You, My Husband, Behind My Back
Nov. 20th, 2007 09:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jhameiaLet me begin with a quote from the Merchant of Venice:
Scene: Shylock wants a pound of Antonio's flesh, literally, and this is Bassanio's declaration of friendship for Antonio.
Bassanio: Antonio, I am married to a wife
Which is as dear to me as life itself;
But life itself, my wife, and all the world
Are not with me esteemed above thy life.
I would lose all, ay, sacrifice them all
Here to this devil [Shylock], to deliver you.
Portia (in disguise as the lawyer Balthasar):
Your wife would give you little thanks for that
If she were by to hear you make that offer.
I was reading around feminist blogs the last few days, after the whole MCSR post, trying to learn more of the opinions and articulation. I've been having a problem these past few days which is bugging me but I won't talk about it right now, since it relates to my boyfriend, and I need to talk to him first about it. This quote from Master Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice is one of the things, though.
What is essentially the problem here is this: Bassanio has just declared his complete love and adoration for Portia in the previous act, but when his buddy is in trouble (on account of him, too - Bassanio borrowed money from Shylock so he could woo Portia, using Antonio as guarantor), he takes back the promise and says he'll give Portia to Shylock, who wants a pound of Antonio's flesh, literally, so he can save his friend.
Portia is right there. Now, Bassanio doesn't notice this, obviously. Nobody ever notices a woman in men's clothing in Shakespearean theatre, for some reason. So, being in an all-male environment, of course it's perfectly fine to make outrageous promises like this. We're among dudes! Our wives aren't around to take us to task! Plus, they'll never know we said such an awful thing like giving this psycho a pound of THEIR flesh to save my buddy's ass.
The thing is, this sort of boys' attitude still persists today. I'm pretty fucking sure girls are guilty of it too. It sort of clicked that feminism isn't just a movement, it's an entire lifestyle, when I read Hugo Schwyzer's blog on men being "Guilty, Until Proven Innocent":
I asked "What can I do? How can I - as a man -- help this situation?"
The answers I got have been with me for nigh on eighteen years. The most important thing I can do is hold myself and other men accountable. When I'm hanging with the guys, and one of them cat-calls a girl and I say nothing, I am as guilty as he is. When I'm hanging with the guys, and leering at my classmates in miniskirts, I am part of the problem. It's not enough for men to be kind and thoughtful with the women in their lives, they must exemplify that kindness and sympathy for women even when they are in an all-male environment. The acid test of a male pro-feminist is how he interacts with other men when there are no women around. Any man can "talk the talk", and maybe even "walk the walk" in front of his mother, sister, girlfriend, wife. Can he do it with his buddies present? That's the question. And you can't be part of the solution until you do that.
I was floored when I heard that, because like so many young men, I was guilty of that "double life." Sweet and sensitive with women (at least, trying to be sensitive); crass and boorish with my fellow males. I assumed that the closeness with men I desired so much required that I surrender my feminist and egalitarian principles; how else could I bond with guys if we didn't act like pigs? Isn't that just what guys do?
Mr. Schwyzer has learnt, obviously, that he's wrong, and that it's important to keep the same sentiments that you express to your wife/girlfriend/sister/mother/friend/relation's face, you should be saying the same thing when they're not around, too. A man doesn't talk shit about raping women in front of his wife - that's just fucking disrespectful. But does it mean he gets to talk about raping women other times as well? Does the fact that the women whom he respects are absent, justify being disrespectful towards women in general?
Hugo's entry also links to this wonderful story of a man standing up against sexism, against disrespect against women - against sexually demeaning behaviour.
I've said in the last post: feminism can't happen without men. There's very little behaviour which outwardly degrades males - there's the joke where women claim men are animals, beasts. But that's also a justification used by men, too, so they don't have to hold themselves accountable when they make sexist jokes. That doesn't mean women can make sexist jokes.
We women don't get to go around vilifying men, just because they did it to us first. We know that demeaning women is wrong. That means the exact same thing when we demean men. We all must hold ourselves accountable for our language, for what we say. That's only the first step we take towards changing attitudes condoning sexism.
Scene: Shylock wants a pound of Antonio's flesh, literally, and this is Bassanio's declaration of friendship for Antonio.
Bassanio: Antonio, I am married to a wife
Which is as dear to me as life itself;
But life itself, my wife, and all the world
Are not with me esteemed above thy life.
I would lose all, ay, sacrifice them all
Here to this devil [Shylock], to deliver you.
Portia (in disguise as the lawyer Balthasar):
Your wife would give you little thanks for that
If she were by to hear you make that offer.
I was reading around feminist blogs the last few days, after the whole MCSR post, trying to learn more of the opinions and articulation. I've been having a problem these past few days which is bugging me but I won't talk about it right now, since it relates to my boyfriend, and I need to talk to him first about it. This quote from Master Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice is one of the things, though.
What is essentially the problem here is this: Bassanio has just declared his complete love and adoration for Portia in the previous act, but when his buddy is in trouble (on account of him, too - Bassanio borrowed money from Shylock so he could woo Portia, using Antonio as guarantor), he takes back the promise and says he'll give Portia to Shylock, who wants a pound of Antonio's flesh, literally, so he can save his friend.
Portia is right there. Now, Bassanio doesn't notice this, obviously. Nobody ever notices a woman in men's clothing in Shakespearean theatre, for some reason. So, being in an all-male environment, of course it's perfectly fine to make outrageous promises like this. We're among dudes! Our wives aren't around to take us to task! Plus, they'll never know we said such an awful thing like giving this psycho a pound of THEIR flesh to save my buddy's ass.
The thing is, this sort of boys' attitude still persists today. I'm pretty fucking sure girls are guilty of it too. It sort of clicked that feminism isn't just a movement, it's an entire lifestyle, when I read Hugo Schwyzer's blog on men being "Guilty, Until Proven Innocent":
I asked "What can I do? How can I - as a man -- help this situation?"
The answers I got have been with me for nigh on eighteen years. The most important thing I can do is hold myself and other men accountable. When I'm hanging with the guys, and one of them cat-calls a girl and I say nothing, I am as guilty as he is. When I'm hanging with the guys, and leering at my classmates in miniskirts, I am part of the problem. It's not enough for men to be kind and thoughtful with the women in their lives, they must exemplify that kindness and sympathy for women even when they are in an all-male environment. The acid test of a male pro-feminist is how he interacts with other men when there are no women around. Any man can "talk the talk", and maybe even "walk the walk" in front of his mother, sister, girlfriend, wife. Can he do it with his buddies present? That's the question. And you can't be part of the solution until you do that.
I was floored when I heard that, because like so many young men, I was guilty of that "double life." Sweet and sensitive with women (at least, trying to be sensitive); crass and boorish with my fellow males. I assumed that the closeness with men I desired so much required that I surrender my feminist and egalitarian principles; how else could I bond with guys if we didn't act like pigs? Isn't that just what guys do?
Mr. Schwyzer has learnt, obviously, that he's wrong, and that it's important to keep the same sentiments that you express to your wife/girlfriend/sister/mother/friend/relation's face, you should be saying the same thing when they're not around, too. A man doesn't talk shit about raping women in front of his wife - that's just fucking disrespectful. But does it mean he gets to talk about raping women other times as well? Does the fact that the women whom he respects are absent, justify being disrespectful towards women in general?
Hugo's entry also links to this wonderful story of a man standing up against sexism, against disrespect against women - against sexually demeaning behaviour.
I've said in the last post: feminism can't happen without men. There's very little behaviour which outwardly degrades males - there's the joke where women claim men are animals, beasts. But that's also a justification used by men, too, so they don't have to hold themselves accountable when they make sexist jokes. That doesn't mean women can make sexist jokes.
We women don't get to go around vilifying men, just because they did it to us first. We know that demeaning women is wrong. That means the exact same thing when we demean men. We all must hold ourselves accountable for our language, for what we say. That's only the first step we take towards changing attitudes condoning sexism.