‘If I’d had children and had a girl, the first words I would have taught her would have been “f*** off” because we weren’t brought up ever to say that to anyone, were we?
‘And it’s quite valuable to have the courage and the confidence to say, “No, f*** off, leave me alone, thank you very much.”
‘You see, I couldn’t help saying “Thank you very much”, I just couldn’t help myself. (Helen Mirren)
I’ve had a torrent of comments and contact on fb about that post about how we should deal with difficult male students in class.
Most of the complaints (98%) have been from men, and included:
– I am too angry, and this will intimidate men.
– I should be nicer to those difficult men, and then they would behave better.
– I swear too much.
– My posts are too long.
– The tone of my posts is too aggressive.
– I am overreacting.
– I hate men.
Seriously, male lindy hoppers, learn to concentrate for more than 3 minutes. And get used to the thought of a woman swearing, loudly and aggressively, telling you she is just not interested in what you have to say.
One of the other parts of this that really annoys me, can be illustrated by something I saw on facebook. A woman lindy hop teacher had linked up that post with a comment like “This was my class this week, argh it was frustrating!” I can’t remember exactly what she said, but that’s how she prefaced linking the blog post.
Then there were about a dozen comments, all but one or two by men. Quite a lot of the comments included those lines above.
Now, it’s ok to engage in a discussion of a provocative post like this in a public discourse, but the part that made me quite sad and more than a little angry, is that these men were her ‘friends’, and that, instead of saying “Oh, it’s crap that you had a bad time in class!” they were all “oh, your feelings are invalid because that woman described them using swears.”
The irony, in this instance, was that some of those men also added the comment “Oh, I recognise myself in that description of difficult guys!” and I thought ‘Oh, yes, you might have, but all these other men in this thread haven’t recognised themselves. No, and they are doing just the same thing here, that these difficult men in do in person: they are challenging a woman’s authority to comment on her own experiences. They are challenging the thought that a woman dancer might be more knowledgeable and have more practical experience with something than they do.’
I wish I could remember who’d posted that link, because I’d go back and send her a private message and tell her, “It’s ok. You didn’t imagine it. Every other woman and most of the men who teach classes recognised your frustration and thought it was valid and important. It’s just these douches who feel the need to challenge you.” But I had to unfollow the post, because it’s a bit upsetting to read those sorts of things about yourself in a public setting.
So if you’re reading, Frustrated Lindy Hop Woman, you didn’t imagine it. That guy gave you the shits, and you were a gun.
And all you other arsehats, seriously, fuck off. Just fuck off.
[edit: I read this, and thought ‘oo, relevant’:
“It’s easy to be considered a misandrist when men are socialized to feel entitled to women and our time. So, if you ignore them, you’re a misandrist. If you insist they leave you alone, you’re a misandrist. If you focus on building healthy female-centered relationships over relationships with men, you’re a misandrist. Misandry is basically, prioritizing your agency, autonomy and fellow women, over men in a society that teaches you that being feminine relies on giving into men’s feelings of entitlement” (confusing citation, but start here).
So, basically, when you note that that one guy just. won’t. shut. up, you hate men.
Guess I’m just going to have to live with it.]
[edit 2: as I write these posts tonight, I’m listening to eleven charming songs)
