I don't know how to talk about sexism, in a sense.
I've spoken about it on my channel many times, but that's not what I refer to.
There are men who I've known all my life, and I don't know how I would talk about sexism
with them.
The men in my family offer kindness and a sense of understanding, but there are times
that does little to mitigate my profound sense of frustration.
And this frustration is not because I haven't tried talking about sexism with men.
God knows I've tried for almost all of my adult life.
But talking to them about this topic seems like a lost cause.
It's a situation where I'm not quite sure what they leave the conversation thinking,
but God knows I leave the conversation profoundly frustrated.
Profoundly frustrated because it is a frustration built up over years of similar dead-end conversations.
And I end up questioning, even though these are men I've known all my life, I question
to what extent it is possible to respect or even care about someone when you make yourself
blind to simple, common sense facts.
Because at some point, if I believe they are in possession of their mental capacity to
reason, then I have to admit that their inability to deal with said facts is born not from a
lack of capacity to understand, but an unwillingness.
When someone tells you, these things happen and these things call into question my dignity
as a human being, my dignity as allegedly an equal member of the community that is humanity,
when someone tells you that and you proceed to say that the very same things that devalue
me are trivial and insignificant and I should not be bothered at something that calls into
question my very humanity, at that point I have to question either their capacity for
reasoning, or their sincerity in making that argument, or their sincerity in previously
telling me they care about and value me.
So I don't know how to talk to men about sexism.
I don't know how to tell them what it feels like to have the value of your work doubted
because you are a woman.
I don't know how to tell them what it feels like to have anything you say doubted because
you are a woman.
I don't know how to tell them how frustrating it is when I as a woman talk to them about
problems women face and their response is to immediately talk about how it isn't their
fault and how it's wrong of me to even bring up the issue in conversation.
I don't know how to tell them how frustrating it is to want to talk about real problems
and then to have men insist that they are the victims in conversations involving sexism.
I don't know how to tell them that when I travel in public places I have to constantly
question whether any interaction with a man could become dangerous at any moment.
I don't know how to tell them that when women explain to men how other men abuse women,
it is exhausting to hear men constantly ask about what the woman did, searching for the
slightest sign of sin on the part of the woman, as though any incorrect action on her part
makes her guilty for the man's dysfunctional behavior, all the while excusing the man's
dysfunctional behavior by claiming that only those who are free of sin can point out others'
wrongful behavior.
I don't know how to tell them that even for professional women, we see they are not invited
to conferences at anywhere near the rate of the professional men.
I don't know how to tell them, for example, that it is only relatively recently in the
history of the United States that a woman who completed a course of study in law was
even allowed legally to practice her profession because the Supreme Court, the highest court
in our alleged justice system, claimed that a woman could not possibly be fit to practice
law.
I don't know how to tell them that even after it has been legally permitted for women to
develop their careers, women find their advancement at every moment dictated by men who occupy
positions of power in innumerable industries only because for literal centuries no woman
was allowed to compete with them.
I don't know how to tell them how deeply frustrating it is that a man can move about in the world
secure in the knowledge that any number of careers are open to him because any history
textbook will tell him men have always held those positions, while women have needed to
struggle for the mere opportunity to be considered for those same positions and, even if miracle
of miracles a woman does make any advancement, that advancement is at the capricious whim
of male superiors who may, at any moment, take away everything that woman has worked
for her entire life.
I don't know how to tell them that I've been editing the script for this video over and
over to make sure nothing offends men I know, and that too is profoundly frustrating, when
arguing for my own humanity has to be second place to making sure I don't offend certain
men.
I don't know how to tell them that movies they consider innocent are to me nothing but
a repetition of everything this list stands for: a woman is not an equal member of the
human community and a woman does not possess human dignity equal to a man.
I don't know how to tell them that the way movies frequently portray romance between
a man and a woman, especially from my experience so many older Latin American movies, amounts
to a man choosing a woman and the woman, if she tries to have a sense of her own worth
and human dignity or worse a career, being inevitably shown she's wrong, and falling
in the love with the man who chose her.
I don't know how to tell men that this is dysfunction, that this is not romance but
coercion, and that a man who claims to love a woman but cannot respect her as a human
being has deluded himself.
I don't know how to tell them that the way these movies portrayed violence against women
is an insult to the very idea that we are a world of equals, because in these movies
every act a woman does is subject to instant physical punishment and every act a man does
can be excused either as 1.
completely correct, or 2.
wrong but understandable because he's too young to know better or because it is somehow
impossible to hold an older man accountable for his actions.
I don't know how to tell them that the actions in these movies reflected the reality of the
time period in which these movies were made, a time period where domestic abuse was more
common that it is today, considered acceptable by a society that valued a man's ego and pride
over a woman's physical wellbeing, and where sexual abuse occurred so frequently because
always it was the woman at fault for the man's dysfunctional behavior.
I don't know how to tell them that the fact that women accepted roles in these movies
was not due to some supposed lack of sexism in the movie itself but rather to the complete
control men in powerful positions in the movie industry had that made it impossible to develop
a career without accepting some of these roles.
I don't know how to tell them movies they find oh so funny carry a different message
for me: that my belief in my own humanity, my belief that I should be equal in rights
to any man, is an illusion.
A man may take away any right I have and his doing so may subsequently be portrayed as
a comedy.
A comedy I as a woman will be required to laugh at, along with men in the audience,
and God forbid I tell any man that his comedy is to me a horror movie.
I don't know how to tell men that their support for these movies, their inability to recognize
anything wrong with these movies, facilitates a world in which domestic abuse and sexual
abuse can occur.
It facilitates a world of lies, a world which claims to define itself with the word freedom
but at every turn elevates men above women for no better reason than because a man is
a man.
Fine enough if you like the movies you like, but if you cannot identify anything wrong
with parts of those movies, then you facilitate a world which disrespects women.
Then you, in choosing to be blind to what these movies represent, have disrespected
women.
I don't know how to tell men that just because they personally have never hit or raped a
woman does not mean they have not contributed to a world where other men more easily hit
or rape women and more easily escape any consequences for their actions.
There are men who say that because they have never hit or raped a woman, then they have
respected women, and then they demand respect, respect which for them means that women should
never talk about discrimination against women.
Just because you can say, "I have never killed a man," is that the same as saying you have
never disrespected another man?
Of course it's possible to disrespect someone without going so far as to kill them.
Just so is it possible to disrespect a woman without going so far as to rape or hit or
kill her.
And claiming that all a man needs to do to respect a woman is merely not rape or hit
or kill her sets the lowest possible bar for adequate behavior.
It means the every day respect and courtesy you would give another man you deny to a woman,
that a woman only deserves to be free of the worst.
That a woman must accept any insult, so long as she has not been hit or raped.
The men who refuse to let women advance in their careers, the men in power who show preference
to other younger men starting their careers but ignore younger women starting their careers
and so promote the younger men, the men who perpetuate a world were women hold no real
power and where their ability to make any advance is denied, these men have not hit
or killed or raped women.
They have still disrespected women in a powerful way.
I don't know how to tell men that the way so many men care so much about not being called
sexist is itself frustrating, because it shows these men care more about themselves, their
pride, and that they do not care anywhere near as much about discrimination against
women and making a world free of discrimination.
It is the same as the white person who cares more about being called racist than they care
about eliminating racism.
It's not as though I haven't tried to tell men this.
It's that no amount of speaking or debating seems sufficient.
When we talk about issues surrounding Puerto Rico and Hurricane Maria, I don't need to
explain myself this way.
When we talk about how the United States has acted like an imperial power towards Latin
America, I don't need to explain myself this way.
When we talk about the international theft of resources, I don't need to explain myself
this way.
When we talk about how the United States has intervened again and again in Latin American
politics to the extent of toppling democratically elected leaders, I don't need to explain myself
this way.
When we talk of the hypocrisy of the United States pretending to advance the cause of
freedom, I don't need to explain myself this way.
When we talk about how Latinos are portrayed in U.S. media, I don't need to explain myself
this way.
That being said, I certainly need to explain again and again when I mention racism, its
long history and profound consequences for all aspects of life in Latin American countries,
that I do need to explain again and again in the Latino community because that's another
issue which men and women resist acknowledging.
That, too, results in deeply frustrating conversations.
That needs to be recognized.
But just for this video, I wanted to talk about the intense frustration that I feel,
because I know when it comes political issues like I mentioned Latin American men want me
to defend Latin America, to defend them, and I will, but I also know that when I ask Latin
American men to defend the human dignity of the women in their own communities, suddenly
I have to present arguments to them defending the human dignity of Latinas.
When I speak with white Anglos about Latinos, I defend my community.
When white Anglos want to talk about how prevalent machismo is Latin American communities, I
rightfully bring up that machismo is no less prevalent in the United States.
But I defend the equal human dignity of Latinos in the knowledge that there is a large, significant
portion of Latinos who will likely never recognize the equal human dignity of Latinas.
I have no conclusion to this video.
I wish I did.
For a lot of my videos, I try to work towards a conclusion, and I am working towards a conclusion
here.
It just isn't the conclusion I would want to end on.
I want to end on something hopeful, but there are times when it's very difficult to find
hope.
For me, this is one of those times.
I'm Catholic and hope is important to Catholicism, so I have to keep looking for hope.
I mentioned in a previous video that this channel was a way for me to deal with situations
of racism that might occur when I was in law school.
I've mentioned in previous videos that hope is difficult precisely because the history
of this world makes hope difficult, but that hope is important to strive for.
I'm using this channel now to deal with sexism.
I still believe it is important to hope, even with the knowledge of a world whose history
seems to disappoint at every turn.
I still believe it's important to hope.
But, for just this moment, I have much more frustration and much more pain, than I do
hope.
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