I am really not sure what the answer is. I feel that it’s important to try to change people minds but I also feel hopeless that there are so many people who are attracted to the authoritarian ideas of this administration. I feel like it’s going to take more than just fighting with people on Facebook, but somehow cracking people over the head with their own cruelty and making them come to grips with it.
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I work with a bunch of trump supporters and a conversation took place the other day about their complete disregard for bi-partisanship. They felt it was unnecessary now that trump is in office and complained ‘liberal commies’ spent too much time debating things. In addition to just being trumpers, I think that they see authoritarianism is just a way to 'get ‘er done!’ while ignoring or oblivious to the negative implications.
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I think it’s more deeply ingrained.They value their own obedience to authority over their own obedience to their own selves. They are seeking external rewards over what truly serves them.
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Last night I had a talk IRL with a Trump voter who is starting to turn. She is embarrassed by him. I have felt that, personally, I’m in a place where some of the Trump voters I know might flip. So, it was nice to speak to an actual person having second thoughts and know his voters are turning on him is not just a liberal fantasy of mine.
The problem I ran into, in talking to her, and I have had this problem in general with people, is that she figures she can’t be a misogynist because she is a woman. And she is a Jewish working mother who, I think, identifies pretty strongly as an independent woman. I’ve found that I don’t know how to share with women how they have accepted that men are better leaders than women and that even open minded people have ingested the values of our society.
I was wondering if anyone has information to help people new to the concept of, “Hey, maybe I am a little misogynistic” to learn about that. I’m probably using my words wrong here, so please use better language than this.
She is not the first woman I’ve tried to have these kinds of conversations with. I feel like I need to be better prepared to challenge their assumptions.
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You are talking about “internalized misogyny” - the idea that men are just better and certain things inherently that a lot of people have, including women. Its why we elect men more often and why CEOs are mostly men, we have just assumed that men are better at these jobs, for no reason at all.
I have found the only way to tackle that is by talking about children. If they have daughters the more the better. People will often accept a status quo for themselves that they reject for their children. (see the Audi ad on the super bowl) Good luck. I stopped seeing my stepfather during the Rob Ford years because his GF looooooved him so much. I got nothing. /sigh
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That’s a good tactic.
I had a very similar conversation last week with a lady engineer. Though I work in engineering, it’s rare I get to talk with a woman who is straight a trained engineer. I was a little sad to see that this one had focused her attention on the relatively low limelight job of Quality Assurance, though her personality is very detail oriented. I believe from my short time with her that she has leadership qualities.
I shared a little about the article I read last week about women in Silicon Valley and that some companies were instituting quotas now. She talked about how when she was at GA Tech that her female teachers wanted to advance a particular woman into a slot that opened up because they wanted more women in leadership roles, but she had advocated against that woman being promoted because she “wasn’t the best fit,” and that would undermine the authority of women in the industry. Then I ended up trying to explain that maybe her perception of whether this person was the best fit was skewed by internalized misogyny but it’s just a tough thing to deal with.
I’m so tired of people thinking they can work with the system and beat it. No, the old white guys aren’t letting you into the club no matter how much you act like them or try to please them. Their logical objections against quotas are not logical at all. They just don’t want women and people of color playing ball with them. Not because of our color or gender, but because we don’t view the world the way they do and that challenges their own world views.
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/me-sobs
I was QA for years!!
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She’s great at it (and I’m sure you were, too), but where I’m at, Product Development is king and I’d like to see some women in the high glory roles - especially when they have both the qualifications and the personality to do the work
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This really clicked for me. Thanks!
I would add that there seems to be some component of obedience to authority that specifically DOESN’T serve them. Like, if it’s good for them, that makes it bad and thus should not be obeyed. Calvinism, maybe?
For example, these are people who do not see teachers or scientists as authority figures. It has to be the right kind of authority figure to obey.
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