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While attending Netroot Nation 2011 (NN11), I had a couple of gender-rich experiences. That is, they were intensely full of interactions which would not have played out the same way had everyone involved been of the same gender. The two experiences I will give the most attention to became somewhat well known in our community. The third was unrelated to these two and I was left with a very different set of thoughts to ponder.
First came the scene of a man assaulting a group of young women on the sidewalk in downtown Minneapolis. Most of the women were wearing hijabs (headscarves) indicating they were likely Muslim. Second, was what ensued when a group of us agreed to don headscarves with some of those Muslim women and approach the entrance to the Right Online conference. Third, was something that occurred in one of the panel sessions.
There are an enormous number of clicks in these interactions, so I'll do my best to be succint. This can be hard, since there is sometimes a complex change of almost competing thoughts in a bubbling stream of consciousness. For the sake of giving a few clicks their full due, I will not likely bring up all of them. I imagine that, in the reading, there may be some things evoked for you which were not immediately evoked for me. I encourage you to share!
Scene 1:
I am walking to an unofficial NN11 event at a bar in Minneapolis with 3 other people. Two men and one other woman. The woman is physically disabled. My disabilities are less superficially evident, but at least one of the men knows I have medical issues, as I have had to explain a bit in asking for an escort so that I might go out. As we approach the bar, we find a man yelling at a group of young women on the sidewalk. He is aggressively leaning into them with his camera in their faces yelling things such as, "I can take your picture if I want to! This is a free country! I'm an American! You can't stop me! Go home! Stop ruining our country!"
Two of the women were visibly upset and one of the women was yelling back at him. We approached and asked if they needed assistance. At first they said they were fine and we simply stood with them. But, as he persisted and persisted, they eventually said that they could use help.
I'm not sure how it was that I was the one to end up going toe-to-toe with him, rather than any of the men who were around. I was definitely compelled to protect the women and stop this man in his egregious tracks. When I did, he cowed. He didn't look me in the eyes. I walked toward him and told him that if he touched me, I would accuse him of assault, so he'd better back away from us. I kept backing him away from the group and when I would return to the group he would restart his assault. After two or three times of this he started hollering, "Calling Andrew Breitbart! Calling Andrew Breitbart!" Eventually I dogged him across the street and made it clear I wouldn't let him near.
Somewhere in the midst of this another man approached the assailant and had an exchange in which the assailant made an anti-semitic remark (I believe this is what I was told.) This new man decided to call the police. Ultimately, the police did come and the assailant was arrested, after many people on the sidewalk were interviewed.
Some of My Clicks:
1) one of the men later told me that he didn't approach the man because he was afraid he would hit him. So, it's left to women to stand up to to aggressive males - who are generally physically stronger than women - because other males can't control themselves enough to address the man appropriately? What if the man turned out to be violent? Why do I think a man should take this risk instead of a woman?
2) would the assailant have done the same thing to a group of men? I sincerely doubt it.
3) why wouldn't he look me in the eye? I saw him look men in the eye.
4) why were the women at first reluctant to accept assistance?
5) why were the police called only after a man was peppered with hate speech?
Scene 2:
My sister has seen one of the women from the sidewalk scene and has been asked to see if I would join an "action". Because the assailant had evoked Breitbart's name and made it clear he felt he was acting in line with Right Wing politics, the women wanted to don hijabs and approach the entrance of the Right Online conference (obnoxiously scheduled after they learn the location of Netroots Nation to be in the same city, same date, same hotel.) We both decide to go.
Upon arriving we find a few of the women in the lobby of the hotel. There are also men around. We're trying to get information about who is organizing this action and exactly what it is. All we know is that we're being asked to wear hijab and go somewhere. The woman who apparently was the impetus had gone upstairs to get more scarves and so there was little organization or management. It was all very vague. For the women, at this moment, it was a matter of waiting until we were all together.
However, some of the men started attempting to orchestrate: "Okay, ladies you all need to stand over there together, because if you're interspersed with people not wearing hijab the effect is diminished!" But, the women hadn't started the action, yet. They were waiting. A very low-energy kind of tension was in the air as the women tried to ignore the directions of the men and some tried to say, "we're not ready, yet." There was a little bit of excitement of anticipation, but the women were still vague and waiting for everyone to be able to gather together.
I decided to allow someone to interview me about the sidewalk scene as a stall tactic. This would keep the attention off the group for a few minutes. I would have been happy to do the interview at any time, as I appreciated that someone wanted to bring attention to what happened. But, I sacrificed my participation in the last-minute coordination "meeting" by doing it just then.
As I'm being interviewed the women start walking and I have to rush off to join them. I follow the group up two escalators to the third floor, where the entrance to Right Online cordon's off all access to the entire floor. One of the women walks up to the cordon and asks if we can access the elevator on that floor. The bouncer says, "no". I'm now trying to find out what's next? Is there a plan? It seems we're simply going to go back down the escalator.
Only, we're swarmed by cameras and mics and men asking aggressive questions about "why are you here?!" They seem to be obsessed with making us prove that the assailant on the sidewalk was registered at their conference. It's beside the point to us. Their reaction to the presence of women in hijab is the point. Why is it such a big deal that we're here asking for an elevator?
Ultimately, I am forcefully grabbed at the elbow and escorted away from someone interviewing me back down the escalator. As I go, I see that I'm about the last woman removed and that all the men - including the men who came up with us in solidarity - are still upstairs arguing with one another.
There is another scene at the bottom of the escalator as we are regrouping in a large open space and basically debriefing and getting ready to disperse, when hotel security tells us we can't stand there. Lt Dan Choi is with us and they address all of their comments to him. Every single one. Even though I am standing right next to him and asking questions and making my own statements. I was never directly addressed once, even as they are threatening to have us "dragged away."
Some of My Clicks:
1) I have an over-arching need to clarify that my assessment of the gender dynamics in this situation is separate from a deep appreciation of the solidarity the men were showing. Why do I feel that I have to preface my thoughts with this?
2) Why did the women allow the energy of the men to impact how they planned and even how the action went down? With space to think and talk amongst themselves, I'm fairly certain it would have played out differently. The solidarity of the man was wonderful, but it may actually be that the presence of the men upstairs adulterated the message of the action. Particularly since a couple of them are well-known in the online right/left political action arena. I could tell that the women were feeling sort of pressured to perform in light of the male influence. For me, I felt it wasn't "my" action and that the Muslim women who were organizing it should be in charge. Yet, no one really took charge in terms of telling the men to simply back off until the women felt ready.
2) Why were the women removed from the scene upstairs when they were the least aggressive ones?
3) Why, even in our own community here at DKos, was the action of walking up to the entrance seen as "provocative" when there wasn't a single bit of civil disobedience, rudeness, physical aggression or anything in what the women did? We seem to have all bought into the idea that the very presence of women, particularly in hijab, is provocative. The men involved were enacting all of the aggressive behavior. The women were passive. They asked for the elevator and got ready to leave when assaulted by cameras and questions and then were caught between the verbal altercations of the competing groups of men. Yet, we were the provocateurs. Isn't that how oppression works? The oppressors create an atmosphere where the rules of conduct are set by them, even if they defy decency, and when someone does something which might elucidate their incivility they are considered provocative, not the oppressors who created the dynamic in the first place. Women have faced this for millenia.
4) Why did the security guards and event manager only address Lt Choi when we were downstairs? They're threatening to drag me off and can't even say it to me directly? It was pointed that not one single time was a response to my questions or comments directed at me. And the event manager was female.
which brings me to...
Scene 3:
I'm attending a panel session. The moderator is a woman. The question and answer section begins and she calls upon people. Man. Man. Man. Man. One of the male panelists actually had to prompt her to choose a woman. She gave a limp excuse claiming that she didn't see women raising their hands. Only myself and one other woman had their hands up the entire time. We were near the front, too.
Finally, she calls on me and I make my comments. They were pertinent to what was being discussed and were meant to spark further discussion, but I didn't word the last sentence as a question, so the moderator actually calls me out, "Well, that wasn't a question...." She hadn't called out anyone else for not phrasing their comments as a question. The panelists were not given an opportunity to respond, as she simply went on to the next person in the audience.
I was stunned.
Some of My Clicks:
1) why did she only call on males until prompted?
2) why did she belittle my input?
3) why am I always more stunned when these things happen with women than when they happen with men? I've had a lifetime of it. I went to an all women's business school. It was an education and I don't mean the business part. One of the dean's explained to me that I was threatening to women because I "stood out" and that the female social dynamic is that no one is supposed to be exceptional. They'll ostracize you if you are. It was a painful time for me. I graduated summa cum laude, but was one of only two people not invited to a student-organized social event at the end of the year. If you've met me, you'll know that I'm a friendly sort and always willing to be helpful. Yet, women have routinely ostracized me. So, perhaps I'm oversensitive to what happened here. After all, I could not, in any way, have been threatening to the woman on stage. I doubt she had any idea who I am and I'm not in her line of work. Still, it wasn't just me that noticed. So, what was going on?