One of the things I love about blogging here at Alas are the insults. Wholehearted agreement is pleasant, but nothing strokes the ego like the knowledge that you’ve made such an impression on someone that he wants to hit back any way he can.<\/p>\n
And insults are such good sparking-points for new essays. Consider this screed:<\/p>\n
“I don’t know what more I could have done without sacrificing my self-esteem…”
\nAnd there’s another issue – you’re so stuck up your own rear-end you can’t see beyond your own nose. Other people are less important to you than your ‘self esteem’. “Hey hunny, I just had a real hard day at work.. I’m ready to flake out, could you make me a drink please?” – “Hell no, that would lower my already oh-so fragile self-esteem, and I’m not here to bow to your patriarchial demands of coffee-making, you chauvinistic bastar…”<\/p><\/blockquote>\nI suspect this comment was born out of hostility towards all feminists – or maybe all women – directed at me simply because I made a convenient target. But beyond the inflammatory phrasing, notice the way I’m quoted in a misleadingly selective manner. Notice how a general comment is extrapolated to a situation completely unrelated to the situation I was discussing. And above all, notice how the mere mention of “self-esteem” serves to light the blue touch-paper of this guy’s hostility.<\/p>\n
The full sentence of mine that he partially quotes is “I don’t know what more I could have done without sacrificing my self-esteem and my plans for the future on the altar of his personal convenience.” My plans for the future are immediately dismissed as unworthy of consideration, perhaps because they don’t arouse the same fury as my self-esteem. After all, intelligent people can make plans for the future, but only silly, selfish women care about their self-esteem.<\/p>\n
I used the ill-defined term “self-esteem” to stand for a whole host of wishes and desires that would have unbalanced the structure of the paragraph if I’d listed them in full. My desire to explore my gender until I can find an expression of it that seems honest. My desire to express my emotions without being told I was “too intelligent to believe that”. My desire to enjoy my favourite foods and drinks without being made to feel as though I was committing some bizarre kind of self-abuse. Little things which, taken together, make me the person I am as opposed to a robot or blow-up doll.<\/p>\n
I haven’t always seen my self-esteem as important. Many times in my life, I ranked it below the approval of others, hiding who I was or giving up what I wanted for no better reason than that friends, family or society in general felt it was inappropriate. It’s only after this last year of hardship and introspection that I’ve come to see that what I am and what I want matter: that my self-esteem is not something to be sacrificed lightly.<\/p>\n
It struck me, while contemplating that hostile comment, that self-esteem isn’t a word the privileged need to use. If you have the power to impose your desires on those around you, with society’s seal of approval, your desires aren’t a matter of your self-esteem, they’re simply the natural order of things. It’s only if your desires are minimalised and brushed aside by those around that you need a word to stress the importance of being yourself.<\/p>\n
If a man wants sex with a woman, if he wants to decide for her whether she should continue or terminate a pregnancy, if he simply wants her to attend to his wants before her own, he doesn’t use the language of self-esteem. Instead, he states outright or, like the commenter above, implies, that he deserves this, that he’s earned the right, that it should be that way. If the woman wants to assert herself and claim back the right to make these decisions for herself, the language of “rationality”<\/a> won’t serve her. She falls back instead on the language of self-esteem.<\/p>\n
So it’s hardly surprising that someone so openly hostile towards a woman who claims those rights would be filled with contempt for self-esteem. It’s in his interest to undermine it and make it appear frivolous and without value. For if we’re allowed to start believing that self-esteem is something worth defending, something too valuable to sacrifice to the convenience of others, his power starts to crumble. I must be put in my place, mocked and accused of rank selfishness lest anyone begin to take my self-esteem seriously.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One of the things I love about blogging here at Alas are the insults. Wholehearted agreement is pleasant, but nothing strokes the ego like the knowledge that you’ve made such an impression on someone that he wants to hit back … Continue reading