Abuse not Argument
Today I reprint an important blog post from Dannielle Miller of Enlighten Education. Danni is passionate about helping girls and young women be all they can be and has received many awards for her innovative approach to girls’ education. Danni, like many of us who engage in the public square, has received abuse for her efforts. I’ve been told I’m ‘as ugly as a hat full of arses’ (my personal favourite) and as ugly as a Shar Pei dog ( the ones with the roly poly skin folds – they’re actually quite cute…but I digress). I think it’s important for those of us speaking out on the issues we care about to remember we are not alone in copping hate mail, and that perhaps it means we are making some kind of mark. And of course there are many women in the world who pay a much higher price for speaking out. Also (as I say in a comment to Danni’s piece) we need to maintain perspective and remember who were are in this fight for.
Sticks and stones
May 28th, 2010 by Danni Miller
Last week, I did a post sharing media I have been doing aimed at encouraging schools to be more proactive in dealing with sexual harassment. I received a comment from one of my blog readers that at first shocked me . . . and then got me thinking about another issue that affects all women and girls: the tendency in our culture to demean women for their looks rather than to engage with what they have to say. The comment was short, and cutting:
We’ve seen your talks at schools. If you’re so keen to set a good example then don’t turn up to school looking like mutton dressed as lamb. — Kim
I wondered exactly what it was about me that came across that way to her. When I do my self-esteem and skills-building workshops with girls, I wear an Enlighten Education uniform of sorts. We are often up and jumping around with the girls, so skirts and high heels are definitely out. It’s jeans or tights in winter, or mid-length shorts in summer, and then a black T-shirt embroidered with our butterfly logo.
Then I realised that the comment had drawn my attention away from the real issue: too often, when women raise their voices, they are criticised not for what they say but how they look.
Even now, in 2010, is that the currency of a woman or a girl — her looks? Is a female’s Achilles heel still her appearance? If you strike her there, do you take away her only power?
It isn’t the first time I’ve spoken out about sexual harassment or a women’s issue and been criticised not for my arguments but for the way I look. I have been helpfully informed that I seemed to have put on weight. I was sent an e-mail telling me that I couldn’t be a feminist because I have blonde hair. During the 2009 scandal involving Matthew Johns and teammates having sex with a 19-year-old girl, I wrote an article in defence of the young woman, who was being blamed and insulted in the media and on the internet. A reader commented that I was just jealous because I was wasn’t desirable enough to get a football player of my own.
I’m in good company. The woman whose writing had the most profound effect on me when I was young, Naomi Wolf, received a torrent of criticism for being too pretty to be a real feminist. On the other side of the coin, Germaine Greer has long been attacked for all sorts of supposed flaws in her appearance and femininity. Earlier this year, Louis Nowra described her in The Monthly as “a befuddled and exhausted old woman” who reminded him of his “demented grandmother”. It should be noted that Greer herself is no stranger to flinging looks-based insults, famously describing a fellow writer as having “hair bird’s-nested all over the place, ****-me shoes and three fat inches of cleavage”.
Comments that target a woman for how she looks, rather than her ideas, are designed to do one thing and one thing only: to shut her up.
Yet it only spurs me on. The same can be said for other Australian writers and commentators I spoke to who also regularly receive such criticism. When I discussed this phenomenon with Emily Maguire, author of Princesses & Porn Stars and a regular writer on gender and culture, she told me:
There’s no way you can present yourself that won’t attract criticism from the kind of people who think that criticism of a woman’s looks will hurt more than criticism of her ideas . . . It only makes me more sure that this stuff is worth speaking out about. — Emily Maguire
Melinda Tankard Reist is an author and commentator who often appears in the media to speak out against the sexualisation of girls and women. She publicly commented on the decision of former Hi-5 performer Kellie Crawford to pose for a lingerie shoot in Ralph in order to ”find the woman in me” after so many years as a children’s entertainer. Melinda asked people to question why the Wiggles didn’t need to “prove their manhood by stripping down to their jocks”. Much of the criticism she received afterwards didn’t address that question but told her that she was “a bitter ugly woman”, ”sad, old and dog-ugly” and that she had “saggy breasts and a droopy arse”.
Old, saggy, mutton dressed as lamb — age is a common theme to this type of criticism. Rather than seeming to gain wisdom, experience and authority — as is virtually expected of men — women are often deemed of decreasing value with each year they move beyond their 30s. We see it throughout our culture. How many good roles are there for actresses over 40? How many women newsreaders have career longevity without resorting to Botox? It is as if once women have passed a certain age, it is time for them to step off the stage. It’s no wonder that many women are angsting and trying to achieve the body of a 20-year-old — an impossible and time-wasting task. Zoe Krupka put it perfectly in a post on the website New Matilda:
How are we meant to do our work in the world and develop wisdom if we are still focused on the size of our butts? — Zoe Krupka
One would hope that the situation was improving, but in fact, it seems to be getting worse. And it is often women who use the strategy of attacking a woman’s looks. Dr Karen Brooks, social commentator and author of Consuming Innocence: Popular Culture and Our Children, told me:
I have had my appearance criticised ALL the time . . . This has been happening to me for 13 years and it’s getting worse . . . I should add that most of the negative comments are from women. — Karen Brooks
Perhaps there is an element of fear of change that drives women to this type of criticism. Perhaps this technique just comes all too naturally to women who have spent their whole lives learning how to play the “compare and despair” game. Perhaps the ultimate sin for women is to show confidence and to love themselves, so critics feel that outspoken women need to brought down a peg or two.
Whatever it is that drives looks-based criticism, the thing that hurt me the most about the comment I received on my blog was that this woman claimed she had seen me present to girls. At every school Enlighten Education has worked in, the girls line up afterwards to ask for a hug, a kiss and to tell us they love us. They tell us that it changed their lives. So it made me sad to think that in the presence of all the joy and positivity and love that bursts out of these girls, for at least one woman the lasting impression was my looks, something that the girls never notice or comment on.
Imagine the change we all — women and men — could make in the world if we took personal attacks out of public debate. Imagine if we all engaged in the debate, made respectful counterarguments, added our own ideas into the mix. Imagine if we all pledged to stop trying to silence one another. I have the greatest respect for the women thinkers and activists I have mentioned here. Do I agree with them on every single issue? Of course not. But I pledge to always argue my case while according them the respect they deserve. It will always be their ideas that I engage with, because ideas — not physical appearances — live on forever.
A comment I received from another woman sums it all up:
Common sense, dignity, rights, respect, responsibility — these basic human values should be blind to looks, age, gender. — Paola Yevenes
10 Responses
FASCINATING article, and a topic which I had not given much thought to until now, despite personal criticisms that I have received. It’s truly upsetting that our ‘freedom’ and ‘equality’ as human beings can be quashed so quickly, despite assertions that the modern world today is built upon these pillars. Women are most definitely not equal to their male counterparts, both in the workplace and in general society. We still have a long way to go, so I will be sharing this article with my men to hopefully illicit some change in those close to me.
Ohhh yes the ever present critic of the self, even in this modern era of feminism and the empowerment and freedoms that come with it 🙂
I was doing a forum at Sydney Uni a few years ago, complete with the big security gaurds protecting the speakers, the topic was abortion so you can imagine!
Anyway I was waiting for the attacks after the forum, I could see this one woman hanging back while the rest of the audience were warm and so positive in their words, then this woman cam up to me I will never forget her words …
“If you were prettier your words would have sounded better”
All I could do was laugh at her, I know not the best of responses, but what else could I have done? Because this woman did not agree with what i was saying she had to feel empowered I guess by viocing some kind of opinion, & yet all she could come up with was that I wasnt pretty enough!!!
I think there’s actually two issues here.
1) Ad hominem and other fallacies are incredible common generally. I think this is partly a result of how complex the world is these days, and how poor the general population’s understanding of logic and critical thinking is. Many of today’s arguments and debates are incredible detailed, with many layers and multiple interactions. It is incredibly hard to be across the latest data and thinking in one area, let alone all areas. Going with a gut reaction is easy, but requires something that sounds ‘plausible’ to satisfy ourselves that we have given the issue due consideration.
Consider the way the ETS was sold and attacked. Neither side made any effort to actually explain the nuts and bolts of how it would work. There is so much data and science that you need to understand before you can even accept that there is a problem in the first place. Then there is huge amount of understanding and thinking that would be required to determine if the proposed ETS was actually the best solution. That’s too much work. Most of us take the word of people we trust. That means it is far easier to present the pro-argument as ‘the greatest moral challenge of our time’ and the against as ‘a great big tax’. The same is true of everything, from how the computer in front of you works to the ethical issues involved in factory farming.
I think most people form a snap decision, then think of the first ‘plausible’ rational to back that decision up. Critical thinking and logic taught as part of the school system would go some way to solving that, but some research I’ve read suggests that it is the default way our brains work.
2) That leads into the second issue. Why do so many people jump to the appearance rational when they have a gut disagreement with a particular argument?
Certainly ‘youth’ plays a role. I think this is true across all genders, but certainly is more pounced for women. There are some who are able to transcend it and maintain a ‘handsome’ attractiveness, ( Ian McKellen, Sean Connery, Maggie Smith, or Judi Dench for example) but these seem exceptions rather than the rule.
Attractiveness is also certainly an issue. I’m much more likely to go out of my way for someone (of any gender) that I personally find attractive than not. Perhaps this is similar to height discrimination that apparently goes on. Shorter people on average make less than those of taller stature. However, at some point attractiveness must come into play. For two people to come together and share life requires mutual intellectual and physical attraction. I don’t think that is something we can ever change. Such a requirement is going to spill out into other areas of life, which means judging people by attractiveness is not something that can easily be dismissed.
I do agree, though, that making people comfortable with themselves would go a long way to improving this issue. That would at least make people more likely to engage the argument, as that would then be the only way to proceed.
From a brief look of their website, ‘Enlighten Education’ sounds like a fantastic program. I am glad there are people doing that kind of work. I hope there is something similar available for boys. I’d also be interested to hear how the handle gay and lesbian issues.
“However, at some point attractiveness must come into play.”
Really? Why must it? It does, for most, certainly – but doesn’t that say more about the way in which people are represented in the media (particularly women) than it does about what people are capable of achieving in our interactions with each other? I think it’s shocking that attacking people on the basis of their appearance is so widely accepted in our culture. Why is that okay? We all look different, but somehow diversity is a source of fear for many. I know that not everyone I meet will find me attractive – a good percentage of them will not in the slightest! That doesn’t bother me at all. I don’t ask that everyone treats me as if they want to sleep with me — I ask that everyone treats me as a human being with no more or no less value as someone they do happen to think is attractive. And I ask that when my attractiveness – my body, my femininity, my age – is not the issue, that people don’t MAKE it the issue. Simple as that.
This is a really insightful post. I so admire anyone committed to the education of girls.
The context of that sentence was that two people looking to share life together will base the choosing of their partner on a mutual *physical* and intellectual attraction. Therefore, it makes sense that we judge people on their physical attractiveness to ourselves as a potential mate.
I didn’t say it makes sense to attack people based on their appearance (and indeed, we shouldn’t), just that we have to be aware that we do make judgements based on appearance. The trick is getting people to realise they are making these kind of judgements unconsciously. Self awareness of these kinds of judgements is crucial to being able to transcend them.
“Therefore, it makes sense that we judge people on their physical attractiveness to ourselves as a potential mate”.
Really? Are you saying that you would then treat the middle-aged woman (or any woman) serving you in the supermarket with less than the level of respect that she deserves, merely because you do not find her ‘attractive as a potential mate’? If so, this really is just proving Melinda’s point.
On a related note, I thank Goodness that I was never considered conventionally attractive and am thus free to speak my mind without caring in the least about whether men find me attractive or whether women are going to make barbed comments about my appearance. If more girls and women could accept themselves as beautiful whatever they may look like, a lot of these remarks would lose their power to wound.
I’m apparently not very good at getting my point across. I guess I’ll have to keep practising.
No, I’m saying that everyone, regardless of gender or sexual orientation, treats others with a base level of respect. Those that a person finds sexually attractive will be given an elevated level of interaction. ie We go above and beyond for those we are attracted to. I don’t think that can be changed. What the ‘base level’ is, can be, and that’s where work needs to be done.
Your supermarket scenario is actually a fairly good example. Mostly we pick the shortest queue. If queues are all of equal length, then we look for other cues to decide. This may be the queue that is physically closest, or the perceived attractiveness of the attendant, or some other subconscious hint depending on our mood at the time. This can even be as simple as whether the cashier looks ‘creepy’ or bored.
Having said that, just what ‘respect’ means in a cashier scenario is debatable. We have already selected the products we want, and are now concerned with paying and getting out of the store. The cashier is a means to an end. It is enough to be polite and complete the transaction as quickly as possible without having to fully realise the cashier as a complete person. Many people who work in retail do not want to have fake conversations that will be completely forgotten by both parties 30 seconds after the transaction is complete.
I’ve been very careful to avoid gendered words in the above, because I don’t think that plays a part in how anyone behaves in these situations. However, female cashiers will almost certainly get male patrons who stare at their breasts, make lewd comments or otherwise make the situation unpleasant, but that certainly doesn’t fall under being polite.
I absolutely do not think ad hominem response to arguments are good. Logical fallacies are common responses to many arguments in many sectors. I agree with Melinda that the ad hominem attack based on attractiveness is more commonly aimed at women.
My suspicion is that fallacious responses are common, but that (particularly) women choose to use the attractiveness attack suggests a lack of self-confidence. Lack of self-confidence can be addressed by building people up and addressing media representation of body image issues. (Which is one reason I was pleasantly surprised to see that an organisation like ‘Enlighten Education’ actually existed.) The other issue is why people respond to arguments with logical fallacies by default. I think critical thinking education can solve that problem.
Wow … it’s one thing to judge someone’s appearance in your head (not justifying it though!) … but I can’t get over what some people will actually say out loud! Where are people’s manners? And don’t they feel stupid and ashamed coming out with these things?
It does seem to be true, when we have nothing else to say, we say something derogatory about a person’s appearance. What a sad, sad world. We should be valuing each other for our inner qualities, and encouraging those attributes in each other.