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And I Really Hope That Dissecting It Like This Helps Me To Avoid Doing It In My Turn‚ along The Axes Where It's Possible For Me To - Blog Posts

3 days ago

i was just thinking earlier in vague terms about a specific but weirdly prevalent thing which consistently bugs me, namely: when cis men attempt to be self-deprecating about their unfamiliarity with feminine things, except that of course it's not actually self-deprecating to bring up how categorically distant you are and have always been from a stigmatized practice…

and then ran into this post, in which a presumably-white anon attempts to be self-deprecating about their unfamiliarity with the racialized genres of hip hop and rap (specifically by characterizing themself as a[n implicitly uncool] 'blorbo enjoyer,' which of course—as @‍batmanisagatewaydrug correctly points out—has the knock-on effect of framing fandom as Not For People of Color, which, not to put too fine a point on it, is racist), which illustrates exactly the same dynamic along a different axis…

anyway i guess my point here is just (1) to note that yeah, this really does seem to be a pattern! and given that, (2) to underscore in my own mind that this is probably something for nerds vel sim. in particular to look out for, because we often have insecurity modifiers that makes us feel like we're not ~really~ solidly part of the privileged group, which seems to make us feel like disclosing our ignorance can somehow constitute a self-deprecating self-own, rather than an offputting humblebrag about the privilege that made it possible…


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theory power dynamics (not sure how this turned into ellipsisville but what can you do… 'edit‚' you say? couldn't be me…) interpersonal my father does this ALL THE TIME about (shit he thinks of as) Girly Shit and like. he's a sweet soft gentle man so i think he DOES genuinely feel sort of self-deprecating about it like 'aw all the women in my life are so cool and have all this very specific knowledge and experience whereas i'm a clumsy amateur' (and like. yeah obviously as someone who has a lot of this knowledge and experience but doesn't identify as a woman the way this effectively regroups me with the Women is that much more maddening. but. sidebar.) similarly the other person i remember doing this was another fairly gentle nerdy white guy‚ who's similarly generally a Good Egg who was like 'obviously i don't have much to add to this conversation [about feminine clothing]‚ haha' and it was kind of like. well. glad you were able to take your discomfort with listening and learning and use it to turn a conversation that briefly didn't center you into a forum for affirming your masculinity! and like. that sounds harsh. i like both of the men i'm talking about! but when you drill down this just IS what was happening. anyway it's just like. a really interesting—and really fucking obnoxious!—phenomenon and i really hope that dissecting it like this helps me to avoid doing it in my turn‚ along the axes where it's possible for me to (also the more i think abt this i think 'mediocrely-educated USians' vociferous ignorance abt global geography' is another iteration of it)
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