Quote:
Originally Posted by Niamh.
It actually isn't double standards at all though. Can white people comment on race issues? yes Can white people say they know how it feels to be discriminated against like a black person does? No. No one is telling men they can't have an opinion on this, what's being said is you can't tell women that what they feel isn't real and is masking something else (their inner transphobia) well you can tell us that if you want but don't be surprised when we disagree with you  |
We have to be very careful though how we frame our premises though. "Like a black person"... that's loaded actually, because it assumes all black folk share the same experiences. If we lump all ___ folk together, then it's very easy to lump all folk that fit certain categories together and generalize... which leads to premises like this... (don't worry, it's super short)
I don't experience the same things as other women for example without going into detail into my background. Much less white folk, as I was raised in a 99% minority area despite being white. My family breaks a fook ton of stereotypes in other ways too... which is why I prefer to see folk as individuals, not as being representative of entire groups. It exacerbates and enables racism and other anti-isms when we enable these fallacies...
I think TS--(referring back to the what is feminism thread)--he kind of got roped into a discussion about everything that is wrong with men... as if all men as a group are acting as a whole... I think when we are talking about activism and how to change the status quo, we should be targeting the culture, which is the more likely culprit... folk are obviously only referencing their personal experiences when talking about their views, they can't speak for any group... but we can all talk about how the culture effects us, man or woman. And I'd argue TS/men in general have to have a say if the culture in the end generally impacts all of us... so to speak.