Essence and expectation
If you checked News today you may have noticed that I did a Q&A at Science and Religion. This is faintly interesting or amusing or both because back at the beginning of the month, a mere couple of weeks ago, I was pointing out the different language used there for three men on the one hand and one woman on the other hand. Well they’re good sports at Science and Religion; Heather Wax thanked me for my comments and invited me to do this Q and A. So I did.
I enjoyed doing it, because this question interests me. I’m interested in social pressure and expectations and how they can become internalized and taken for granted so that we don’t know they’re operating and we think we’re making up our own minds when in fact we’re influenced by what other people think we should be doing and saying and wearing, along with a thousand other things. Don’t go thinking I think I’m immune to that kind of thing, because I don’t at all. I know very well I’m not.
I also don’t object to that, given that the alternative is just to be completely random, and what good would that be? We’re all influenced by a million things, and most of that we wouldn’t be without – that’s why we read books and talk to each other, after all. We operate in a context and at a particular time, we admire some things and despise others, we do things and say things for reasons. It all has to come from somewhere. But – it’s as well to be aware that influence is influence, as opposed to thinking it’s just How Things Are and How They Have to Be.
The thing about women and aggression is that it may or may not be the case that women as such are averse to aggression, but it’s pretty obvious that a lot of people want women to be averse to aggression, in the sense of compliant, complaisant, not argumentative. That level of aversion to perceived aggression would be a huge handicap for women, so if we are in fact by nature that turned off by argument and disagreement, we should train ourselves to get over it. We shouldn’t embrace claims that we are so ‘nice’ and conflict-averse that we react to a few brisk words from Dawkins or Hitchens with squeals of horror. We should be tougher than that. That doesn’t mean we should be brutal or sadistic, it just means we should be able to play with the big kids without bursting into tears all the time. It means we should be grown ups.
I liked the piece, nice and short. I suppose you might have added how women who speak up tend to get much more flak for it than men, even if they’re much more modest about it. That probably quickly teaches women to stay quiet. But you got the point across.
Yes – I’m certainly well aware of that phenomenon, but it was just a short piece, so I had to be succinct.
What a good piece you wrote. I was amused or something by the use of “turnoff.” Was that S & R’s word or did you toss it in there? What decade is it? Naturally it made me immediately think of my turn-ons – baby kitties, aggressive and clear argumentation, big white puffy clouds, clear thinking, pastel mini-marshmallows, powers of reason. . .
When I am teaching my baby students about fieldwork I always tell them to tune in when someone says “that’s how things are” or “well that’s just normal.” Usually it’s a clear indicator that their next move should be to continue the conversation and cleverly probe for things that count as an exception or for real examples of that “normal” thing. That shit is an ethnographic goldmine!
Learning what to do about flak is part of growing up.
It was their word. The question was theirs – so of course I had to start by saying (as politely as I could) that I don’t think ‘aggressive’ atheism is actually aggressive.
Ah-ha! An ethnographic goldmine! There was me just thinking it was an annoying and ubiquitous way people have of saying ‘be quiet you tiresome troublemaker you.’
Great post. I will try to be like that myself.
No no, you’re a boy! Boys should be all timid and polite and deferential, while women snarl and crack whips and shout great oaths.
:- )
See? See!? She wants to institute a Gynecocracy. I knew it all along.
Well, it would be a relief. I don’t know about you, Josh, but I’m really tired of being in charge of everything, and I could use a break. Besides, I can’t avoid the nagging suspicion that I’m f***ing things up really badly. And there aren’t enough scatter-cushions.
Oh I don’t want to be in charge, I just want to snarl and crack whips and shout great oaths. While lounging on scatter cushions.
Yeah right! We’re onto your Vaginacrat agenda! Penises unite! …Oh, wait, that sounds kinda gay, and impinges on my fragile stereotypical image of manhood.
Damn you, Ophelia, for existing in a way that doesn’t fit comfortably into my preconceptions of femininity!
LOL @ Wes. Ophelia, snarling while lounging on scatter cushions is an image that suits you well!
Quite right, Josh – I’m a piquant combination of surly and lazy. Is that charming or what?
C’est magnifique!
Tru dat.
Patronising behaviour freaks me out, regardless of who it’s directed at. I can never work out why people think they are going to get away with implying that groups of people have some kind of deficit, especially when it’s a deficit they themselves have simply made up or deliberately repeated. For example, sin.
We’re kind of used to it, though, and the ease with which people can use and manipulate others by patronising them is often breathtaking. It’s the *ease* of this casual cruelty that strikes me.