathers and presumption of custody to mothers? 2) K-12 bias against boys and forced administration of Ritalin/amphetamine to (predominantly) boys who resist feminization and feminist indoctrination in school? 3) Criminal court bias against men and presumption of male guilt and female victim-hood? 4)… Read more »
Anthony – those are some specific arguments of men’s rights activists, results of narratives that are at work that describe “manhood.” For example, we DO have a cultural narrative that assumes that children are better off with their mothers if there has to be one over the other. This DOES favor women. (This does not mean, however, that feminists are out to get men and are *causing* this behavior.) On a tangent (and I believe your statement of it is, too) there are – in no way – universally worse outcomes for men, boys, and father in ALL aspects of… Read more »
“This is important to note because it is not necessary to *reduce* women’s rights (feminists haven’t overstepped their boundaries)” Feminists have repeatedly fought hard to protect presumption of female custody. The NOW continues to wage a war against shared parenting and shared physical custody, even though the data conclusively prove that children raised under shared parenting (1 week with mom, 1 week with dad) have MUCH better outcomes than children raised by mothers with a visitation schedule. As far back as 2006, the Michigan NOW Declared an ‘Action Alert’ Against Shared Parenting Bill HB 5267, because it would result in… Read more »
The point of this article is to get at the underlying assumptions (narratives) that may be/are driving cultural actions. Cultural assumptions that men don’t make good parents (or don’t make as good parents as women) suck – I 100% agree. Though I may agree with you that custody laws – and feminist battles for them – may have swung in the unfair-toward-men direction this does not equate to all of feminism being out-to-get men. To attack feminism – ALL of it – based on this ONE point is entirely too generalist and exactly what Nikki & I are trying to… Read more »
Agree with Simone. I hope we can stay on topic… ?
… i.e. this isn’t *just* about feminism/sexism/MRA… these are very general ideas about culture and society.
“When men’s rights activists get angry about feminism, they may not be sexist, but they’re living within the narrative that sexism doesn’t exist or even that men have it worse than women now.” Generalization already? Considering how many feminists get very angry when mra’s generalize, WHY ON EARTH would you generalize that when MRA’s get angry about feminism, they’re living within the narrative that sexism doesn’t exist or even that men have it worse than women now? Pretty much every MRA I see talks about sexism existing for both genders, that both genders get harmed and it’s pretty hard to… Read more »
Archy, thanks for your comments! I won’t speak directly for Nikki but I know personally I am an egalitarian feminist. Like you with your MRA friends I don’t know many feminists who think that men have nothing to say about gender/sexism or nothing to do with it. This is about equal right for all. Unfortunately, whereas you feel that MRAs are getting a lot of generalist-non-listening-anger from feminists, *most* of the MRA comments/articles I see are generalist-non-listening-anger TOWARD feminists. Nikki & I want to include *everyone* in the discussion, but again, we see the discussion getting derailed b/c people (MRAs… Read more »
Hi Archy, Agree with Simone – I would consider myself an egalitarian first and foremost. I see what you’re saying about generalizations, and I apologize for making them. We were just bringing up some examples not saying they were universal truths – but that wasn’t entirely clear. Also agree with Simone that most feminist I know and agree with don’t want to silence men in any way. I also agree with Simone that there is a lot of MRA discussion *against* feminism, without the distinction you’re making here. Now, it’s not to say I don’t understand it. In fact, feminism… Read more »
Thanks for the replies. I myself an egalitarian, I feel like I’m dancing on the fence watching 2 sides staring each other off with a few from each side dancing on the fence with me at times. I see both sides generalize heavily and it just fuels even more generalizations, defensiveness, bitterness and it makes me feel pretty exhausted trying to get both to see the good in each other. We’ve had recent discussions on here, one of the comment of the days “Dear Egalitarian Feminists” which I wrote that went into the issues I see mra’s talk of the… Read more »