For the last week or so, I have been in Bulgaria, on something almost, but not quite, entirely unlike a holiday. There are generally two certainties about being in Bulgaria for me: family drama and culture shock. I’ve been having plenty of both, but I’ve gleaned an insight out of them, so I guess it’s been worth it.
Majorities and in-groups have a way of building a narrative to justify their being a majority or in-group. That narrative is deeply embedded in the in-group culture, so deeply that debate about it doesn’t happen; or when it happens it only goes as far as someone asking a rhetorical question so that the other party to the conversation can take the opportunity to re-affirm their belonging to the in-group. An example of this I witnessed a couple of times recently was the discussion among my Bulgarian contacts around Sofia Pride: someone asks “This ‘gay parade’ thing, do you think it should be happening in Sofia?” and there’s a chorus around them of justifications and excuses as to why, of course, there should be no such thing. Here’s how that chorus goes:
1. I’m a great fan of $gay_celebrity, but I don’t see why all of them should be parading about. (This is, of course, the pre-cursor to “I have a gay friend and thus I’m not a homophobe” in a country where most people won’t know that they have gay friends because people just aren’t out.)
2. Even $gay_celelbrity says they don’t feel the need to parade about. (Might that be because the social pressure is so strong that they feel if they did take part in Pride their career might take a dive?)
3. I don’t feel the need to parade around just because I’m normal. (Do I really need to dissect this one? Alright then. Firstly, you aren’t “normal”, you’re “heterosexual”. The two are not synonymous. And secondly you are, right now, contributing to the continuation of a heteronormative culture in which you, effectively, parade around all the time while a substantial minority of the population has to live in hiding and is denied basic rights which you take for granted to the extent that you don’t perceive them as rights.)
After four days of this, both in the national media and in overheard conversations, I felt the need to move on the debate. The constant heteronomative self-reassurance, self-justification and – yes – parading was rather getting on my nerves. So when someone had the temerity to ask me last night whether I thought there should be a Pride march in Sofia I said “Yes, and had I been in Sofia over the weekend, I would have been at it.” The three seconds of stunned silence that followed were well worth it. We then went into a brief argument centred around point 3 above, but as it was late and I was heading for bed already, we didn’t get very far into it.
What I do hope has happened, though, is that I have made a tiny crack in the self-perpetuating heteronormative narrative I’ve been listening to for the last four days. I hope that this person, now that they know someone who doesn’t agree with that narrative, will over time start questioning it; that they will start asking questions, start finding out more information. Maybe they will, maybe they won’t; but if I continue to be the one dissenting voice, the one voice that moves on the debate, then maybe one of the many people I talk to will, and that will be progress.
Here’s another example: I’m beginning to feel my way around the building blocks of the narrative that straight white men have built for themselves, of the cocoon they live in. Even men who are close to me, who I think are decent human beings – my father, my partner, my best friend – fall prey to this to some varying extent.
My partner was shocked when I talked to him about the pervasiveness of violence against women – he simply didn’t know. It’s something that’s clearly not talked about enough. My best friend and I have an on and off discussion about feminism where he occasionally comes out with arguments that sound very like “But what about equality for the menz?” and we have to go back to basics. I am not saying the issues he brings up aren’t real, aren’t relevant, or don’t need addressing – but it is a matter of perspective and of relative seriousness of the issue. The classic example here is anonymity for rape defendants. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: it’s a numbers game – for as long as more women get raped every day than men get falsely accused in a year, I know where my priorities lie.
My Dad, too, came out with some classics over the last couple of days. We had everything from “Women’s hands just aren’t as good as men’s for heavy industrial work.” (Dad, the Second World War couldn’t have been fought without women who did all the heavy industrial work.) to “Well, maybe I do want equality of opportunity for everyone, but I don’t think it can be achieved.” (Dad, if we all thought like this, we would probably all still be living in caves, and nevermind about women still being chattel.)
These are all parts of a narrative that straight white men don’t even know they tell themselves. But they do, and it hurts not just women, or gay people, or black people, it hurts all of us, straight white men included, because it limits all of our opportunities and choices. And so I have been the dissenting voice again. I have been trying to explain to my Dad, with varying degrees of patience, what life looks like from the perspective of the out-group. It took me a good half-hour to explain that he is part of an in-group to start with. I’m slowly tackling the different ways in which boys and girls are socialised and educated, what society deems acceptable behaviour for each gender, how this pervasive gendered culture impacts even my own outlook to the extent that I have to consciously fight it. I threw some stats at him about violence against women, and that had him silent for about five minutes.
The tactic I find most successful is to mix in the statistics and general points with personal experience. The personal is political, and the more I can draw out into my Dad’s (or anyone else’s for that matter) consciousness the crass contradictions between statements like “You’re my daughter, you’re very clever and have had a lot of unique experiences, you have no reason not to be confident, and you can achieve anything” (personal, connected to someone he knows well and cares about) and “Women’s hands have no affinity for industrial work” (generalised), the more (hopefully) they will start questioning their narrative. It is easy to generalise about the womenz or teh gayz, it’s difficult to argue with someone’s personal experience. When that personal experience is then backed up with hard stats, paradigms hopefully will begin to shift.
Ultimately, what I’m trying to say with all of this is that it’s always worth being that one dissenting voice. It’s not always a comfortable experience, it can be incredibly difficult. However, staying silent, staying under the radar, will never change anything. Don’t be afraid to stand out, to speak out, to dissent, to question, argue and persuade. The changes we want to achieve can only be achieved through debate, discussion, argument and persuasion: one person at a time.