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.
♦◊♦
“…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.
♦◊♦
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
♦◊♦
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
About the Editors
“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 actually sum up who gets it worse. Does anyone actually listen to what some mra’s have to say, why some are angry at feminism? They actually have quite valid complaints, complaints that unearth Bias and sexism. Feminism seems split between egalitarian feminists (which many MRA’s I’ve seen actually like and want more of) and let’s just say others as I am unsure how to label them. When I hear of anti-feminism, it’s generally anti-otherfeminism and mistrust for the whole movement due to questionable activities that go on. I’m sure someone will comment n say what those activities are, and I find if you read their comments based upon disliking a certain part of feminism, or actions done in feminism’s name then they become far easier to understand.
“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.”
A valid idea but be careful with generalizations. Microaggression is quite interesting, both misogynist and misandry could be included along with racism, pretty much every prejudice. It’d be great for everyone to listen to each other but there are triggers which put people on the defensive, generalizations seem to do this A LOT.
I’m a lil unsure of the goal, is this to get both male and female discussion going, or just female? Feminism only, or feminism and mra? When you say discussions happening within feminism, I can see 2 sets of feminism seem to clearly be different. One seems to be egalitarianism basically and will talk about anyone and everyone, the other is gynocentric and seems to ONLY discuss how women are oppressed. Forgive me but after reading quite a few articles and sites on feminism I feel there needs to be a second identifier because it clearly looks like 2 separate movements and is quite confusing to me.
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 and feminists alike!) aren’t starting with – or aren’t aware of – the fundamental narratives that are subconscious and invisibly creating a false foundation from which to begin the conversation.
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 understands it, and there have been significant movements *within* feminism to address the fact that it has ostracized men in the past, and there have been calls by major feminists to address this problem. The issue, I think, is that these movements are within activism and scholarship away from the blogosphere, and many people discussing and commenting within the blogosphere don’t understand/are unaware of this.
One of the things I kinda wish MRAs would realize is that they have a real opportunity to learn from the mistakes of feminism: to not make it a blame game, to try and work harder at listening and finding common ground, and realizing that we all have valid but different view points, and to try and find constructive conversation – instead of yelling at one another from soap boxes. Or comparing who has it worse.
As Simone says, part of the reason for derailment of constructive dialogue is those inherent differences, that we often come from different places – and that we operate within these narratives and social constructs that we really may be unaware of. If we could see all of that better *first* we may really get somewhere.
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 most and it was very nice to see many egalitarian feminists speak up and identify themselves. The GMP is the only place I’ve known where both sides talk together, there are quite a few derailments but there is also a lot of great discussion I find.
It’s sad that generalizations happen on both sides though because there are egalitarians on each side that have pretty much the same goal, end all the rights abuses and discrimination issues. Something I feel is hard to find is a feminist, or mra space that is egalitarian and not full of vitriol, there seems to be a lot of anger in people which seem to close people off quick. Of course this is just my experience and I could have the worst luck in the world in finding the egal areas of each but I do hope to see more of it.
“The issue, I think, is that these movements are within activism and scholarship away from the blogosphere, and many people discussing and commenting within the blogosphere don’t understand/are unaware of this. ”
I haven’t been exposed to feminism much except online so this could very well be the reason, I found it quite hard to find a large group of egalitarian feminists or mra’s so they could simply be hidden away. I hope more of them speak up, I was close to hating all of feminism due to some annoying experiences with gynocentric radfems (they were highly bigoted and even laughed at “the menz”) but realized this was just a few people as I found egalitarians here who shared my views. I think many of the MRA’s probably had similar experiences or worse but didn’t see the egalitarians for quite a while or ever.
So with the online media there seems to be a lot of bad publicity, the mra’s get it via the manboobz blog, the feminists get it via the various anti-feminist sites. It’s a pity because people can be easily influenced, seeing the radfemhub material or the bad stuff some mra’s do can easily reinforce bias between the 2. How do we get people to see beyond the few “loud-mouthed” bigots?
Egalitarian discussion is very much needed I feel because both genders need to work together, life has 2 genders and both are fairly equal in number. You can live life and not meet a certain group/race for instance if you live nowhere near them, but you can’t live without ever meeting a male or female. Not to say racial issues aren’t a very important issue, but I think gender issues affect all of us regardless of where we live and are something we all can identify with.
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) Un-equal protection of government afforded to men, and the vast power imbalance between the male lobby and the female lobby?
5) Almost universally worse outcomes for men, boys, and fathers in virtually all aspects of life?
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 life. That is a sweeping – and false – generalization.
Back to what Nikki & I were getting at. As I stated, your comments ARE results of narratives about manhood in our society that we need to work to change – everyone. These narratives have been around for a long time and are not the fault of feminists – which is a major derailer I see on the part of men’s rights activists. This is important to note because it is not necessary to *reduce* women’s rights (feminists haven’t overstepped their boundaries) to make sure that in the specific areas where men *are* suffering (I totally agree with your custody point) that this narrative is noted and something is done about it.
It won’t be easy! It took women decades to break down narrative stereotypes – and we’re still working on it (angry, crazy, teeth-gnashing, feminists, anyone?! They can’t POSSIBLY be rational!!). So, I think MRAs need to realize it is going to take time, work, and patience to fight back against narratives that define manhood in unproductive ways, too.
“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 less child support money for mothers.
Feminism is the enemy of men’s rights because powerful and politically connected feminist lobbies consistently fight against equal rights for men, boys, and fathers. This conflict can end any time feminists decide. Stop the war on men, boys, and fathers — and the MRM will stop its war against feminism.
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 combat.
Also, I’d like to try not to derail this into a MRA against feminist debate. This article is supposed to be about the underlying assumptions we may not always see that are driving behaviors.
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.
I would love to be involved, and I’ll try emailing you individually. Right up my ally!
Thanks, Julie!
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… !
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 all had varied viewpoints…many people did discuss annoyance and anger at “SlutWalk” (in response to a Toronto policeman’s advice to women/girls that they can protect themselves from rape/sexual assault if they would just stop dressing like “sluts”)….other people were in favor of “SlutWalk”….people of both sides got to get their points in and to explain where they were coming from….but no one was shouting or insulting each other …all in all, I think, it was a civil debate….since the large majority of the people there were in support of Anita Hill and equal rights in the workplace….
It was okay to agree to disagree on certain points…Thank you for your efforts for monitoring this site and making it safe for all to chime in without getting shouted down….The discussions that occur here are critical….we have to try to build bridges…and try to learn from each other….we may not be all that different when you get down to the core….
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 heightened racial awareness that makes it increasingly difficult to discern between legitimate racism and race-based discrimination — both of which definitely still exist — and mere happenstance.”
Isn’t the latter an example of a narrative just as much as the former?
Why is “race doesn’t matter” a narrative, but “race is so important that it controls my life” not likewise a narrative?
And doesn’t the same problem exist on the gender issue? Isn’t feminism (even the egalitarian kind) every bit as much a narrative as anything put out by any MRA?
Perhaps this was all going to come out in subsequent posts, I don’t know, but it seems problematic to “turn the mirror” on ideologies that the authors disagree with, and not take a critical look at their own beliefs.
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 to view all sides. Just because – however – there *may* be some people who are “too sensitive to race” (I actually really disagree that anyone who is of a majority (check out our subsequent posts on Privilege for more on this) can say if someone is “too sensitive”), does NOT negate that there are racial narratives at play that ARE discriminatory. Just as – like I said to Anthony – there are some issues in which men are being treated unfairly – does NOT negate all of feminism as a useless, made-up movement. There ARE (and certainly WERE at the VERY least) narratives that say men are better than women.
On a side note, but to address your question, I wonder, in general, how you can be against egalitarian feminism? All I personally mean by that is existentialism which requests from me what exactly what you seem to be requesting – self-awareness and self-criticism. I have no problem doing this. If you look through this whole comment thread I am totally willing to acknowledge areas where I feel MRAs have very valid points. Men *are* at a crossroads – gender is in general – of restructuring society to give everyone what they want/deserve. I’m not sure why – when there are still issues to work out for women, too – that I must then immediately forsake anything I see wrong from that side in order to also support men. I’m just personally trying to be thoughtful. This is what really frustrates me about MRAs negating anything that comes out of a women’s mouth who would speak up for women. That – historically – is exactly why feminism originated in the first place. I would never seek to put down EVERY man’s thoughts on what they deserve or want or need out of a society. That’s all I see proclaiming to be an egalitarian feminist to be.
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: when two conflicting ideas seem to have statistical backing, usually the underlying statistics are distinguished by the introduction of complementary data sets, until the picture becomes more clear.
By contrast, feminist thought is based on several ideas that have never been empirically proven. These ideas are mostly borrowed from critical theory and/or the postmodernist school of sociology. Examples of these ideas are “privilege”, “social construct,” and “root cause.”
Feminist thought does not attempt to quantify these ideas, it merely accepts them as true, and then goes on to demand that everyone else accept them as true.
Meanwhile, the reality of the situation is that none of these ideas are necessarily true, and without the dispute resolution mechanism of empirical research, there is no reason to accept them over proffered alternatives.
In the piece posted above, a “narrative” is defined as a story that “masquerades as nonfiction.” As the ideas upon which feminism is built do not offer proof, there is no reason to believe they are anything more than mere stories, and yet feminism demands that we accept them as nonfiction. As a result, there is no reason to believe that feminism (or MRAs, or whatever) is anything more than a narrative.
Finally, and I really want to be clear on this point, I am not lodging these objections because I am callous, or looking to “shut my eyes to reality of others’ experiences” (these are the most common charges that sociologists through against economists, and I’m unfortunately very familiar with them)
Rather, I have personally seen (and even participated in) empirical research that has demonstrated problems with these ideas, in extreme cases demonstrating that the idea itself may not exist, or if it does, it has no meaningful impact on people’s lives. It is impossible for me to put aside data outcomes that I have seen in favor of beliefs backed, at best, by anecdotes when trying to determine what constitutes “the truth.”