I spent Sunday in a primordial ooze of misogyny, as I had the temerity to say attempting to control another person is not a “boundary.” And what struck me is the familiarity.
There is a script that is followed when it comes to trying to reassert the white supremacist patriarchy.
I’ve broadened the framework because my friends of various backgrounds have experienced it as well, it’s not solely about gender, though that is where I’ve had it most.
First come the “questions.” They are not offered in good faith. When you don’t concede to the questions, the coercion begins. This can include accounts ganging up; it includes gaslighting or attempts to derail.
When that doesn’t work, what you are criticizing is normalized and it’s you who are the problem, with accusations from being weird or strange or stupid to ableism centered on mental health.
And when you don’t capitulate after that, then comes the straight abuse, the insults and the slurs.
If you haven’t noticed it before take a look. You’ll see it too now, in all the conversations.
And when you do, don’t miss the people who belong to the targeted group who step up to normalize. The white supremacist patriarchy can’t survive without them.
The goal is to chill speech around the topic, to make it so uncomfortable people stop talking about it. In this modern age to overwhelm your inbox; in past days and sometimes in this one too, to instill fear, to imply that violence is the price to pay for trying to dismantle the system.
The irony of trying to prove something isn’t abuse with abuse will never stop surprising me, but they will never stop doing it. Abuse gets them what they want, and openly talking about it makes it harder for them to pull it off.
So, on this Monday, know that when you speak out, you are sometimes stepping into a coliseum with whole bunch of hyenas. And that’s by design.
You don’t have to do it every time, but everyone has to do it some time or nothing will ever change.
Have a great Monday.
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