sonia: Quilted wall-hanging (Default)
[personal profile] sonia
Chatting with a friend, I mentioned my recent epiphany about sexism. She said, "You're choosing to rendezvous with those experiences." I said, "No! That doesn't work for me!" Didn't raise my voice, but was emphatic.

She got very quiet and said I was silencing her and I was jumping on her every time she opened her mouth and she just didn't know what I wanted from her. I kept asking questions and finally I said, "It seems like something I said was triggering for you." She thought about that and said in the past friends have accused her of not caring about the world if she isn't fighting for social justice. She then noticed that I wasn't doing that and in fact I had been speaking about my own experience.

So we unraveled the conflict and ended on a good note, but it was educational to watch the conversation go completely pear-shaped just because I mentioned that it helps me to notice and name institutional sexism. This discrimination stuff is pernicious!

Date: 2011-09-23 09:23 pm (UTC)
jesse_the_k: Elderly smiling white woman captioned "When I was your age I had to walk ten miles in the snow to get stoned & have sex" (old fogey)
From: [personal profile] jesse_the_k
Wow. That is fascinating.

And also perhaps why it's so hard to unwind these pernicious influences. The level of attention you are paying to your own and others' feelings is excellent and skilled and not easy to replicate.

(When we had house meetings in our 40-person housing coop, we'd have two chairs: one to watch process and the other to watch content. I wish that was ubiquitous.)

Date: 2011-09-30 04:37 pm (UTC)
trinker: I own an almanac. (Default)
From: [personal profile] trinker
we'd have two chairs: one to watch process and the other to watch content.


O.O !!! Brilliant. Why have I never heard of that before? I am going to suggest it to convention panels from here on out.

Date: 2011-09-24 09:45 pm (UTC)
laughingrat: A detail of leaping rats from an original movie poster for the first film of Nosferatu (Default)
From: [personal profile] laughingrat
I thought you handled this really well. It's terribly difficult to be accused of silencing someone (or being intolerant, or whatever) when what you're doing is standing up for yourself, or saying what is or isn't true for you. That's always rough for me, anyway.

Date: 2011-09-25 07:21 pm (UTC)
laughingrat: Buster Keaton (Go West)
From: [personal profile] laughingrat
A-freakin'-men!

Date: 2011-09-30 04:38 pm (UTC)
trinker: I own an almanac. (Default)
From: [personal profile] trinker
Hee. My shampoo says "Drama Clean" on it. I smile every time I use it.

I'm glad you found my journal. Will include you in the next round of filter revision.

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sonia: Quilted wall-hanging (Default)
Sonia Connolly

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