Male Accountability Within Movements
Jan 21, 2015
Story
“Overall, activist scenes are no safe space for women because misogynists and
abusive men exist within them. More, many of these abusers use the language,
tools of activism and support by other activists as means to abuse women and
conceal their behavior. And unfortunately, in a lot of political circles, regardless of
how much we talk about patriarchy or misogyny, women are sacrificed in order to
keep up “the work” or save the organization. Perhaps it is time we actually just
care that activist women are vulnerable to being manipulated and abused by
activist males and consider that proactively addressing this is an integral part of
the “work” that activists must do.”
While engaging with our readings this week, I noticed that my body was tense
and my mood was irritable. I could not understand what about the readings were
causing these responses. The readings presented a highly developed strategy
for promoting active accountability within our communities; why was I so
triggered? Upon further reflection and supplemental readings I was able to
explore my trigger more deeply and on a more personal level.
Throughout my work in and association with radical communities, I have both
observed and experienced patterns of patriarchy, privilege, sexism, exploitation,
misogyny, and abuse of women for which our community has no system of
accountability. Nor are these patterns of behavior being addressed constructively
or transparently. This is not to say that there has not been any effort put forth to
establish an accountability process, there have been many. There have even
been events organized to hold space for dialogue about the pervasiveness of
these behaviors in our communities. These organized events are always
successful in determining that yes; patriarchy, privilege, sexism, exploitation,
misogyny, and abuse are all present in our community. There have been working
groups, study groups, and spokes. So why does nothing change? Why do
women who seek refuge from dominate culture in activist communities get
nothing but lip service when it comes to safe spaces? Why are men who exhibit
these behaviors not held accountable? Why do our highly developed
accountability processes keep failing?
With a topic as triggering as the pervasiveness of sexism and patriarchy within
social justice movements, the conversation gets shut down in an effort to avoid
internal divides. Female identified survivors are silenced in the name of the
movement. The message that gets sent is that addressing sexism and misogyny
within our communities is secondary to organizing campaigns and movement
building. Out of exasperation women will often disengage with the community,
sometimes going as far as to boycott activism all together. This scenario is very
effective at maintaining the imbalance of power in social movements and keeps
our communities entrenched in Rape Culture. As for the working groups, time
and time again they develop one accountability process after another, which is
then unanimously agreed upon by the community. In my experience, this process
no matter how highly developed, is never implemented or applied. Much like the
constitution of our country, it exists as mere rhetoric used to promote a façade of
progressivism. A common theme in every process of accountability I have ever
read (including this weeks’ readings) or engaged with is a commitment to
transparency. Transparency is always the bedrock, the starting point at which we
begin if we want to initiate the process of accountability. To help me breakdown
this buzzword, I researched until I found a meaningful definition.
“Transparency, as used the humanities and in a social context more generally,
implies openness, communication, and accountability. Transparency is operating
in such a way that it is easy for others to see what actions are performed.” (WIKI)
As I already discussed, one of the reasons our accountability process fails when
it comes to holding men who exhibit behaviors of sexism or misogyny
accountable is because when women attempt to hold space so that these
behaviors can be addressed with transparency, the conversation is shut down
and labeled as divisive. Consequently, the accountability process is also shut
down before it even starts.
I have recently been struggling with a scenario in which a male member of
Portland’s activist community continues to be validated and perceived by the
community as “radicle” and socially aware while his patterns of behavior are
steeped in sexism, patriarch, privilege, abuse, and exploitation of women. This
individual often speaks from a Feminist Framework so that unless you’ve been
an intimate female partner of his, you would not know of these behaviors. As this
individual holds a considerable amount of privilege in the community, there
seems to be no one willing to risk bringing transparency to his behaviors. The
many personal recounting of experiences with this person leaves me angry that
there is no way to hold this person accountable for his behaviors. I am angry that
he continues to hold privilege and power in the movement.
I am sure that this scenario is not unique to this individual. Rather, I am sure that
this is a common trend. In fact I’ve seen this exact scenario play out many times.
How do we go beyond rhetoric and façade and actually create safe spaces so
that these women can address these behaviors? How can we ensure women
that if they do take the risk that it would be worth it? That the community would
actually hold this person accountable? That they would not be ostracized
because of their efforts?
Identifying that my feelings in regard to the readings stemmed from having lost
patience with academically constructed processes of accountability allowed me
to give space to feelings and thoughts that have been held for far too long.