If you ask a random person on the street what social justice is (once you explained to them that “social justice is that thing where people complain about sexism and racism and homophobia a lot’), they would probably say that social justice is about “not stereotyping people.” You shouldn’t think people are all the same just because they’re black! Or women! Or gay!
I disagree. I think that it is possible to identify traits that people who are members of certain groups share and that, in fact, it is quite impossible to do social justice without doing so. I mean, imagine if you took it literally. “You shouldn’t say women have body issues, lots of women don’t have body issues, that’s SEXIST! You shouldn’t stereotype people of color as being poor, lots of people of color aren’t poor, that’s RACIST!” If you want to talk about how marginalization affects a group of people, you have to talk about traits and experiences that members of that group tend to have– that is, you have to stereotype. The entire concept of “the [insert marginalized group here] experience” is a way of stereotyping!
For that matter, social justice advocates often defend stereotyping: just look at Schrodinger’s Rapist. It is perhaps unfair to some random dude who just wants to talk to a woman on the bus that many women will assume that he’s creepy, disrespectful of boundaries and possibly dangerous, but a sufficient number of random dudes on buses are creepy and disrespectful of boundaries that this is a reasonable stereotype to have.
Instead, I would like to propose three kinds of stereotypes that are bad:
1) Stereotypes that don’t acknowledge you can be a member of a group and differ from the stereotype. No duh, this is bad, because it is incredibly inaccurate! Of course, I think it’s more common as a way of strawmanning other people’s stereotypes than it is as an actual belief. If you interpret someone saying “men talk less than women” as saying that every man talks more than every woman all you have to do is find one laconic woman to disprove it; if you interpret them as saying “on average men talk less than women” (which is, you know, what people who say that are usually actually saying) then you actually have to do science to prove it’s not true and science is, like, hard. (It’s not true, by the way.)
2) Stereotypes that are factually incorrect. If most Muslims were terrorists, you’d be perfectly justified in being suspicious of the Muslims who moved in down the street. Given that most Muslims do not support terrorism, much less actually commit suicide bombings, you’re being an asshole. Similarly, since most depressed people are not lazy bums who are just making a big deal about being sad, and most self-injurers are not emo kids doing it for attention, and most people with ADD are not faking it, those stereotypes are wrong– not morally, just factually.
The problem with believing wrong things about people is that you will act in wrong ways towards them. The correct way to act if someone is lazy is not the correct way to act if someone is suffering from a neurological condition that makes doing things hard if not impossible. The correct way to act if someone is probably a terrorist is not the correct way to act if someone is not a terrorist and just happens to worship Allah.
3) Stereotypes that are not actually stereotypes, they’re norms. “Women should reclaim their femininity!” is not actually a stereotype of women, it’s a norm about what women should be like. A stereotype is an “is” statement– this is what this group is like; a norm is an “ought” statement– this is what this group should be like. It is perfectly possible to have a stereotype without having a norm; the social justice community does it all the time. I can believe women tend to have body image issues without believing a woman who’s comfortable in her body is a failure as a woman; I can believe people of color tend to be poor without believing that people of color should be poor. I talk here about why (a lot of) norms are bad.
I love this post, especially the intro. I think it’s a really good way of introducing the concepts of specificity and plurality without using the words, which is just what I’ve been looking for. (And I also really like the rest of it. =D) Thank you for writing this.
-Very few Muslims are terrorists, and very few Muslims support terrorism so assuming someone is a terrorist because they are Muslim is wrong.
-Very few men are rapists, and very few men support rape but assuming a man is a rapist until proven otherwise (he can’t be proven otherwise) because he is male is a reasonable stereotype to have.
Explain please.
Suppose an business owner has one job opening. She is considering two candidates who are equally qualified: one woman, and one man. She knows from experience that women who work for her company are *more likely* to take time off from work to take care of their kids. Not all women do this of course, but a higher portion of women than men do it.
The business owner knows that it’s possible that the female applicant won’t take any parental leave, and that the male applicant will take a lot. But it’s a lot more likely that the female applicant will take a lot of parental leave and the male applicant will take none.
The business owner hires the male applicant for this reason. Was she being sexist? Or is this an instance in which using stereotypes is justified?
Abubaca: The portion of males who are rapists is small, but orders of magnitude higher than the portion of Muslims who are terrorists.
Men are institutionally reinforced and Muslims are not.
Plus there are lots of non-Muslim terrorists (although they sometimes are not called by that name) but non-male rapists are uncommon, and almost unheard of outside of date/intimate partner rape. It’s also more than an issue of just presence of somebody with the attribute.
Non-male rapists are actually more common than you think. The following is an excerpt from the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey, conducted by the CDC. http://i.imgur.com/SokbQU1.jpg?1
Also, I often hear people in the social justice community lamenting the fact that minorities get pulled over by police more often than white people. Considering the report below shows a disproportionate amount of violent crimes committed by blacks and Hispanics, the logic of this article says that it is reasonable for police to take such precautions.
http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/downloads/pdf/analysis_and_planning/crime_and_enforcement_activity_jan_to_jun_2012.pdf
Disclaimer: I didn’t write that report. Please don’t call me racist for stating facts taken from it.
@Abubaca But rates of violent crime and rates of being pulled over by police shouldn’t be related. If you commit a driving infraction, you should get pulled over, regardless of race; if minorities and whites commit similar numbers of traffic infractions, than they should be pulled over at similar rates, regardless of the prevalence of violent crime among their respective groups.
I guess pulled over was the wrong word to use. I meant that meaning any “hassling” done by police officers.
Because when people assume Muslims are terrorists, they get harassed in public, and their ability to do things like catch planes or public transport in peace is compromised. That’s putting aside what happens when people in positions of actual power like the police and government assume Muslims are terrorists.
When a woman thinks about men through the Schrodinger’s Rapist paradigm (which is not the same thing as thinking every guy is a rapist, just weighing up the cost of “is this random stranger going to be the one that hurts me?”, and that includes becoming aggressive or abusive upon being turned down as well as actual rape), the worst thing that generally happens is that some dude on the bus, and generally one who was ignoring “don’t talk to me” social cues, doesn’t get to have a conversation with a particular woman. She doesn’t stand up and call him a rapist in front of the entire bus, no one on the bus makes a comment about how “all of them are the same and don’t belong in the country”. He just doesn’t get to talk to her. Which he was never entitled to in the way that a Muslim person is entitled to live a normal life in peace. He’ll fucking live.
Any random stranger is entitled not to talk to you for any reason, whether it is “You make me uncomfortable,” “I’ve had a shitty day and I just want to go home,” “I have social phobia and freak out when strangers talk to me,” “I sincerely believe all men are rapists,” or “I believe that hat you’re wearing indicates that you’re one of THEM and the lizard people are controlling you by satellite.” Even if a person’s reason for not talking to you was completely irrational, you don’t get to argue them out of it (and you can’t anyway).
…wait, though, so you’re saying that stereotypes are fine as long as they’re not stereotypes? Go look through all these definitions of stereotypes. A stereotype is “a simplified and standardized conception or image…” or “a set of inaccurate, simplistic generalizations about a group…” or “A too-simple and therefore distorted image of a group…”. The unifying factor of all these definitions is that a stereotype is by definition simplified and inaccurate due to that simplification. It’s not a stereotype to say that many women have body image issues at all, and if you think so you’re using the word wrong.
Also Schroedinger’s Rapist is not a stereotype and is not advocating stereotyping men as anything. Rape statistics are facts; there’s nothing “simplified” or “inaccurate” about them. It’s also a fact that you don’t know who’s gonna rape you until they do. Schroedinger’s Rapist doesn’t require you to believe anything like “all men are rapists”. All it requires you to do is to believe that some tiny minority of men are rapists, and that they can’t be reliably picked out in a crowd.
… agree with some of the above. Esp. the fact that women avoiding men does less harm.
Would add that over-harrassment/searching/whatever of groups correlated with crime tends to lead to a vicious cycle.
I also think that there is a kind of a dynamic (callout culture related?) where if you make a generalization without specifically saying that there are exceptions you get attacked, even if it seems like people should have figured out that there were exceptions on their own. This sometimes also leads to things like people fearing statistics even though statistics understands things like outliers and standard deviations.
@Abubaca: the difference between the stereotype that “Muslim = potential terrorist” (or that people of colour commit more violent crimes) versus “random man invading my personal space = potential rapist” is that the man in that scenario as *already* showing blatant disrespect for my boundaries and signals.
Unless the Muslim or person of colour in question is displaying some behaviour actually associated with a terrorist or someone who is planning to commit a violent crime (or I suppose, unless the cops start pulling over every man they see to make sure they’re not planning to commit rape – which is a violent crime, btw), the analogy simply isn’t valid.
It just seems like there’s a double standard where it’s OK to say “all men are potential rapists” but if that logic is extended to black people and crime, suddenly everyone cries racism. I’m pretty sure if someone wrote a blog post about black people titled “Schrodinger’s Mugger,” explaining why it’s reasonable to be suspicious of black people, it wouldn’t be given such lavish praise.
Abubaca: would you prefer us to say that all people in general are potential rapists? Because you have to understand that our society’s general picture of rapists as Horrible Monsters tends to lead to someone thinking “Several people have accused Bobby of raping them, but that can’t be true, because I know Bobby and he isn’t a monster.” Otherwise-good people can do some pretty horrible things.
I don’t think “men are more likely to be rapists” is necessary to defend Schroedinger’s Rapist. Only “men who rape women exist, they do not look any different from other men, and this a thing women are aware of when they encounter strange men.”
… Statistics indicating that people of colour are disproportionately suspected of, and arrested for, committing crimes doesn’t justify police racism. It’s caused by police racism. (Also probably by pernicious cycles of poverty and marginalization.)
I think you’re confusing stereotyping with general rules .A stereotype is a over-generalization that over-symplifies and therefore is by definition false. A general rule is a statement that is typically true but not always. For example most birds fly would be a general rule since it takes in account that not all birds fly such as penguins but still acknowledges that most bird species do. On the other hand a statement like “All black people are criminals” would be a stereotype since it over-generalizes and over-simplifies a group of people.
I take the bus every day, and that is the one part of my day when I have to brace myself for unwanted contact, which comes in some form nearly every day, while either riding the bus or waiting at the bus stop. The sense of entitlement is unbelievable. These men believe they are entitled to comment, uninvited, on any woman’s personal appearance, that she is somehow obligated to talk to them, that she owes it to them to tell them her name even though she is clearly uninterested. When you choose not to engage you are a “bitch,” “stuck-up,” “racist.” Because you dare to be a woman who doesnt want to engage with some stranger at the bus stop. It is the very definition of a reasonable stereotype. It is not saying all men are rapists until proven otherwise, it is saying many men on the bus act creepy and don’t respect boundaries. It is true. I experience it every day.
And is it reasonable to be concerned that that guy insisting that I give him my name might take it farther? That he might follow me off the bus and rape me or hurt me? Of course it is. He’s already shown that he doesn’t care how I feel about our interaction or that it is unwanted.
And also do you really think blacks and Hispanics are pulled over more because they commit proportionately more crimes, or are they more likely to be caught and convicted when they commit crimes, because they are more likely to be pulled over, harassed and arrested, and treated unfairly by the criminal justice system? (To say nothing of the social reasons that minorities are more likely to be put in a position of committing a crime in the first place.)
@The_L
>Abubaca: would you prefer us to say that all people in general are potential rapists?
Yes. That would actually be way better and I would have no protest to that. It is safer because it acknowledges that people besides men can be a threat, and it is less divisive because it doesn’t implicitly single men out as “the bad guys.”
@Catatethebird
Personally, I think blacks and hispanics are approached (pulled over, stopped on the street, followed, etc.) by police more often simply because a large amount of them happen to live in low-income areas, where more crimes tend to be reported. Police naturally increase patrols in high-crime areas. If you live in a high-crime area, this increases the amount of times a police officer sees you, causing more chances to get approached by a police officer.
As far as I know, the way stereotypes of Muslims manifest themselves in daily life is not ‘terrorist’ or ‘terrorist supporter’ but that Muslims are treated somewhat as an ‘other’ ‘not like us’ with sinister motives and beards etc.
The way this plays out most of the time, is that Muslims are treated more often with a reticence or suspicion that wouldn’t normally be there.
I suspect this might be tangentially related to the Schrödinger’s rapist idea,
In that they are both partial manifestations of the fear and paranoia against the ‘other’ in US (and other) society
this passage struck me as illustrative…
“some men should never approach strange women in public. Specifically, if you have truly unusual standards of personal cleanliness, if you are the prophet of your own religion, or if you have tattoos of gang symbols or Technicolor cockroaches all over your face and neck, you are just never going to get a good response approaching a woman cold.”
Not only is that flatly not true, but it is basically saying that if you look stereotypically ‘scary’ then it’s fine for somebody to assume ‘threat level’ based on arbitrary cultural norms. This seems obviously related to assuming ‘threat level’ of assault, mugging or other violent crime, based on equally arbitrary cultural norms i.e. ‘Schrödinger’s mugger’
You need to stop right there and check your privilege. You need to listen to the voices of POC when they say you are racist.
You can’t declare yourself not racist and the POC wrong in his OWN LIVED EXPERIENCE as marginalized because privilege!
The rampant and unrepentant racism common to most large police departments probably contributes to the whole “POCs getting harassed or assaulted by cops” thing, too. Just sayin’.
7 stereotypes that need to just “go away and die”~by WrongLoser | The Write Stuff
@Abubaca- people of colour don’t just “happen” to often live in low-income areas. The racial politics of poverty are not some strange coincidence.
Sarah, I’m aware of that, but debating the reason they live in low-income areas is a different discussion in itself.
Rhubarb: You need to stop right there and examine your assumptions. Besides completely disregarding the point of that post, you don’t know the race of anyone involved in that example. In fact, in the actual incident that I observed where a woman was called racist for refusing to engage in conversation at a bus stop, she was a POC, who in a twenty minute period I watched be approached by about eight different men, most of whom were also persons of color. One of these men accused her of being racist because she didn’t want to tell him her name and gave him very short, one word answers to his persistent questions. She didn’t want to talk to any of the six guys (of various races) who had already approached her, either. She was visibly very uncomfortable, hunching into herself and stepping away from the man getting extremely close to her. But she also was trying to be polite, instead of saying “Leave me alone!” like her body language was screaming, probably out of fear of upsetting and setting off her harassers.
But the real point is none of my personal experiences, or incidents I have observed, that I am referring to in this context, were about race. They were about men being creepy and harassing women. I’ve seen it happen in every racial configuration you can think of.
What you are saying doesn’t make any sense. Just because a POC accuses someone of being racist, doesn’t mean it is unequivocally, automatically true, no matter the circumstances, just by virtue of the accuser being a POC.
Yeah, it kinda does.
http://racismschool.tumblr.com/post/40643669255/just-because-a-poc-says-its-racist
http://shouty.sunili.net/post/41854857221/just-because-a-poc-says-its-racist
http://dionthesocialist.tumblr.com/post/40651064709/sorry-but-if-a-poc-tells-me-somethings-racist-then-i
Etc Etc Etc.
POC says you’re racist = you’re racist.
People called her a racist because she resisted being sexually harassed.
I don’t think this is the right time for “CHECK YOUR PRIVILEGE” because I do not think “allow yourself to be sexually harassed” is an appropriate way to make oneself less racist.
@Cliff/Rhubarb: And let’s not forget that the subject of racism/colorism within POC groups isn’t nearly as clear-cut as it is when it’s white-on-POC. And not always something you can claim to understand if you’re not part of that group.
Rhubarb sounds trollish to me.
Also Cliff is right. I’ve seen too many fucking instances of men of color insisting that they’re victims of racism when accused of attacking women whom they really did attack. The latest being the hate crime that was actually an instance of domestic violence in which a woman who was killed by her husband was strategically made by him to look like the victim of an Islamophobic attack.
It is highly unfortunate, but it is true, and thoroughly unsurprising. Male victims of racism are privileged over female ones.
In the case of a man accusing a woman who is unresponsive to his advances of being racist, men–whether white or of color–believe that they are entitled to this responsiveness. It is therefore interpreted by men of color, who have historically been stripped of their masculinity, that to be refused when they demand a privilege that is perceived as belonging to (white) men (i.e. responsiveness from women) that the woman in question is being racist by denying them this “right.”
That’s BULLSHIT. No white man is getting a response when you don’t fucking feel like it either. And if she WERE being racist in not responding because she just doesn’t date men of color? Well then move the fuck on. The only relevant thing (to you) is that she said NO, not the reason. So fuck that. Fuck male privilege, because that’s what makes a man of color say that a woman who rejects him is a racist.
Whoa whoa whoa, don’t “Cliff is right” me on things I never said. A lot of men of color also have been scapegoated for crimes–including crimes against women–because of their race.
This stuff isn’t all one way or the other. But I think the relevant question is “did the offense actually occur?”, not “is racism or sexism more important?”
Heh, wasn’t trying to.
Everyone: I was only “Cliff is right”ing on the whole “you can’t just let yourself be harassed or else you are racist” thing.
That other stuff was totally me, obviously. And unlike Cliff (kudos to you) I have no problem saying so without mentioning that men of color have been scapegoated because of their race for crimes they didn’t commit. Cliff is very kind, and as a woman of color who has been told by men of color repeatedly to shut up about sexism or else I am making them look racist, I am not as gracious as Cliff.
And will never be. Thank you.
making them look racist
like racist stereotypes* I mean, as though this is an excuse to not call them out for their sexist behavior.