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As of tonight, I've done four presentations for C.O.R.E. The more practice I get, the more patterns I see, both in my own behavior and those of the students I present to (as of now, fraternities and sororities).
What I've learned:
- Gender stereotypes are alive and well. (I'm not particularly surprised, since these are, after all, fraternities and sororities. I don't mean this in a disparaging way - it's just that, in a single-gender environment like Greek houses, you either consciously choose to examine gender roles, or else you are very strongly influenced by them. These gender roles are reinforced by the fact that this is a group of peers, and thus they must constantly prove their normativity, or "in-groupness" to one another.) The upshot of this is that you will unfailingly get the, "Women who dress like that only mean one thing," and, to a lesser extent, "Men just do this/are like that/think this way."
- On the other hand, people will fall over themselves to assert that, "I'm not saying it's her fault or anything" just before they go right on to spout the same old victim-blaming spiel that we've been hearing for centuries.
And people complain that we're being overrun by political correctness. Sure we are - if you mean politically correct lip service, which is just a shallow veneer over some deep-seated resentment at not being able to openly indulge in prejudice. Give anyone half a chance and they'll settle right back into the old *isms. (And then claim that they're being "edgy" or "innovative" or even "brave" when they do it.)
- The people who irritate and disappoint me are the "average" groups. The "good" ones, even. "Bad" groups are the ones that are actively disrespectful, so I should be grateful for the ones that are just ignorant and skeptical. My expectations have been lowered accordingly.
- On the other hand, I can't judge a group just by the vocal members. They'll usually give me an indication of the best and worst ends of the spectrum, but those who stay silent can surprise me, in good ways or bad.
What I do:
- I've been consciously adopting an assertive persona: projecting my voice, standing up straight, shifting my body language, talking over people when I have to. Those who know me in real life know that this is a big deal for me. :p This is not how I normally operate. I'm also not very good at it yet, but I'm improving.
- Conversely, I'm being more patient. I'm biting my tongue when people spout sexist or victim-blaming crap (see above) and coddling them so as to not hurt their feelings, and to make them more receptive to my message. It's a balancing act, trying to decide how hard to push and how much to give.
- I also need to tailor my message to my audience. Sometimes, I have to be more of a hardass and can't go the, "well, we all have different opinions" route. Sometimes the ignorance is too strong to let it slide. Sometimes I have to focus on one myth over the other - emphasizing the hardship of male sexual assault victims rather than victim-blaming of women, for example - depending on where my audience's ignorance seems the deepest.
Tonight I had a group full of dickheads.
Well, not an entire group, perhaps. But the vocal ones were. And, unlike usual, there weren't a handful of vocal smart ones to make up for them. *sigh* I would say this was my toughest presentation yet - even though no single person was intolerably troublesome or disruptive, I could tell from the group behavior that we weren't really reaching the audience. Their apathy just exacerbated the ill effects of the sexist comments.
On the other hand, I found a bit of hope in a strange place. We handed out some pieces of paper for people to write down any questions they had for us, which they didn't feel comfortable asking in front of the group, so we could answer them for the group at the end of our presentation. Pretty much no one actually did this, though, and they all scattered after filling out our evaluation forms.
One guy, though, came up to us when the room was emptying and handed us his piece. He was asking that "if a girl says no in the middle of sex does the guy need to stop" question (which, yes, is a depressingly common area of ignorance). Oddly, I actually felt better about this guy - at least he was asking this question, which means that he felt doubts and kind of knew that this was something that shouldn't be done. This is in stark contrast to the loudmouths who were so sure that they had the right answer. In the end, I feel more hope about this guy, because if he's willing to ask, he's hopefully willing to listen to the answer.
(We didn't get to answer him there, because like I said most of the people were gone and it could hardly be an "anonymous" question. But my partner is getting in touch with the fraternity's president to give him an answer that can be shared with the house.)
What I've learned:
- Gender stereotypes are alive and well. (I'm not particularly surprised, since these are, after all, fraternities and sororities. I don't mean this in a disparaging way - it's just that, in a single-gender environment like Greek houses, you either consciously choose to examine gender roles, or else you are very strongly influenced by them. These gender roles are reinforced by the fact that this is a group of peers, and thus they must constantly prove their normativity, or "in-groupness" to one another.) The upshot of this is that you will unfailingly get the, "Women who dress like that only mean one thing," and, to a lesser extent, "Men just do this/are like that/think this way."
- On the other hand, people will fall over themselves to assert that, "I'm not saying it's her fault or anything" just before they go right on to spout the same old victim-blaming spiel that we've been hearing for centuries.
And people complain that we're being overrun by political correctness. Sure we are - if you mean politically correct lip service, which is just a shallow veneer over some deep-seated resentment at not being able to openly indulge in prejudice. Give anyone half a chance and they'll settle right back into the old *isms. (And then claim that they're being "edgy" or "innovative" or even "brave" when they do it.)
- The people who irritate and disappoint me are the "average" groups. The "good" ones, even. "Bad" groups are the ones that are actively disrespectful, so I should be grateful for the ones that are just ignorant and skeptical. My expectations have been lowered accordingly.
- On the other hand, I can't judge a group just by the vocal members. They'll usually give me an indication of the best and worst ends of the spectrum, but those who stay silent can surprise me, in good ways or bad.
What I do:
- I've been consciously adopting an assertive persona: projecting my voice, standing up straight, shifting my body language, talking over people when I have to. Those who know me in real life know that this is a big deal for me. :p This is not how I normally operate. I'm also not very good at it yet, but I'm improving.
- Conversely, I'm being more patient. I'm biting my tongue when people spout sexist or victim-blaming crap (see above) and coddling them so as to not hurt their feelings, and to make them more receptive to my message. It's a balancing act, trying to decide how hard to push and how much to give.
- I also need to tailor my message to my audience. Sometimes, I have to be more of a hardass and can't go the, "well, we all have different opinions" route. Sometimes the ignorance is too strong to let it slide. Sometimes I have to focus on one myth over the other - emphasizing the hardship of male sexual assault victims rather than victim-blaming of women, for example - depending on where my audience's ignorance seems the deepest.
Tonight I had a group full of dickheads.
Well, not an entire group, perhaps. But the vocal ones were. And, unlike usual, there weren't a handful of vocal smart ones to make up for them. *sigh* I would say this was my toughest presentation yet - even though no single person was intolerably troublesome or disruptive, I could tell from the group behavior that we weren't really reaching the audience. Their apathy just exacerbated the ill effects of the sexist comments.
On the other hand, I found a bit of hope in a strange place. We handed out some pieces of paper for people to write down any questions they had for us, which they didn't feel comfortable asking in front of the group, so we could answer them for the group at the end of our presentation. Pretty much no one actually did this, though, and they all scattered after filling out our evaluation forms.
One guy, though, came up to us when the room was emptying and handed us his piece. He was asking that "if a girl says no in the middle of sex does the guy need to stop" question (which, yes, is a depressingly common area of ignorance). Oddly, I actually felt better about this guy - at least he was asking this question, which means that he felt doubts and kind of knew that this was something that shouldn't be done. This is in stark contrast to the loudmouths who were so sure that they had the right answer. In the end, I feel more hope about this guy, because if he's willing to ask, he's hopefully willing to listen to the answer.
(We didn't get to answer him there, because like I said most of the people were gone and it could hardly be an "anonymous" question. But my partner is getting in touch with the fraternity's president to give him an answer that can be shared with the house.)