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Women have been fighting for full human status in society for a very long time. You’d think a rational society could do more in a hundred years plus, but we’re still not there yet.
” And yet I find in American newspapers there is a great deal of misunderstanding of the fact that one of the chief minds engaged in conducting the women’s revolution is, for purposes of convenience, located in Paris. It is quite easy for you to understand – it would not be necessary for me to enter into explanations at all – the desirability of revolution if I were a man, in any of these countries, even in a part of the British Empire known to you as Ireland. If an Irish revolutionary had addressed this meeting, and many have addressed meetings all over the United States during the last twenty or thirty years, it would not be necessary for that revolutionary to explain the need of revolution beyond saying that the people of his country were denied – and by people, meaning men – were denied the right of self-government. That would explain the whole situation. If I were a man and I said to you, “I come from a country which professes to have representative institutions and yet denies me, a taxpayer, an inhabitant of the country, representative rights,” you would at once understand that that human being, being a man, was justified in the adoption of revolutionary methods to get representative institutions. But since I am a woman it is necessary in the twentieth century to explain why women have adopted revolutionary methods in order to win the rights of citizenship.
You see, in spite of a good deal that we hear about revolutionary methods not being necessary for American women, because American women are so well off, most of the men of the United States quite calmly acquiesce in the fact that half of the community are deprived absolutely of citizen rights, and we women, in trying to make our case clear, always have to make as part of our argument, and urge upon men in our audience the fact – a very simple fact – that women are human beings. It is quite evident you do not all realize we are human beings or it would not be necessary to argue with you that women may, suffering from intolerable injustice, be driven to adopt revolutionary methods. We have, first of all to convince you we are human beings, and I hope to be able to do that in the course of the evening before I sit down, but before doing that, I want to put a few political arguments before you – not arguments for the suffrage, because I said when I opened, I didn’t mean to do that – but arguments for the adoption of militant methods in order to win political rights.”
-Emmeline Pankhurst in Hartford Connecticut, on November 13, 1913
Thanks to those who showed up and rallied. Bring that spirit with you and continue to raise consciousness wherever you go. :)
I’ve done this to several men, and they catch on rather quickly. You’ll be able to have a conversation right then and there, and it works long term too – they might’ve forgot their manners by the time you talk to them again, but by repeating this, they’ll eventually learn to let you talk without you having to do this at the start of every convo. Source: I have a very stubborn older brother, who eventually learned too.
1. When they interrupt you, stop talking. Don’t try to raise your voice or battle them. Be completely quiet and wait.
2. Ignore everything they’re saying. Do not actually listen – just wait until they shut up. Don’t make a point of anything they say, do not answer to anything they say, do not refer to anything they say here. Literally do not listen a single word. Let them rant as long as they want.
3. When they finally shut up and wait for your reaction, say: ”I wasn’t done talking.”
4. Start over whatever you were saying when they interrupted you. I don’t care if it was a 10-minute explanation of rocket science. Start. Over. Repeat you original thought, but do not add anything related to what they just said while talking over you. That gives them the idea that it’s okay to interrupt you, you’ll still listen and pay attention and they’ll get their point clear without having to listen to yours. (It’s especially funny when you get done and they expect you to keep going talking about whatever they talked over you. The face when it sinks in that you didn’t listen a single word is glorious.)
5. If they interrupt you again, return to step 1. If you find yourself repeating the cycle over 3 times, tell them: ”you’re not letting me speak. Either you listen and wait for your turn, or our conversation ends here.” If they try to make excuses, laugh it off or keep interrupting, end the conversation. Prove them that if they wont let you speak, they’re not worth your time.
Why does this work? First, because sometimes talking over is internalized and men don’t actually notice they’re doing it. Being vocally called out makes them realize it and pay attention to it – especially if it happens more than once. Secondly, by refusing to acknowledge anything they say when they interrupt you, they’ll soon realize they will not get their own point across if they keep doing that. People and especially men have the need to be heard and paid attention to when they talk – when you make it clear that by talking over you, they will not have your attention, they’ll learn to wait until you’re done, because they know that’s when you will be paying attention and actually listening.
Go my darlings. Have some actual conversations where your point of view is just as valid as his. Demand the basic respect of being heard. You can actually have some interesting conversations with men when they’re forced to listen too, when being louder is not going to make them feel like they’re dominating the conversation or winning the argument.
Entrenched patriarchal attitudes and norms are the enemy. Pervasive, ‘invisible’, and yet ubiquitous. The battles that must be undertaken are fraught with notion of the permanence of patriarchy and how unassailable it seems.
It isn’t. Just reaching one person and showing them the way is a victory, savour it and use it to power the next task at hand.
I felt as if I had to put a little inspiration before this quote of the day, as it is a bit on the disheartening side, but necessary to see the breadth of the task at hand.
“The female “gender-blenders” interviewed by Devor (1989) can help us see how women’s ambivalence about being female usually tends to reinforce patriarchy. These women clearly identified with men. They dressed like men, and they viewed women as most men view women— inferior. They showed strong devaluation of femaleness and of the subordinate behaviors assigned to women by the male-dominant culture. Their strong rejection of the feminine role for themselves was related to their strong acceptance of the message, presented to them by older family members, that females are sexual objects, are subordinate, and are deficient in comparison to men.
It is probably impossible for women not to internalize men’s denigration of femaleness and femininity to some extent. For example, both the women who adopt the feminine role for themselves and the genderblenders described by Devor have internalized the notion that females are subordinate. Neither group questions male culture’s definition of femaleness and femininity. The gender-blender challenges the belief that she is a subordinate but not the belief that women as a group are subordinate.”
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This is a next level comment on a thread from a post on The Feminist Current titled “If trans activists truly cared about feminism, they would respect women’s spaces”. Simple no? It’s hard to argue with the tagline, although in the comment section the TRA (trans rights activists) are certainly giving it a go, and predictably being shot down as the commentariat over the FC has little time for male delusions, dick, and the entitlement that goes along with it.
I chose this comment because it is so succinct in describing the problems with the trans activists platform.
Thanks DSQL for laying down the truth of the situation. :)
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