From: mara@panix.COM (Mara Chibnik)
Subject: Re: denial
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Organization: (getting there)
Date: 6 Oct 92 23:03:09 GMT

In <1992Sep30.203548.144919@zeus.calpoly.edu> dgross@zeus.calpoly.edu
(Dave Gross) asserts that he didn't get the joke.

Dave complains:
 >Denial and insensitivity is yet another sexism complaint that turns
 >out to be a two-way street.

He is responding to an anonymous posting that described a meeting
at work:
  >>In a company-wide meeting, the vice president of our division made a
  >>remark that was sexist and bordering on sexual harassment.  When some
  >>people hissed, he expressed surprise at the negative reaction.

We have no information about the person at whom the remark was
directed, but note that it was a *large* ("company-wide") meeting.
If we accept the anecdote as accurate, which I certainly do for the
purpose of the argument, a person in a position of power targeted
someone (an employee?  It isn't clear) for harassment in front of
the assembled company.

Dave's example-- to show that the street runs both ways-- is this:
 >	I'm in the women's studies minor at Cal Poly.  One quarter, I
 >	was taking a WS class, and the professor would occasionally
 >	start the class with a joke.  These jokes usually targeted
 >	men, and on a couple of occasions the jokes were very
 >	offensive.  One I remember was about a flasher who asked a
 >	woman "Well, what do you think?" and she responded, "It looks
 >	like a penis, only smaller..."

Now, it may be that the teacher managed more seriously offensive
jokes than this one, but it's not my example, it's Dave's.
A flasher is someone who tries to get attention by exposing his
penis in public.  The behavior is generally considered out of line;
I consider it so and I assume that Dave does too.  (He doesn't say
otherwise.)  It's an infantile way of getting attention, and of
exercising power.

 >	Kind of amusing, but I'm sure you can guess that with the
 >	genders reversed, the joke would have been considered sexist,
 >	offensive, and possibly sexual harassment.

I don't know any example of a similar joke with the genders
reversed.  Women don't do much flashing.  Women's genitals-- or
breasts, for that matter-- aren't considered threatening.  Men
generally make a point of enjoying the display of women's anatomy
(isn't that another thread here?).

>	The real punchline, though, came the following quarter, when I
>	had the same professor again for a different WS class.  She
>	was doing a unit on sexual harassment and made the following
>	comment:
>		"There are still some professors here at Poly who
>		 don't realize that making jokes about womens' anatomy
>		 constitutes sexual harassment."
>	So there you have it.  Denial from a professor of the New
>	Sensitivity.

The professor may indeed be insensitive, but this doesn't prove it.
The story Dave relates provides a defusing retort to a threatening
situation.  The anatomy under disparagement is not simply "men's
anatomy," it is specifically the anatomy of one particular male, and
one who is demonstrating behavior designed to have an effect on
those who witness it.  The retort in the joke demonstrates that it
has the _wrong_ effect on that person.  In fact, for those who think
that size is glory, the joke actually glorifies the male member of
those men who don't flash.

I wouldn't normally bother about this, but I recently saw a talk
show that was focusing on women who were being stalked by their
exes.  Two or three women mentioned a series of really frightening
experiences (I have no idea whether or not they were true).  Then
they were joined by a man who complained that female victims of
domestic violence get all the attention although a study showed
that 52% of instances of domestic violence were committed by women,
and said that he himself had suffered a broken nose at his wife's
hand.

Now, I would have had a lot more sympathy for him if one of the
women hadn't just described having had to be hospitalized for head
injuries that her husband had inflicted on her.  His wife (ex-wife?)
wasn't stalking him; he wasn't even complaining about the cost of
the divorce.

Now maybe the show had deliverately selected him as a weak example.
But if it were me, and I'd been selected as a weak example, I'd make
a point of stating my case on its own terms, not to be set up
against a different class of cases.

If Dave's professor is insensitive or worse, let him describe her in
terms that convince me; otherwise I'm likely to think he's missed
the point.
--

  Mara Chibnik
  mara@panix.com                Life is too important to be taken seriously.



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