I was living in Oakland, California when we began mapping plans for a "Women's Safe Space." It was to be a community space run entirely by women; an environment in which sexual tension and gender-related power dynamics had been dissolved; we would feel empowered while teaching and learning from other women; we could freely relate to each other about the common roadblocks and pitfalls of being female in a male-dominated world.
The rules were only this: while men were welcome in the space, women controlled the decision-making process. Also, if a woman felt uncomfortable around any man in the space for any reason, he would be required to leave - no questions asked.
How exciting a prospect! Or at the very least, a reasonable one. Yet, we were met with opposition. A small group of men emerged to ridicule and challenge our attempts at autonomy.
"It's great that you're proud of your feminism and all," they'd say, "but this whole thing sounds pretty sexist to me. What if I started an all-men's space?"
"The whole world is a men's space!" Whitney seethed. "All we want is one place where we can finally make the decisions ourselves."
We didn't even want an all-women's space (which was the first misunderstanding) - just a place to exist without the subtle, leering tentacles of patriarchy. Was this so much to ask? Even in the San Francisco Bay Area - the most PC place in the country - it was. Apparently our actions were somehow the business of these dudes. Did they...did they feel...left out?
If I were to assert now with a straight face that in my life as a woman I have rarely felt left out, I would be both wildly delusional and a champion liar.
As far back as grammar school, I was made aware of my socialization. I remember wondering feverishly why people really listened when boys talked. Whenever the loud, obnoxious ones said anything, it was funny. But if I spoke up in the same way, I was just a brat. Then I grew into a rude teenage girl. Now, as an adult, I am a bitch.
I will confess, I often feel the need to "keep up with the guys," if not downright appeal to them. If I can successfully maintain a level of masculinity (that is, non-emotive with strong intellectual assertions and a hardened fa?\0xA4ade), then I can be forever a tomboy and may actually get taken seriously. If I fail, I am again just a pretty face to be seen and not heard.
I would challenge life-desk senior editor Stephanie Sciandra's notions that women are "taking over" and "terrorizing" (of all words to use) and generally demanding too much. Because the fact of the matter is that we never got our Women's Safe Space. It was blocked by a bunch of dudes who held no stake in the project in the first place, but felt uncomfortable with being told - for the first time in their lives, perhaps - that they couldn't have something.
Women's Lib isn't just something that happened in the '60s, and patriarchy isn't over now that women are doctors and voters and motorists. We don't have it all, and to imagine we do is to imagine the mythical level-playing field. We must demand everything as a method of getting anything.
Perhaps Ms. Sciandra's words were misguided, because there is no doubt in my mind that she is properly committed to feminism. However (and this is the second great misunderstanding), it's not just women against men. We don't want to reverse the oppression cycle; we want to eradicate it.
Two strong buttresses of patriarchy are: (1) men as often-unknowing accessories and (2) women as often-unknowing sympathizers. Thus, two strategies can be employed: (1) Men can work to become aware of how their actions affect women and perpetuate the patriarchal model (i.e. checking that women are included in conversations, not talked over, and always taken seriously). (2) Women can find affinity with each other. As long as we remain in constant competition for the approval of men, our rhetoric about equality will be nothing more than that. This is the nature of oppression and why it tends to work so well.
Cheers, Stephanie, for strategizing with law books and women's shelters. I'll see you that and raise you one more by examining our own daily interactions. Together we might really make some chinks in the armor.
E-mail: hdobbs@buffalo.edu
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
