Ahaha, it's really hard giving myself room to be as upset as I am without throwing myself back on the middle of the whole thing over and over and over again.
I'd noticed that you seemed to be acting compulsively, and were caught in a whirlpool you needed to be pulled out of.
part of me feels like I don't have the right to be shaky and hyperfocused on the dynamic and unable to emotionally regulate if I'm not doing anything to fix this specific thing
Well, it did not look to me like the thing you were doing to fix it was working, nor did it look to me like a thing that would ever work, so your doing it more and harder (and as above, compulsively) doesn't really seem to me to be something you should feel obligated to do.
There may be ways to engage that are more satisfying to you, in that they stand up for your perspective, say. But what you've been doing is not that. The urge you feel to do that specific thing is not getting you closer to that, and is not actually serving any morally principled felt urgency to stand up for what is right.
The cracks at the split attraction model and the characterization of that model as toxic are really making me feel unsafe, because they are signaling: ah. I'm right. You really don't respect me except insofar as I pretend to be lesbian enough for you.
There is no amount of pretending to be a lesbian what will be enough for her to respect you. :)
And if I try to talk about my actual perspectives and opinions, you will tell me I'm really not welcome, that I'm a traitor or something.
She will tell you that you're not a lesbian. Which in her head is correct because she – and she's not the only lesbian to do so – has defined "lesbian" to be something other than just a woman who is exclusively attracted to women. She's got this whole construct in her head about how being a Lesbian is completely transformative of your whole personality in a way which means anybody who doesn't share in that personality transformation isn't really a Lesbian. No matter whom they boff or snuggle.
at the end of the day, it's going to be toxic and holding an open discussion about it is not going to change anything to make the space better
Yeah, the thing that gets me is why you are trying the open discussion approach here. If some dude were being misogynist and "just asking questions" about women's compentence in science, you wouldn't try to engage in "open discussion" with him, you'd drop an umpteen page formally argued riot act on his head explaining, with foot notes, why he is full of shit. And we know this because you did.
I mean, is the problem here that because it's Metafilter, you're not in a position to flame these people as they so richly deserve?
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2019-04-14 12:47 am (UTC)I'd noticed that you seemed to be acting compulsively, and were caught in a whirlpool you needed to be pulled out of.
part of me feels like I don't have the right to be shaky and hyperfocused on the dynamic and unable to emotionally regulate if I'm not doing anything to fix this specific thing
Well, it did not look to me like the thing you were doing to fix it was working, nor did it look to me like a thing that would ever work, so your doing it more and harder (and as above, compulsively) doesn't really seem to me to be something you should feel obligated to do.
There may be ways to engage that are more satisfying to you, in that they stand up for your perspective, say. But what you've been doing is not that. The urge you feel to do that specific thing is not getting you closer to that, and is not actually serving any morally principled felt urgency to stand up for what is right.
The cracks at the split attraction model and the characterization of that model as toxic are really making me feel unsafe, because they are signaling: ah. I'm right. You really don't respect me except insofar as I pretend to be lesbian enough for you.
There is no amount of pretending to be a lesbian what will be enough for her to respect you. :)
And if I try to talk about my actual perspectives and opinions, you will tell me I'm really not welcome, that I'm a traitor or something.
She will tell you that you're not a lesbian. Which in her head is correct because she – and she's not the only lesbian to do so – has defined "lesbian" to be something other than just a woman who is exclusively attracted to women. She's got this whole construct in her head about how being a Lesbian is completely transformative of your whole personality in a way which means anybody who doesn't share in that personality transformation isn't really a Lesbian. No matter whom they boff or snuggle.
at the end of the day, it's going to be toxic and holding an open discussion about it is not going to change anything to make the space better
Yeah, the thing that gets me is why you are trying the open discussion approach here. If some dude were being misogynist and "just asking questions" about women's compentence in science, you wouldn't try to engage in "open discussion" with him, you'd drop an umpteen page formally argued riot act on his head explaining, with foot notes, why he is full of shit. And we know this because you did.
I mean, is the problem here that because it's Metafilter, you're not in a position to flame these people as they so richly deserve?