I saw this commercial earlier today and felt compelled to post it here.
I am bothered by how masculinity functions in this clip (just accept it = wimp = emasculation) and how that emasculation is explicitly tied to/caused by the annoying girlfriend. After watching the clip, I typed in “Ally bank just accept it” and found the following comment at the top of the 4th link on the list (on the message board for forumscommercialsihate.com:
Just saw this new ad, surprised I found the vid. So starts out fine, blah blah blah… cut to 0:47 sec… and another bitch wife/girlfriend getting ready to chastise another nut-less man for not accepting the $3.00 fee. Bitch, I wouldn’t accept either and I’d make you pay for the tickets. Also, most to all theaters take card, why the F* are you getting out cash; it better be for hit you take out on this twat! Grrrr!!
Really? Having spent some time this semester in my feminist debates class discussing rape culture/violence against women I’m extremely bothered by this comment (to say the least) and this commercial. Sure this commercial isn’t explicitly encouraging men to do violence to women, but it is tapping into a deeper belief that woman emasculate men and deserve to be punished (violently) for it. Oh bother! (and don’t even get me started on the implications of this policing of masculinity for those who identify as male…)
In the past 24 hours, I’ve encountered several online discussions about privilege (especially, but not exclusively white privilege). I want to archive these conversations for future reflection.
Encounter One: Scrolling through my politics of sex course blog from last semester last night, I came across my lecture notes on privilege. Here they are:
Today’s topic for discussion is privilege and oppression. This is a continuation of our discussion on Monday about heteronormativity and straight thinking. Ingraham writes:
The question then becomes not whether heterosexuality is natural, and therefore ‘normal’, but, rather how do cultural meaning systems work to normalize and institutionalize heterosexuality? And, more importantly, what interests are served by these processes? In other words, who benefits from the ways we’ve named, defined, and organized sexuality (74)?
In today’s class we focus on the question of whose interests are being served (who benefits)? At whose expense do some benefit? We are extending the question beyond sexuality to think about how heteronormativity is part of a larger network of normativities.
INTERLOCKING SYSTEMS OF OPPRESSION AND THE MYTHICAL NORM
Audre Lorde in “Age, Race, Class and Sex” in Sister Outsider: “Somewhere, on the edge of consciousness, there is what I call a mythical norm, which each one of us within our hearts knows “that is not me.” In america, this norm is usually defined as white, thin, male, young, heterosexual, Christian, and financially secure. It is with this mythical norm that the trappings of power reside within this society. Those of us who stand outside that power often identify one way in which we are different, and we assume that to be the primary cause of all oppression, forgetting other distortions around difference, some of which we ourselves may be practising.”
Kate Bornstein in My Gender Workbook: The pyramid
Not just about any one category, or about envisioning the problem as one of binaries: oppressed/oppressor, white/non-white, male/female.
Instead, about a larger network of norms (in terms of race, class, religion, gender, sexuality) that together contribute to this larger power pyramid of status/identity/privilege
LINKING INDIVIDUAL ASSETS AND MICROAGGRESSIONS WITH LARGER STRUCTURES OF PRIVILEGE AND OPPRESSION
Not isolated instances or individual practices of a few “bad” people
When analyzed cumulatively we can begin to see larger structures that enable the systematic oppression of groups who don’t fit the mythical norm/who fall outside the normal. What structures do you see emerging in these lists?
While becoming aware of privilege and microaggression involve individual experiences and encourage individual reflection, they are not about our individual intentions or about who we are (it’s not about us). Instead, awareness of privilege, microaggression and oppression is about the effects and affects of our actions/understandings on others. And how those actions are made in a larger context and social/material/historical processes of meaning-making.
Some examples (from “The Color of Supremacy”):
Jay Smooth: How to tell people they sound racist:
What they did vs. What they are…the goal is to analyze actions, not to focus on whether or not an individual is racist.
LEARNING PROCESS
Individuals/groups learn/are taught how to ignore privilege and to take it for granted
This learning process involves being discouraged from thinking critically about race, sex, gender, class.
It also requires active refusals to become aware and to engage in critical thinking.
Learning process trains us how to engage in practices of racial/sexual/gender/class/ability/ethnic microaggressions. We may engage in these wittingly and unwittingly.
WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? WHAT’S THE PURPOSE OF EXAMINING PRIVILEGE/MICROAGGRESSION?
Importance of discomfort in addressing these issues
Why study micoraggressions? Privilege?
What do we do with this knowledge?
What do you think about this statement “about this site” on the microaggressions blog?:
This project is a response to “it’s not a big deal” – “it” is a big deal. “it” is in the everyday. “it” is shoved in your face when you are least expecting it. “it” happens when you expect it the most. “it” is a reminder of your difference. “it” enforces difference. “it” can be painful. “it” can be laughed off. “it” can slide unnoticed by either the speaker, listener or both. “it” can silence people. “it” reminds us of the ways in which we and people like us continue to be excluded and oppressed. “it” matters because these relate to a bigger “it”: a society where social difference has systematic consequences for the “others.”
but “it” can create or force moments of dialogue.
A few more resources:
There are lots of privilege lists circulating on the interwebz. Here’s a list of many of them.
Encounter Two: Woke up this morning and checked my twitter feed. I found a tweet via @racialicious about a post on racism vs. white guilt.
This video is the subject of her post:
Encounter Three: After encountering my notes and the video on white guilt, I remembered that Slutwalk Toronto was planning to post on privilege soon. We’ve been following Slutwalk in my feminist debates class all semester and read/discussed their statement on racism in class a few weeks ago. I checked their blog this morning and found it: What’s All This About “Privilege”?
I just saw Duel for the first time on Saturday night. It’s Stephen Spielberg’s first film…and his best. This film seems like a good one to archive for the trouble blog; it provides a lot of critical commentary on the rapidly slipping position of the white, privileged, heterosexual male in the U.S in the 1970s and the trouble (anxiety, fear, terror) that this caused. Maybe I should amend my statement about this providing critical commentary–I don’t necessarily think that Spielberg intended it, but this film says a lot about gender, race, class and the limits of the American (capitalist) dream. He’s doesn’t so much offer up his own critical commentary as he provides, through this story about a man terrorized by a truck who relentlessly and inexplicably chases him on a remote highway in southern California, a space for the viewer to critically reflect. When I was in grad school , I took an awesome film class on Masculinity and Violence in 1970s Westerns, War and Boxing films. Duel would be a great one to watch for the western section. Hmm….now I want to dig up some of my notes from class.
Here’s an extended clip from Duel. I hope to return to this film and write more after the semester is over.
On Friday, I posted on how 70 students protested via walkout against their Introduction to Economics teacher and his dangerous teaching at Harvard University. Shortly after writing that post, another example of student resistance took place; this time, the resistance was at UCDavis and was in a response to the violent pepper-spraying of non-violent student resistors. Here’s what I just posted on my feminist debates course blog about the UCDavis action:
Yesterday I posted a “this is a feminist issue because…” on Police Brutality against UCDavis students. Here’s a follow-up about how the students organized and engaged in a powerful collective act of non-violent resistance to the administration’s (mainly Chancellor Katehi’s) decision to call in the police and use pepper-spray and other violent tactics. Here’s a video of their action:
And here’s a description/discussion of the action from an anonymous letter (posted here):
And something remarkable happened at Davis tonight. I’ve been watching the live streams and following the blogs since late this afternoon. It was a very important moment.
Chancellor Katehi was preparing to give a news conference to take another crack at spinning this story and controlling the growing, viral character it has acquired.
UC Davis students showed up in large numbers to this conference, and were kept out of the small building (Surge 2, for those who know the campus) for lack of press passes (ha ha). They surrounded the building and their numbers grew over several hours to over 1000 student protesters. Reports came that Chancellor Katehi was afraid to leave and go through the student protesters, or even that she was being kept from leaving, as if it were a hostage situation. Cops were *not* summoned, however — or at least they were kept back. UC Davis appears to have learned at least a tactical lesson already.
Through patient OWS style organizing, worked out over dozens of mic checks, they arranged to clear a wide path, determined that they would be silent and respectful when she came out, and sent word that they were not keeping her hostage in the building, just there to call for her resignation. Hours went by as the situation got more and more tense, but the students showed remarkable discipline and organization as their numbers kept growing. Finally, they negotiated with Chancellor Katehi’s people and she left the building to walk to her taxpayer-paid $70,000 Lexus SUV [buick] with one aide. The students maintained *absolute, total order and silence* — really, not a word — and stood aside, except for the couple of journalists asking her questions on the livestream feed. It was eerie and powerful and Chancellor Pepper Spray was clearly feeling the shame of a thousands of eyes on her around the nation (the livestreams were overloaded as they were joined by students across California and then the nation).
What questions does this raise for you about feminist organizing and resistance against/in/with the academy? About the limits and possibilities of feminist education in the University?
My troubled reflections (for nov 21): I’m interested in putting these two actions–the Harvard students walking out and the UCDavis students silently and peacefully protesting–beside each other. Both actions are connected to Occupy Wall Street. In their letter, the Harvard students indicate that their action is in solidarity with OWS. And the UCDavis students adopted practices first used by OWS, including organizing through the human microphone. (Here’s one way that The Nation connects the UCDavis students with OWS: “One of the really good things about the Occupy Wall Street movement is that it is not a campus-based, student movement – it is a movement of “the 99 percent.” But campuses provide a special setting where tactics are tested and strategies are developed, and the students at UC Davis have set an amazing example – when the whole world is watching.”) What different strategies of troublemaking do these two groups of students draw upon? What are the limits and possibilities of these two sets of strategies? Which set of strategies might be ultimately more effective, more transformative, more long-lasting? While I do have my own opinions about which action I think may ultimately work better, I’m not interested in making a judgment here. Instead, I want to leave these 2 actions beside each other and spend a few days being curious about them and thinking through the various questions that they raise for me.
