Comments on: Devaluing women’s words

By: 18th Down Under Feminists’ Carnival! « Wallaby

18th Down Under Feminists’ Carnival! « Wallaby — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 04:30:36 +0000

[...] On a lighter note: since [stereotype alert!] women love to talk, conversation skills are a must for the modern feminist. Chally leads the way with some inspiring answers to common questions. Elsewhere, K8y explains to Crikey precisely where all the women might be. And I assume from the title that this will fit here: Chally submitted this post – I didn’t get to see it before Feministe went down, and I ca… [...]

By: Felicity

Felicity — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 20:35:39 +0000

An old but gold book on this topic is Joanna Russ's How to Suppress Women's Writing. It's a quick read. It's slanted toward white English-speaking authors as examples, but the author is aware of that and talks about how the suppression methods affect others, too. Joanna Russ is a speculative fiction author, so she has a lot of interesting quotes from spec fic insiders. I haven't read Tillie Olsen's Silences yet, but that's another standard on the topic, focusing on female and working class authors (I'm guessing mostly white from the blurb.)

By: newswithnipples

newswithnipples — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 06:51:39 +0000

I find it more disturbing when women attack each other. If you make a comment about sexism, they roll their eyes and mutter something about you being a hairy-legged feminist living in the past. Maybe it’s just that – in my experience – the men who will put you down (I think some bloggers call them Dude Nation, to distinguish them from the good guys) are more subtle about it. Which, of course, doesn’t make it right.

By: Asenath Waite

Asenath Waite — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 23:58:19 +0000

I remember reading an interview with J.K. Rowling around when the 3rd or 4th Potter book came out, and she mentioned that her publisher insisted on using her initials because he didn’t think little boys would want to read a book written by a woman.

By: FW

FW — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 22:15:35 +0000

1790 – Mary Wollstonecraft first published “A Vindication of the Rights of Men” unsigned, and the first edition was considered to have sold successfully and it’s points were studiously debated as with other pamphlets of the time. For the second edition Wollstonecraft published under her name and it was not received nearly as well.
“hyena in petticoats”,
“illogical and ungrammatical” – said by her future husband
“… if she assumes the disguise of a man, she must not be surprised that she is not treated with the civility and respect that she would have received in her own person. ” (read: we’d a been nicer if we knew you were a girl)
“the rights of men asserted by a fair lady! The age of chivalry cannot be over, or the sexes have changed their ground.”

It’s believed that the reception of Rights of Men lit a fire under Mary’s ass, and 2 years later she wrote Rights of Woman.

and check out the discussion page of the wiki article on Rights on Men to see the battle still being waged – concerned readers want to make sure that Burke (whom she was responding to) is given proper consideration: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:A_Vindication_of_the_Rights_of_Men/Archive_3#POV_description_of_.5Bi.5DReflections.5B.2Fi.5D

By: INTPagan

INTPagan — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 15:16:06 +0000

Thank you. I wrote about this a while back, too.

By: Any.moose

Any.moose — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 14:29:31 +0000

The same rings true in the art world. As an appraiser and consultant I am constantly confronted with the “oh, its by a woman” clause. Whether its reflected in the monograph or sales records, or not, the first thing I hear from most men is the rationalizing of the gender.

I’ve actually conducted tests on unknowing participants in my field to see if I was imagining this behaviour or not.

Two paintings were presented with anon. signatures, ie. “M. Miles,” one clearly better painted than the other; a self identified Man will be asked to evaluate them. The first thing that happens is the usage of “He” when describing the artist, the better done painting will be reasoned to be better based on its masculine merits, confidence in brush stroke, unity of vision etc…

When the same two paintings are presented with identified attributions, one being Mildred Miles (F) and the other Mark Miles (M) something strange starts happening – the male subject starts to rationalize around the merits. Statements are presented differently, instead of “confidence” “copying the style of XX (xx being a male artist)” is used or “imaginary not reality based vision”. Consistently everything that was given as a merit is turned into a devaluation.

When during the first trial the person is given the gender of the artist, after making the evaluation of the female artist having merit, they become confused and immediately say (literally) “that’s too bad” (I’ve actually heard that one, numerous times). The reason “nobody cares about women artists,” “the market is more favourable to male artist”. A valuation of $2000 might come down to $600-800 based on the discovery of gender alone!

It’s infuriating to say the least. Doing evaluations I do my best to approach pieces individually, objectively and neutrally. As a result my judgement has been called into question more than once based on gender related bias. I’ve been accused of over-valuating works by female artists, even when my valuation is well supported by recorded market sales and known monographs (oh, how the art world loves their monographs).

When the same is taken to female test subjects the usage of “he” in describing the work doesn’t take place as often or as early (“she” not being used either) and instead terms such as “the artist” are used more often. The evaluation more closely relating to the sales records and the merits. Gender bias does occur, it is present in sales records etc., but usually only minimally and reflectively of our society and rarely based purely from gender bias assumptions.

By: Joy-Mari Cloete

Joy-Mari Cloete — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 14:03:44 +0000

@Margaret: Pfft. How I loathe the ‘tone’ argument. I get it far too often and I can only assume it is because I am … you guessed it, an Angry Black Woman.

By: Jadey

Jadey — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:30:05 +0000

For me, this topic was one I had trouble understanding until someone explained intersectionality to me, because I was starting to think that I was some kind of crazy-awesome empowered woman who was *never* silenced. Especially in classroom settings. From kindergarten into university, I am usually heavily involved in (if not dominating) the discussions, and my writing and speaking has always been confident. I came to realize that this vocality wasn’t a function of my female empowerment (especially because the women around me were often silent and I was usually talking disproportionately with men), but my other privileges (basically everything except my sexual orientation, on which I pass, and my assigned identity as female). Particularly the fact that my style of learning has always been preferred by the educational systems I’ve been in, and I’ve received extra encouragement and positive feedback because of that (which is sort of a confluence of ablist, class, and race-based privilege). My experiences were positive enough that I never noticed being silenced (although if I’d tried pursuing male-dominated interests, I doubt I’d be saying the same thing). Mind you, I probably have been silenced–I was just willing to over-look it because of the rewards I was given at other times.

It was chilling to realize that my “empowerment” has been at the expense of other women. I don’t think I inspired women around me to be more confident themselves (I know I never deliberately tried to) — I feel like I was tokenized instead, and justified the status quo of confident, out-spoken men and the occasional woman who can behave sufficiently “like a man”. My out-spokenness has a hard, argumentative edge, and probably put off a lot of people (especially those who often face silencing), rather than brought new voices into the conversation. I regret this.

It’s a bit different now that I’m going into grad school and am once again at the bottom of the pile academically as well as surrounded by a self-selected group of other fairly out-spoken, confident people. But I hope that I have managed to temper my tone over the last year since becoming aware of what exactly I was perpetuating. Lurking on blogs, *listening* instead of speaking, being an invisible audience to so many incredible, important conversations has been a transformative experience. Obviously I comment and get involved sometimes (*g*), but I’m learning to be aware of my own location, self-reflexive, and outwardly attentive. There are so many more voices I’d rather hear than my own, in the classroom and out of it.

(FWIW, I am not saying that every woman speaking confidently is a tool of the patriarchy–far from it! My personal experience has been so, until recently at least, because of my lack of insight into my own privilege.)

By: Margaret

Margaret — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 07:03:15 +0000

How many of us were trained as little girls that what we had to say was not as important as “how” we said it? I was always being told that you catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar. That was almost always in response to discussions, usually with my father, about some unfairness in the way he treated me. My arguments could be right, but would never succeed, all because he didn’t like “how” I said it. I couldn’t say it any other way! I could not sweeten injustice! It made me angry, and anger was something I was never, ever allowed to express. My only outlet was to write things down. Deep emotion is in my writing, and now I am a writer.

Throughout my life I have experienced silencing, and it’s ugly, especially when it comes from someone close to me.