On “engendering” change

J.K. Gayle has a fine post up summarizing the history of women who have run for office. I knew all but one of the names; I learned today for the first time of Frances Farenthold. Good stuff. Also, see Reclusive Leftist for an excellent take on the “unconscious bias” that favors Obama over Clinton.

At Feministe, and at Elaine’s place, discussion has broken out over the question of how a married woman can best introduce her well-meaning but at times infuriatingly sexist husband to the basic insights of feminism. (The conversation is broad enough that it need not be limited to those who are married, and indeed, another thread has started about how to raise very young feminist daughters.) Despite some attempts at hijacking by the usual trolls, the discussion has been excellent; do check out Elaine’s post and the Feministe threads.

The last time I got involved in a discussion like this in the blogosphere, I said something idiotically pompous (perhaps at Punkass Blog, perhaps at Violet Socks) about being a “professional” who “did feminism for a living.” It was one of my many low points on the internets, and I do repent of it. The fact that I am paid to teach gender studies courses means that I am privileged enough to earn money for doing justice work, but it hardly makes me either wiser or more personally invested in the cause than other activists. But what all of these years and years of teaching feminism to often suspicious audiences has taught me is that there are indeed a few effective ways to “reach” the well-intentioned but misguided.

Much of the good advice is already in the Feministe and Elaine posts: reframe the discussion, encourage regular blog reading, let the change happen slowly. I particularly like what K wrote about her “best beloved”:

I’ve been using a combination of brief, sharp “There it is” comments when he says something sexist; long, calm, patient discussions about the topic when something sexist has happened in the news or one of our workplaces, so that we can discuss it without putting him in a defensive position; and routine affirmations that I see him as a deeply decent, considerate, and fairminded individual who happens to have some irritating traces of his sexist upbringing…

So far, his response to my consciousness raising has been something along the lines of, “Okay, I see why you’re right, but I’m not going to change my behavior.” Instead of jumping on that, I’m trying to see it as the first step. My theory is that it’s like hearing a new vocabulary word everywhere you go: Once sexism is on his mind, he’ll see it whenever it happens. Since he is deeply decent, he will be offended by the prevalence of sexism and irritated by the company which he’s joining by continuing in this vein.

Bold emphasis mine. I think K has got it exactly right. Real anti-sexist work creates change by planting seeds, trusting that a generally reasonable person will be able to nurture them on his or her own. As K’s “beloved” makes clear, there’s often a big gap between awareness and action. Getting a partner, a spouse, a friend, a relative to “see” that sexism is real is one thing; getting them to start making changes is something altogether different. But once the idea takes root, the person you’re trying to reach will often start to see their own examples. And once they start to see for themselves where and how sexism remains entrenched in our culture, they may start to recognize the ways in which they are complicit in its survival. While some men and women will shrug and say “But that’s the way the world is”, others will — like K’s partner — be so offended by their own involvement in the casual mistreatment of women that they will begin to make changes.

This isn’t just theoretical. I’ve seen it happen again and again. Every missionary knows that when you first get a crowd to listen to the Good News, many if not most will have come out of curiosity or compulsion rather than desire. The trick is to plant the right seeds that will turn those who “came to scoff” into those who “stay to pray.” In cases where the person you’re trying to evangelize is your own husband, boyfriend, father, or brother the happy news is that a feminist has a lot of time with which to work, to plant seeds, to initiate life-changing conversation. The hard part is that the messy dynamics of a romantic or familial relationship can get hopelessly intertwined with the work of feminist evangelism. Many a student, home to the family dinner table after his or her first gender studies class, knows what it is like to be met with hoots of derision, patronizing nods, or open hostility when he or she first broaches the subject of sexism within the family and the wider world!

William James, in his Varieties of Religious Experience, suggested that most enduring conversions were not sudden. The “road to Damascus” experience is rare. Most lasting transformations happen gradually; James famously (everyone who has been in AA knows this) remarked that most conversions were of the “educational variety.” They happen slowly, in increments, over what may well be a very long period of time. K’s two-tiered method of reaching her guy, through “brief, sharp comments” and “long, calm, patient discussions” is as good a way as I know to inspire that often agonizingly slow conversion of the “educational variety.”

Since I’m in a quoting mood today, let me add Dr. King’s famous line: Whom you would change, you must first love. Many feminists know what it is to love a man — or a woman — whose views on gender and culture are reactionary if not positively troglodytic. Most of us know what it is to care deeply for another human being whose outlook is painfully, infuriatingly different. But as so many are willing to attest, change does happen. It happens slowly, and it happens when the catalyst for change is willing to love, to challenge, and to be patient. That’s a tall order, I know, especially for those who have already been so patient for so long.