Thoughts From Three Years Ago…
*Recently, I asked a group of about 50 peers how they dealt with casual sexism in the comment section of their YourTube videos. I was asking for constructive strategies on how do deal with specific comments. Apparently I hadn’t made this clear as almost immediately, I received responses from a couple of people who had not personally been on the receiving end of comments of a similar nature and who did not offer any useful advise on how to deal with them. Instead the example I had used was dismissed as it was deemed not problematic enough. My post was soon hijacked by people who didn’t consider if it was appropriate or fair for them to steer the conversation away from the very specific question I had asked.
Thankfully I did receive some very helpful recommendations from other people and I will be able to put those suggestions into action, unfortunately the useful responses were somewhat buried as the discussion quickly shifted from a constructive forum for exchanging information, to name calling, trolling and one contributor (a white, straight man) repeatedly complaining about how they were being victimised when they didn’t like the respectful pushback they were getting. If they had actually taken the time to consider what was being said, they may have found it useful. To be clear, the was fault was not from just one side of the discussion and by no means was everyone in the discussion at fault.
When asking for advise on how do deal with casual sexist behaviour, the last thing I was expecting, was to see blatant and manipulative sexist language in the discussion threads below my original question. Within minutes, I had the difference between “genuine sexism and something of a humorous nature” mansplained to me - I HAD USED THE WORDS ‘CASUAL SEXISM’ IN MY ORIGINAL QUESTION FOR GOODNESS SAKE AND HERE WAS I, JUST MINUTES LATER, EXPERIENCING MORE CASUAL SEXISM. I also witnessed a woman being referred to as ‘poppet’ in a clumsy and insulting attempt the shut down the point she was articulately and respectfully making. As for the main perpetrators, well irony of their sexist responses clearly went over their heads and if evidence was ever needed for the existence of the deep routed sexism that saturates society it was right there in front of me in the first few response boxes to my question. I found this incredibly depressing, especially as when my husband stepped in to offer his thoughts, it was only his deep male voice that was actually truly valued by certain male participants.
Casual sexism is everywhere. I, like all women, whether they are aware of it or not, have experienced it all my life. It happened from the day I was born, throughout my upbringing, it happened at school, at college, in social situations, it most definitely happened in every workplace I ever joined. It is evident in the narrowboat world and of course in Narrowboat You Tube. I think we are all guilty of sexist behaviour. Think about it. I know I am and I am. I think we all have to work hard to not automatically, consciously and subconsciously think along the assigned gender roles that are installed into us. Most of the sexist behaviour that I have experienced, although not all, could be described as ‘casual’ or ‘harmless’ and as isolated instances it probably is. But when these instances are repeated day in day out, and happen so often that they become an expected and tolerated part of life it is harmful because, as a result woman are conditioned to have lower expectations than men and the knock on effects of that are far reaching.
The prompt for me to ask for advise from the group came from a comment on one of our videos, the comment wasn’t particularly unusual, we had received similar comments and worse many times before. It was not from a troll, we don’t engage with trolls, we rarely hear from them but when we do we delete the comment immediately. This comment came from a valued viewer and there was no malice in it, I know the person who made the it thought was funny and harmless. I know they support us.
The comment was; “I did not know they let women operate boats on the canal in England LOL . Thank you for your pleasurable videos”
I don’t find comments of this nature at all humorous, in fact I find them totally unacceptable. Why are such comments deem acceptable by certain people. Why are people so blind to the harm they do.
I know I don’t drive the boat nearly as much as Michael but the reason for this has got absolutely nothing to do with me being a woman. I am just as capable as Michael, slightly less experienced but no less able. The simple fact is, Michael enjoys driving, I enjoy driving too, but I enjoy walking George more. So I do. If someone wanted to make a comment about me driving the could have said something along the lines of ‘its nice to see Jo at the tiller for a change’
I know I am not going to change the world by not tolerating sexist humour it in the comment sections of my youtube video, but when you hear the same unfunny sexist joke for the one hundredth time you you start to think enough is enough and I am no longer going to be complicit by saying nothing. I want the comment section of our videos to be a safe space for me, and for everyone contributing. And I hope that the next time that someone makes a similar comment to me in real life when I am competently driving our boat, that I have the courage to call them out on it to their face as well
If I stay quite and don’t speak out against these statements nothing will change in my small world. If I quietly delete these comments, the person that expressed the sexist statement will never know that they said something that was unacceptable to someone who they clearly want to support. If I put myself in their situation, and imagine that I had inadvertently offended someone I would very much like to be told, so I can make sure I do not repeat the behaviour and cause harm to someone again in the future. By repeating the message, through humour or otherwise, that girls aren’t as capable as boys at certain activities we are damaging and harming the next generation the way that the generation before harmed us.
Of course it is not just sexist language and behaviour that is a problem, but as a white straight woman it is only sexist behaviour I readily notice because that what has been harmful to me. I really try to be aware of this.
My white straight privilege means that I have not been discriminated against because of my race or my sexuality. My life is not made harder by these things. I try to be aware of this. I have to regularly remind myself that I honestly don’t even notice this discrimination occurring most of the time. Moreover I am guilty of contributing to it despite trying not to. I have to go out of my way to understand the harm it does because it doesn’t directly do harm to me.
We don’t notice what doesn’t directly effect us. My husband is not aware of the number of times a day I am exposed to sexist behaviour. At locks, instead of offering help a man will quite often tell me what to do. Rather than giving me information, a lock keeper or CRT employee will walk past me to speak to Michael. If I ask a technical question the response will be given to the man standing next to me. Women experience this they whole lives, it is normalised and it is so wrong. I find it so depressing that this is still the experience of all of our children. Casual sexism of a ‘humorous’ nature isn’t funny and isn’t harmless. It is very harmful.
I think what bothers me the most, is not the casual sexism itself, but the fact that when it was called out, when many people explained why it was an issue, certain men were not open to having a fair discussion about it. They got nasty and defensive and they tried to minimise the validity of the harm that was caused by it. But, I guess when you are part of the group benefiting from a behaviour and you don’t want to lose that benefit. Then that is a natural response.
*sometime in 2019