It still must be annoying to have the extra steps of checking and then cleaning up splatters, regardless of any feelings of disgust (or the lack of them). We can never know the level of disgust that the original questioned held unless they tell us.

For example, “I was sexually propositioned by my boss and fired when I said no. I don’t think that’s right.” repeated 10, 100, 1,000, 100,000 times became the feminist theory of sexual harassment which became the law of sexual harassment.

But how does one draw the line between mutual consciousness raising and hall monitoring? For me, it’s about the time when somebody says: “But if a feminist says something racist, sexist, etc. in front of me, I’m not going to let it slide.” Your belief that you need to immediately correct everybody’s ignorance about their “exercise of privilege” is what makes feminist discourse unbearable on so many occasions, regardless of the language used to make that correction.

I think Sarah Tonin gave the commenter the benefit of the doubt and was assuming that perhaps the commenter had a momentary lapse of attention or privilege analysis that could be self corrected by reference to the commenter’s knowledge of oppression. Twisty’s long-winded explanation assumes the commenter has her head so far up her ass regarding class oppression that a history lesson explaining it all was necessary forthwith.

ST’s comment gives room for a momentary lapse of judgment, which everybody has, and self correction. Twisty’s comment assumes ignorance born of class privilege and the need for education given, of course, by the one who holds the superior knowledge of class oppression.

Of course, *how* one holds that superior knowledge is central to feminist method, i.e. consciousness raising. Could it be because “I” or “you” have experienced it?

Anyway, bottom line, there are plenty of “I” and “you” statements implied in Twisty’s history lessons about trailer parks, IMO. Mostly that “you” have your head up your ass and “I” obviously need to tell you what’s what. Which is fine generally speaking, but certainly doesn’t meet the goal set by Twisty.

Speedbudget–

I was 5 years old when she went through this, and she talked to me about it when I was 30– I had a similar procedure done, under anesthesia, of course. The thing that fried me about my mom’s case is that when I checked to see when the medical literature started acknowledging cervical nerve-endings, I found that said nerve-endings were known about when her obgyn (a man) tortured her. He did it on the strength of *his own opinion* that– as he told her– there weren’t enough nerves there to really matter.

This was, completely and utterly, nothing more than a male *personal opinion*, which became pseudo-fact because patriarchy gives undue importance to any and all male I-statements, and zero credibility to female I-statements, even when they are the kind of first-person testimony that *is* court-admissible as evidence. So the situation becomes one of “male I-statement = incontrovertible fact, female I-statement = ‘just an opinion, and can be safely ignored’”– the female *I* is summarily deleted before that *I* can develop any traction.

However, just because a woman’s I-statements are (patriarchy-patronizingly) rubbished, it does not follow that she should further sanitize I-statements from her speech ‘in order for her ideas to be taken seriously’. The problem isn’t with the woman or any I-statement she may choose to make, it’s with the patriarchal a priori devaluation of her *I*, because ‘the I speaking is a woman’…

Inspector Callahan also said “there’s nothin’ wrong with shootin’ as long as the right people get shot’.