The War Within
by Bonnie Tinker
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Editor’s Note: This is the final column written by Bonnie Tinker. If you have not already heard, with great sadness we have to report that Bonnie died on July 2. There is a memorial scheduled for July 25 at First Congregational Church at 11 a.m., to remember her.
It is summertime; the living is easy and male privilege is busting out all over. It’s in full view in our parks, on the bike paths, in yoga studios and in the front yards of family values neighborhoods. I’m not talking about the naked bike riders who are activists of some renown. I’m talking about male human beings above the age of about 5 who will casually strip off their shirt at the faintest hint that the sun might emerge from behind the clouds.
Like most privilege, this special right is hardly noticed by those who possess it. The men I know who exercise this special social right don’t mean any harm. Many don’t even know it is a privilege to take one’s shirt off and expose bare skin to sunshine and cool breezes. Some even care enough about equal rights to know that in Oregon and many other places it is legal for anyone, including women, to fully expose whatever bare skin they wish to display as long as there is no “prurient” intent.
On occasion, driven by an internalized fury that flashed into action without a conscious thought, I’ve been know to respond to a naked male torso in public by stripping off my shirt and bra. That sometimes makes me feel better, and on occasion it has led to a good discussion of the rights men take for granted. And it generally means that I won’t have to see these particular men half naked in public again. But in the long-run this tactic doesn’t really work.
The right of men to walk about naked in public, and the male dominance it reflects, cannot be undone by a few women asserting their right to do the same thing. The system is much deeper than interactions between two individuals. It is so deep, and it has become so unfashionable to discuss privilege so openly, that I shudder to put the words on paper: Male dominance is exposed when the shirts come off.
Like racism and classism, sexism is a word from a different era, an era when we thought that if we could just name injustice we could make it go away. We named it; it didn’t go away. But that is no reason to shut up. With apologies to my Quaker friends, sometimes silence does equal death.
Oppression is never just a theory; it is enforced with physical consequences, up to and including death. All you have to do is turn on the TV just about any night of the week to watch women being murdered because they are too young, too cute, too old, too sexy, out too late, up too early, home alone, home with the wrong man, out hiking alone, walking down a city street in plain site of a sexual predator, driving with their car door unlocked, carrying a purse or backpack, because they rejected the wrong suitor, or because they trusted the wrong man.
Just being a woman is dangerous; being a woman who exposes skin invites death. It’s hard to take advantage of legal rights under these circumstances — although I’m glad we have them.
I remember the first time I learned that the freedom of my body was restricted because I was a female. I grew up in Iowa where it was very hot in the summer. Little kids, not being stupid nor yet submitting to learned social norms, took their shirts off in the heat. One day when I went inside for a drink or something my mother told me that I had to put on my shirt, I was too old and girls couldn’t play outside without their shirts. I’ll never forget the feeling. I knew it wasn’t fair. It wasn’t. It isn’t. And it is true that girls must be taught that they are in danger if too much skin shows. Their life may depend upon covering enough skin to show that they submit to the unspoken but ever present danger of males who don’t tolerate uppity women. My mother taught me this just as I later taught my daughter that she must be careful about telling people I was a lesbian because I could lose her. This is the way oppressed people survive. We teach our children what level of injustice must be accepted.
Systems of dominance run deep. We will not end them in our lifetime. In the meantime, we can learn about the small privileges we exercise without thinking. White people can learn not to say “the peace movement is very white” (hint: the white peace movement is very white, but THE peace movement is mostly not white. Remember Gandhi?). Straight people can learn to refer to their legal spouses as “my partner,” and men can learn to keep their shirts on in public — and at home around their daughters.
Please – park you privilege.
Bonnie Tinker is the Executive Director or Love Makes A Family, Inc. She is the parent of two grown sons, a sister to three brothers, and aunt to seven nephews; she has a deep appreciation of feminist men and all people who use their privilege on behalf of justice for all. You can contact her at bonnietinker@gmail.com, or find her on Facebook.
