As though fear is a luxury
Victoria Smith starts by thanking the men who tell women what we’re allowed to be afraid of for wading in to correct our perceptions of reality when they must be so busy.
To be fair, it is not our fault. We are not authoritative; we are not you. We are taught from an early age to doubt ourselves, to see our own versions of reality as suspect, requiring external confirmation from the experts, the men. When you are not considered a reliable witness to your own experiences, things become very confusing. This, I guess, is where you step in.
And, of course, this very stepping in is part of the process of teaching female people from an early age that we don’t know our ass from our elbow.
What do we fear most of all? Hard to say. That is, the answer is obvious, but it’s very hard to say it without having one’s sanity or one’s morality — one’s capacity for kindness — questioned. It’s easier to defer to you. We can do this for years. We can even start to believe it.
I think the mention of kindness is a nod to Robin Ince’s generous help yesterday.
Do you know how many abusive men are considered lovely men, gentle men, kind men, by those who don’t witness what happens behind closed doors? To be fair, you probably have heard this; that’s another cliché. But also, how many abused women defend these men, doubt their own perceptions, have been beaten down so many times they’re not sure if it isn’t their fault? Do you know it’s possible to be ashamed of your own fears? To think, well, maybe this does mean I’m a bad person? You reinforce that shame each time you lecture women on fears you deem to be misplaced. Still, you’re the expert.
…
That you — male people — are complicit in the creation of our fear, that you benefit from it, that it’s your dominance that enables you to breeze in, puffed up with pride at your own magnanimity, to tell us we’re allowed to feel threatened by this, but not that … I imagine you don’t really think about this.
The Robin Inces certainly show no sign of ever thinking about it. If they did they wouldn’t pat themselves on the back for being motivated by kindness while we are motivated by sheer evil.
You think it an act of generosity to allow us to be fearful of some male people, but not others. As though fear itself is a luxury. We mustn’t be greedy; mustn’t take too much. That you should be offering safety — that a kind, empathetic response to female fear would be to look at the violence from which you benefit, question the class to which you belong — does not cross your mind. You think you float above the worst things men do.
Naturally – because they are all about the kindness.
I think that’s exactly it. If they, personally, are not hitting or abusing someone, then they are the good guys and get a pass. Also, taking a cursory glance at the issue of “Trans Rights” is sufficient to know everything there is to know, especially hearing the phrase “feminism is for all women.” Meaning including, and prioritizing male women.
It’s off-topic but it amazes me; Victoria writes like this all the time. Everything she writes is this powerful.
I know, right? I was thinking that the entire time I was reading. I even spent a few seconds wondering if she gets a kind of hit of exhilaration when the brain (which can feel like an external entity at such times) hands her something that hits a nail especially hard…while also thinking but it’s all like that so she probably doesn’t because she must be used to it by now.
And it’s not off topic. Victoria’s writing genius is never off topic.
“We are not authoritative; we are not you.”
*chef’s kiss*
It really is amazing that everything of hers that I read is funny, clever, thought provoking, and profoundly moving. I don’t know how she manages to get it right basically 100% of the time.
As if they are not, in fact, men themselves. Is this the evil, male twin of the phenomenon which has trans activist, white, women decrying the evils of “White feminism,” desperately seeking approval, whilst pretending they are not themselves, in fact, white women?
Paraphrasing a popular meme and t-shirt.
“More fear for women doesn’t take away from the fears of others. IT ISN’T PIE.”
It’s not as if there’s a zero sum game in the field of what people fear. It’s not as if, e.g., TiM fears of men exhaust the supply of fear of male violence that people have, such that T fears of men are “justified,” using up all the “justified” fears, so there’s nothing left that women are allowed to be afraid of.
But haven’t you heard of the “multi-racial whiteness” thing? In which white women can be not white just by not acting like white women? And non-white women can be oppressors, because by their actions they demonstrate that they are, in fact, white?
Appropriation, much? You get to be “not-white” but a woman who actually is not white is deemed to be “white” just because you declare them so. And get to feel superior in the process.
These people are fucked up.
Good, because I’ve been re-reading some of her newsletters here:
https://tinyletter.com/Glosswitch/archive
I mean… even the title, “The OK Karen”. It’s perfect.
A word kept forcing itself into my brain while I was reading the OK Karen. It was “humane”. Her writing is lots of other things, too. I could tip my box of superlatives out on the floor and sort through them to discard the few that don’t fit and I’d still pick out “humane” as the one I most admire.
I’ve admired lots of other social commentators. I’d rake around in the superlatives box for a while before I found one I couldn’t apply to Hitchens, for example. But I’d also need my expletives box and although “humane” is in both, it wouldn’t fit Hitchens in either case.
You can see my point coming a mile off, so I’ll jibe to Terry Pratchett. We’ve been talking about him lately. Novelist, social commentator, hat enthusiast, satirist. Lovely bloke, by all accounts. Humane. Let’s look at how he characterised witches and wizards. Wizards are all straight lines and jommetry. But they’re mostly about really big lunches and vying for academic rather than arcane power because serenity is more satisfying than spells. Then take witches. Witches happen to people. Witching is about supreme confidence… but in the service of people and of the job that’s in front of them.
Hicthens didn’t, didn’t really. Glosswitch, since I’m being far too clever for my own good here, does.
And for completeness I ought to add this:
Pratchett would have been on the side of gender identity extremism my fucking arse.