Julie Gillis wants a world without sides. Is that possible?
When I was a young girl, I’d have a recurring nightmare about having to stop the public execution of Richard Nixon.
I would plead and cry and throw my body in front of his and beg the judge, the people, “Don’t you see? This won’t solve anything! You have to forgive him!” I felt this huge responsibility to stop the madness and stop the execution.
They were horrible dreams. What can I say, my mother studied Watergate to pieces.
I tell you this because between those dreams, and later recurring dreams of being a midwife, helping people give birth over and over and over in my dreamland, I think I’m probably on the road (have been on the road, resisting the road) to a very difficult calling. Some sort of facilitatrixing peace seeker with a good sense of humor?
I’ve spent the last few days thinking I should comment on the Good Men Project, Hugo Schwyzer Feminism issue.
Should I?
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I don’t know. Seems like it would the thing to do, commenting on something so hot and timely. But it also seems like commenting on it would be in a way, mercenary, like taking advantage of someone’s very visible and painful break up.
So I’m not going to comment directly on it. But I will comment. I’m a writer, right? I write.
I’ve watched it, this internet moment, roll down the hill like so many mad and misunderstood snowflakes, gathering speed and mass until it was an sharp, round, avalanche of anger, words meaning things they don’t mean, people misunderstanding (perhaps willfully in some case) meaning, defensiveness, hurt feelings, commenters on posts zinging insults, words flying by like little missiles each accusing the other of misandry, misogyny, perhaps even racism in one post.
So many opinions, I lost count. So many words, so much in all of the language, but perhaps different deep structures, created by different, vastly different, experiences.
Another day on the internet, in other words.
In all of it I was reminded that so much of even being human is just about the awareness of who has power. Dominance, submission, pride at winning, shame at losing, rarely finding a mutual joy in a collaborative win.
Deep thoughts right before the holidays. A time of peace? The holidays are often the worst time for most of us. Many feel sad, lonely, anguished, silent. Odd too, when I think about this time of solstice, the darkest day of the year, before light comes back and spring returns, I find myself with gratitude for being able to see the dark and the light.
I see the conflict at GMP in that frame today.
Today, while shopping someone took my parking place. Seething rage inside me, more in that moment then at any other point in the comment fights, Twitter battles and resignations. She won, that jerk. I wanted to do something terrible. I didn’t and that left me feeling very weirdly angry/shamed inside, as if doing something in retaliation would have soothed the anger, and shamed for not fighting back but also the reverse; anger at myself for being angry and shamed at wanting to hurt someone.
And with such potent cocktails of anger and shame and power, how in the world do we ever figure any of this Deep Shit out. Feminism. Equality. Masculinity. Custody battles. Gender. Binaries. Global warming. Gay rights. Class wars. Health care. Can we break out of academic models and hear people’s personal stories? Can we kick people’s butts a little to quit focusing on the personal story and learn some damn theory?
Can we do both? Can we do it concurrently? I love theory and I love stories. I don’t see why we need to pick one side over the other.
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I don’t want to exist on the poles. I want to learn both ends of the poles, work some sort of witchy, healing magic on the ends and turn the divided length back upon itself into a seamless circle, or infinite spiral. I want to be an actor for collaboration. I don’t want to lose friends and colleagues and frankly I don’t think I have to (that’s how stubborn I am).
I don’t want to see conflict, which can be rich and powerful stuff, turn into poisoned ground. I want to be a person who helps create a safe scaffold and structure for that conflict to germinate into something rich and fruitful. Truth be told, that’s hard to see in the moment. I hold hope that the conflict at GMP these past days will bear goodness for Tom, Lisa, Hugo, Amanda and everyone else. May be years of work and it’s worth it.
I suppose my goals may seem naive and perhaps even wishy washy. It’s not that I’m not picking sides, it’s that I’m seeing above and beyond sides. To what is holding the sides in concert, to what is around the sides, and within them.
Because that keeps us all less focused on power, anger and shame, and more on each other as we grapple with the issues of power, anger, shame and more.
Deep thoughts, yeah? More like a whole mess of trouble. :), but I’m grateful to be a part of the process.
I’m encouraged both by this article and by (most of) the comments.
The ones that completely ignore the topic of the article and instead seek to merely further their own agenda are of little use or interest.
Not sure why anyone has to be “anti’ anything, as opposed to in favor of that they wish to see happening around these issues. Any conversation with an “anti” whatever will always begin at odds, even if both parties have the same goal.
Maybe I’m oversimplifying, or maybe it really is that simple.
I think you have a point. Its why feminists throw around “anti-feminist” so freely. Go ahead and label them the enemy and its a lot easier to rally the troops against them. Yeah it does fit sometimes but nowhere near as much as its used (but mess around let someone call them something they don’t agree with….)
Julie, beautiful peace.
I think Archy nailed it about the commenters: “when you look for the negative you will find it in life.”
The extremists are going in expecting a fight and they’re getting a fight, and then they’re mad they have to fight.
Stop fighting! Start talking! Stop accusing, stop demanding, start LISTENING and feeling. Soften your heart. Both sides — soften your hearts. If you say, “MY heart is soft!” then you can know it really isn’t.
I sound like a mystic, sorry. Just trying to say, “Great piece. And you’re right.”
Facilitatrix! I do so love your wordsmithery, Julie. Smart, funny, reasonable, empathetic, and sexy all in one word! 😀
That stuff with Tom vs the feminists wasn’t even anything to do with the MRAs. New one on me. The one I see repeated (not so much recently, but more years ago) is me going on a feminist board to talk politics and try and see what the feminist response to there Warren Farrell-like criticisms of their movement are. And then basically after an initial period of engagement, things rapidly fall apart and I get booted. Now if I was going to try and “solve” this or just try and understand it more, I think I’d probably try and add… Read more »
“Guys feel that the way to settle differences is to argue about the facts until someone gets proven wrong. Feminist critics believe they have a very strong case against feminism and one that feminists refuse to respond to”
This is interesting to me. The mode of fighting engaging etc. I can’t talk today, but I’d love to dialogue with you here or else where about this little section. Up with my men to open presents, tear up paper, and generally frenzy our way into morning. Kids get up too early!
I rarely get the same feeling from feminists. Feminists often don’t have any idea of the arguments of the other side of the debate, That’s completely different to anti-feminists who are likely to already know the argument of both sides. Like playing a game of chess and one side has no idea how the pieces move. But for some reason the feminists are 100% sure they are right even though they don’t know the rules of the “game”. When the anti-feminist plays the game by the rules and “wins” the feminists react like they were cheated somehow, or like the… Read more »
Some feel so hurt, even as a gender, that they see only the bad. When you look for the negative, you will find it in life and it’s something that plagued me for many years even. Men and women can spot a million bad things that are wrong with the world, wrong with how they are treated but we need to remember to also spot the million good things to balance it out or we’ll end up miserable and fight fight fight. Thanks for this article, it’s a good message. And I agree with the above, debating the twitter conversation… Read more »
Good article. It’s a pity that the screaming of accusations seems to take priority in most internet discussions. If there’s 3 things this debacle have taught me it’s:
1. Irenic voices like your are desperately needed
2. There’s an awful lot of people having separate conversations kidding themselves that they’re having the same discussion
3. Trying to have a serious debate over Twitter is insane, and I hope TGMP has learned its lesson. There’s an ideal length for clear but insightful statements, and it’s not 140 chars.
Chris, I’d never heard that term most likely because I’m not familiar with Christian theology (left the church a long time ago) and it appears to be used in theology? Thank you for your words. I appreciate them.
Sorry – had met it in that context, only intended as meaning ‘striving for peace.’ Anyway, thanks and happy Christmas!
Thanks for this, Julie. Happy holidays to you and to all you other rascals on GMP 🙂
Let’s hope the spirit of goodwill toward men (and women) sticks around all year.
I believe divisions are apart of mankind and are natural. We don’t have the ability to be truly impartial. People of different races, cultural backgrounds, and languages think differently. Tom and Hugo likely have the same goal in these gender conversations, but they have a different view and therefore believe a different way of solving the problem. I do wish people were more patient, humble, sympathetic, and empathetic with their opponents
As do I, but I do value the fierce fighters. I wish I had a bit more in me sometimes!
Julie – Fierce has it’s value but can get in the way. I like Wise Fighters – think pebble and sling shot. And Even Goliath will fall. I will often ask people to name the three most angry men of the 20th century. Invariably the response No1 is a certain Herr Hitler ( No Godwin Involved ) and then there are no other names to follow. When I give my list it’s easy – Ghandi – King – Mandela! They were so angry and fierce they changed the world – but they were wise in the use of anger! Conflict… Read more »
Julie The lying about abuse rates, promoting the idea of collective male guilt, the extreme pedestalising of women, the sinisterizing of men the extreme chivalry, the implementing of oppressive legislation, the discriminatory abuse services etc. All the fun feminists in the world cannot change the extremism that exists at the core of it, all they can do is be blind to it thinking that it = “equality”, make excuses for it and cover up for the extremism, which is what fun feminists do. The middle ground can be found here, as it is on feminist critics, but having extreme misandric… Read more »
I”m not about finding the middle, necessarily. Even if my opinion varies greatly from Tom’s or Hugo’s or Amanda’s or Lisa’s, I’m more interested in how those snowballs happen. Same for me with other polarized issues in live (though this site focuses on men). I’m about trying to promote understanding even while we might remain in disagreement. There’s that or there’s screaming accusations back and forth and furthering the poles. Have a peaceful weekend.