Label Reads: Disposable

| Mon 10 Dec 2012 | 15 Comments | 1843 Views

Author Bridget Gaudette

I'm an ex-Jehovah's Witness with a focus on Black atheism, humanism, and sex-positive dialogue. | @BridgetGaudette

Three days ago a friend (acquaintance or online friend might be a better descriptor) made a comment about my chest. I replied that “the feminist in me was offended by that”. I was actually joking because, in reality, I think my boobs are fabulous and feminist or not I don’t have a problem discussing them. What shocked me was the response.. It was something like, “oh the feminist doesn’t like it? Well I’m out.” After that, my emails have not been answered so I assume the relationship is over. Just like that. I feel like a crumpled up piece of paper that has made its way to the garbage can. This hurts my feelings on a personal level, but it also confuses me as a humanist. I consider this person a humanist as well and with one of the primary tenets of humanism emphasizing the value and agency of human beings, I don’t see how my being a feminist is a deal-breaker.

I fully understand that for some, the word feminist is a dirty or scary word. They immediately think of a man-hating, sex-hating, special and unfair treatment seeking woman who see sexism and misogyny everywhere. None of those things describes me. In fact, recently the more radical feminists in my extended circle have accused me of being a “chill girl” because I don’t often get upset with people deemed as being misogynists. For me, feminism is simply an extension of my humanism. I want equal rights and treatment for everyone. If a woman has the ability to do something, then she has just as much of a right to do it as a man. That’s it. I love men. In fact I significantly prefer their company. I love sex. I don’t think women should be treated “special”, but I do want the playing field equalized. I know sexism and misogyny and harassment exist, but I tend to address it different than some of my more radical sisters and brothers: calmly and by promoting the positive instead of emphasizing the negative.

As an atheist, this type of reaction is not unusual. Many theists associate atheism with immorality and living a life with no meaning. As a democrat I am an abortion loving, rich person hating, tree-hugger who wants free handouts. In reality, atheism is not believing in gods. That is the only thing that a person should assume with that word.  (Defining a democrat is not so easy, but I do hug the occasional tree). The same is true with feminist. The only thing a person should assume is that the feminist wants equality for women.

This blog isn’t even supposed to be about definitions but instead on how disposable we treat our fellow man. And people wonder why I still struggle with being open and honest about my atheism. It’s because it gives people another reason to reject me and I’m only human. I’m a social creature… and to be completely honest I am a bit of a people pleaser. I like people and I want friends. I hate that I get punished for being an atheist or being a feminist based, not on my actions, but on the person’s preconceptions about what the word means. As a Black person, I get this just because of the color of my skin. This friend, just the day before said that when you have someone you strongly disagree, that that is the very reason you should have an honest conversation about the issues where you differ. Dismissing them.. disposing of the relationship because of a label is in no way helpful. I completely agree with this sentiment that there needs to be a conversation between opposing sides. How else can we learn to understand each other?

I know you’ll read this and think, “who cares, that person obviously doesn’t deserve to be in your life”. That might be true and I suppose he has taken the choice of friendship off the table. Still, this has affected me quite significantly,  because this is a person that I greatly admire. His work has increased my ability to be a skeptic and opened my eyes to different political perspectives. Sadly, I can tell that my heart has been hardened a little more. My parents disposed of me years ago, not because I’m a bad person but because I am an ex-Jehovah’s Witness. That label means I am immoral, I’ve been corrupted by the devil, I have sinned against the holy spirit.. and I am ultimately unworthy of being their daughter.

Now, being a feminist has made me unworthy of being a friend. My label says I’m disposable.

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  • http://www.facebook.com/wendy.hughes.14 Wendy Hughes

    Labels are misleading. When some people hear “feminist” they think bra-burning extremists of the sixties; when some people hear “feminist” they think of single parents who are juggling the job/kids/education/dating aspects of their lives alone – there are other interpretations. Feminism and misogyny in the skepticism movement in the past couple of years has become even more complex. I agree that the designation “atheist” is equally in the mind of the interpeter. I happen to think that it gets confused with “skeptic” – that people are frequently both, but sometimes atheists fail to think skeptically, and some skeptics are not atheists. Bridget, I’m sorry that you have lost your family, but it isn’t the first time I’ve heard that story from ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses. It’s not your fault; my guess is that the farther away the Witnesses can keep their group from people who have decided religion is not their cup of tea, the stronger their support system will remain, and they have even alienated themselves from their own offspring. Your friend made a comment about your body – I don’t know what the rest of the conversation was about – and you responded with a joke that was funny because of the stereotype that was taken the wrong way. If this person can’t even engage in a dialog with you – then it says more about what that person thinks about his idea of feminism than it says about his friendship with you. We are only partly the labels applied to us by others; we are also how we think of ourselves, and there are too many variables to say “I am a feminist” hand have that be all of me, or “I am an atheist” and have that be the only way others think of me. Finally, none of us is disposable.

    • Happybandaid

      Labels are indeed misleading; I am a feminist and a christian.

      • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=639378446 Bridget Gaudette

        Well that’s certainly interesting! I have a lot of questions for you!

        • Happybandaid

          I have a lot of questions for me too! XD This life is wonderful and confusing and I love it and I love that we can talk about all sides of it from all sorts of different perspectives – especially the extremely messed up sides of it.

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=639378446 Bridget Gaudette

      Thanks for your thoughtful response. I use a lot of labels to describe myself, so I’m not anti-label :-) . I just think that some folks need not jump to the worst possible iteration of the label.

      • Happybandaid

        Exactly, and this always seems to happen. :c

  • http://www.facebook.com/pointblank009 Chris Stevenson

    This is a good column. I feel sorry for your parents, who need the permission of 7 or 8 old white guys they never met, from New York, to speak to their own daughter.

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=639378446 Bridget Gaudette

      LOL! Love conquers everything but the “governing body” it seems.

  • http://www.facebook.com/steve.otta Steve Otta

    I’m not trying to be a grammar nazi or anything like that. I do see that you used an incorrect word in your essay above. You state “They immediately think of a man-hating, sex-hating, special and unfair
    treatment seeking woman who see sexism and misogyny everywhere”. A misogynist or someone who practices misogyny is a woman hater. I doubt that feminists are woman haters.The word you should have used is misandry which means man hater. I even almost told you the wrong word, misanthropy, which means hatred of fellow humans. I had to look it up myself. I agree with your statements and the article seems well written. Keep it up.

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=639378446 Bridget Gaudette

      You misread. I was stating that people think that feminists see misogyny everywhere. We don’t.

      • http://www.facebook.com/steve.otta Steve Otta

        Point taken. I stand corrected. Actually, I’m sitting but that doesn’t sound right, I sit corrected so…

      • http://twitter.com/brian_carnell brian_carnell

        I apologize, if this is nitpicking, but…. one of the problems with saying “I’m a feminist” is that, as Wikipedia nicely sums it up:

        “Feminism is a *collection of movements* and ideologies aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights for women.”

        Feminism is a lot like Christianity — if someone tells me they are a Christian at this point that gives me very little information about what they believe (other than in the supernatural) as that could mean anything from Jehovah’s Witness to Roman Catholicism to Christian Restorationists to any number of tiny bizarre sects that are only nominally connected to what is written in the New Testatment.

        Similarly if someone says they are a feminist, that could mean any of a dozen different things until a person unpacks that (as you did in your post defining what you mean by feminism).

        One of the odd things is watching the online atheist wars where different people are defining feminism differently and then acting as if they’re fighting over the same thing when they’re not.

        So, for example, you have one group of folks using feminism as a synonym for “radical social constructionist feminism” and then claiming that therefore feminism is the problem (assuming you reject that particular version of feminism).

        On the other side, you have folks who seem to think that simply saying “feminism means women and men are equal” so if you say you’re against feminism that means you’re against equality, completely ignoring any number of feminist schools of thought which are a tad more complicated and nuanced than that.

  • http://twitter.com/gregladen Greg Laden
  • Altair

    This is an interesting post and I hope you can patch things up with your friend (and your parents, if things haven’t gone past the point of no return).

    Since you mentioned being both a humanist AND a feminist, I hope you don’t mind if ask why do you choose or feel the need to have a more specific label than humanist? If you love men and care for them, why not fight for them as well as for women?

    The problem many people have with feminism, myself included, is that it focuses on a subset of humanity, while mostly ignoring the other 50%. It focuses on fighting misogyny but not fighting misandry. It wants to equalize the field for women, but worries not about the inequalities men suffer. If you equalize the field for women but not for men, even if their inequalities are different, you’re effectively giving women special treatmen.

    If your answer to this is that you also care about men and care about misandry and men’s inequalities, then you are indeed a humanist and again I find it strange that you use feminist instead of humanist.

    ” The only thing a person should assume is that the feminist wants equality for women.” Not necessarily. Feminism has created the patriarchy theory, the idea of Schrodinger’s rapist, the polarization of domestic violence into a “man-victimizer woman-victim” dichotomy, and other similar concepts that are attached to it. Being a feminist in today’s world carries with it a lot more connotations than wanting equality for women.

    Even the idea of “wanting equality for women” indicates again a narrow focus on the problems of 50% of the population. I don’t remember who said it, but a quote I like goes something like “feminism is the idea that the inequality between the genders can be solved by focusing on the problems of only one of them”.

    Also, if you think that labeling yourself a feminist has made you disposable, try using the label of men’s rights activist. That one gets you a lot more problems than these.

    Now, I do agree that your friend’s reaction was extremely quick and radical, and that dialog and conversation would have been best in this situation. Maybe asking a common friend to ask him about his reaction could be beneficial?

  • http://northierthanthou.com/ northierthanthou

    Unfortunately, the right wing has largely won the battle of perception regarding feminism, which is to say that they sold a narrative the public has generally bought into. damned shame, especially since there is an awful lot of good in feminism.

    I do think that a lot of the PC overreaction amongst the moderates is actually dissonance reduction. I’m not talking about the conscious manipulation by pseudo-conservative bigots looking for ways to sell prejudice; I mean the run of the mill guy who just hates liberals, feminists, hippies, etc. The thought of having been caught out in a racist moment is too much, so anyone who would catch them out has to be bad. It’s not enough to say; “I’m sorry; you’re right,” or even “Well, I don’t really think I did anything wrong,” they have to concoct a sweeping answer that excuses any and all comments, jokes, and thoughts they might have had or will have in the future from such scrutiny. Any that often means putting the source of the critique in a box from which they will never escape.

    Again, it’s a damned shame.

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Category: Gender & Sexuality, Women & Equality