Reclaiming Lesbian Pride

[ScandalAndy]

Originally Posted by Kobi

Scandal Andy,

I probably have more questions here than anything concrete to offer.

What do you mean by standing up to people is passe? Bring them here, we'll whip them into shape in no time

What I meant by that is that standing up to someone or choosing to staunchly disagree is often viewed as "being dramatic" or stirring up drama. If you are disagreeable, you're a drama queen and nobody wants to deal with that. I enjoy these forums because I feel that healthy debate is encouraged.

What does "ok whatever" signify to you? Is it an ok I hear you, or ok I respect your right to think that way, or more of an ok whatever dismissal kind of thing?

To me, it's a dismissal, as in "I don't want to get into it with you, so i am going to leave before things get ugly".

Are you asking if peer pressure affects only the young? In case you are, reread this thread with a different set of eyes .

No, I believe peer pressure is a constant, whether we choose to go along with it or not. What I was asking is whether my observation was on point when I said that older community members are less apt to give a damn what others think of them, and more likely to be confident in their beliefs without requiring the validation of others.

I am not a parent, nor do I have the opportunity to be involved in young peoples lives on a daily basis. It is hard for me to equate what seemed normal to me as a kid and what is the norm today. i cannot speak to this particular experience either

I grew up in an era of being surrounded by protests and movements - gay rights, women's rights, civil rights, gray panthers, Black Panthers, the Vietnam War, abortion rights and probably a bunch I forgot. There were profound changes going on that impacted, in one way or another on everyday life in big ways. (And I wonder why I am tired?) I did not grow up in a political household. I think it would be interesting to try and figure out where my activist drive comes from, in another thread of course.

This stuff spoken to me. It reasonated somewhere deep inside of me. Did my peers have the same kind of cathartic experience with it? No. Did they have the need to address things as I did? No. Did they stand up for themselves or others on a regular basis? No.

I was more social cause oriented. My peers, for the most part, were more social life oriented.

Is it different today?

Maybe it's this current culture of social media and the speed at which we are exposed to, process, then disregard various stimuli throughout our day, but I see fewer and fewer individuals stopping to think and truly ask themselves "is what is going on here okay? Is this hurtful to anyone?". There's a lot self-centered behavior reinforcing the "if it isn't happening to me, then I don't care" mentality. Maybe it's a side effect of geographic location or age demographic, it could be anything at all, I'm just not sure.

Originally Posted by dreadgeek

I think that is some of it. Some of it, though, is a couple of memes that work to stifle the habit of discussion. One is the idea that if you disagree with me you are being *intolerant*. Since very few people want to be intolerant or thought of as being intolerant, they simply avoid disagreeing with others since to disagree with someone is thought to be prima facie evidence of not having an open mind. Another is the idea that we all have our own 'truth' or 'reality'. While this is ostensibly supposed to be the gateway to tolerance it is more appropriately the entrance to apathy. Why should I care if you espouse something anti-feminist if that is your 'truth' and my truth is something else? Just as well for me to ignore what you say and blithely go along pretending as if ideas don't have consequences.




I think this is a widespread syndrome much broader than just the youth of our community. That said, I think that it is more pronounced because while most of us over 40 were raised with *some* variation on the theme of 'there are good ideas and bad ideas, there are right ideas and wrong ideas...' it seems that the meme that there are only ideas and no idea is generically preferable to another idea has become pervasive. I notice it in the difference between the how my parent's generation spoke of civil rights and how we speak of our own civil rights struggle. Only now, in the last four or five years, has the queer movement even begun toying with the idea that we are, in fact, engaged in a moral battle and that our opponents are on the wrong side of it. If one actually reads the writings of the civil rights legends, however, one does not see the kind of equivocation one sees today. MLK Jr. never, as far as I am aware, gave even the smallest quarter to the idea that segregationists might have a point nor did he dismiss them as mere assholes. Instead, they were wrong, blacks and our allies were right, and it was just a matter of getting the majority to realize that segregation was a moral evil--not a merely undesirable condition but an actual moral evil.




This is a great point, Heart. When I came out as queer, other blacks used my queerness as evidence that my black identity (and therefore any claim I might have to blackness or black pride) was irrefutably broken. Now, it was already tenuous because I was never particularly 'street' and I certainly don't sound like I'm from the 'hood but coming out as queer was the final straw. Black people are not 'supposed' to be queer so if you are queer you have abandoned blackness. That was (and still is) the argument. For a while, I let that get in my head but then I came to my senses and realized that my blackness is not subject to other's dictates and that before I am either black or queer I am a *person*. We cannot afford to let others get in our heads and tell us that because we do not fit this or that stereotype that some person has determined is the signature trait of some group that we cannot claim membership of that group. That way madness truly lies.



I don't know that you're too far off the topic, Heart. I think that feminism is non-optional for any queer movement worthy of supporting. Any queer movement, meme or ideology that turns its back on feminist principles should be suspect. By feminist principle, I mean something very simple--to me, feminism at base has one stance "women are people, for better or worse, they are first and foremost human beings" and one basic question "does this help women". If the meme does not treat women as people, then it is not feminist. If it does not have as one of its goals uplifting and empowering women or, at the very worst not doing any harm, then it does not deserve to be called feminist. The erasure of women is one of the reasons I had to pull back from BV. I wonder if some of why lesbian has become so problematic is that lesbian is definitively pro-woman. To me, lesbian and feminist go together in much the same way that life and water go together.

Cheers
Aj

Aj, as usual, I'm intimidated and overjoyed when we get to put our brains together.

As I stated previously, I feel there is almost a revulsion attached to disagreement. The oft-repeated "no drama" statement makes me feel that any time someone disagrees, they are seen as being dramatic and are immediately ostracized or dismissed, invalidating their ability to be a contributor. I think there's a huge push to either convert said dissenter to one's own personal beliefs or, barring that, ignore them altogether. I'm not sure where this push toward homogeneity came from, but I think it is fueling the apathy we are seeing. Part of me wants to find out why this is happening, and another part of me desperately wants to figure out how to stop it.