Yep, time to continue eliminating subtractive relationships and nurturing additive ones. Enjoy the trashing, or not. Im going to spend my time getting ready to move. Oh, hell, I might as well be honest. Im going to spend my day being distracted from my work by those incredibly cute kids, their moms, the crows, and the dogs. (Dealing w/Eskimo comes under work.) In fact, the crows are cawlling me now!! (And, no, Im not as chipper as Im pretending to be right now, and, yes, Im hurt, as this article thoroughly gets --- in fact she wrote about half of what Ive been writing, but Ive lost the transformer AND the fast forward and rewind buttons so there is only living left.) (side note, ADHD squirrel here --- I learned something about gender constructs today -- dogs dont care. I was telling my dogs good boy, good girl and I told a male dog good girl and he didnt seem to care a bit that I misgendered him by accident.) Those being trashed can do nothing right. Because they are bad, their motives are bad, and hence their actions are always bad. There is no making up for past mistakes, because these are perceived as symptoms and not mistakes. .... My response to this was bewilderment. I felt as though I were wandering blindfolded in a field I full of sharp objects and deep holes while being reassured that I could see perfectly and was in a smooth, grassy pasture. It was is if I had unwittingly entered a new society, one operating by rules of which I wasnt aware, and couldnt know. ........ One woman, in private phone conversations, did admit that I was being poorly treated. But she never supported me publicly, and admitted quite frankly that it was because she feared to lose the groups approval. She too was trashed in another group. ..... And who do they attack? Generally two categories. . . Achievement or accomplishment of any kind would seem to be the worst crime: ... do anything . . . that every other woman secretly or otherwise feels she could do just as well -- and ... youre in for it. If then ... you are assertive, have what is generally described as a forceful personality/ if ... you do not fit the conventional stereotype of a feminine woman, ... its all over. ... if you have the misfortune of being outspoken and articulate, you are also accused of being power-mad, elitist, fascist, and finally the worst epithet of all: a male-identifier. Aaaarrrrggg! ... Over the years I have talked with many women who have been trashed. Like a cancer, the attacks spread from those who had reputations to those who were merely strong; from those who were active to those who merely had ideas; from those who stood out as individuals to those who failed to conform rapidly enough to the twists and turns of the changing line. With each new story, my conviction grew that trashing was not an individual problem brought on by individual actions; nor was it a result of political conflicts between those of differing ideas, It was a social disease. ... A vague standard of sisterly behavior is set up by anonymous judges who then condemn those who do not meet their standards. As long as the standard is vague and utopian, it can never be met. But it can be shifted with circumstances to exclude those not desired as sisters. Thus Ti-Grace Atkinsons memorable adage that sisterhood is powerful: it kills sisters is reaffirmed again and again. ... While the men are distant, and the system too big and vague, ones sisters are close at hand. Attacking other feminists is easier and the results can be more quickly seen than by attacking amorphous social institutions. People are hurt; they leave. One can feel the sense of power that comes from having done something. ... Although only a few women actually engage in trashing, the blame for allowing it to continue rests with us all. Once under attack, there is little a woman can do to defend herself because she is by definition always wrong. But there is a great deal that those who are watching can do to prevent her from being isolated and ultimately destroyed. Trashing only works well when its victims are alone, because the essence of trashing is to isolate a person and attribute a groups problems to her. Support from others cracks this facade and deprives the trashers of their audience. It turns a rout into a struggle. Many attacks have been forestalled by the refusal of associates to let themselves be intimidated into silence out of fear that they would be next. Other attackers have been forced to clarify their complaints to the point where they can be rationally dealt with. ... jofreeman/joreen/trashing.htm
Posted on: Mon, 10 Mar 2014 15:37:37 +0000
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