The chubby canary in the feminist mine.

Cross posted from my usual spot


Most people have heard the ‘canary in the mine” thing, but I’m just going to quickly explain.  Back in the days before electronic testing, miners would carry a caged canary in the mine with them. If Carbon Monoxide built up then the canary would die before the man, and give him a heads up to get out of there a.s.a.p. So yeah, the canary was handy, but it got the rough end of the deal.

With all of this discussion of safe and unsafe male allies of feminism (or self-proclaimed feminists), I was interested to notice that several key figures were already not followed by myself and some friends. The news that someone had said something silly was met with “of course” eye rolls. Most of us had un-followed well before any safety issues, or arguments, simply because we hadn’t liked something they tweeted.
None of us could remember why we had un-followed, it was no major issue or insult, and none of us had interacted, we had simply quietly lost them off our feed.
Interestingly we are all body positive, larger sized women, older women, or trans.

I suspect that if you want to know who the effective allies are, look around you at the feminists on your feed that don’t fit the young, slim and cis bill, check who THEY are still following. I get the sinking feeling we may be the chubby canaries of feminism.
We might have a limit for what we won’t cope with that doesn’t bother other people  in the slightest.

But fat shaming isn’t actually that far from victim blaming. Feminism that doesn’t include trans women is a good marker of feminists or allies that don’t try to learn about issues that don’t directly affect them. Ignoring the voices of older feminists or those you find less attractive, is a pretty good indicator that you have unrecognized biases that need to be examined.

In short, it’s an easy fight saying that hitting women is bad, and women should be treated like human beings. As long as you stick to that line, only real jerks would openly debate, and they are fun to kick. It’s not exactly a high bar. I know this because I do it myself, and it’s the easiest part of being a feminist.
And when it comes to pointing this out, most canaries frankly, can’t be bothered. Let the young, pretty, healthy, cisgender, energetic feminists negotiate with the media savvy likable allies who think we are gagging for their help. I can’t be bothered. I have enough battles with people who are overtly unsafe to bother taking on someone who half the feminist community will back up.

It’s not worth the effort, the exclusion and the stress.

Because when you are a “good guy” you can go a long way towards behaving like a crap one, before anyone gets any support to call you out.

Most people are LOVELY people. Most people are loved. Most people in feminism do active work in an important area to help. This isn’t SPECIAL. This isn’t unique. And it isn’t an excuse for degrading women who don’t fit your rules or specifications to be valued or using slurs against women.

So if someone you love is awesome and working hard, and doing good work, and they screw up. Have a quiet word, remind them that we are only as good as our last action, and for gods sakes, resist the urge to shit on the person brave enough to call them out.

Ignoring the canary doesn’t end well for anyone.

Silence, because not everyone feels able to speak up.

Cross posted from my home blog.

Today is the National day of silence.
This is a piece written by an ally for allys, it is very 101 level, please keep this in mind.

“The National Day of Silence is a day of action in which students acrossthe country vow to take a form of silence to call attention to the silencingeffect of homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying, name-calling andharassment in schools. The goal of the Day of Silence is to make schools saferfor all students, regardless of sexual orientation and genderidentity/expression. Students across the country participate in the Day ofSilence to bring attention to this problem, let students who experience suchbullying know that they are not alone and ask schools to take action to addressthe problem. There is no single way to participate, and students are encouragedto take part in the way that is the most positive and uplifting for theirschool.”

I often worry about feminism on NZ twitter being an echo chamber, but I haven’t seen much this week about today’s call to action, which made me think that if I’m in an echo chamber, surely this message should be coming through?

Perhaps enough people aren’t sharing the issues that rainbow youth are struggling with…
It seems counter intuitive that a day of silence should empower voices, but the aim is not simply to not speak up. It is to share the cause, using a multitude of ways.

Selfies for silence is one of those non-verbal ways; take a look at the great messages coming through.

Often those who are in a position where they feel unsafe don’t or can’t speak up to enable their cause. The people who are on the frontlines of Rainbow youth are immobilised in a variety of ways.

Of the students who had been bullied in NZ, FIVE TIMES AS MANY (33%) had been bullied because they were gay or because of perceived sexuality compared to their heterosexual peers (6%).
The Youth 12 report on transgender students shows that nearly 20% had attempted suicide in the previous year and nearly 50% had been physically abused. I sure as hell wouldn’t feel strong enough to speak up on the little stuff in those circumstances let alone advocate vocally for the rights of my peers.

Often those who are in support are afraid to speak up because they don’t want to become targets for bullies themselves. I’ve been in that trap myself, even as an adult. There are days when I don’t have the mental capacity or I’m too afraid of repercussions to speak up on my beliefs outside of my twitter bubble.

The Day of silence is a timely reminder that there are more ways to show our friends, family and community that we are allies, and for those who don’t feel able to speak up, to be able to do it in a variety of ways.
Being the person shouting at the front line isn’t for everyone, and shouldn’t have to be.

Ways I can lift the silence.

Wear a set of 100% OK coloured bracelets. Give them away to the people in your life who also want to be allies.

Display a 100% OK sticker, rainbow sticker or other symbol prominently at your café / shop / church / marae / place of work, you might be surprised at how many people come out as an ally, or part of the rainbow community.

Don’t let slurs or derogatory jokes slide at work or school.

“Can you use a different term to mean bad please” is all you need to say.
Or “I don’t understand the joke”. And then walk away.
You don’t owe an explanation, the expectation of not demeaning other people is entirely reasonable.

Read, research and learn and keep lines of communication open. If you feel “attacked” for your lack of understanding, take a breath, learn some more and apologise if you realise you were wrong.

The NZ day of Silence has made it to the mainstream media but only in small pieces, and much like all activism, it needs amplifying and sharing in order to help the message get out to a wider audience. Below are two links you could share on Facebook.

TV 3 news - Day of Silence sweeps schools

TVNZ day of silence - student's tape mouths.

Guestie: The conversation Difficult Lemon is really fed up with having over and over again

Many thanks to Difficult Lemon, who you can find on Twitter, for this guest post.  She was inspired to pen this by recent local events and the Twitter feed of Melissa McEwan.  

[This is the conversation] I have had literally hundreds of times with various (white, heterosexual, cis) men who want to claim the label feminist by standing on a hill and pointing and saying 'there be sexism' 'there be racism' but resist any and all efforts to challenge individual incidents of sexism, ESPECIALLY if they themselves are being criticised.

1. ARE YOU SAYING MEN CAN’T BE FEMINIST?
Stop projecting your anxieties onto me. You’re a white male. You can do pretty much whatever you want. It’s a sweet deal.

2. WHY ARE YOU NOT A HUMANIST?
As long as there are men (and women, who are subject to the same negative socialisation), who would ostensibly be part of the "humanist" movement, yet retain a visceral and violent reaction to the feminine, there is no foundation for a sexless, "humanist" movement. This cross applies to anyone who tries to argue that the Pakeha party and the Maori party are moral equivalents and we should all just join the ‘equality party’. Bleurgh. 

3. WHY ARE YOU OVERSENSITIVE ABOUT RAPE JOKES?
Rape culture is real. You are not sensitive enough. These jokes are everywhere, unfortunately, and trying to keep my spaces clear of them is very important. The real thought police are those who made you think this kind of behaviour is normal, not the other way around.

4. WHY ARE ALL THE ACTIVISTS SO CRAZY, LOOKING FOR REASONS TO BE ANGRY?
People are angry for a reason. Try and listen to what they are telling you, fight through the defensiveness. This applies to white feminists like me too, our movement is pretty racist, we need to own that.

5. WHY ARE YOU ATTACKING ME?
Calling criticism attack is an age old de-railing strategy, so a conversation that should centre the life experiences of women comes back to you, and your hurt feelings. If you are a man and go into feminist spaces and make the discussion be all about you, this is a hugely damaging practice. Stop.