Pedantic Sexism; Or, How I Got Into Urban Dictionary

Because of the frequency  with which I point out oppression, a lot of people would say I'm just "looking for a reason to be upset" a lot  of the time. Actually, I know I've been told so on more than one occasion- and I don't think coincidentally, at least one of those people unfriended me on FB because, gasp, I think feminism isn't about men! So here's another thing I saw that got me thinking. That would prolly make those people think I'm overthinking.

My favorite website, as stated before, is called Overthinkingit.com; I've guested twice on the podcast and written one guest article so far. And while I've toned it down recently (realizing I was just acting like a fool and somewhat creepy/stalker-ee), I read everything they post. I wouldn't call myself a friend of any of the writers in the, like, "Come to my party," sense of the word (especially since they're all in different cities, snap!), no, but I put the site and its editors/regular contributors in the same kind of category I think a lot of people put  pop culture stuff they care about into regularly. I have a (probably, to them, creepy) emotional attachment to the site- it remains the place I feel safest about adding to a conversation online because there are still, even though it has been around for a few years, very few trolls.

A while back, they started getting some, though, and, unsurprisingly, they were all MRA-types getting pissed about gender politics and sexism against women. So the editors decided to scale back on identity politics for a while, and the trolls seemed to go away.

Then  they posted this harmless (and positively delightful), entirely not gender or identity politics piece about Lawful Good characters, using Agent Cooper from Twin Peaks as the exemplary figure. I loved it. And any content-related feedback in the comments suggests everybody else does.

Except look at those comments.

Some asshat started griping at the author about citing gifs and images, saying the author wasn't "giving credit where credit is due." Listing a few links in their comment and suggesting this author is in the slimy dredges of Intrahnet Societah because "even Tumblr bloggers are capable" of citing sources (the "capable" I found exceptionally insulting and deliberate- I could do an ableist sidenote, but yeah). Another person, Commenter (my new nickname for them), responded by pointing out that the "original sources" the Asshat posted can't be verified, to which Asshat responded with a link to a video about fair use (and of course being a condescending poo-head whilst doing so). Fortunately, the response from Commenter was well-thought and poignant, basically signaling the hypocrisy, and shut Asshat up.

So here's my thing.

Does this Asshat go around and nitpick at everybody on the Internet about "citations" of gifs and images? I highly doubt it.* Even if the article they commented on happened to be the first on OTI they said anything about/on with respect to copyright, they didn't say anything on any of the other articles on the site, nor did they make  any mention of all of the other articles on the site when criticizing  this particular  author- and nearly every. single. one. has "uncited" materials. So what makes this article stand out?

The author  is a woman. 

And in case you didn't look at the page, Asshat's username? It's actually "Someguy." Someguy. 

I'm giving this kind  of behavior the terminology of "pedantic sexism." Because the way I see this, it's an example of a dude coming into a conversation and mansplaining at a woman because she's "doing it wrong" somehow, and that the dude in question either would have phrased it differently (i.e. less arrogantly) or even wouldn't have said anything at all, were the person "in need of correction" a fellow member of the Penis Club. It's a dude nit-picking at a woman with a subtext that she's incorrect because of her ovaries. And with a sub-sub text that she would have  been given a pass if she hadn't been born with said ovaries in the first place. And what he's nit-picking? Doesn't even merit the nit-pick in the first place. And, although not every time, it usually involves flat-out ignoring the exact same thing being nit-picked when a dude does/did it, or ignoring even worse "errors" on the part of males.

And I'm insistent on the the "pedantic" part,  because yes, it's nit-picky. I'll be having an in-person conversation with a group, and a woman in the conversation may have one factual  error in her statement, while a man had three; another man will ignore the first man  and tell the woman to check her facts, and maybe she should just sit this one out because she's obviously confused. 

Or a hypothetical. 

It'd be like if you have two college kids in a chem class, a man and  a woman, fill in blank Periodic Tables, and the prof is a man; the woman gets the  number of protons in ONE box incorrect, while the male student, say, gets some letters wrong AND messes up some of the numbers; the prof ignores the man  and says to the woman, "Now,  you see this? This isn't correct, do you realize that? No, you didn't, otherwise you would have done it right. I know high school students that could do better, you know." And that would be  the end of the conversation.

Now, in this case, I'm sure this  Someguy character is, no doubt, generally an arrogant jerk. His reaction to SeminymousCoward, the person I called "Commenter," was exceptionally arrogant and condescending. But I think the whole "citation" bullshit was started  because of the genders of the author and this "Someguy" character.

And this just sends my Irk-O-Meter through the gorram roof. It's petty and pointless. It happens to me a lot, and  I see it  happen to other women all the time. And I don't think it's exactly the same as mansplaining, but rather a particular breed of mansplaining. Because it's over something petty or trivial, or at least petty or trivial in comparison to other things that could have been pointed out. And it should be in Urban Dictionary. But I looked, and it wasn't. So I submitted an entry. And wouldn't you know it, it was accepted!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Small victories deserve big excitement

And in case you don't feel like giving Urban Dictionary traffic (or if it's blocked on  your phone, like it is on mine for some reason), here's what I came up with:

When a man critiques/criticizes a small detail of something a woman has said or done and mansplains at her about it, either "correcting" her or shaming her for being "incorrect" somehow. Importantly, the gendered nature of the interaction indicates he would not have made any comment, or would have been less rude about it, if the woman were, in fact, a man. Bonus points if there are examples of other errors, or more egregious ones, by men in the same situation at that moment (i.e. comments on a discussion forum or a group of people talking).

Anne says, "I have only the best vegetables in my basket!" Tom says, "So do I! Look at these ripe tomatoes we both have!" Roger points at Anne and says, "Anne, don't you realize tomatoes are fruits? There are tomatoes in your basket, so you can't say you have only vegetables in your basket, now can you?" Anne says, "Wow, Roger, what a great example of pedantic sexism! I love how you go after me about tomatoes, when I wasn't even the person to mention them!"

Not that I really think my getting an Urban Dictionary entry approved will, like, end the phenomena. But I firmly believe that naming something doesn't give it power and that's the end; I believe that when it comes to societal practices and discourses of marginlaization, you have to have a name for something if you want it to change.

So, there you have it. I'm famous. Via a pseudonym.

NERDFIGHTERS.

*Also, if this dude cares so much about citations and source material, why didn't they also include in their comment proper citation information for the show Twin Peaks or any of the other shows/ movies/ etc. mentioned in the article? I think they picked gifs and pictures because that's easy and involves one Google search and copy-pasting a link, not Googling then searching a page  and deciding what and what not to include in a "proper" citation of a movie, etc. 

Discourses of Silence

I have written about ableism a few different times already, so I hope by now this entry  comes as no huge surprise, coming from me, but at the same time, I also hope you read through and take  it seriously- especially since while the specific discourse here  is ableism, the argument stands for any discourse of oppression. 

If you didn't know already, I'm a Ph.D. student in the last bureaucratic stages of their requirements before starting the dissertation phase. One of those requirements is writing a few papers that are good enough for peer-reviewed publication. As I was finishing the rough draft of the last of these papers, I got kind of tired of seeing the red squiggly line under "ableism" and "ableist." This sort of clicked when I was writing a paragraph about how one of its strengths is its omission in the consciousness of most of us as we go about our daily lives. 

It was like... Oh, jeez, DUH!

And  then I started writing a Facebook status about it to be a little tongue-in-cheek, and I realized Chrome also puts a red squiggly under "aleism" and "ableist." So the status ended up being, "Hey Microsoft! And Yo, Google! The fact that "ableism" and any of its forms gets me a red squiggly is ableist. Just sayin'..."

And it is. 

Any disability scholar or advocate will tell you that one of the things about ableism that makes it so difficult to overcome is how it hides itself, masquerades as the norm- and thus as nonexistent. So by inadvertently not including "ableism" in their lexicons,  both Microsoft and Google are inadvertently upholding ableism itself. 

So as a friend reminded me, "ableism" wasn't even  an accepted word in the OED until 1981; I'd give  you a link, but I have access to the Oxford database through my university. The entry here says it was first used in the feminist periodical off our backs,  the quote being this: " 'Ableism'- that is, the systemic oppression of a group of people because of what they can or can not do with their bodies or minds- is the result of... ignorance." 

I think this late naming of a system of oppression that has been around since Aristotle and Plato goes right with that definition given in off our backs. By hiding under a guise of normalcy, ableism continues. After all, how can you change something you don't even realize exists in the first place? Giving something a name can give it power, but I also fundamentally believe that not naming something can lead to perpetuation of hegemonic paradigms of oppression and discourses of silence that lead to the marginalization of groups of people. 

One of my favorite normative theorists (liberal/communicative democratic, too), Iris Marion Young, has in one of her books a chapter called the "Five Faces of Oppression." When introducing these five faces, as well as wrapping up the chapter, she explains that one of the most dangerous aspects of oppression is that it's often so embedded in our regular goings on of our daily lives that we don't even realize we're practicing  it. I haven't read it in a while, so actually, I don't remember if she specifically says this has to do with privilege, but I'm going to say in my interpretation, it does, because a lot of times, we don't really understand, recognize, or (the most conscious of the three) want to acknowledge privilege when it exists to our benefit.

So along these lines, silence is an extremely powerful tool of and for discourse- but only when controlled by the hegemonic and oppressive group in charge. And this works in two ways. The most pervasive and hardest to deal with is what I've already  discussed- passing  off as regular, everyday  activity, i.e. as entirely neutral. If the status quo is oppressive, a "neutral" status quo (or stance) is going to continue to oppress (or support the continued oppression of) whatever social group(s) it suppresses and marginalizes. By hiding behind neutrality, in silence, oppression festers and thrives.

The second is more outward and direct, and that's silencing difference. There are lots of examples of this- pretty much any time a minority expresses discontent, the retaliation from the majority is an attempt at silencing that minority. And of course, this is because of the first method of silence- if the majority gets called out on its shit, giving legitimacy to the claims against it would mean relinquishing. Saying, "Nonono, you're mistaken," or, even more repulsively, "Nonono, you're the one being an asshole," are pretty simple, excessively rampant methods of silencing difference.*

And this is exactly what happens with ableism. Starting with how, as alluded to before, Plato and Aristotle wrote  about the way some people are just born  better than others- smarter, more physically capable, etc., and that hierarchies and  castes should be established and upheld by the military  and government based on this. A large aspect of myriad works by these guys (The Republic, Dialogues, Nicomachean Ethics, Politics...) stipulate that persons we'd now say are born with cognitive disabilities, or people born with physical ailments severe enough they'd be rendered immobile- how these people should be drowned or "disposed of" at birth- yeah, that thing called eugenics? It's entirely ableist, as its premise is literally killing off people of anomalous physical and mental capability. If you look hard enough, there's at least a normative value placed on comprehension, if not some division between physically "capable" and "incapable," in pretty much anything coming from these dudes. This is all philosophized in the name of what's "best" for mankind (emphasis on the "man" part, by the way), what will make  society function  in the most efficient and stable way possible. The people  that were "better" would, "naturally," then, have more authority and power, and that authority and power was to be wielded over and through the effort of those of lesser value. 

Plato- a totally elitist  motherfucker

So, in essence, Plato and his little prodige wanted to establish a society that functioned literally on the backs of the disabled and less mentally rigorous people born into that society- the ones allowed to live, 'natch. We then move forward, and it's not until 1981 that this normative stratification of persons based on physical and mental capacity is acknowledged to have a name. 

So how can a person change a system they can't give a name to? In order to change a system, the specific aspect of it that needs changing needs naming. Without a name, it's hard to get people to understand.  

Seriously, think of it like Balderdash or similar party games, ones where you have a word you need to get your partner(s) to guess without naming the specific word, any of its various forms, or any words found within it (example, you can't say, "straw" or "berry" if it's "strawberry").

Or  better yet, think of it like charades. Except you can't say how many words there are, whether it's a noun or adverb or whatever, or how many syllables it  has. You're entirely silent the whole time, waving your arms around, making faces, and everyone is just staring at you like you're having some sort of mental breakdown or violent episode. 

That's what advocacy without naming the target is like.

So that's why not being recognizable is such an effective method of perpetuating ableism.

That's why not having "ableism" in a dictionary is ableist.

I may be pushing my luck, but I bet that there are a helluvalot more people that are well-educated, enlightened, and fairly down with the whole "equality" thing that don't know what ableism is, or at best have misconceptions that it only happens when someone says something is "retarded," than those that are the opposite, that really understand how having stairs in front of a building instead of a ramp is ableist, that calling something or someone "crazy" is ablesit, or that the lack of normalization of anomaly in physical and  mental capability in society is ableist. 

And before I get any snarky, "So what are you doing about it?"s, I've already drafted a letter to Microsoft that I'll modify for Google, and I'll send each once a month to various locations for the respective corporations until I get an answer. Also, I'm writing this blog, aren't I? I'm not staying silent. I'll also either write a dissertation about this, or go into a job dealing in disability advocacy once I'm ABD. So yes, I'm trying. I'm giving a name to this bullshit, and suggesting ways of changing it. That's my goal in life, or for my career, at least.

I'm going to end with a snippet from the paper I wrote, because I think ableism is so embedded and so rampant and dominant today, that pretty  much anything we do or have is traced back to it somehow. And let me be clear, I don't  mean to say anybody is a bad person for doing ableist things- it's unconscious 95% of the time overall, and 100% of the time in a lot of people. We're good people, we've jut been conditioned to both simultaneously ignore and devalue  anomaly.

"While I do not expect for the entire worldview of any reader to be completely changed  or shattered, I do hope to give readers cause to think about some of the theories to which they ascribe, attitudes they hold,  and ways they interact with both people and their environments; asking themselves, at least every now and then, "Is this ableist?" or, more aptly, "How is this ableist?"


*Trolls especially like doing the latter, doing things like bringing up entirely unrelated topics or arguments to paint the person they're trolling  as a bad person (like extrapolating racism out of a discussion about ice cream) (or as what just happened to me, abortion and Black Panther ideology from a discussion about... spoilers).  

"Derp" Is Ableist and Offensive- Stop Using It (at least around me)

In the past year or so, the term "derp" has become rather popular with folks under forty. According to Know Your Meme, its first use was in the late nineties, but it suddenly gained popularity and became a feature in myriad image memes and "rage comics" fairly recently. It's used in various ways:

Noun: You are a derp.
Verb: You derped.
Adjective: You are derpy.
Adverb: You acted derpy derpy. 

This is one of those instances where I hate the Internet for its ability to spread "harmless fun" that's actually extremely oppressive and offensive. If you just look at that Know Your Meme page, you'll see lots of images of people with crossed eyes or below societally average levels of attractiveness behind the word "derp" or its forms. One of the most egregious examples is that gorram Derpy Hooves from My Little Pony:

I've actually been given a direct explanation from a Bronie over this character (on my favorite site, OTI, too, of all places- go figure), and he eventually comes down as defending it.Between this and other discussions about ableism and objectification, the same dude has basically pulled every trick in the book parallel to the MRAs arguing for sexism in video games- stuff like "But it's never said she has a disability, so no harm, no foul," and, "But we genuinely love the character/ what if people  enjoy it?" and, "Isn't it empowering that she exists  at all?" and (one of my favorites), "Well, how dare you speak for persons with disabilities- YOU'RE objectifying them and removing their autonomy by not letting them speak for themselves!" So I don't really think  he understands or  is willing to listen; he just thinks Derpy is funny and adorable and cool because she's "different," and he basically doesn't give two shits about if someone else gets hurt by something he finds amusing, because he finds it amusing.  And I think his behavior is pretty representative of the whole Bronie community- after all, they're the ones defending Derpy. 

I honestly don't understand  how someone else can't understand how Derpy Hooves is offensive, though. I've seen the episode she first appeared in, as well as the one that featured her as a larger supporting character- the punch line is always her disability, and she has a speech impediment in the original version of her first appearance (because, knowing they'd effed up, the producers behind  the show ret-conned it after enough anger from the disability community and gave her a new voice). She's a pony with disabilities, and she's funny because she has disabilities. How is that hard to understand? What happened there was a bunch of (mostly white) dudes thought she was funny and harped on the forums to get her a larger role on the show because they wanted to laugh at (not with) her more. They assigned to her the word that had been floating around  the Interwebs for a while: "Derpy." And the writer was insensitive/unaware enough to roll with it in her quest to please her "fans" (and I have trouble believing some of the Bronies actually like the show and are "real" fans). So then a character whose only purpose is to be laughed at for her anomalies became a semi-regular pony on that show, and  the Bronies would  get up in arms (over the Internet) to preserver her and all her "derpines." Take a look at this, one of the images the Bronies spread when trying to keep her around:

Notice the textual simulation of speech impediment there, the derpspeak? "Ai promise," "scurry," "I will learn to talk better." That shit's not funny, and it's not harmless, it's offensive and colonialist- because when you think about it, it's  quite similar to Blackface and notions  that Whitey Knows Best. Know Your Meme has  a page on her, and I think  they lean more toward the Bronies- they don't say why some people found Derpy offensive, they just say  that some people did. I guess they don't really argue overtly in favor of the Bronies' position, but neutral explanation is too often a form  of obfuscating the ethical issues and, really, just amounts to tacit consent. Seriously, one of the most frustrating  things I encounter online with douchebag MRAs and  ableist champions is their need to "explain" things, thus making excuses, thus leaving no room for changing the status quo. 

If you're still having  trouble following me, let me spell it out for you more clearly.

"Derp" has spread like wildfire as a replacement for "retarded." It, like the pejorative sense of "retarded," has underlying ableist assumptions, hierarchical structures, and normative values embedded within it. You don't believe me? Look at some of those pictures on Know Your Meme again. And look at some of these- they all either have "derp" directly in the image, or use what I'm calling "derpspeak," the incredibly offensive and ableist dialect meant to simulate cognitive or learning disability; some use actual disabled persons, others have modified the faces to make the  person in the image look more "derp-like," as in look more like stereotypical imagery of mentally disabled individuals:

I'm hoping you're understanding me now. These memes are all attempts at humor, and the punchline is disability. That's exploitative and entirely oppressive of persons with disabilities.

And here's the thing. The "no harm, no foul," or "all in good fun," arguments  are deplorable. All that does is prove how little consideration persons with disabilities get on a regular basis, and just how entirely dominant the paradigm of ableism  really is. Sure, no harm from an ablesit perspective- it's not like those pictures are meant for anyone with a disability, so what's the big deal, right? Well, it's not like white guys saying the n-word is meant for black people, yet that's obviously frowned upon. All in good fun? Well, some people like offensive humor, sure, but when the community being made fun  of has no say in the matter, the joke is 100% at their expense- and they don't even get the opportunity to strike back. They're being completely suppressed.

If you use the word "derp," think about the last few times you used it, and why. What other words could you have used? Chances are, probably "retarded" at worst, or "stupid" at best. But whether you realize it or not, even "stupid" is ableist, too, because it implies social structures that place normative values on levels of intelligence, cognition, and capability. It may take more words, but it's never entirely necessary to say a shirt looks "stupid" or a movie was "stupid"- you can say the shirt looks too nineties, or the movie was badly written. And seriously, I doubt I need to convince you that saying something is "retarded" if not talking about an actual diagnosis is ableist, too. I mean, come on, "retarded" has become so dominantly pejorative that it was removed from the gorram DSM. And  that's after being in it for ages as a legitimate diagnosis to give to persons with learning delays. The people determining the  new DSM received enough entreaties from disability rights  advocates that they were convinced there were too many negative meanings and undermeanings  culturally surrounding the word, so they changed the diagnosis to try to add some humanity back for persons with that diagnosis. They realized that 90% of the people that could hear a legitimate  diagnosis would associate it  with a slur, an insult, with  something you say when you're pissed at a situation or person or thing ("This is retarded, I should have been home  an hour ago!" "Wow, good job dropping that bowl, retard!" "Ugh, this  knife won't cut, it's so retarded!").

I have a brother that was diagnosed as mildly retarded (among other things), back  when that was still a diagnosis to be had. I've never found that word "funny" or casual. And I think it's really messed up how people tell me I'm being hypersensitive and that I need  to let it go or take a chill pill or have a sense of humor or whatever the fuck it is that day when I ask them not to say it. I've given up on some people (and in various ways- some by not bothering to ask anymore, others, I've had other reasons piled on top to not want to hang out with them, anyway), but others I know just hold it in and then let it slip every now and then by accident around me, meanwhile tossing "retarded" out for every other mildly annoying, unpleasant, or dissatisfying thing or situation they encounter when I'm not there. That's actually almost worse- it's being deliberately deceptive about what is, ultimately, an ableist insult and expletive. Because it's one thing  to refrain from saying "fuck" in front of your parents but dropping the f-bomb  every other sentence with your friends; it's another thing to use the equivalent of a racial slur in some company  but not others. One is  just about being "proper" or whatever;  another is about not being oppressive.

I know I'm  being morally high-horse-ee, here, but if you're a friend that cares enough about me to read this, then you'd most likely understand my perspective. And if you're someone that only knows me through the blog, then realize I have a very intimate history with oppression in a lot of forms, and ableism in particular. In either case, if you feel like I'm being annoyingly self-righteous or something, I want you to consider how quickly whistle-blowers on various "ism"s get accused of being hypersensitive or seeking out things to be angry about. And think about how many times you can remember someone claiming something was oppressive of persons with disabilities actually being taken seriously- you probably can't think of any, or can count them on one hand. Maybe Derpy Hooves and/or the stuff about "retarded" being removed from the DSM I just talked about are all you can come up with, hard as you try. I wouldn't be surprised, nor judge you negatively for it- it's society's fault, not yours. But think about that- why do we all hear so much  more about other "isms" in society, when we don't even consider ableism as an option?

And I want you to consider the possibility that this isn't because there's nothing to get upset about, but rather that the positionality and perspective of persons with disabilities is so marginalized that those perspectives aren't even in the backs of the minds of the majority of your everyday person. So even acknowledging they have some claim to or semblance of legitimacy is actually impossible for some people to grasp. It's like trying to describe the taste and texture of Provolone cheese to someone that's never even had milk, let alone any other form of cheese- that person you're trying to explain it to will never fully understand until you put a piece of Provolone in their hand and they eat it. Even if it's sitting on the counter, they won't entirely get it until it's in their mouth.

I think there are genuinely people that, even after somehow getting connected to disability, be it because someone they know or love is born with it or becomes disabled, or they themselves become disabled- there are some people that still won't understand entirely because ableism is so hegemonic, so in-control, so dominant. So even a person that has an accident and ends up in a wheelchair devalues disability and thinks it makes them less of a person- ableism has trained them, subconsciously and indirectly, to believe that about theirself*.

Now apply this outwardly. Ableism conditions everybody to devalue disability and not even realize when a physical or speech act is oppressive. So you get people running around tossing words like "retarded" and "stupid" and, yes, "derp," around like it ain't no thang. So I'm not saying that using "derp" makes anybody a bad person- not if they don't knowingly act out ableism, at least. Often times, we're so caught up in discourses and hierarchies that we don't even realize when we're acting in ways that reinforce them.

Of course, if you defend the status quo once its oppressive nature is exposed to you, you're an asshole. 

But I do ask  a few things of anybody that has taken the time to read this.

1) Think about the power of words and how they serve to reinforce discourses of oppression and marginalization. (Also, keep in mind that by "discourse" I don't mean just speech patterns, but also norms of behavior and interaction.)

2) Consider that "derp" is a new(ish), Inernet-savvy way of saying "retarded," meaning it's pejorative and devaluing of disability and/or anomaly. 

3) Consider checking yourself and avoiding using it in the future. Maybe even consider calling it out if you see it being  used, either online or in person.

And of my friends that may be reading this, I respectfully ask you to not use "derp" around me. I'm sick of it, and I know none of you are assholes (like, say, this guy). If you honestly feel like I'm somehow oppressing you by making that request, then, well, talk to me. Or, you know, don't, and just use it when I'm not around- but don't be all shocked and alarmed when I call BS on you if you slip in my presence. 

*Not a typo- separating corporeal mind from physical body is impossible, so the physical body directly influences the overall corporeal definition of self. They devalue their physical structure in their tangible body, but they also devalue the metaphysical makings of them as a person.