The View From Inside

You know that feeling during finals week, when your brain is sparking, wherein everything in your life seems to conspire to Fuller Meaning, and you know you're running on fumes and caffeine, but it's incredibly heady and delicious nevertheless? And also you just can't wait for whatever break is upcoming, because damn, this can't go on, and you could really use about a week in the hammock?

Yeah, it's like that. My brain is working working working, and I'm just trying to keep up. I swear I could write 40 books simultaneously right now. Manic much? Yeah. Whatever. Fuck the backswing, I'm here Now.

Anyway, I have a lot of thoughts, and I've been away from the computer. My hands have been tapping out entries on whatever surface is available, but now I will provide them their solace, the comfort of an actual keyboard with which to express themselves.

I wanted to make a connection that I made ever so haltingly with Badger over very brief coffee this morning. I was thinking about Ambra, the conservative blogger (also happens to be 22 years old and African American) who, as Grace tells it, wrote a scathing remark about how Koan, the transgender woman who attended the conference, is not worthy of being called a woman and etc. I will refrain from calling Ambra the names that immediately spring to mind, because most of them are in themselves examples of the kind of stereotyping and mean-spiritedness that she demonstrated with her remarks, and also I'm trying to clean up my act and be smart on my blog instead of snarky, and move forward into a more public persona, using my real name, and etc.

Anyway. Deep breath.

What I was thinking about Ambra was that she thinks she is exempt. She thinks that because she knows herself to be an individual, not actually reducible to her skin color or her gender (or god only knows how she thinks of herself: the mind boggles to think of the kind of self-co-opting and self-flaggelatory participation in one's oppression that is implied by her political affiliation) that she can rise above the kind of discrimination that might be aimed her way. She thinks, in other words, that it won't happen to her.

She hasn't lived very long. That's not her fault. I used to tell my students, who were all her age, that they had a unique point of view that was soon to disappear, if they were doing it right -- they could see in black and white terms, and therefore were equipped to save the world. We older folks were all messed up with our gray areas and subtleties.

Ambra spent a long time in her panelist talk decrying politics for being too complicated. "Everyone should be able to understand it," she said. "That's what bloggers can do, is to simplify the issues for people."

I can't tell you how strongly I disagree with that statement. Everything in the world is black and white, and simple, she is saying. This is the familiar refrain of libertarians everywhere. "If I don't get it, it's not true." It's anti-intellectual, comes from a deep distrust of science and specialization, and a generally cynical attitude toward the rest of the human race.

Okay, I'm working up to my point, here. I'd like to point out something about identity, something that has affected my own life quite a bit. I don't consider myself reducible to terms like "woman" or "mother," any more than "white chick" or "wife." This is part of my inheritance, from a lifetime of liberal inculcation and American sensibility. I think of myself as an individual, a wildly contradictory set of impulses and preferences that change moment to moment and day to day. You can't point at me and say "All women who are 39 are like her," because of course it is patently untrue.

When I had children, I was aware that motherhood would make me appear, from the outside, as more conventional than I have ever been. From the outside, I would be subject to society's idea of what a good mother or a bad mother is; I would be reduced to a figure, a stereotype, a set of characteristics. I was okay with that, and here's why: I thought I was exempt from the effects of it, because I was aware of it. I wanted children; I wanted to be a feminist, too. Surely these things were not incompatible? I could soldier through, faking it in some situations, able to play the part, while deep inside I would protect the core of me that still had the blinders off when it came to the way society views women.

Guess what? What I think about it barely matters. I am not entirely cynical. I have a great deal of leeway inside the role of motherhood. I am teaching my children to be feminists, to question the identity that other people foist upon them, to look inside themselves and trust what they see and what they feel, but nevertheless, I no longer think that the world will somehow be fair to me, even if it isn't to other women, just because I want it to be so.

See what I mean? I am subject to sexism, even though I can see it. Ambra is subject to racism, even though she will no doubt deny it, possibly through her adulthood and beyond. She is subject to being a black woman who is poised to be co-opted by a bunch of Republican white guys who are so used to being entitled that they are completely blind to their own privilege.

This is why Ambra cannot put herself into Koan's head and sympathize with what it must be like to be a woman in a man's body. She stereotypes based on what she sees, and this allows her to ignore the very specific individual who is Koan, who has the circumstances and vulnerabilities, the triumphs and loved ones and sense of humor and all those things that make us the bundle of contradiction and scattered identity that we all are.

I am speaking, here, in general terms. For anyone to understand what I'm talking about, s/he needs to apply her own life experience to these words. That's the rub.

My daughter is watching the Wizard of Oz at this very moment. You see how the world conspires? What movie is about identity and stereotyping more than that one? I ask you.

And look! Badger writes about our conversation, even as I write. It's warm and fuzzy here in the hive mind.

Comments

[badgerbag]

Bzzzzzzzzzz! Buzz buzz buzzz! Have some honey, here. *vomits* I got it over here.... *waggles butt*

You rock ! very well said about "exemption" and feminist consciousness, privilege, and motherhood!!!

[JM]

I'm not currently trying to clean up my act, so can _I_ call Ambra "the names that immediately spring to mind"?

[impossiblejane]

I really liked that post. I read Grace's post and then wandered over to Ambra's blog. I found myself disgusted with her and pondering why she feels she can criticize someone, especially another woman as she herself is a black woman. I wanted to post something but couldn't get out what I wanted to say. I didn't just want to call her a bitch, as I would in turn look like the bitch. I thought about it for sure. I don't possess the best vocabulary in the world and often find it hard to get out what I want to say. So I sent the link to my roommate who is excellent at using smart words. He just rolled his eyes and got pissed at her not feeling she was worth his energy. Thank you for writing this post. Very smart. I truly admire your feminist analysis and views. I'm gonna have to say you truly inspire me! It's true.
Impossible Jane.

[liza sabater]

What I was thinking about Ambra was that she thinks she is exempt.

YES!

I am writing about this tonight and that's EXACTLY RIGHT. It's what I call the Condi effect.

[Denise]

I'm NOT writing about Nykola but have commented about her and am just too tired to do anything else. Except. Comment. Again.

Nice, nice post. Not just about Nykola but about all of us.

[Ms. Jane]

It was interesting in the car ride to Gracie's when Eliz asked about transgendered people. I hope I explained it well. What I liked about the main thrust of her question wasn't about gender identity, but the actual physical process of becoming...

You're raising my children beautifully.

[fifth amendment]

"I thought I was exempt from the effects of it, because I was aware of it."

Yes, this is a perfect description of just about every academic I have known, too, only in the opposite of the way you meant it, I think, Jo. Not only does one feel impervious to harm oneself because of ones "intellect", one also runs the real danger of becoming what one supposedly hates because one is so obviously exempt from such things precisely because of ones knowledge. No need to examine MY life, MY actions, after all, I'm the one who's telling YOU, that's what I DO, etc.etc. And so it's the most "progressive" who become the most abusive, out of a sense of both impossibility and entitlement. "We're liberal and progressive and feminist here; why didn't you make my coffee yet?" or the one I heard just yesterday for the umpeenth time: "I didn't get PhD to make my own copies!"

[mags]

I've been to Koan's blog, and to Ambra's, and I've read of the statements on several other blogs - I think in the end, you're right. Ambra is just too young to know any better, or to know any different. She hasn't lived long enough and had enough human interaction to find the place in herself where you become accepting of others, where you recognize that the labels that you place on things don't always apply when they're viewed with someone else's eyes. I've got 13 years on her, so I have a vague idea of what I'm talking about - it's only been in the last few years that I've been aware of consciously allowing others around me to be themselves, to be individuals and just LEAVE IT ALONE when we don't see exactly eye-to-eye. We all have our dramas, and our disadvantages, and our hardships that we get through and move on from and allow to shape the people we grow up to be. It's my sense that Ambra is just halfway there. She seems bright, so I'm sure that when she does grow up, she'll find that that there is room for more than one point of view, and the world is such a better place for those having those differing opinions. Just my $.02

~mags