I wasn't sure if I could post this, but I guess the worst that could happen is it gets ignored.
I have been thinking a lot about this post that I read recently.
I've tried writing a whole bunch of different thoughts and questions and reactions to it that I considered posting here or asking about, but I can never really make anything clear enough in a reasonable space.
One main problem I have is understanding some of the things she says regarding the ability of people to empathize.
She says "I don’t want to hear about the ways that you identify with me, because you cannot . I don’t want to hear your comparisons of my life to yours, because they are not the same ." The fact that they aren't the same seems trivially true, but besides the point. It seems to be that we must be able to identify with one another, or any discussion of "equality" becomes impossible. We don't doubt one another's ability to empathize with humiliation, or pain, or joy, or any other basic emotion. Why would we doubt the ability to empathize with a specific kind of treatment?
That isn't to suggest perfect unity of minds. Of course the experience isn't the same as trying to empathize. But if there were no way to compare experiences, the idea of privilege disappears. How could anyone claim another group's life to be easier if it is impossible to have any understanding of their experiences?
I think there's a difference between telling a member of a different group "You don't really understand" when it is obvious they don't really empathize with the nuances of a particular feeling, and saying "You can't possibly begin to understand anything at all, so don't even try." The first claim really can't and shouldn't be argued with. The second seems questionable at best, and potentially dangerous.
I'm very interested in everyone's thoughts about what I was discussing, and any other aspect of the article that interests you.
0 TrackBacks
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Examining Privilege.
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.feministing.com/cgi-bin/movabletype/mt-tb.fcgi/10741
You have to take the statement in context. It's addressed to a particular type of white, privileged feminist, not to all white women. It's addressed to the type of privileged feminist who tries to appropriate the voice of women of colour. The type of privileged feminist acts like, because they're a woman, they understand all experiences of oppression, as though the oppression that a woman of colour faces is the same as what a white well-to-do woman faces, thereby denying and erasing the significance of race. The type of privileged feminist who congratulates herself for being such a good friend to women of colour, while the implications of her employing a live-in Filipino housekeeper never occur to her. That's the way I understood the post, at least.
I agree whole-heartedly with you, doubleb. The observation that white women's experiences and women of color's experiences aren't identical seems (as you put it) "trivially true".
Empathy is precisely a connection between two people who are (always) different to some degree. All empathy must take into account a varying level of difference, and it is hard to say whether the value of the empathy is correlated solely to its accuracy, to the distance it surmounts, or (I assume) a combination of the two.
Of course, Renee's post on "pearl clutchers" is an attempt to correct what she sees as an undue amount of conflation between white women's and WOC's experiences, an inability in WW to recognize their own privilege. But to claim the impossibility of empathy/comprehension/identification between any two people, whatever their differences, is counterproductive and simply untrue.
It's not a repudiation of empathy, though. It's a repudiation of privileged feminists always trying to make things about themselves. "I understand. I have been through the same thing." It's not empathy, it's trying to insert one's self into someone else's narrative because the privileged person is used to their perspective being the norm. The feminist narrative has been in large part written by white privileged women. The question is not about empathy, but allowing WoC and other women to speak in their own voices, to craft a story that's about them, not about how much privileged white women understand them.
I agree that the post is directed at that particular group of women, and can be understood that way; but I think the language that we use is also important. If the goal is to get female white feminists to acknowledge that they are also privileged to some extent, alienating them completely from any shared experience isn't the way to go about it.
Right, but the post is not aimed at all white feminists - it's written for the pearl clutchers. There's a difference.
I think the language is there because that type of shock is necessary. Plus the point isn't to make white privileged females realize anything, it's to get them to just go away, to put it in a really harsh way.
It's like when that dude, Marc, posted here asking "what radical feminism requires of me". Someone from the dominant group coming in and trying to make themselves central to the conversation. But the conversation just isn't about them.
Of course there is shared experience, but there can't be any real communication if one person is trying to tell her story, and the other is twisting it around to suit her own perspective. The "pearl clutcher" is already alienated from the WoC, because she won't listen to her and accept her on her own terms. The pearl clutcher just doesn't realize it.
I'm not sure that the goal is to make them go away as much as to shut up and listen. I think she even said that somewhere in the post. I think you hit the nail on the head in your first response to Transcend. Always trying to relate another person's experience to your own makes it all about you, it devalues their experience, and makes it impossible to really listen, which is the starting point for constructive dialogue and working together.
I was embarassed to ask this when I first saw the post, but since it comes up again I guess I'll ask. What exactly is a "pearl clutcher" and where does the expression come from?
I think maybe we and Renee need to draw a distinction between empathy and understanding. One may be empathetic to someone else's experience without really understanding what it was like. The problem is when people pretend to understand without being empathetic. At least, that's what I think.
I think there is a difference between empathizing and truly understanding, as Yoshimi said. But in my experience there are some really ridiculous cases where women who live very privileged and sheltered lives jump in on a conversation about race/gender and compare some really minor experience they've had with a really major, disturbing experience that a WOC is relating to the group. This has happened in several groups I've been involved in, and when it happens everyone else (regardless of their color) is like "that's not the same at all" but it's very hard to get the pearl clutcher to see how different the two scenarios are. Also, it serves to silence the WOC and make her experience seem like it was not as deeply troubling as it really is. That's the part about it that bothers me. It's like comparing a deep insult to a stubbed toe. And you can tell that the pearl clutcher wasn't really listening to the WOC because she was so busy searching her own experience for some comparison to make in order to seem like she's cool/an ally/a "good" feminist. So it ends up being about her own image rather than about really hearing each other and working together. I think this is the kind of thing that Renee is talking about.
And Yoshima, "pearl clutcher" refers metaphorically to the wealthy women back in the day who would cluth their pearls and be like "oh my" or "good heavens" when they were confronted with inequality but never think about the fact that they had a black maid, nanny and cook who had left their babies at home to care for the pearl clutchers babies...
Thanks!
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=pearl%20clutcher
Gotta know there is water to cross before you can build a bridge.
You can't build a bridge for one side only- a bridge stretches across from one side to the other.
You don't get to hate one side of the bridge more than the other, the bridge is one, it connects.
Empathy, compassion and any attempt to relate is bridge building. Be careful how you respond. A bridge that's halted mid construction is useless.
But I think the deeper point is that the type of comparison of experience that she's talking about is not an attempt to relate, but an attempt to make it all about the pearl clutcher again. There's a lot of listening, just listening, that has to occur before any bridge-building can begin. If you're always trying to come up with a story from your experience to compare to the other person's story, then you're probably not really listening to them and absorbing what the experience means to them. I think that's the deeper issue here, and the question you have to constantly ask yourself is "who is this about?" Because it has to stop being about me before it can start being about us.
Try to think of some examples that leave race out of the equation and that might help you understand the issue. There is a difference between saying "I understand" or "I know how you feel" and being generally sympathetic of the pain that someone else is going through and is sharing with you. It's not a problem to try to understand what the other person is feeling and try to connect with them. The issue is how to phrase your response. It's not enough just to have good intentions and end up saying something that is unintentionally very demeaning instead of supportive.
If someone just came back from a funeral to bury their child you wouldn't say, "I understand! I had to bury my cat a few years ago." If someone was going through exhaustion from chemotherapy for ovarian cancer you wouldn't say, "I understand! I was so exhausted when I had the flu last week." A better response, if you have to say something, would be something along the lines of, "Wow, that must be really difficult for you."
The problem is when someone says, "I know how you feel" when they can't possibly know. It may be said with good intentions but the effect is that it invalidates the other person's experience by trying to make the two experiences equal when they are not.
Bingo. I hope everyone reads your comment because you hit the nail on the head several times.
Obviously all people have some things in common. But trying to sing Kumbaya every time a member of an oppressed group airs a grievance is very dismissive and self-centered. It's like silencing that other person and telling them their pain doesn't matter. I'm a white woman and I agreed with Renee's post completely. That's her writing style, too; you have to remember that.
Here is an example some of you might relate to:
Has a man ever told you women's fear of rape and sexual assault is unfounded because "[he's] afraid to walk through the park at night, too?"
Has a man ever told you women's fear of rape and sexual assault is unfounded because "[he's] afraid to walk through the park at night, too?"
Perfect example!