Opresssion- It's going to be okay guys.

Recently I got into a twitter debate with two very learned people on the internets! The issue was over "bad behaviour" and "flamers" on the internet. First, this started over the terrible issue of #standingwithDNLee. Don't know about it? Then go read a wee first.

To begin, I'll start with my observations/conclusions as an outsider:

1. That some of the name calling and accusation of racism against Scientific America's editor (and supporters) were sometimes drastic and extreme and used foul language.
2. That this reaction did not come out of "no where" and had a root cause for the criticisms, as sexism and racism are ingrained in our society. Since science is supposed to be above all that do to rational though and reason, and is highly influential in our world, then this can be taken especially seriously.
3. That the supporters of the SciAm editor, who openly critiqued the DNLee supporters for their foul language and "hysteria", did not appreciate, empathize or try to understand or directly tackle the issue of oppression in our culture. That their defense of the issue illustrates that they probably do not understand the full implications of what happened and what it means. They may think they do. They may not know what they do not know. But in science, not taking into account all relevant information is a not-scientific, right?
4. That there are some great dialogue happening from this issue. This blog on SciAm makes me happy. So does a courageous SciAam blogger who came froward about his own case of where he sexually harassed a colleague, and his heartfelt apology. SciAm, being true to science, is publishing articles openly criticizing itself. This is the space needed for dialogue and healing.

Back to the beginning and why this was a serious trigger for me, and a trigger warning to anyone who decides to keep reading: It's terrible in so many ways. I was interested and shocked because in several of my jobs as a marketing manager/coordinator, I had the task of soliciting bloggers for their work for free. I have also blogged for free to improve my own SEO ratings, etc. So hearing that a woman who was established and writing for Scientific America had been called an "urban whore" for saying no to free work, by a biology publication of all things, was beyond me. Being catty/snarky in the fashion/media world is one thing, but aren't scientists supposed to be rational cucumbers? Aren't they supposed to live by the scientific method and formal logic? I held the world of science in higher regard then my former line of work.

I could also highly empathize as a woman. There have been countless times, really since I was in elementary school, where saying no to a boy resulted in abuse. If I didn't want to hold hands I had dirt kicked on me. This was "okay" because if a boy hits you, you are told by parents and teachers it's "because he likes you." Once after refusing to date a boy, he got revenge by putting my name and number up on Craigslist by promoting that I was giving away a two for one deal on blow jobs. It took hours to get the post taken down. I had to change my number as I had so many men calling me after. Since my name had been published too, I was actual scared for my physical safety and was on edge for a month. My first big opportunity to land a major ad client at a publication suddenly ended when he said that to sign the contract I'd have to sleep with him. Or there are a few occasions where men in the cycling industry wasted hours of my time, me thinking I was making progress on a job, to have them say they wanted to ask me out. Or there are just the many times where I said no to someone at a bar, and they called me a "whore" and walked away. I've had men spit on me for not talking to them on the street. That's what men do if they can't "have" you, they do this cognitive dissonance thing and make the rejection easier by degrading you and insulting you.

So while DNLee's case was less dramatic, and she handled herself with utter dignity and respect, my own anger level rose a little bit over it. Emotional association to current events is something that happens in the human brain. It's called empathy. It's what makes us human. I have both a high IQ and extensive imagination. That apparently makes my reactions worse as I can picture it too easily.

To make my history a bit more clear on my interest in this incident... Once while I was at university, I was fortunate enough to work on a few different student projects that looked at fashion and sustainable design. One of the main supporters was our student union. One of the men whom I worked with seemed to take a shine to me and was very supportive. After one "lunch meeting" that made me very uncomfortable, I through non-direct ways made it clear I was not interested in a sexual relationship. Support from this man stopped immediately, even the kind he was mandated to help me with by his superiors. Funny thing was that he was a man of colour and worked in anti-opression circles, and was my introduction to that thinking. I'm grateful for it. It introduced me to this great way framework for looking at our society and how it can oppress people systematically (that can mean not necessarily maliciously or with intent, and this will lead to my point and the reason behind the title of the blog if you can stay with me). It showed me that those who say they work for freedom can often be misguided or only apply that way of thinking when it's convenient to them. Through his help I unpacked my white privilege, but he refused to unpack his male privilege. It helped me understand better politics, religion, and my neighbors.


He also didn't support sustainability because "it was a plot by the UN to kill people of colour and reduce the population." He would tell me to read agenda 21- because it was right there. I did, and it wasn't. I told him that people of colour in marginalized areas had the most to loose as rising sea levels would destroy low-lying, traditionally populated areas like the Caribbean, Bangladesh, etc. I told him sustainability was about supporting small industry, and not the mega corporations behind the mining and forestry practices that do the most harm to indigenous populations. He told me I had white savior complex. He told me to read a dissertation called "Green is White" and that green initiatives are money-making initiatives for white people only and that is why he rejected them. (Latter I met the woman who published it at a SYC national conference, told her of my experience, and said "That is not what I meant at all.")

This was all in 2005/2006.

Anyway, the next 4 years of my schooling at a heavily multicultural school in the heart of downtown Toronto, one of the world's most multicultural and integrated cities, I bumped up against a type of thinking like this. The student government was fractioned: sustainability vs. anti-oppression, with supporters on each side saying that sustainability could co-exist and support anti-oppression, and in fact in other campuses it did.... to have the leaders of the anti-oppression group refuse this. At one point durring student voting elections, some on the other side went as far as to pull a fire-alarm during budget voting, after pulling a current GOP style of halting progress in the voting process.  I learned a lot in this, mainly because I was friends with one of the leaders behind the anti-oppression group. (We had become friends in a business program. He was a good guy.)

Using this experience and my then schooling in consumer behaviour, I learned more about cognitive dissonance and what it can do to a person's mind. Basically, no one likes to feel that they are "bad", and everyone lives their life for the most part doing what the believe is the "right" thing to do. But, many people are just product of their society and for the most part people do what society does and what media portrays they should do. We create values. Free choice is a bit of an illusion. It's manufactured choice. I come from an industry where we use this to sell you shit you don't need. Trust me, it works. Fashion doesn't just sell the necessity of clothes, it sells the individual fitting into their peer group. It sells the illusion that you are a better, happier person by buying these clothes. You have it "together", you are hip. Know what? Not one person I know in the industry is an evil person. They like making clothes and like being creative. The deeper meaning of how it works is not something that is passed around in memos in the industry. It's also perhaps why smaller, honest brands can have a hard time, while larger corporations make big coin.

So, in my experience with promoting ethical fashion, I noticed a reaction in people. A denial that ethical fashion (sweatshop free, toxin free, etc.) was "bullshit- a marketing mimic to make you feel bad and buy their stuff." EEP! Right? That could be said for the clothes they already bought. But that would make them "wrong", and that would mean that they would have to admit that the clothes that they were wearing were probably made by a woman of color working on less then a living wage, who had maybe just been raped by her boss. That would make them "bad" people, and fuck that! That other shit is bad! I'm going to ignore relevant information instead of changing my lifestyle. I can drive my SUV because climate change is a scam. I can drink Coke because you're a hysterical activist. Stop being negative! I'm not oppressing people, you're oppressing me! (These were all actual things said to me.)

So recently I have been loving articles such as this article on Salon and on Scientific America, which is how this whole thing started.

Going back again, I like making friends with people who have a different opinion then me. I don't like yes men. In fashion, often brands interview the people who like their brand/product the least to see the real objections and what they can do to improve. When I was living in Whistler, working for VANOC in 2010 I met the one local journalist whose articles made my blood boil at and event. We both liked how we could disagree but agree, and became friends when we decided to leave the TED event and check out the free Deadmouse concert.

A bit latter, when the issue of rape and hockey culture came up after the Olympics, I told him about a girl I knew who was raped in a hockey initiation in Ottawa. I told him about my own date rape as a teen, and a sexual assault at my workplace earlier on that year. Basically, rape culture is complicated, ingrained, and it's not hockey that causes rape, but there are men who hide behind hockey to justify it. I told him of my own reasons why I never came forward or delt with the date rape... it was because he was a friend and at the time I blamed myself for being drunk, and I didn't want to upset our social circle or ruin his life. That was a view that lead to incredible amounts of self hate.

Then, years later, when I was working for the Hilton Garden Inn on Peter Street in Toronto, a co-worker, who I was on familiar terms with pushed me into an elevator and groped me. It triggered an extreme reaction in me, due to the previous date rape I had never emotionally delt with. The Hilton handled the case int he worst way possible, and two days latter at work I was on schedule and almost alone in the restaurant, and the only other person on staff was the man who had assaulted me. They had never announced the issue of the incident or put out a corporate statement to staff, and the same day another staff member in the same elevator I had been assaulted in played a "joke" with me, trying to touch my name tag (which was located on my breast.)

I. Lost. My. Shit.

The best part? When I quit over it as I couldn't handle the situation or the stress, in my exit interview, my boss told me I shouldn't have been so friendly with my co worker int the first place, that I could be endangering his job, and said anger was not acceptable in the work place. I was blamed for the sexual assault. It was my fault for being friendly, and please don't get mad about it. It's making me uncomfortable.

I was open and honest about how that issue completely messed with my head and made me feel unsafe, and so was the journalist. He admitted to being scared that he would be accused of rape for no reason because he played hockey. (The conversation is still in Facebook.)

I had a hard time empathizing to that. I told him that seeing as 1/4 women in Canada will be victims of sexual assault, that maybe we could worry about the cases of men being falsely accused at a later date. Seeing as rapists tend to get less time in jail then marijuana possession in North America... it's a bit of a slap in the face. My safety and those of 25% of our population were compromised physically and emotionally. I and others had to deal with the baggage and loss of quality of life since. His perceived threat of an accusation to him was equally if not worse then tacking real issues such as the spike in women going to the Hospital for rape kits during the Olympic Hockey Games.

He then published this article in our local newspaper, which made me so in enraged in my comments to him on his wall, he deleted me from his Facebook. (Only after a few of his own friends commented that maybe I was right.) His wording makes the assumption that this learned UCB professor is a man-hater, instead of addressing that she is a professional scientists and the numbers she was referring too were sadly real and not created out of thin air. I pointed out that he was a journalist with little education in the sciences, and he was maybe not the best to interpret this. I also stated that this line of thinking promotes the self-blame in woman, and would prevent women from coming forward. He was reinforcing the problem with his article: Don't trust the woman, you could ruin a mans life.  Instead of addressing my concerns and facts, he brushed me off as hysterical and aggressive. Because I was "an angry woman" he simply did not have to deal with me. He was able to dismiss me based on a few swear words. Our friendship, honestly and progress were reduced to nothing.

Thing is, I hated him at the time. I have never held hatred towards the men who assaulted me, (I felt sadness) but he was a journalist in a position to influence other people. I hated him until I realized that he was a sad weak man, more into protecting himself one day from a possible scenario, then helping others who were currently suffering.

So, to the supporters of DNLee, I could totally understand where the "online outburst of anger" comes from. I understand it's made worse by the invalidation of that anger. I understand very valid points can get shut down by a misuse of a word or an outbursts. I can understand that your anger can be seen as worst then the reason why you are angry.

My anger/shame complex go to the point it was hindering my life, and in 2012 Dialectical Behavioural Therapy helped me address my PTSD/sever anxiety and self harm issues.  At the same time I was also found to have ADHD. Like most intelligent women, it went undiagnosed until my mid-twenties. AND- I was a Celiac. Great. Both probably made the PTSD/anxiety worse. A year and a half latter, with ADHD medication and a GF diet, along with DBT I feel I am a new person. And lordy was it super hard work. It still is. I was So I feel now I can come at this from a learned perspective of understanding, validating and regulating my emotions. DBT is about mindfulness, emotional regulation, and owning your "shit." Its very hard work to be truly honest about yourself and the past.

Back to DNLee, I learned about the whole scenario by finding/loving the SciAm "Absolutely Maybe" article first on Motivated Reasoning, going to her twitter page, and starting to read. It was confusing at first. 

Some supporters of DNLee swore at the author of Absolutely Maybe, as she supported her SciAm publisher when accusations of sexist and racism were hurled at the publication in the weekend where DNLee's article about her experience were taken down. Granted, the blog was taken down for legal reasons, and latter put back up by the publishers after they were able to authorize the claims DNLee had made. In the silence of the weekend where this was not addressed by the publication, supporters of DNLee took this as a sign of racism. It kind of is. Silencing truth for no reason? How is someone supposed to take that? And if you have been tackling issues of social justice in your work, expecting her to sit, back, do nothing and think "I'm sure they have a great reason for this, I'll just wait and not be mad" is not something reasonable to expect. In the end, SciAm apologized for taking down the blog without notice to DNLee, admitted that this did not look good, and the person at Biology Online who called her a whore was fired.

So, in all cases DNLee (and her supporters) was justified in both being upset at the use of the word Whore, and at her article being taken down without notice. If they were not justified, SciAm would not need to apologize over not contacting DNLee, and the person would not have been fired. Especially since that article was an opinion piece and not a scientific paper, and especially since other blogs and bloggers often voice opinions/disagreements and do not get suddenly taken down like that. However, the author of Absolutely Maybe also had a very valid point that her publisher had due diligence to check the facts of a competing publication before allowing something on her website to be published that could equal a law suit.

So, I loved her article on Motivated Reasoning, but then found that she and her supporters online were not really being true to the article itself. So I stuck my nose to where I shouldn't be and tweeted to them. Which lead to 2 hours of debate over twitter. Which lead to me writing this as I couldn't fall alseep last night. That's what happens with PTSD. I was stimulated by the triggers, and couldn't go to bed, couldn't let go the fight. According to the Absolutely Maybe author and her supporter, it's because I am willful and I would be able to go to bed and get back to my school reading if I just wanted to or I just wanted to try hard enough. I say this as their reasoning for the outburst was "some people are just nasty" and "if they tried hard enough they wouldn't have these reactions." Those opinions to me were utterly shocking, as it flies in the face of DBT and most recent progress by clinicians in dealing with emotional distress. It blames the patient's will for a physiological symptom.

When I brought up how I used to react because of PTSD, they at first dismissed it not realizing I was referring to myself. Then they said that the rations could not all be PSTD related. I countered with such a large population of oppressed, maybe its more then they think. And that someone does not have to go through their own trauma to care about others. They kept insisting they believed in alleviating oppression. I asked for work or proof. They did not send me information. And her article was about Motivated Reasoning...

You see, they were rejecting the concept they were oppressing people. Being accused of something like that is extreme. No one likes to think they are the bad guy. Thing is- there are no bad guys really in this world. Only situations were information is readily dismissed in favor of protectionism and the status quo.

I, as a person of North European descent and from a middle income family in Canada, have privilege. I am both attractive, intelligent, able bodied and heterosexual. I have privilege. My lifestyle as being a part of the dominant ethnic group, whether I like it or consciously contribute to it or not, oppresses people. I'm participating in a system that was designed by white, male, rich, dead jerks to maintain power. As long as I am participating, I am contributing. It sucks.

But here is the flipside. I have been oppressed as a woman. Both the men who have assaulted me were men of colour. My whiteness didn't suddenly stop the violence from happening, or bring justice to me. Or even my whiteness comes into play. I grew up in Markham, and I was the only "white" girl in my grade for about 3 years, and I got made fun of for being white by an "brown" ethnic group. My grandparents, ethnic Poles, were both forced Nazi slave laborers. That's how they met, she was forced to work in a farm next to the factory he was forced to drive trucks for. My father was born in a Red Cross Camp in US occupied Berlin. He came over on a boat. The label "White", taken out of the context of mid-century southern US from the beginnings of the anti-oppression movement, is more complicated then a chroma.

My mother was one of the first women to trade foreign bonds on Wall Street, but was forced to give that up by her first husband when she was married. After a successful second financial management career that she gave up for me, the only job she could get after my parents divorce was driving a bus. It took her years to work her way back to a CFO position, and it was in the construction industry. She was called a bitch for what any other man would be called a good worker for. My mother and her first husband are Scottish, whose culture and language were decimated by the British, and then for some reason when the Scots came to Canada they did the same to the native population here. Did you know that the first nations culture also had slavery, long before the white man came? Did you know slavery has existed since forever, in every single part of the globe? Not as systematic and as nasty as the type of horrors of the early colonial days of the Americas, but the fact still stands. As long as we hairless monkeys have been standing, we've been hating each other. As my mother says: "Civilization is a thin veneer."

MY LARGE POINT: We all oppress each other! It's super fucked up. Humanity like this massive knotted yarn ball many people are trying to untangle at once, then it gets tangled more. Let's radically accept that this is not going to be easy so we can move on to the untangling.

Lets get back to facts and numbers. The one group of people we can see are systematically oppressed the most (you can get stats/numbers on this) are women of colour. I am citing mainly this type of oppression based on statistical earnings. Money is power. In our modern culture, money is kinda our god. So, if for some reason women, Hispanics and blacks consistently under earn compared to male and white and Asian counter parts of equal education and age, we can see a pattern in who has the power in our "western" culture.

What happened on the twitter debate was that I brought up that systematic oppression causes mental illness/harm. It causes fear, anger (danger of the body, livelihood, and reputation.) and sadness. Systematic Oppression can also cause an inability to act against/ protect oneself from these oppressions.  The result can be more anger, more fight or flight triggering. I'd rather see the fight aspect, as the flight path can be avoidance, depression, and suicide. 

 So if you want to end the anger, end the oppression it comes from. No the surface symptomatology.

They compared the online bullying of name calling, to the systematic oppression of women and people of colour is petty. It's invalidating. Is a hyperbole comparison.  It shows lack of understanding of the severity of the culture. Also, since many of these criticisms came from white men of an educated background, we could infer that they have not been through the trials that many women or people of colour have. Not to say they have not struggled or faced injustice in other ways. Hey, life is hard for everyone. All of creation groans together. Understanding that the scale of life may be tipped in your favour is a good way to avoid putting your foot in your mouth. It's also a strange place to find gratitude and to grow from.

In yoga, they say the practice of being uncomfortable in a pose is the chance for you to sit with that and grow from it.  In mainstream sports, you have to feel the burn for results! So if this all makes you feel weird and strange and uncomfortable and angry, I want to let you know: it's all going to be okay. You can grow from it. The anti-oppression movement and the concept of privilege were never made to oppress others or take away safety or rights from those of privilege. It is about realizing the facts in front you so you can clearly understand what is going on, free of illusions. Kinda like science, actually.

In conclusion, I can recognize in this situation that I can do very little except control myself. So I will end with:

I am privileged. My lifestyle can oppress people. That does not mean I am an evil person, it means I can take that privilege and use it to end the oppression I can potentially cause.  

I am oppressed. My lifestyle has been oppressed by other people. That does not mean I am an helpless victim, it means I can be educated in taking a stand to end the oppression I have experienced, and use empathy to help end the oppression of others.

And I can be those two things at once. Life is a grey area guys- and don't worry, it's all going to be okay. (With hard work that is.)