Expert Tease
In my last blog post, I got vulnerable. Valentine’s day had me typing out my feelings, and it resonated with a lot of you.
My inbox is full of crying emojis.
The response has been lovely but intimidating. How do you follow your most intimate work a week later? My heart is still raw from writing something personal, and I don’t know that I have it in me to give any more.
That said, jumping back into a report on sexism in sports would feel regressive.
Like any opinion writer, I try to be fair in my criticisms. Journalistic integrity means being unbiased, and I desperately want to be seen as reliable. I’ve shared this blog with many male colleagues and have tried to maintain a level of formality that won’t alienate that subsection of readers.
You recruit more feminists with honey, so to speak.
Often I test material on my husband. Mark, who is a vocal feminist, has a distinct line in what female-oriented content he finds funny. I shared a TikTok of a woman articulating how hilariously over-the-top it is when men claim to have “trust issues” over makeup when her wariness comes from being hit by ex-boyfriends. The shocking delivery made me laugh.
Mark didn’t get it.
To me, that video is a form of catharsis. It’s funny because most women have seen or experienced this behaviour too. We can acknowledge the double standard is ridiculous.
Men have accused me of being both a prude and a slut. Male acquaintances have taken advantage of my drunkenness to make unwanted advances. Close friends have lied about sleeping with me to make themselves seem more macho.
As a young woman, I learnt that whenever you let your guard down, there’s someone there to invade your space.
Now when I write personal pieces, it feels risky. Putting too much of myself anywhere is an invitation for opinion. I’ve accidentally fallen into the “she was asking for it” model of censorship with my words. When you put your personal experience on the internet, you’re offering it up for interpretation.
As I’m writing this article, Microsoft Word put a blue squiggly line under the word “slut.”
“This language may be offensive to your reader,” it warns.
Immediately I wonder if I’m being outlandish. Will anyone read the words of a manic, angry woman? Are my emotions bleeding into this argument? Are my thoughts on Trevor Bauer discredited if I reveal that I’m too close to the subject?
To some women, examples of misogyny from my personal life allow me to write about sexism with a level of authority. To some men, those same experiences make me nothing more than a tease.
When exactly does experience switch from expertise to bias?
Surprising my husband with a new insecurity I’ve recently developed
Undercover Coping
I’m innately drawn to stories of abuse and sexual violence. Growing up on Buffy the Vampire Slayer turned me into my own kind of monster hunter. I thrive on pointing out double standards and restrictive policies.
To do that, I need to be authoritative.
Recently, journalist Anna Maria Tremonti started a podcast about being a domestic violence survivor and why she had to keep her story hidden at work. She knew her experience would delegitimize parts of her career.
I worried that exposing my strong personal connection to such an important topic could limit my journalistic freedom or pull me away from other stories I cared about.
We see her survivor status as a hindrance instead of an asset because we don’t believe women are capable of separating emotions from work. Tremonti rightfully points out that her ex-husband, a known abuser, continued to work in news. Does his bias for violence against women factor into the stories he runs?
Did anyone think to ask?
The biggest factor in whether your experience is valuable is who you’re trying to convince. For example, court systems are set up to believe hard facts with clear villains. The nuances of sexual assault – dealing with trauma, sex through coercion, ongoing contact between victim and assailant- weaken arguments of rape in the eyes of the law. In some places, we still don’t accept the possibility that a husband can rape his wife.
Even though these complex cases could benefit from a deeper understanding of trauma, being a rape survivor can preclude you from sitting on a jury. Your ability to empathize allegedly removes your ability to act objectively - as if the 33% of women who’ve experienced sexual assault have taken a blood oath to put all accused men behind bars.
Is it not more important to know if any jury members have ever coerced someone into having sex? Wouldn’t that skew a verdict just as much? Is it okay to empathize with the accused more than the accuser?
Similarly, officers enforcing the law are largely unequipped to deal with sexual assault cases. The Metropolitan Police are notorious for putting restrictions on local women after Sarah Everard was murdered walking home. As it turns out, one of their own colleagues was to blame.
Behind closed doors, their biases are even worse. An investigation by the Independent Office for Police Conduct found messages from officers like this:
You ever slapped your missus? It makes them love you more. Seriously since I did that she won’t leave me alone. Now I know why these daft cunts are getting murdered by their spastic boyfriends. Knock a bird about and she will love you. Human nature. They are biologically programmed to like that shit.
And this:
Getting a woman in to bed is like spreading butter. It can be done with a bit of effort using a credit card, but it's quicker and easier just to use a knife.
And these, both sent to female coworkers:
I would happily rape you
if I was single I would happily chloroform you
Undoubtedly, the guilty parties will claim these texts were jokes. They’ll argue that private messages don’t affect the job, even though one of their own is in prison for raping and murdering a young woman.
I have a hard time believing that this bias doesn’t contribute to other abuses of power. It’s even harder to see how this is more palatable than Tremonti reporting on stories of abuse as a survivor. If anything, you’d think her compassion and empathy would allow for better storytelling.
It’s unclear how domestic violence, rape threats, and misogynistic language could help the Metropolitan Police do their jobs better…
What is clear is that biases against victims are easier to get away with than biases against abusers.
Like a Surgeon
As a feminist writer, there’s one word I view as the kiss of death: hysterical.
Like Tremonti, I feel an overwhelming amount of pressure to make my arguments airtight. Whenever I toe the line of being too angry or too outspoken, I reign everything back to the facts.
Imagine Joe Rogan feeling that kind of anxiety.
Women have to justify so much more of their lives than men. Our looks, sexual histories, and intelligence are constantly called into question. Words like “bossy,” “cold,” and “nag” are flown at us when we emulate male behaviour. We can’t even be trusted to speak authoritatively about our own bodies. Gaslighting in women’s healthcare is a known issue, and women who complain about pain are told it must be hormonal. Often female patients are sent away or misdiagnosed because their experience isn’t believed.
This is in large part because healthcare doesn’t care about female ailments. While 90% of women have reported at least one PMS symptom five times as many studies have been dedicated to erectile dysfunction, a problem experienced by only 19% of men.
Five. Times.
Not that long ago, “hysteria” was a valid medical diagnosis for women acting outside of the norm. If it wasn’t immediately clear what the physiological problem was, it became her. The trap with being labelled as crazy is that there’s no way to convince people otherwise.
The hysterical woman doesn’t see herself as hysterical.
Just look at Britney Spears. For 13 years her team successfully held onto a narrative that she needed help. Her conservatorship was proof that she was mentally unstable and to question its legitimacy was to speculate on her mental wellbeing. Any semblance of her not agreeing with the arrangement was to be expected.
Even now, the world can’t handle seeing her dishevelled and free. 13 years of torture, and the headlines are quick to call her unhinged and fat. The comment section of her Instagram is full of unsolicited advice on how she should be behaving.
The damage was done in 2007. No matter how successful, how strong, and how free Britney is, there will always be someone who remembers her as “that crazy chick who shaved her head.”
No wonder I’m hesitant to share my emotions.
Reading back old blog posts
Take Another Little Piece of My Heart
In an effort to remain authoritative, I’ve kept many of my own experiences at bay. Rape is objectively bad, so my proximity to the issue should not matter.
In reality, most of my friends have been physically, emotionally, or sexually abused at the hands of dudes you’d never look twice at on the street. Like clockwork, catcallers come out of hibernation in the summer to remind me that my neighbourhood isn’t safe. My middle school math teacher groomed my peers. My first sexual experiences were chalked full of coercion.
I guess I was kidding myself to think I could be unbiased.
Yesterday I was at a coffee shop with a friend, and we both jumped when the barista shouted out a drink order. Together we laughed about the realities of trauma while forcing our hands to be steady. We swapped stories about sleazy execs at Christmas parties, reputations we left behind in old cities, friends with ulterior motives.
There were no tears. We barely comforted each other. Each atrocity was presented as matter-of-factly as the last.
In chatting, I recognized the familiar connection I have with many women. Women who are scared to show more than is absolutely necessary. Women who’ve given part of themselves to someone who abused the offer.
Women who talk about their experiences from a distance.
Living in a world where emotion is seen as weakness hasn’t only hardened the men. Women who want to be believed have closed themselves off too. There’s power in being able to talk objectively about horrific things.
But, if I can’t be an expert, I might as well be honest.
