Rhetorical Rape

[foxgrrl]

So, last night while I was supposed to be finishing my art for Burning Man, I made the mistake of looking at Michigan Womyn's Music Festival Discussion Forums, and I get the impression that the music festival is not a safe place? Hypothetically, if I went there, would I likely be attacked? (I haven't had the time to research any of this yet, it's rather distant from my daily life. (And I seriously don't have the time for drama¹.))

But anyway, the reason why I'm writing this, is because I could not let an oft repeated statement go unchallenged. There is a common accusation that male to female transsexuals [MTFs] are men, who devote many painful years of their lives, to pretend to be women, for the purpose of raping them². And that their demand to be treated simple human respect and decency, the same as any ordinary woman, is male privilege.

As an actual, for-reals, victim of sexual assault, I find these accusations of rape highly offensive. Especially coming from people who have never experienced this. Attending a Womyn's Music Festival, just like any other woman, is not the same as someone [a man] holding you on the ground with a knife at your throat, and sticking their tongue in your mouth³. [And something else I've gotten:] Taking someone's photo, in public, without their permission is not the same as rape. It's not the same as being backed into a corner as a child and having myone's genitals fondled.

As a transsexual, I have been turned down for work; denied housing, twice!; denied medical care; denied government ID; lost friends (but not any more family than what I had already lost before); etc. all explicitly because I'm trans. (I know it's for that reason, because that's what the people doing it are telling me when they do it. It's perfectly legal to do, so why cover it up?)

As a woman, I also get people completely ignoring anything I say, or invalidating it, not believing that I can lift heavy objects, or take care of myself, or actually be skilled at anything technical, and staring at my breasts while they talk to me.

I can't even kiss someone I love, without the animal part of my hindbrain wanting to run away or attack. I have to fight myself to not disassociate when being intimate with someone. And I hate it. [Note that if you're one of the people I'm intimate with, and you didn't know, don't do anything different just because I've said this now.]

The next time I see someone accusing myself or someone else of rape rhetorically, I'm going to call them out on it. I'm not going to passively sit by and take it any more. Put up, or shut up. What the hell was your rape experience like? And how is that the same as whatever petty drama you're upset about? Oh, you never were? Well then kindly shut the fuck up.

Really, all this accusation of rape is, is verbal bludgeon for attacking and gaining power over people, in a sense… a form of rape itself.


P.S. You know, I don't even identify as trans most of the time. I've mostly forgotten about it (except when I use the bathroom), the only time people identify me as trans, is when they're using it as a weapon against me.

P.P.S. This can not seriously be the official MWMF LiveJournal community, right, right? http://community.livejournal.com/michfest/profile

---

¹ What with working twice as hard as a man, for half the credit, because I'm a woman.
² I know this strikes most of you as being absurd, and it certainly strikes me as absurd, but there are people who very seriously believe this, which I still find hard to believe.
³ No, I don't want to talk about it, you may notice however that I'm still alive.

Comments

[alcira.livejournal.com]

I feel angry that the world is not a sensitive place, its not as sensitive as I am and never will be. Someone once told me in college to 'get used' to people being abusive/to myself being abused for whatever stupid reason they would come up with, my family being from another country, my disabilities, hell, even my interests not being good enough for some people. That's bullshit. I'm so shocked and yet not surprised due to my ever-increasing cynicism, that some people would give other people homosexual themed jokes. I mean, I'm a biological woman, I will be my whole life. True be told in our society, men do have it easier. I used to want to be a man for the privilege of being seen as stronger, taken seriously, even have your words respected more. Some people have no idea they are sexist and I come from two very machista cultures that have forgotten what the female aspect of creation is like. I gave up on the idea of being a man though when I think about the body hair, so I realized I have made my peace with myself as a girl.

I don't think people should demand women-only environments. I have this thing against being around only-women. Women can become catty, backstabbing little cruelty-mongerers anyway. We are the worst enemies of ourselves, those of us who allow men to dominate anyway are pretty bad at that. I'm afraid of women actually, which is why I'm open to transgenders because I know you have the best of both worlds. I like gender-mixed environments though, because the idea of all-women groups annoy me.

I wound up not going to the high school of my choice though because I actually wanted to go to an all-girls school knowing the boys would give me a really hard time. They did. The decision of what school I was supposed to go to was made for me. Transgenders in tech actually make women look really good if you're in tech since too many men are in that field anyway, its very male dominated as is business, and other fields in general. We had that Harvard president way back when say that women weren't wired to study mathematics. I grew up often hearing from my parents that I wasn't supposed to be interested in engineering because I wasn't good at math anyway. They really pressured me actually. I had to give up on that too. I stuck with liberal arts to get the- you can work for any company BA, and now the economy is going up in flames as I write this. I'm scared for the future.

[anaisdjuna.livejournal.com]

"Women can become catty, backstabbing little cruelty-mongerers anyway."

Totally sexist statement. Men can absolutely be this way too.

"I don't think people should demand women-only environments. I have this thing against being around only-women......because the idea of all-women groups annoy me"

So they shouldn't have their space because all women environments are bad in your opinion? So what if you were annoyed by gay people? What if you were even taught from childhood that gay sex is the devil's work? Should gay people not be allowed to have sex? Or hang out in gay people space?

Sounds like you've internalized some woman-hatred yourself. The very same woman-hatred that was wrongly inflicted upon your desires to go into the field of your first choosing. Sounds like you're acting out in the same way that the WMF women are and some of the trans-women are....

[alcira.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I know that. I mean, I should have been able to do whatever I wanted. But what I wanted was too outlandish and sci-fied out to write about here. It was downright manic, almost crazy in fact. But I gave up on that, even if I'll pick it up again when I'm 40 or older than that. Yeah, I know men can be just as political as woman-kind can be. I'm not too thrilled with some bio-women sometimes. I hang out with the smart ones though. The ones who aren't the jealous types, the ones who aren't mean. You've got to know that I'm not anti-gay, since I have lots of gay friends anyway or at least sexually ambiguous friends. I find them more open-minded than many straight people. In fact, they are much easier to deal with in many ways. Then again I've had the writing teacher from hell who was gay up at State. That wasn't a fun time in my life, being in his class. He was tough, but he always told us about how much he had succeeded despite being a high school drop-out just to rub it in. I couldn't care less about someone's sexuality, what I care about is their character. If I could be in a group of women who are not the catty type, I think I'd be happy there. You only have to watch really lame TV like Sunset Tan to be reminded of how stupid women can get with each other.

[anaisdjuna.livejournal.com]

I think that society has set up some weird gender based scripts for us to relate to one another. I think there are lot of good intentions and feelings that get waylaid by these scripts. Both between men and women and among men and women. Like your example of the Sunset Tan mindset for women. It reminded me of the World Wrestling Federation set of scripts for men. I think they're divisive. I think both genders have lost a lot for and of themselves in sexism and we've all lost a lot of potential connectivity.

I think some of it my occur in gendered groups, but may be about other stuff..... Like jealousy and ego. Needing to feel better than someone else to feel good about one's self. Never understood that really. How beautiful is it to love someone? How neat it is to see one's beloved happy!

Interesting hearing more of your ideas & experience :-)

[alcira.livejournal.com]

Yeah! Exactly, I'd rather love others, see them happy, and not be jealous because I got the bronze and the Chinese gymnast got the gold. Or that I got fourth in the relays while the US team won. I make it a point not to watch wrestling unless I'm ill and bored. In the space of five minutes watching Sunset Tan, I learn that Holly and Molly or the Olly girls, are incredibly rude, angry, and got fired for a good reason. They somehow manage to get their jobs back, but go through a tanning conference embarrassing the entire company being immature, while getting drunk so they can laugh. They make millenials look terrible. I've spent my life trying to get rid of the script set for me. Sometimes in my family, I'm told not surprisingly, by men, to stop speaking when I'm speaking or making a point. Anytime I talk its seen as interrupting, it doesn't matter if I'm really not interrupting, since normally I'm not. I think foxgrrl can actually say that I don't often interrupt although it is something I sometimes do. Men silence me in a very verbal and physical way when they move their hands a certain way to shut me up even if I'm making what I think is a good point. If I don't talk more than twenty percent of the time, if there's another man there, I get into trouble. Is that not sexist behavior? Yes. In high school, my parents made me take back to the library books on feminism I had taken out, claiming that it would interfere with my school reading. This was junior year. I was passing every class that semester, no Ds.

I have had to deal with sexism on and off from various people. I'd say feminism in my generation is a non-issue. They have no idea how much sexism is still a problem.

[rhiannasilel.livejournal.com]

I think there is a time and a place for woman only events, but they should be healthy and constructive and the celebration of being a woman rather than the degradation of men or perceived men. By the same token, I don't think that a men's only event is such a bad thing either provided the same rules apply. Years ago I used to go to this Native American farm where they would have a woman's circle and a men's circle and one of the really fascinating things that all of us got out of it were the energetic differences between those circles and the circles where we were all together. I think it was a great experience, but again, we weren't doing it in a negative way of "us vs. them" but just finding out what it means to be us.

One thing that I find very interesting about the technology field is that while it is still very much dominated by men women seem to be closing the gap in countries like India, but here in the US women are opting out of technical professions. This is very strange to me, especially since historically women had a lower position in society. I haven't really figured that one out yet.

[alcira.livejournal.com]

Women opting out of technical fields happens may because they aren't good at math or have familial pressure to drop out for that reason. Women are not encouraged to be technical though. I admire Danica McKeller so much for writing about math while she encourages girls to be good at math and science. I wish I had studied both. I wanted to become an engineer, and get some kind of civilian job with NASA or something. That wasn't meant to be yet, since my life was to take an entirely different...trajectory shall we say. I now want to go to law school and become a civil rights lawyer.

We have to make this planet a place where people would rather stay on than a place people are desperate to leave in various ways. We have so many problems here in the US, on earth in general, why should I bother when there is a secret space program anyway! You guys have helped me remember all of this stuff I really hadn't thought of in years. I guess I'm a sci-fi junkie gone mad but I hear I can't get a security clearance because of dual citizenship. That's right-wing or independent or centrist bullshit, and I'm going to call it. I'll be in a women's circle full of cool women in perfect love and perfect trust, any day because I know women who are into this sort of spirituality are not people who use other people. That's just not our way. Sigh, I mean, I just wanted to become a scientist, that's it, some kind of aerospace engineer. This is when you say I've watched a tad too much Stargate and back then it was a huge influence.

[rhiannasilel.livejournal.com]

Women opting out of technical fields happens may because they aren't good at math or have familial pressure to drop out for that reason. Women are not encouraged to be technical though. I admire Danica McKeller so much for writing about math while she encourages girls to be good at math and science. I wish I had studied both. I wanted to become an engineer, and get some kind of civilian job with NASA or something. That wasn't meant to be yet, since my life was to take an entirely different...trajectory shall we say. I now want to go to law school and become a civil rights lawyer.

This may sound strange, but I was always encouraged to study math and be technical. In fact, the summer of my 8th grade year I won an essay contest and did a 2 week "Women in Engineering" camp at Goddard. I never really felt that kind of pressure either at school or at home. My parents didn't really know how to help me with my math homework (my mom wasn't brilliant at math and my dad had to drop out of school at the age of 14 to help support the family, but he actually is very technical in a real hands on kind of way), but to their credit they called the math teachers next door and asked if they could help and they did. I guess that in many ways I was really lucky to have that kind of help in my life.

My question to you is why don't you follow your dream and go into one of the sciences? It still seems to very much be in your heart.

[alcira.livejournal.com]

Oh its very much in my heart to follow the sciences, I'm just so poor right now I can't even go to an accredited junior college to get an online paralegal certificate at a hybrid program which is in Southern California. I simply feel not encouraged to get into math and science, which is my first love. I mean, I've picked up Spanish along the way so I know I've got something of an advantage being bilingual. I wonder at all the sexist prejudices in this world, assumptions, even the way people like to put people in stupid little boxes over equally stupid reasons. I made a bit of a typo above though because my computer has this weird thing about skipping around. Yeah, I think if I had my way, I'd learn a skilled trade to make money, such as computer tech repair. I already have the name of an organization close to me that may help me get training but I don't know if they provide free services, so I may just crash it next week, regardless of whether I get the interview with that law firm. Without school, I feel so directionless, it drives me crazy. I feel like my life is not progressing. I'm not going to be some kid bumming around in a park anymore with my friends. I'm looking for better people to hang out with, people with careers, who are stable financially, and mentally too. Sigh. Its going to happen eventually.

[rhiannasilel.livejournal.com]

If you want to get into IT, my recommendation is to sell your self to a start up company. I was working at the lower end of it, but managed to get my shot by going to a start up. I knew it was risky and it did end up finally going under, but it got me where I am today without a degree. I want to go back and finish the degree, but I have so many other things going on right now that it's a little hard. I might try looking into part time online or something. Unfortunately, it's going to be like starting from scratch because most of my credits are in philosophy and anthropology.

I still wish I could be a philosopher or an archaeologist but neither one puts food on the table and I figure that I can pursue philosophy full time when I retire. For now, IT works for me. It does seem to be the one place that those of us that don't fit in manage to find a home.

[alcira.livejournal.com]

Hell, if you think about rhianna, many of us fit in with those who do not fit in. Yeah, I thought about both philosophy and archaeology. I love archaeology. I think Geek Squad might have a hand in hiring me. There is one close to me in fact and I know they're mostly at Best Buy too. I think if I can project myself as useful, chances are people will not disrespect me as much. Its when I'm not useful that they choose to disrespect me.

[rhiannasilel.livejournal.com]

I'm sure you'll do great.:)

[alcira.livejournal.com]

I sure hope so. I found an organization called Job train which offers training. Good news is it will work out as a job training option, seeing as I have an offer of funding, since classes run 4-7 weeks in the technical fields I want to study. No, I don't have the strength to haul tons of equipment around. But then again, I also have an option to go to Florida as a consolation prize, should my job interview at the law firm not work out. Then again they may not hire me until October, which is what my subconscious secretly wants even if I know I may have to get hired in September right away...although I have this weird FEELING if you will, that the whole thing will work out. We'll see. I will eagerly await phone calls, emails, and summons. Its why I'm looking for friends who are working, and not coffee shop transients or practicing park bums.

[oygevalte.livejournal.com]

Uh, women ARE equal in math skills to men, at least according to current test scores.

Sounds like you dig your own hole, and what you need to learn to do is dig YOURSELF out. Society ain't gonna do it for you, nor are partners or stereotype-based groups of people.

I learned that one the hard way.

[alcira.livejournal.com]

I'm glad that's true - that women and men are equal to each other in test scores.

I think if I have to resort to my second plan, I'm going to be able to get tech training, hopefully the half-way there I want to be to get into the tech field in general as some kind of system's analyst.

[oygevalte.livejournal.com]

Yeah, a new study came out just the other day that found that girls score just as high as guys on science testing, and I think that's about right, from my own assessment of tech fields in the SF Bay area. There are probably more men in IT, but there appear to be more women in biotech there, and I think it balances out on the whole.

There are a lot of folks who read this blog who are in the IT field in the Bay area, and you can take their advice to heart -- if anyone knows how to break into tech without having a degree in a computer-related field it'll be them. :D You may find that to get your foot in the door, you have to be somewhere where there is a lot of IT hiring going on, where warm bodies who are reliable and enthusiastic are desirable even without a lot of training, because smart people are easy to train and often figure things out on their own -- and a startup cannot always pick and choose to very top people across the board (plus there are some very smart and well-trained people in IT who are also more than a touch flaky, so they are not always the best bet for a startup! ;)

The Bay area's IT market seems to be one of the few really good places remaining in America where you can get a decent job if you are smart but don't have a degree and/or a whole lot of experience and training in the computer field.

[alcira.livejournal.com]

I suppose I want to be in hard core tech. My preferred title is computer systems' analyst or analyst of some kind. I want to be half-way to a BS in computer science someday. I will be an extremely educated writer who won't just have a BA in creative writing. English majors are having a hard time as it is out here, in the Bay Area, finding a job. We're screwed if we don't know tech.


One thing I am is born in American- I'm a US Citizen.. but one thing I'm not is flaky like many tech people. If I have been flaky, I pretty much email or try my darndest to call somebody before it becomes massive flakiness. I mean, I'm wondering where I'm going to have to move to get a decent job in the lower 48 states. I don't know if I can get an actual job in the Bay Area. I feel so ignored even after applying at places like tutoring outfits where they teach people a variety of subjects.

[oygevalte.livejournal.com]

Sounds like you have some desirable qualities, and are interested and motivated. I'd take advantage of the fact that there are a lot of people out there who know Julia dn read this blog who are deeply tied into the Bay area IT scene, and see if you can't demo yourself for some of them so they can decide how they feel about recommending you for a spot at a current or former employer of theirs. To my mind, that might well be the best fast track you could attain. Worth looking into!

And I hope you find somethign wonderful for yourself, no matter how you get there. :D

[alcira.livejournal.com]

That would be cool. I have backup plans in case my job interview next week doesn't work out but I have this weird weird feeling that it will? My intuition sometimes scares me when it turns out to be right. So my plan B, to use a job training organization that trains people for free, may not happen yet. We'll see what happens.

[elf]

Women can become catty, backstabbing little cruelty-mongerers anyway. We are the worst enemies of ourselves

It's well-documented, in abused children, that the child will often be clingy and supportive of the abusive parent, and "hate" the other one--because that's safer.

Being catty and vicious to other women is many women's safety valve. It's the only way they can express personal strength; they can't stand as equals with men, so they wind up trying to be top-of-the-heap around other women. They can't compete for the best jobs or public respect--at least, not on an equal basis--so they settle for competing for the attention of those who can. And this is often all done well below any conscious decision-making level, because consciously acknowledging it slams home, again and again, how much the situation we have doesn't match what we're told it should be, and we wind up numb with rage and grief.

"Women" are not prone to being vicious to "other women;" rather, people in an oppressive and unfair hierarchy are prone to inflicting their anger and distress on those they can reach--which are peers and subordinates.

[alcira.livejournal.com]

Oh my god I never thought of it that way before. Yeah, we are still victims of oppression. That is something many people still don't understand because kids my age, millenials, don't know about feminism much less see themselves as repressed. Too many men still have really sexist attitudes. You are telling me that women still are not equals to men despite our advances into the working world. Can you tell me how old you are? I think you may be older than many of us but that has something to do with your ability to understand this concept. If Hillary Clinton had succeeded in the election, at least she could have changed that but people are content to have another man as president because in America we are still sexist, as well as racist, segregation having been eliminated only 50 years ago, think about it people. Think about it. That's scary. Now, with what transgenders still have to go through, I mean, who REALLY looks at you in the bathroom stall. Seriously, that's not something anybody walks around doing. So who freakin cares? I mean, people have a stick up their ass and make a big deal about what makes us different. That's pretty fucked up don't you think? I think America is going to change soon, and change in a GOOD way. I went through some levels of hell growing up. I feel for people who are different because I can bond with them, we somehow understand each other.

[elf]

I'll be 39 in a few weeks.

Women have technical legal equality (which is not always enforced), and definitely do not have social equality.

Even the legal equality is iffy. Women are often required to conform to dress codes that demand they look like sex objects; they're often required to wear makeup when men aren't, or skirts--even for phone-based jobs where it can't be claimed that appearance might affect the customers' opinions.

segregation having been eliminated only 50 years ago

Less than that. The Supreme Court ruling on Virginia vs Loving, establishing the right to marry regardless of race, was in 1967.

The struggle for tolerance and inclusive policies, in all areas of life, is certainly not over. We've made great progress--however, it's odd to think of "progress" like "black people are no longer forced to eat at different restaurants from white people" and "women are no longer expected to marry their rapists." Those are indeed Good Things, but having achieved them doesn't mean we've reached "equality."

Our society has some massive, weird, unhealthy hang-ups about sex. Segregated bathrooms is a ridiculous concept to start with, only necessary because there was a time that, without it, women would be raped *more* often. Our concept that physical traits (race, sex, ability, weight, whatever) are the most important part of a person's identity is also ridiculous. But it's hard to challenge, because when you meet someone, you must react based on appearances; you don't get two hours of conversation to decide "is this a nice person, or a sleazy creep who wants to stick his hands down my pants, or a lying thief who wants to grab my wallet?" You have to decide which of those you think is likely, and quickly, and you don't have a lot of info to work with.

The key is not to be attached to your initial reaction. To be willing to change it, after you do have more info. And for a lot of people, that's too much effort. (It is real effort, which needs to be acknowledged. It takes practice. We need to teach people how to do it from childhood.)

Gah. This is getting all long & complex, and I need to get to sleep. :)

[alcira.livejournal.com]

Hi Elfwreck. Its now Monday morning, I dread looking at my other email account to see if I have any business like mail there requesting I get an interview with the company. How will I react? I think after feeling like a gold medalist, I'll calm down long enough to call or reply. Anyway, yeah, our human nature issue means that we're definitely people who judge other people based on appearance as sad as that is to mention. I'm mad at people who run festivals that leave certain people like trans people out. I thought Burning Man was supposed to be about acceptance, even if it was full of yuppies.

I hear I'm going to have to put aside sensitive electronics of all kinds if I go. But anyway, about the judgmental aspects of being human - if you're intuitive, you grasp a lot more about someone than just their appearance. What's scary is that you see colors around them that can tell you about their mood, you can also pick up on a gazillion different things in ways I hesitate to tell you about in concrete detail but let me put it this way, your brain is a computer until it shuts off in death although even after death its still in existence.

Race is almost not important to me at all but then again you can tell so much about someone nut just by their color but by what they are wearing! I tend to follow that line about judging people by their character. Yet the way they appear to others often tells other people about their character, more than they'd like. Yeah, our society has hang ups about sex, so much so that people thrive on their shame-bullshit complexes all too much. You can blame guilt on that one in any religion. You can then continue to blame mothers for that one too. They are the perpetrators of guilt. But if you say no to their infliction of guilt on you, chances are you will choose not to feel it after that. Then they get antsy.

[oygevalte.livejournal.com]

Often, I've found such women to be abusive toward men who are weak for whatever reason. I even have an ex-wife who, unable to accept her anger at her father, fabricated a whole storyline in her head where I supposedly perpetrated all the same things on her and our daughters that her father actually did to her, when none of that was anything CLOSE to the case between me and her. I guess if it helps her sleep better at night, more power to her (yes, that was meant to be totally sarcastic).

[oygevalte.livejournal.com]

...men do have it easier.

Sorry, I'm gonna call bullshit on that one.

Tell me that there's more support for a male survivor of childhood rape than a female. Tell me to my face and believe it, because I happen to know it's utter bullshit. I grew up wishing I was a woman because at least then my life would make sense, I'd have a context, there would be the sort of support and sisterhood I saw almost daily for female incest and rape survivors. That not only doesn't exist for men, men get abused further for being victims of rape, and often by WOMEN as well as other men.

I was no less attacked and abused than any woman I've ever known, and I've known quite a few, almost all of them having suffered significant abuse at the hands of parents and peers. And sister, you just barked WAY up the wrong tree trying to claim that any stereotyping group has any particular benefit -- that's just as wrong and abusive a stereotype as keeping the transgendered out of a "women's" festival.