women and feelings and stuff...

[keryx]

Have you all read Odd Girl Out? Because you should. It describes really well my own personal experience of girl culture, which I assume is pretty normal. And in a weird way, it also describes a lot of the issues with groups of women.

I am and generally have been the sort of person who will tell people what I think without much hesitation. I figure you'll either like me for that or not, but sooner or later it'd come out anyhow, you know? But I find myself shifting into a freakish middle school sensibility right out of Odd Girl Out in the company of the Mus [for those not playing the home game, that's my new nickname for the dance troupe]. Being introduced bit by bit to the political roles and behind the scenes machinations (a great word, that) and establishing new friendships with people who aren't all part of the same small circles somehow shifted me into thinking like I needed to prove myself and make people like me and they're all looking at me all the time and I need to be nice and make everyone happy.

This middle-school thought pattern, she is really self-absorbed. Like anyone else has time to be looking at and evaluating me constantly. Puh-lease.

It seems that the political intrigue is common to a lot of other dance companies and dance scenes, too. What do all of them have in common? They're mostly women. And I think it's natural for humans to want to jockey for position and test each other a little, especially when change and new people come, but it's still not considered acceptable for women to do that outright, not even jokingly. So we sublimate our curiosity and chest-beating and act nice. You can live off that grid in many ways, but if you run into a bunch of people who seem to live on it, what do you do? You can avoid them, you can pretend it's not there, or you can try to be nice. I think I'm going to go for "pretend it's not there" (behaviourally at least), as I will otherwise run screaming from a room at some near-future point. And then everyone will be looking at me.

I'm curious, though - what have you seen work in your own grrrl or boi groups? What makes people feel comfortable being themselves when they have a very limited common interest?

Comments

Damn, I'm on my way out the door.

[grrangela.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I wish I had time to properly respond to this, because I read and loved Odd Girl Out. It broke my heart, but it also made me feel a shitload less insane about my adolescent relationships with other girls (and my adult relationships with other women - shit, maybe I should read it again). I'm making a mental note to come back to this tomorrow when I return to work.

Re: Damn, I'm on my way out the door.

[keryx.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I realised that I need to go back and read it again. We have Odd Girl Speaks Out now, where the girls talk more directly about their own experiences. It's sad, and more so because it rings so true.

[deadpoet83.livejournal.com]

I haven't read Odd Girl Out, but I've definitely experienced that pressure to act nice. When I participated in VDay, it was a bunch of girls with whom I had almost nothing in common. There was a lot of fat-phobia, pressure to conform to certain look (they were thin, cute sorority girls who felt that being attractive was integral to getting people to listen to us), heterocentrism, and transphobia in the group that made me highly uncomfortable. But I never spoke up about it. And when my ideas for inclusiveness were (politely-as always) rejected, I didn't know what to do about it, because they were so nice about it.

I don't know if this is exactly relevant to what you're talking about, but there was this pressure to fit in and be nice about everything (where nice=total agreement), and your entry just brought it to mind.

[keryx.livejournal.com]

Yes, yes, yes! That is definitely the same kind of thing I'm talking about. It's kind of grrrl group code, that going along with the norm and being nice is the only way to get things done... heaven forfend we actually deal! with our conflict! directly! It puts any dissenter in the position of being The Bitch, when groups actually need dissent and a little conflict to move forward.

[snidegrrl.livejournal.com]

Oh man, I am the queen of Nice. Until I explode. The aftermath is generally a degree of messy depending on where I was when I exploded and who I was talking to... I am constantly playing Switzerland. It's almost wrong. But it's the only way I know how.

[keryx.livejournal.com]

You're a kinda special case, too. Because for whatever complex combination of reasons, harmony and friendship are superimportant to you. So you have both that emphasis and the whole girl-schooling towards nice to work with.

[ivyblogs.livejournal.com]

I haven't read it. Does the author take into account what part school plays in the overall socialization of girls? Because I find it so odd when I read books and studies done about kids and teens and and so often the influence of the one place kids spend most of their day is ignored.

Have you read A Sense of Self: Listening to Home Schooled Girls by Susannah Sheffer? The girls in that book don't seem to play all those games. Not because they're above it- but because they just don't get it. For the most part, it wasn't their culture.

[keryx.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the book is all about the school culture, although it makes the some assumptions that probably would have been proven false if the research had delved into homeschooling and alternative schooling - but if you accept that most girls attend 'regular' school, it's a useful examination of those girls' experience.

I haven't read the one you mentioned. I'll have to check it out.

[ivyblogs.livejournal.com]

I accept that it is the experience of most girls and any book that helps them through it is a good thing.

I just don't get why there aren't more studies looking at school itself that point out, "Good God! Look what schools do to kids. Let's examine how schools socialize our children and what can we do to change the schools" instead of treating the school experience as a given and trying to help kids despite the social organization of school. I don't mean schools should be abolished, but that the way most of them are organized is crazy making and addressing that is preferable to doing damage control with our children. There's always talk about education reform, but schools seem pretty much the same now as they did when I was a kid. They were sit down, shut-up and learn these things. Except for one school. It was far less structured- or maybe just structured differently. There wasn't as much sitting down and shutting-up. Lots of discussion and student input. Also less emphasis on competition (no tracking, kids working at their own pace). I learned a lot there, and I think that was partly because I was relaxed in school. There wasn't a lot of bullying or clique stuff going on. It existed, but nothing like it was in the traditional public schools I attended. Mostly, I think, because when kids are encouraged to participate more fully in their own education and feel their opinion is valued, and when they aren't all sorted and labeled, they don't have as much need to bully and exclude ( which are cruder way of sorting and labeling).

[keryx.livejournal.com]

Well, at least part of that problem is that we think of children as things to be controlled. So no one would question whether school creates what we think of as disordered behavior (like bullying) - school just has to work around it, because we assume kids are inherently problematic. It's a fundamental flaw in the mainstream view of children.

[cutegaychick.livejournal.com]

But it's so much more interesting to back-stab and maneuver than to do it the male way and just get drunk and hit each other.

However, I hate to break it to you, but I am absolutely looking at you and evaluating you every time you walk into a Mu gathering. Is she good enough? Is she nice enough? Did she bring me presents? I wonder if she'll sleep with me ...

*grin* If it makes you feel any better, I'm the only one in the Mus who gets off on political machinations. I keep telling Cricket and Our Brave and Fearless Leader -- "Goddammit, work everything out behind the scenes! Line up your support before you call for a vote! Don't you know anything about politics??" But noooooo -- they think we should be an open democracy! Sheesh!

[keryx.livejournal.com]

So, basically, you're the wicked machinator of the3 crew? I'll just have to smack you around a few times, then you'll get in line.

Anyhow, my dick's way bigger than yours. ;P

[cutegaychick.livejournal.com]

"I'll just have to smack you around a few times, then you'll get in line."

okay now i'm definitely going to try to get you in bed. and i'll show you mine if you show me yours ;)

PS

[cutegaychick.livejournal.com]

You're cute and clever and smart and you dance really well. We all like you -- quit angsting about it.

Re: PS

[keryx.livejournal.com]

But if I don't angst, whatever will I do? I'll have to just... go with the flow or something. :P

Although I suspect that if the things I'm thinking actually started popping out of my mouth (many of which would SOUND rude, even if they weren't), YOU'd still think I was swell, but not everyone else.

Re: PS

[cutegaychick.livejournal.com]

What, you mean everyone doesn't love sarcastic bitchy girls?

Re: PS

[keryx.livejournal.com]

Oddly, no. It's a failing of our society, if you ask me.

Re: PS

[cutegaychick.livejournal.com]

Perhaps we should secede and start our own nation of cute and cleverly bitchy women?

related to work. irony

[riotkat.livejournal.com]

I have been going through this at work because I open my mouth. I guess I need to learn to play nice here. Maybe I should read that book. All I was doing was being honest and had to later have a chat about my attitude. I find that a lot in all aspects of my life.

Re: related to work. irony

[keryx.livejournal.com]

Reading that book wouldn't help you "learn to act nice" - it's all about the reasons why training girls to be "nice" screw us up. I have no idea what you're like at work, though, so I don't know what kind of issues you're running into - it could be just a difference in communication styles, or it could be this same Nice thing.

Re: related to work. irony

[riotkat.livejournal.com]

I don't want to learn how act nice, at work anyway. I like who I am. I thought maybe I would get insight on how they are.

Re: related to work. irony

[keryx.livejournal.com]

Yeah, you'd get that. At least some of it. The book's all about school age girls, but a lot of it applies to adult women really well.