Sexism Teach-In an invaluable experience

To readers of Josh Solomon's op-ed, ‘Microaggression' quells discourse published in the 11.24.11 issue of The Miscellany News, who did not attend the sexism teach-in, it might seem as though students' use of sexist language was the only topic under discussion at the event. Actually, a variety of issues were raised. Both teachers and students voiced concerns about male students being over-represented in class discussions. One student reported that a male professor had used hate speech in class. The issue of an empowered female space was discussed, with attitudes toward Strong being a particular concern. One professor pointed out that real change requires real resistance, like expressing disapproval of sexist humor at a comedy show instead of sitting quietly.

But woven through this variety, there was a central thesis: Offensive comments perpetuate sexism and should be omitted from life. Beyond this, individuals' arguments differed in important ways. But any indication of an intention to fundamentally challenge this central thesis was met with an abrupt collective response. As soon as dissent was detected, muscles tensed, heads turned and the outlier was inspected, interrogated and spoken to by many people for a good portion of the event. Solomon was one "dissenter" who underwent this treatment.

In any group, deviant individuals are silenced, disapproved of and designated as needing improvement. They are scrutinized at length but not in depth; at the teach-in, dissenters had trouble fully articulating their thoughts before being interrupted. Since Solomon is a white male, it should come as no surprise that he reported this experience as "extremely strange." To the extent that this collective response to deviance resembles "microaggression," the sexism teach-in took a "taste-of-your-own-medicine" approach to persuasion.

This approach will fail. Replicating the experience of microaggression is only possible at events like the sexism teach-in, where the prevailing dominance hierarchy can be momentarily inverted. Even if feminists at Vassar ran hundreds of teach-ins to try and "enlighten" the population of non-feminists in small increments, persuasion would fail because it comes across as antagonistic.

Another problem with this approach is that we get caught up on offensive language. When taken out of context, the problem of sexist language fails to energize progress, and feminists argue amongst themselves about issues that seem trivial to non-feminists. They displace their legitimate frustration onto inappropriate targets, including other feminists and well-intentioned dissenters like Solomon.

A different approach is to take a step back and consider the broader array of issues that are at stake. Critics such as Solomon conceptually dissociate the "slight, unintended diversions from political correctness" from the more overt offenses, like rape jokes and graffiti. At the teach-in, and in comments posted in response to Solomon's op-ed, respondents have consistently failed to point out the way in which all of this "stuff" is interconnected.

Consider the following: We live in a world where the default singular pronoun is "he," where men rate women on scales of one to "the dime," where the most offensive insults for males are words denoting vagina, where the word "sexual assault" has an unusually strong tendency to be prefaced by the word "alleged," where verifying consent while initiating a sexual encounter is counternormative, where women derive satisfaction from being servile, and where men can rape women and only women feel ashamed about it. Non-feminists look at this and see a set of coinciding facts, whereas feminists look at this and see a system of interlocking mechanisms.

To take a specific example, consider how rape jokes function in concert with rape itself. Far from simply making light of a serious topic, as Solomon suggests, rape jokes frame rape as a crime so heinous and infrequent that nobody present could possibly have been affected by it. Just as white people only tell black jokes when black people are absent, non-raped people tell rape jokes only when it is assumed that rape victims are absent. Rape jokes thus dictate that rape is fictional, so verbally saying "no" out loud at the onset of sex is unnecessary, and an allegation of rape is probably false. These components—rape jokes and rape itself—thus work together to regulate behavior and consciousness.

In step with this concern about regulation, I want to suggest that "microaggression" is a misnomer. Many of the most pervasive enactments of male dominance are carried out with the best of intentions, and are often interpreted as sweet. These include "ladies first," buying flowers, buying drinks and paying for dinner. These courtesies, when enacted with rigid frequency and ubiquity, instill a deep-seated assumption that females owe something in return. They thus constitute "microaggressions," as defined at the sexism teach-in. Clearly, this is about enforcement, not aggression.

Because the enforcement of male dominance is effortless, its resistance requires tremendous effort. Indeed, it may require what Solomon refers to as "excessive self-regulation." Of course, nobody wants to do this, so we need to be reminded what is at stake. We need to move beyond microaggression and discuss harassment, bias incidents, sexual assault and all the other injustices that give feminism its reason to exist. This is not to downplay the seriousness of offensive language and other "minor" forms of sexism, but to consider the broader system of oppression in which they operate.

I will end by saying that the teach-in was an amazing experience. Feminism was handed down to us, but in events like the teach-in, we can achieve a sense that we are creating feminism ourselves. And since feminism emerged as a response to overt iniquity, I think that Break the Silence Week is a perfect point of instigation.

—Carson Robinson '12 is a psychology major.