Don't pass us the mic until you're ready to listen to what we're saying. ---- If
you're a gender oppressed person who hangs out in left-wing circles, it's notuncommon that you'll find yourself drastically outnumbered by cis men. There's astrong precident for this; historically and even in the present-day, theimbalance of housework would mean that we would have proportionally less time toget involved in activism. Because the majority of jobs across the board used tobe held by men, so too were membership of and involvement in trade unions. Theiroccupation of this space means that of the larger trade unions are still made upof people from traditionally male-dominated industries, and some of them bringbanter from the shop floor right into trade union meetings. Younger men, juststarting out in left-wing circles, will sometimes take their cue from those inestablished positions of power within the organisation and who themselves areoverwhelmingly male, and the effect this can have includes widespread acceptanceof casually sexist jokes and comments. Whatever the cause of this imbalance,however, it is not the result of gender oppressed people being somehow inherentlyless radical.Often, the route for gender oppressed people towards getting involved with theleft is specifically because they've directly experienced discrimination, meaningthey logically see the left as being a good way of fighting against thatdiscrimination. This can result in an imbalance from the outset; gender oppressedpeople can and do have a strong interest in theory in precisely the same way ascis men do, but there's a sense of added urgency for us when the oppression ishappening all the time and to us in particular. In my own experience, theory wasalways secondary to the oppression I experienced, and it was this oppressionrather than an interest in theory that led me to the left. The expectation I hadwas that the leftist scene would be safer for me than the outside world. Afterall, we're all lefties here, and we believe in equality and solidarity. When youencounter sexism in left-wing circles, it comes as a nasty surprise becausethere's the side helping of betrayal. We should be better than that.On the face of it, it's easy enough to dismiss few outdated jokes about womendrivers, but there is a wider danger here that comes from gender oppressed peopleeither not being believed, or having their concerns dismissed. It's the thin endof the wedge, and often, it acts as our early warning sign; one of many. It alsocomes in the form of the exceptation that gender-oppressed people will be theones to take the minutes at each meeting, that we'll be the ones to do thewashing up afterwards, and that if we need childcare, that's our issue and ourissue alone to sort out. Or it's the lack of recognition that if the vastmajority of those active in your group are cis men, the likelihood is that youare doing something wrong, and the failure to proactively consider what that isand how to fix it. Certain voices get heard over others, and for those of ussocialised as women, we are trained from an early age to not interrupt, to shutup and to put up. Accordingly, this can make it hard to provide your input andideas in meetings, and yet there's often limited attention being paid to howmeetings could be run differently to make them more inclusive. And all the while,it's often disproportionately cis men who get the glory after an action - the tipof the iceberg - while that action happened and their entire groups are keptrunning all thanks to the unacknowledged labour of people who are overwhelminglygender oppressed.The painstaking and draining labour that goes into accountability processes, too,is disproportionately performed by gender oppressed people. Abuse is all toocommon among left-wing organisations, and it's the ultimate result of casualmisogyny. It's so easy to fail to act, or to laugh along with sexist jokes, forfear of being thought of as too angry or overly serious, but when placed in thiscontext, failing to call out casual sexism where you encounter it can help tocreate a progressively more dangerous climate of bullying and abuse. And forthose of us on the receiving end of misogyny in that climate, it's very like thefrog in the boiling water analogy. It might not be obvious from the start, butultimately we'll get badly hurt.Of course, this is exhausting on many levels. It is tiring to have to justifyyour presence at meetings when the underlying assumption is that you're therebecause of a man; that you've been roped into something when you'd rather beshopping, that you couldn't possibly have a political opinion or even an interestof your own. That you wouldn't even have heard of Marx or Kropotkin, so the menin the meetings are doing you a favour by teaching you. The suspicion that youare only welcome in a group specifically and exclusively because you are a woman,because as long as the group has a quota of gender-oppressed people, the groupappears diverse enough. The idea that rebellious women are welcome, right upuntil the point where they rebel against the men in the group. It is tiring evento have to complain about sexism when you'd rather be talking about somethingconstructive and positive, while your male counterparts are able to write aboutwhatever they want, independently of any quality innate to their identity.On a practical level, it might be difficult for cis men to know what to do interms of supporting gender oppressed people on the left beyond ‘passing the mic'.But being proactive and speaking up when misogyny happens, or actively steppingup to part in facilitating meetings and accountability processes, while all thebare minimum, is often the crucial first step, and it makes more of a differenceand gives us far more power than many men truly understand.Margaret Atwood wrote "Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women areafraid that men will kill them", and in my experience there is still a lack ofunderstanding, even among men who identify as feminists. There's an underlyingassumption among some cis men that we're all basically starting out on an equalfooting and that the problem of patriarchy is not one of oppression but simply ofmiscommunication and misunderstanding, and meanwhile, it's not uncommon forgender oppressed people to be raised to see men first as a threat. This then putsmore of a burden of trust on the woman when establishing any kind of relationshipwith a man; your first priority, before everything else, is to ensure that he'snot a threat to you, and this is added to the burdens you already carry due tothe expectation that you'll take on a disproportionate amount of the legwork inyour organisation. And just as challenging sexism can have you painted as anangry, bitter woman, taking justified precautions for your safety can have youpainted as boring, prudish or shy.The left has no shortage of well-meaning men who will discuss feminist theorywith you, recommend book after book to you and attend workshops with you. But alltoo often, they have their noses stuck in a book while their mate's beating hisgirlfriend. The majority are not the perpetrators of violent sexist behaviour,but many are knowingly letting it happen because of their failure to act, and forus, as gender oppressed people, the results are exactly the same. We get hurt,time after time. It is killing us.Challenging casual sexism on the left isn't easy, nor does it provide a fast,neat solution to the problem of patriarchy, but making lasting changes to yourgroup's structures and your own learned behaviour is worth doing in the spirit oftrying to replicate in these groups the future we want to build for the world.Left unity isn't left unity until it includes everyone involved, regardless ofgender or gender identity. There is no point in passing us the mic unless you'relistening to what we have to say.https://organisemagazine.org.uk/2023/03/08/casual-sexism-opinion/_________________________________________A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C EBy, For, and About AnarchistsSend news reports to A-infos-en mailing listA-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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