Didn't know what to say

[sonia]

[warning for misogyny]

We were gathered around the dining room table, chatting. 7 women and 1 man, with two more men sitting on the nearby couch. The conversation took a turn toward male erotica, bodybuilding, and then female bodybuilding. One of the men on the couch criticized the colors of bikinis worn by female bodybuilders, and then said, "I don't know why they bother with bikini tops anyway. They're no more human than a hedgehog with their bodies like that."

I glared at him, speechless. I caught the eye of the woman hosting the gathering. No one else even lost their smile, and the conversation rolled along.

I decided to leave soon afterward. As I put my coat on, one woman offered to turn the conversation to less racy topics. I only said, "Everyone seems to be enjoying it, but I'm done."

I wish I had thought to ask him at what point he thinks a woman changes from fully human to less than human as she develops her strength. I wish I felt comfortable enough in the group to say, "Hey, that's not cool." I wish I weren't the only one looking horrified.

I see how social anxiety intersects with privilege and -isms, because my discomfort helped keep me silent. Perhaps the unexamined privilege and -isms contribute to my social anxiety as well. I'm giving some serious thought to finding other groups to hang out with.

There's also a piece where I'm not sure it's my job to keep conversations "appropriate," especially when it's not my gathering. I'm not sure where the line is between colluding through silence, and minding my boundaries, not to mention my resources.

What have you chosen to do in similar situations?

Comments

[jesse_the_k]

I'm lucky to be quite a mouthy person. Unfortunately, I'm also rendered speechless much of the time because I can't think of how to make my point without steam coming out of my nostrils. I wish I could have been there. If you could have whispered something typically eloquent -- when does a woman changes from fully human to less than human as she develops her strength, f'rex, I would have loved putting it into words.

In the more general case, I don't speak up to "keep conversations appropriate." Instead, I speak up because I am offended. If someone responds with a "surely you didn't think I meant to offend" I'm back at them with, "well, you did offend."

It's frustrating when we make the effort to socialize and encounter crap like this.

[sonia]

Thanks for the virtual support! In the moment, I don't think I could have whispered anything. I was already in observer mode, and then shocked on top of it.

Trying to keep the steam out of it is a problem for me too - it's why I get quiet when I'm truly angry.

That's a good point, to track my own concrete sense of offense rather than abstract ideas of what's appropriate. Maybe "Hey, I'm offended" in a just-FYI tone of voice will work for me as a possible intervention. If I have the energy to stick my neck out.

[jesse_the_k]

Yes, I've used that. But it can lead to some heated conversations, and that's not always a good thing when you're in a private home.

At a WisCon past, wild_irises demonstrated a great technique that inserts a useful buffer between one's pain and the discussion. She shifts her commentary to a meta register. In this case, something like "Isn't it interesting that you think differently about male and female body builders? Do you think the men look like animals as well?"

[sonia]

That's a good one to remember, thanks. It would have been hard to do in this case when I would have had to interrupt to get a word in edgewise.

It reminds me of Suzette Haden Elgin's "Computer Mode" which I find myself using more and more. Which means I'm saying what I actually think and feel less and less.

[laughingrat]

I see how social anxiety intersects with privilege and -isms, because my discomfort helped keep me silent.

This, this, this x 1000.

Actually, the whole post, including the problematic/confusing stuff you mention at the end, is all really familiar.

I'm not sure what to do in situations like this, because one is likely to be mobbed, and also to be asked to justify one's humanity. If, like me for instance, one does not have the Smart Words to begin with--and being threatened makes the possibility of verbal defense even less of an option--the prospect of entering into something like that is incredibly daunting.

[sonia]

Yup. Nodding a lot! Maybe awareness of the situation and of our own available resources is the best we can do sometimes.

My default is to decide I don't want to be around certain people, and then I worry that people are deciding that about me when I screw up. Well, I guess they have that option, as do I.

It helps to hear that there isn't some easy answer I'm missing, and that you have similar reactions. Thank you.