Screeds

[flexibeast]

A couple of times recently, i've posted comments in LJ communities that are basically mini-essays. Since i put a fair amount of effort into them, i've decided to reproduce them here, particularly as they're both about issues close to my heart.

Firstly, an excerpt from something i wrote in response to someone noting that they support hate-speech laws because they feel that hate-speech is a way of terrorising people:

[T]he problems with such laws are, in my opinion, manyfold:

* Laws are only as effective as the ability of all members of society to use them. There's no way i could afford a lawyer to effectively represent me in a "hate speech" case, and yet my income situation has consistently meant that i am unable to access state subsidies such as concession cards - so i doubt whether i could access Legal Aid.

* But let's say some reasonably well-off person brings a case to trial in which the defendant is found guilty. Will that serve as a deterrent? Well, we only need to look at the plethora of other laws in society that are regularly disobeyed. A good example is the law against downloading illegal copies of music: the penalties for that, in the US at least, have gotten to the point where they are (in at least one instance) comparable to the penalties for manslaughter - yet such downloading has not signficantly decreased. If people don't think laws are moral, they often simply ignore them.

* What constitutes 'hate speech'? How does it fit with freedom of spiritual/religious/political/social beliefs and their expression in written or verbal form? i certainly understand your point about the (perhaps inevitable) need to curtail some freedoms in order to protect others (e.g. i imagine we would both agree that a person has a right to not be the subject of physical violence, even though that clearly involves limiting people's behaviour). But i don't think the boundaries are so clear-cut when it comes to the issue of speech acts. For example: is saying that same-sex marriage will cause societal problems an instance of 'hate speech'?

. . . i'm not aware of many governments that have consistently demonstrated that they are defending the interests of all their citizens, rather than the interests of a select minority. And once governments have been granted powers, they don't give them back without a fight, and often use them in ways which those who originally proposed the laws didn't intend.

[ Reference: the full comment, in context ]

Secondly, something i wrote about the use of the words 'pussy' and 'cunt' as insults:

Ack.

i'm all for free speech. i'm also all for people being aware of their own behaviour, and how certain privileged positions are often expressed in that behaviour. i don't expect people to not behave a certain way because otherwise they will get beaten up by the PC police; i hope that people will behave a certain way because they get, in their guts, why it's the right thing to do.

In this particular case, the issue is: 'pussy' and 'cunt' are used as words of disparagement. Why are these words regarded as disparaging? Iirc, 'pussy' meaning 'vulva' (and perhaps 'vagina' too) ultimately comes from Old Norse puse, meaning 'pouch'. It's merely a co-incidence that it ended up as the same word for the domesticated cat. So which of the two basic meanings is meant as derogatory? Well, i would suggest that anyone who considers domestic cats to be inherently weak and passive has never tried giving a cat a bath. :-) But perhaps they are under such illusions; okay. It's then interesting to note how often the domesticated cat is associated with the 'feminine', and wild cats (such as lions and tigers) with the masculine. And not only with the 'feminine', but with the nasty, evil 'feminine' - witches and evil queens. So even 'pussy' in the form of domestic cat has negative 'female' connotations.

Then there's the meaning of both 'pussy' and 'cunt' as genitalia - why is it insulting to refer to someone using the words for female genitalia? What's so bad about being a 'cunt'? Is it not because it's a symbol for the 'feminine', which is stereotypically considered 'weak' and 'passive'?

The central point here is: words are loaded with implicit, as well as explicit, meanings. And those meanings partly depend on who is using them and who is receiving them. In sexist societies such as ours, the use by many men of certain words that carry strong connotations of "disparagement by association with the female" serves to highlight sex-based privilege: specifically, the notion that men can say whatever they want without taking into consideration how it might be received by women, and how it might uphold patriarchal notions of 'femininity'.

Finally, it's also about respect. How much respect can such men truly have for women and feminism when they so arrogantly dismiss women's feelings on a given issue?

[ Reference: the full comment, in context ]

 

Comments

[scopo.livejournal.com]

well, that sort of misogyny used to be quite common in queens of a certain type - but it's something that I would have thought (hoped) had largely gone by the wayside ...

[flexibeast.livejournal.com]

In my experience, it's still very common amongst gay men; although i must say i wonder if it isn't 'merely' part of the self-centred "only the issues that I think are important should be of any importance to the queer communities" sort of attitude that i continually encounter from many gay men . . . .