Shockingly when black professor tries explaining institutional racism to white men, she is reprimanded

Oh white people, we really are the problem. Isha Aran wrote about this for Jezebel. Shannon Gibney, a faculty member at Minneapolis Community and Technical College was leading a discussion in her Intro to Mass Communication class, when she was interrupted by two white male students who wanted to talk about race in 2013. One of the students asked, “It’s like people are trying to say that white men are always the villains, the bad guys. Why do we have to say this?”

Probably because they have been historically speaking. Gibney actually tried explaining to them that she wasn’t referring to them personally, but instead whiteness as a system of oppression, in our culture, but they clearly didn’t want to understand. In what a frustration I can only imagine, she quipped, “If you’re really upset, feel free to go down to legal affairs and file a racial harassment discrimination complaint.”

Of course, because of the mass discrimination against white men, that exists only in their heads, they did just that. Soon after, Vice President of Academic Affairs Lois Bollman sent Gibney a letter which expressed concern over her teaching methods:

“Shannon, I find it troubling that the manner in which you led a discussion on the very important topic of structural racism alienated two students who may have been the most in need of learning about this subject…

While I believe it was your intention to discuss structural racism generally…it was inappropriate for you to single out white male students in class. Your actions in [targeting] select students based on their race and gender caused them embarrassment and created a hostile learning environment.”

And here, I thought they focused attention on themselves because everything has to center on white dudes. I used to hate classes on this subject with people like this. I have a great example for below. This isn’t the first time Gibney (or others) have found themselves in this situation trying to navigate between personal and systematic expressions of oppression. Gibney and six other professors plan to file an anti-discrimination lawsuit against the school, which will hopefully restore their voices and authority as faculty members.

I took one undergrad sociology course at Carroll, and it was great except this one guy in the class who was white, hetero, cis, and wealthy. I swear to god he thought our professor was making shit up to target him as if racism, sexism, and classism is something the women in class conspired with our professor about. I actually think he walked out once. Why he didn’t just drop the damn class, I’ll never understand. While I don’t remember a good specific example of his imaginary persecution I do have a good example from grad school.

I have a master’s in women’s studies, and it was awesome. I have a second example from grad school when I took a class that was all about intersectionality called, Race, Class, and Gender. There was a white, cis, hetero, dude who actually said in one class, “Everyone doesn’t have to go to college.” To which I could only reply, “But who doesn’t? The same people who have been excluded thus far or are we going to stop wealthy white dudes from going so poor black women can?” He didn’t take it well. I agree everyone doesn’t have to go to college, but let’s be real about who doesn’t get to go…poor people, poor people of color. This guy in my class immediately got defensive about not being racist, which I never said anything close too, but I imagine he recognized some of his argument was rooted in racism even if he doesn’t mean to. I also want to note, I wasn’t trying to be fingerpointy…I wanted to engage in his logic, and I wanted to know how this whole thing to would work without being exclusionary. I wanted to understand, but in the end I didn’t because we couldn’t have a conversation about this because he got defensive and then folded. Though, he never agreed with me or the other people in class who raised questions about his statements. Another example, comes from my women's studies program. I’m not a huge Andrea Dworkin fan, but anyone studying women’s studies has to read her. One of her theories is that all heterosexual sex that occurs in the patriarchy is rape. I don’t subscribe to this theory, but that doesn’t mean it is without merit or valuable in some ways. My class was about a half and half split between queer and hetero women (all women of course). Some of the hetero women in class felt that our professor’s interpretation of Dworkin was in some way calling out their heteronormativeity. She wasn’t. She was just trying to get us to understand the materials. I found this all very interesting because weeks earlier we read McKinnon, who is notoriously exclusionary to women of color, and no one in class had any trouble disagreeing with her work and not feeling personally attacked. In this later example, I have to say maybe it hit too close to home for some of the women in my class. I think specifically of one classmate who had a pretty bad hetero relationship and maybe didn’t want to admit how much impact the patriarchy had on that. We’ve all been there, hetero, queer, gay, bi, etc.

I’ve written about this before people in power feeling victimized because of protections in place for vulnerable, exploited, and populations discriminated against. These people feel like they are being excluded for no reason or being targeted. They are wrong of course, but we need to have some dialogue around how this fallacy of persecution has developed so we can educate against it.

Whedon and feminist

Joss Whedon is my spirit animal. I’m completely bias here; I think the man is a brilliant storyteller, and I’m partial to those. That said he makes a compelling argument for changing language, and I love English linguistics (thanks Dr. Ruff).

Whedon begins by saying he hates feminist, but feminsits, but the word feminist because of the –ist, which is a great attention grabbing way to start his statement. Whedon asks that we use the word “genderist” to provide context instead of feminist. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m a feminist, and I don’t think we need to change the word, but we need a word that provides the context in the negative. So instead of someone saying, “I’m not a feminist, but…” it would be “I’m not a genderist, but…” Genderist meaning discriminatory toward a person based on their gender because genderist takes us back to a world before women, men, and trans people were treated equally.

I go both ways on men in the movement. I believe they have a place and can be feminists, but sometimes I wonder about men in the movement who need to be out front all the time. That said, I’m giving Whedon a pass because he is employing his privilege not to speak for women and people who reject the gender binary, but because he’s bring attention to the cause. Jezebel does a good write about with a transcript, but just watch his speech. His speeches are the best because he brings the funny.

You guys, woman as a gender and social construct, amiright?

Gender roles exist for a reason; we can’t go changing those social constructs, which by definition are socially created and have evolved and changed overtime and by location. IT JUST CAN’T BE DONE! Where will it stop? If men and women are no longer constrained by fictional labels, what will society become? Equitable?

Madeleine Davis wrote a piece for Jezebel on Vice co-founder Gavin McInnes’ participation on HuffPo Live chat on the changing definition of masculinity. McInnes is an idiot, but hey I guess once upon a time he was relevant. He left Vice in 2008 and then launched the website Street Carnage. He isn’t pleased that gender roles and norms are changing, and he decided the best way to deal is to have a fit.

Let’s start with a primer: man and woman are gender identities. They are subject to change and generally assigned at birth correlating with biological sex. Values, expressions, actions are then assigned to each gender which are gender norms and roles; these like the definitions of man and woman are subject to change depending on  cultural, location, period of time, etc. These are social constructs, which are reinforced by other social constructs such as race, class, sexuality, etc. There is a constant epp and flow around all of this in a cyclical motion. Gender roles shape motherhood and the workforce which then shapes societal institutions and social policy which then shapes the social construct of gender. So for example, white, middle class woman is defined by Western culture as mother and homemaker, her lack of presence in the workforce and government representation has resulted in a lack of need for national day care and paid maternity leave, which then reinforces the need for women to stay at home with their children because they don’t have access to paid maternity leave or national day care. This is just a simplistic example, but you can see how the standard of white, middle class woman impacts low income women, people of color, and labor, etc.

Back to McInnes, he was on a panel with Michael Addis, Eric Garland, and Mary Anne Franks (a professor at the University of Miami School of Law). Right from the beginning McInnes started defining what it means to be man and woman:

“Women are forced to pretend to be men. They’re feigning this toughness. They’re miserable. Study after study has shown that feminism has made women less happy. They’re not happy in the work force, for the most part.”

 LIES! I will admit, I’m miserable most of the time, but that has nothing to do with feminism and everything to do with me being crazy. In fact, the two places I experience real happiness is work and school, both places women were (sometimes still are) excluded.

Writer Eric Garland countered McInne’ point stating his wife is a professor of medicine and is very happy. Of course McInnes was ready for this with a stellar counterpoint: “Oooh good. You found some anecdotal evidence to prove your point. Congratulations.”

Snap. Conversation over. McInnes’ evidence for his statements is a feeling “that the majority of women like being domestic and shaping lives.”

Ok? I love shaping lives; it is why I’m going to work with the homeless. I also hate cooking, except when it is for the homeless. I think there is something to that. But sure, dude continues making broad generalizations about “woman.”

The chat ended with McInnes calling Franks a “fucking idiot,” which I guess proved his point if his point was that traditional definitions of masculinity make a lot of men assholes. Davis concludes by saying Jezebel gives zero fucks about McInnes equating him with a hipster version of Old Man Yelling at Cloud. I’m inclined to agree.

That said, some women want to be stay at home moms and there is nothing wrong with that. The issue is someone telling women they have to want these things because they identify as women. Masculinity and femininity are social concepts that serve very little purpose. Things deemed masculine take priority and importance in society because the patriarchy, while feminine values and expressions are seen as less. That is a problem. Without these distinctions maybe we’d see more US leaders (predominately men) working to compromise (a traditionally feminine value). I don’t really want to redefine masculinity; I used to and if we’re stuck with these labels then sure. But I think we should do away with masculinity and femininity labels all together. I’m not naïve enough to believe we can do away with gender and gender expressions, but I’d rather them be seen as what they are constantly changing social constructs.

Once again a woman is blamed for her rape this time it comes from the Guardian

So I heard about this on a podcast I listen to and that everyone should listen to Citizen Radio. Then Friday morning I was skimming Jezebel to pause from data tables, and Jezebel’s Katie JM Baker has a post about it too. The Guardian’s Tim Adams’ piece reads: “Beeban Kidron: ‘We need to talk about teenagers and the internet’ The boy addicted to porn; the girl who endured sexual assault to get her Blackberry back…In Beeban Kidron’s sobering documentary British teenagers open up about how they use and feel about their smartphones and the internet.”

The paragraph about the woman who was raped read: “In one, a girl who does not reveal her identity, talks with heartbreaking candour about how she would do anything for her BlackBerry; when a gang of boys takes it from her she recounts how she allowed herself to be sexually assaulted in order to have it back.”

Previously it read: the girl who “let herself be gang-raped” to obtain her BlackBerry. Because as you know women are to blame for their own rapes. And the Guardian thought, let’s fix this by reclassifying the rape as a sexual assault. Take a minute. Also know while I was reading this some bro on the internet was blaming women for not killing their abusers because that works out for the best. Is it possible to hate everyone? I might be retreating to a hermitage.

So one doesn’t allow or get raped because that implies consent of some kind. Rape is unwanted sexual intercourse (including vaginal, anal, oral, etc). This language blames the victim instead of the rapists. This is a problem.

For fun, Baker mentions that Adams asked the filmmaker is she, “sees an inbuilt gender imbalance in some of the tone of social media. Does the medium itself work to encourage misogyny, in her view?” Yes, yes it does. And people who use victim blaming language aren’t helping the internet culture. 

So Internet and the Guardian:

Kickstarter Apologizes

Below is the full post Kickstarter made after their decision not to pull the PUA Kickstarter that was pushing a pro-assault agenda. The project was funded reaching many times over its initial goal. Casey Malone brought this to everyone’s attention after pulling the rapey comments the creator, Ken Hoinsky, made on Reddit (I know you’re all shocked). The Kickstarter page was pretty innocuous, but I’ll confess I didn’t watch Hoinsky’s video because…gross and creepy. Also, I’m familiar with the Pick Up Art (PUA) mentality, which is rooted in entitlement and privilege. Entitled to women’s time, attention, and bodies so I have no interest in anything that these people have to say.

Malone brought Hoinsky to the attention of well, Twitter, the feminist blogosphere, etc. Jezebel had a few great pieces on all of this. Kickstarter after receiving an onslaught of tweets and people reporting the page decided they should respond by doing nothing. On Reddit, Kickstarter responded directly to Malone’s post with,

“This morning, material that a project creator posted on Reddit earlier this year was brought to our attention and the public’s attention just hours before the project’s deadline. Some of this material is abhorrent and inconsistent with our values as people and as an organization. Based on our current guidelines, however, the material on Reddit did not warrant the irreversible action of canceling the project.

“As stewards of Kickstarter we sometimes have to make difficult decisions. We followed the discussion around the web today very closely. It led to a lot of internal discussion and will lead to a further review of our policies.”

This response, while not exactly awesome, I can understand because current policies and the comments were made on Reddit not Kickstarter. My immediate thoughts went to, well how are you changing your policies? The skeptic in my thinks the project making just over $16,000 (8 times the goal) might also have something to do with it since Kickstarter takes a percentage.

Regardless, Friday, Kickstarter released a post apologizing for their lack of response. I'm kind of optimistic about this (ignoring the assumed Reddit/libertarian backlash) because it is an indication that online mobilization can yield results.

We were wrong

Dear everybody,

On Wednesday morning Kickstarter was sent a blog post quoting disturbing material found on Reddit. The offensive material was part of a draft for a “seduction guide” that someone was using Kickstarter to publish. The posts offended a lot of people — us included — and many asked us to cancel the creator’s project. We didn’t.

We were wrong.

Why didn’t we cancel the project when this material was brought to our attention? Two things influenced our decision:

• The decision had to be made immediately. We had only two hours from when we found out about the material to when the project was ending. We’ve never acted to remove a project that quickly. 
• Our processes, and everyday thinking, bias heavily toward creators. This is deeply ingrained. We feel a duty to our community — and our creators especially — to approach these investigations methodically as there is no margin for error in canceling a project. This thinking made us miss the forest for the trees.

These factors don’t excuse our decision but we hope they add clarity to how we arrived at it.

Let us be 100% clear: Content promoting or glorifying violence against women or anyone else has always been prohibited from Kickstarter. If a project page contains hateful or abusive material we don’t approve it in the first place. If we had seen this material when the project was submitted to Kickstarter (we didn’t), it never would have been approved. Kickstarter is committed to a culture of respect.

Where does this leave us?

First, there is no taking back money from the project or canceling funding after the fact. When the project was funded the backers’ money went directly from them to the creator. We missed the window.

Second, the project page has been removed from Kickstarter. The project has no place on our site. For transparency’s sake, a record of the page is cached here.

Third, we are prohibiting “seduction guides,” or anything similar, effective immediately. This material encourages misogynistic behavior and is inconsistent with our mission of funding creative works. These things do not belong on Kickstarter.

Fourth, today Kickstarter will donate $25,000 to an anti-sexual violence organization called RAINN. It’s an excellent organization that combats exactly the sort of problems our inaction may have encouraged.

We take our role as Kickstarter’s stewards very seriously. Kickstarter is one of the friendliest, most supportive places on the web and we’re committed to keeping it that way. We’re sorry for getting this so wrong.

Thank you,

Kickstarter

What this really comes down to is a serious lapse in judgment on Kickstarter's part. They are attempting to right it after the fact, but had they pulled the project when they were alerted to the issues then this would be unnecessary. I'm not super impressed with Kickstarter lately. Between the whole Garden State thing and this. There has to be a better way to fund projects.