Rhetorics of progress (V): First aid during debates

Whichever way you turn it, tone is just as important in a message as the medium if you want to reach an audience. You'll speak differently with a minister than with your friends, for instance. To convince someone, it's always best to speak or write the way that will make that person most receptive.

However, tone has been used for decades to silence progressive movements, and feminism in particular. Opponents would allegedly listen if feminists were more 'reasonable' or 'didn't use such strong language'. These are usually excuses not to have to listen, or a one way street to the infamous 'smarm'. Put bluntly, someone who is smarmy will focus only on formalities and not content, and will often keep coming back back to useless non-statements.

This brings me to five defence mechanisms that I've come to identify a couple of years back in a big presentation on progressive thought. I think it might be useful to run down that list again to help people arm themselves against those mechanisms.

1. Denial

"I don't see the problem."
"You're making this up."
"It's not as bad as you think it is."

Knowledge and facts are the perfect antidote against denial. Thanks to the Internet, there are hundreds of sources available to prove feminist theses and clearly point out the issues. The plural of anecdote isn't data, but it may also help to refer to examples of everyday life for people who have trouble accepting feminism.

2. Shift

"Women's empowerment is bad for men."
"Muslim women have got it so much worse, though?"
"Workers' rights trump women's rights."

Some people seem to think that one group's success will always be to the detriment of another - which is not necessarily the case. Female suffrage didn't render men powerless. It's useful here to point to intersectionality and lead the discussion back to a common theme instead of falling for 'divide and conquer'-rhetoric, that today have resulted, for instance, in the fact that the white Flemish underclasses see the Muslim underclass as its opponent, while they in fact face a shared predicament.

3. Appropriation

"We are being oppressed, not you."
"But what about our problems?"
"When is it going to be International Men's Day?"

It's always useful to check whether the person who says this, may be making sense, but similar to the shift strategy, it's important to keep the discussion on topic. It may be rewarding to speak about proportionality here (e.g. relationship violence proportionally damages women more often and more severely). As a last point, it's useful to consider whether this isn't an argument in bad faith to legitimise certain forms of oppression, such as the victim role that religious extremists or MRAs often resort to.

4. Vilification

"The status quo is fine and those who challenge it are evil."
"You are màking this into a problem."
"Feminism has a sinistre agenda."

The backlash against feminism is sometimes rooted in the fear that a now oppressed class will behave like today's priviliged class. Be on your watch for straw men (like individual examples of extremists that have appropriated the feminist label), and don't shy away from a debate on good and bad moral values. It's also helpful to acknowledge anger without pouring oil on the fire, and lead the discussion back to a calmer place.

5. Violence

"Stupid cunt."
"You need to be put in your place."
"I'll beat you up."

Leave the discussion if possible, or remove the person from the debate. To lash out in equal measure is usually a bad idea and will often lead to escalation, unless you're left with no other option. It's not a bad idea to name and shame people who do this - if they are using their real name, for instance.

Ten male privileges

Generally, men are unaware of the systematic privileges they enjoy. It's one of the major obstacles to a fair discussion about sexism, because they can't seem to tell the difference between a commercial that depicts some man as a savage brute or a woman that gets harrassed on the street. While they will correctly conclude that both are inappropriate, they completely ignore that the disadvantages that women have to cope with are institutional, programmatic and systematic.

We've talked about privilege here before, and there's also a nugget devoted to it in the 'Progress 101' presentation that I made.

Someone recently pointed me towards this list. It attempts to list the typical instances of privilege that (white, heterosexual) men enjoy and while I didn't think it was bad per se, it did contain a few questionable points, and was generally pretty US-centric. So, I've tried to condense the list a little and put my own spin on it.

Here we go. As a heterosexual, white man:

1. I have the privilege of being thought of as the default audience by most modern media, in terms of representation (see the Bechdel test, for example) as well as how a lot of things are advertised alongside beautiful women (male gaze).
    
2. I have the privilege of not facing scrutiny for being ambitious, assertive or career-driven.
    
3. I have the privilege that all major world religions are led by people of my own gender and that most of their scriptures, traditions and rituals accord me a position of power and respect, most notably over women.
    
4. I have the privilege that my chances of being groped, catcalled, sexually harrassed or sexually assaulted in a public space are negligibly small.
    
5. I have the privilege that discussions that relate to my achievements, opinions or personality is unlikely to be taken as emblematic for all men - I am usually seen as an individual.
    
6. I have the privilege that people are unlikely to dismiss my opinions merely because I am a man.
    
7. I have the privilege that most economic, political and academic systems disproportionally advantage people like me, or are entrenched in a culture that is more benign to people like me.
    
8. I have the privilege that large parts of society do not value me solely on basis of how I look.
    
9. I have the privilege that I can indulge in casual sex without being judged for it.
    
10. I have the privilege to be unaware of my privilege and to be blind for the difficulties that others face on a systematic and day-to-day basis.