*dies of the stupid*

[alixtii]

Oh yes, (systemic) sexism and racism don't exist outside the United States at all, do they? Feminism is simply just a part of some American agenda of cultural imperialism, and everyone knows that Western Europe is a utopia when it comes to gender and race issues. (Apparently everything I've read in the New York Times--not to mention The Guardian--is a big fat lie. Who knew?)

Really, how does one respond to that?

Comments

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

if they're conscious of the privilege that their belonging to the hegemonic culture gives them, they have to cede the point even when it shouldn't be ceded.

Exactly! I mean, I know that the UK isn't a feminist paradise, but despite having lived there as a student for four months the only specific criticisms I can knowledgeably make would still be at way too high a level of abstraction (they have segregated bathrooms!) for them to be taken seriously. And so the entire conversation is effectively shut down.

Plus I can recognize the signs of denial-of-systemic-injustice well enough--I've seen it in plenty enough of Americans--to know when that is what is going on and not an actual cultural difference, even if I knew absolutely nothing about British culture.

[heyiya.livejournal.com]

I can recognize the signs of denial-of-systemic-injustice well enough
That's it exactly, isn't it? *sigh* And it makes it so hard to talk about the *actual* differences in construction of race, class, gender etc across cultures even when they seem quite similar on the surface, which is a very interesting topic.

Unrelatedly, I totally want to know where and when you were in the UK for four months! :)

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

Fall 2004 I lived in London in the West End (Gower Street, to be specific) as part of my study abroad.

Now, London's simply too cosmopolitan to really learn anything meaningful about its culture without, I don't know, joining a club or something (and I did spend a decent amount of my time exploring the city)--I learned more about British culture by watching British TV than anything else I did while I was there, I think.