On the one hand, it's something that I have to remind myself when it comes to race and racism, transgender, etc -- that I have a privilege and I can read plenty but that's never going to make the ignorance go away. In fact, I think I'm going to link this post over at feminist50 because I'm about to write a review of a book that really opened my eyes on a similar point about Native American religion and how non-native New Age people try to co-opt it without understanding that Native people might not want that.
On the other hand, as a lesbian, I identify strongly with your story. I've often struggled not just with others but with myself about this. One of my slam poems addresses this point in the line, "you say we're homophobic, but hey, the lesbians don't get maimed." I tend to feel that my experiences of threatened violence and verbal homophobia are lesser, that because I'm not a gay man and was never physically hurt, my experiences are not valid or scary. In fact, I used to lie about growing up as a (then-identified) bisexual in the South, saying that someone threw rocks at my girlfriend and I. I felt that would come across as a more valid experience than the real joking rape threats from her male friend, or the kids telling us to stop making out in public because it was offensive, or the constant fear of her parents when she wanted to use PDA as a passive aggressive way to come out, or the terrifying experience of our first dance at my school's winter ball, when I was still basically in the closet. The same is true with my experiences as a woman -- I think a lot of my tendencies to downplay abusive behavior in my life, forced kisses and gropes rather than forced sex, fear on the street, etc. come from privileged male voices saying that if it's not rape it's not significant (and the echo of those voices in the women who absorb the message).
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Date: 2010-02-27 07:01 pm (UTC)On the one hand, it's something that I have to remind myself when it comes to race and racism, transgender, etc -- that I have a privilege and I can read plenty but that's never going to make the ignorance go away. In fact, I think I'm going to link this post over at
On the other hand, as a lesbian, I identify strongly with your story. I've often struggled not just with others but with myself about this. One of my slam poems addresses this point in the line, "you say we're homophobic, but hey, the lesbians don't get maimed." I tend to feel that my experiences of threatened violence and verbal homophobia are lesser, that because I'm not a gay man and was never physically hurt, my experiences are not valid or scary. In fact, I used to lie about growing up as a (then-identified) bisexual in the South, saying that someone threw rocks at my girlfriend and I. I felt that would come across as a more valid experience than the real joking rape threats from her male friend, or the kids telling us to stop making out in public because it was offensive, or the constant fear of her parents when she wanted to use PDA as a passive aggressive way to come out, or the terrifying experience of our first dance at my school's winter ball, when I was still basically in the closet. The same is true with my experiences as a woman -- I think a lot of my tendencies to downplay abusive behavior in my life, forced kisses and gropes rather than forced sex, fear on the street, etc. come from privileged male voices saying that if it's not rape it's not significant (and the echo of those voices in the women who absorb the message).
Thanks for posting this.