How Is Gender Oppression within Progressive, Radical, Revolutionary Movement(s) Maintained, Supporte

[seabeyond]

Patriarchy: The Root of Gender Oppression

The system of patriarchy is the root of gender oppression. We all exist within a system of oppression which assumes rigid gender binaries of women and men, female and male; which values males and the male-identified and devalues female and the female-identified; which assumes heterosexual normativity; which delegates men/boys/male-identified to roles and positions which have higher status and levels of decision-making than women/girls/female-identified; which assume male values as universal and given.

1) Denial

What can denial look like?

Silence
Inability to take any action
Putting issues, acts, or patterns of gender oppression on the back burner (forever)
Viewing issues, acts, or patterns of gender oppression as individual, personal, private rather than acts of gender oppression requiring public and collective responsibility and solutions
Writing off sexual harassment or sexual assault as a “date,” “affection,” “showing that he likes you,” “flirting,” “misunderstandings,” etc.
Viewing any issue of gender oppression (which requires more than abstract talk) as “bourgeois,” “middle class,” “white feminist,” “dividing our movement,” playing into the hands of the race/class/nation enemy


2) Minimizing


What can minimizing look like?

Putting issues, acts, or patterns of gender oppression on the back burner (forever)
Viewing issues, acts, or patterns of gender oppression as individual, personal, private rather than acts of gender oppression requiring public and collective responsibility and solutions
Writing issues, acts, or patterns of gender oppression off as a “misunderstanding”
Writing sexual harassment or assault off as “dating,” “asking someone out”
Writing domestic or intimate partner violence off as “fighting,” “an argument,” “they have problems,” “they both have problems,” “she should just leave him (or her)”
Viewing any issue of gender oppression (which requires more than abstract talk) as taking away from the “real” and/or “important” work
Hoping that it goes away or the people raising or causing the issues go away
Addressing it very ineffectually (and knowing it) (E.g. “They’re my friend — I don’t wanna address this with them.”; “They aren’t my friend, why should I address this with them?”)


3) Victim-Blaming

What can victim-blaming look like?

Calling the people (usually women) raising the issue of gender abuse, oppression or violence
“bourgeois,” “middle class” “white feminist,” “dividing the movement,” “destroying unity,” “lynching,” taking us away from the “real” or “serious” work, a race/class/nation enemy
Blaming women/girls who raise the issue of gender oppression, abuse or violence as “deserving it,” a “flirt,” “young,” “wants attention,” “must have done something wrong,” a “slut,” “man-hater,” a ‘lesbian/dyke,” “making a power play”
Blaming women/girls who take a stand against gender oppression as ‘bitches,” “controlling,” “angry,” “man-haters,” “lesbians/dykes,” “white feminists”
Turning abusers into victims by naming people (usually men) accused of sexist, abusive, or violent attitudes and behavior as “victims,” “nice guys,” “heroes,” “important to our work (more important than the women/girls raising the issue or victim to abuse)”


4) Counter-Organizing

Basically, this means that our own people (mostly men/boys/male-identified but also women/girls/femaleidentified) have been good at counter-organizing. And counter-organizing can involve a higher level of the devaluation, deceit, and manipulation which are all also a part of the dynamics of gender oppression and avoidance of accountability.

What can counter-organizing look like?

Harassing, demeaning, denouncing, gossiping about, spreading rumors and lies about or threatening to do these things to women who raise the issue of gender oppression either as survivors/victims or as allies
Demoting, firing or threatening to demote or fire women who raise the issue of gender oppression
either as survivors/victims or as allies
Isolating or discrediting persons who raise concerns and/or call for accountability
Questioning the legitimacy of concerns to detract from the need to be accountable
Questioning the legitimacy of the accountability process to detract from the need to be accountable
Accusing others of abuse in order to call attention away from own accountability
Denying, minimizing, victim blaming, and plain-old lying about doing any of these things when called on it

http://applecoresandpeachpits.tumblr.com/post/5321332557/community-accountability-report

[MadrasT]

1. Sounds like a typical day on DU to me. n/t

[seabeyond]

2. lol... no kidding. hey... i tell ya.

gogglin for specific things and spending so much time perusing articles, i am totally amazed at all the shit i am learning. lol. if i can retain even a third of it, wow... kick ass. very cryptic probably but there is tons of things that wrap up in this whole issue from angles that make perfect sense once read, but who would think of it. i have another article that a woman gave me that lets me see this from a slight shift, that opens ones eyes.

[laconicsax]

3. +1