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Two people divided by a common language.
Aug. 31st, 2011 09:49 amDistribution vs. Qualitative Differences
I talked previously about sex-based distribution of injuries: women get more ACL tears, and are more likely to have them "just happen", where men get fewer, and tend to get them as a direct result of a serious trauma. Anyone of either sex *could* experience either one, though.
I watched Beautiful Daughters a documentary on the first transgender production of The Vagina Monologues. All of the actors were trans women, and there were several new monologues, written by the Eve Ensler, the original writer, based on the experiences of trans women. This is an excellent idea, and I'm glad they did it.* But something bothers me. Something like 1/3-1/2 of the women shown telling their stories to Ensler are women of color, and several stories are very dependent on the context of American Black Culture. But of the actors in the theater, there's one east asian woman and several white women. And I recognized at least one very specific anecdote from a black woman that delivered by a white woman.
Nothing she said couldn't have happened to a white person. And there is probably at least one white trans woman in existence who could have experienced that exact same thing in the exact same way in the exact same context. But there are many more black women who have. And when we listen, we guess at the most likely context for the story, which was very different than the original context. And those words, coming from a white woman, conjured a different picture than they did coming from a black woman.
I'm really uncomfortable with this because 1. There's no such thing as American Black Culture: there are many, many smaller cultures that overlap and form an interlocking web of people and rules. 2. Any one thing in any black culture will have something analogous happening in at least one white culture. But much like the ACL tears, the distribution is different, and it changes how you react.
Men can be raped. Men can be raped by women. Men can even experience what we think of as classic stranger rape, where a larger person jumps out of the bushes and physically threatens the smaller one into committing a sexual act. But it's not likely. And men and women are likely to get different (bad) responses to this: women are more likely to be told its their fault for being out late dressed provocatively, men are more likely to be told the listener would be thrilled to have that happen to them. You see dampened versions of the same thing in response to acquaintance rape. Either response could happen to either person, but the distribution is phenomenally different.
There are women who feel like failures as providers when they place their children for adoption, and men who just wish the child was in their arms. Moreover, even people experiencing the classic set of symptoms will occasionally have a pang of nontraditional angst. But the distribution is different
This makes it really hard to discuss anything with someone with whom you have substantial disagreements and no pool of goodwill. Everyone uses shorthand that obscures an important point, and it's trivial to jump on that to dismiss them, especially if it's something your side tends to be more interested in than their side. But trying to avoid this involves clarifying everything to the point that 1. you lose all flow. 2. the original point is lost. and 3. the shorthand you use in your clarifying statements will have the same problem, so you just spent a lot of time without fixing anything.
*In a way that doesn't actually make me want to see it. Every clip I've seen, of this or any other production of TVM or of Eve Ensler giving a speech, is so painfully affected acting I can't get anything out of it. But other people find it valuable, and I'm glad to see that value brought to the service of trans women.
I talked previously about sex-based distribution of injuries: women get more ACL tears, and are more likely to have them "just happen", where men get fewer, and tend to get them as a direct result of a serious trauma. Anyone of either sex *could* experience either one, though.
I watched Beautiful Daughters a documentary on the first transgender production of The Vagina Monologues. All of the actors were trans women, and there were several new monologues, written by the Eve Ensler, the original writer, based on the experiences of trans women. This is an excellent idea, and I'm glad they did it.* But something bothers me. Something like 1/3-1/2 of the women shown telling their stories to Ensler are women of color, and several stories are very dependent on the context of American Black Culture. But of the actors in the theater, there's one east asian woman and several white women. And I recognized at least one very specific anecdote from a black woman that delivered by a white woman.
Nothing she said couldn't have happened to a white person. And there is probably at least one white trans woman in existence who could have experienced that exact same thing in the exact same way in the exact same context. But there are many more black women who have. And when we listen, we guess at the most likely context for the story, which was very different than the original context. And those words, coming from a white woman, conjured a different picture than they did coming from a black woman.
I'm really uncomfortable with this because 1. There's no such thing as American Black Culture: there are many, many smaller cultures that overlap and form an interlocking web of people and rules. 2. Any one thing in any black culture will have something analogous happening in at least one white culture. But much like the ACL tears, the distribution is different, and it changes how you react.
Men can be raped. Men can be raped by women. Men can even experience what we think of as classic stranger rape, where a larger person jumps out of the bushes and physically threatens the smaller one into committing a sexual act. But it's not likely. And men and women are likely to get different (bad) responses to this: women are more likely to be told its their fault for being out late dressed provocatively, men are more likely to be told the listener would be thrilled to have that happen to them. You see dampened versions of the same thing in response to acquaintance rape. Either response could happen to either person, but the distribution is phenomenally different.
There are women who feel like failures as providers when they place their children for adoption, and men who just wish the child was in their arms. Moreover, even people experiencing the classic set of symptoms will occasionally have a pang of nontraditional angst. But the distribution is different
This makes it really hard to discuss anything with someone with whom you have substantial disagreements and no pool of goodwill. Everyone uses shorthand that obscures an important point, and it's trivial to jump on that to dismiss them, especially if it's something your side tends to be more interested in than their side. But trying to avoid this involves clarifying everything to the point that 1. you lose all flow. 2. the original point is lost. and 3. the shorthand you use in your clarifying statements will have the same problem, so you just spent a lot of time without fixing anything.
*In a way that doesn't actually make me want to see it. Every clip I've seen, of this or any other production of TVM or of Eve Ensler giving a speech, is so painfully affected acting I can't get anything out of it. But other people find it valuable, and I'm glad to see that value brought to the service of trans women.
