In this post, he writes about how the men speak in his women's studies class:
...two of the guys did something that I see over and over again from men in women's studies classes. They prefaced their remarks by joking "I know I'm going to get killed for saying this, but..." One of them, even pretended to rise from his desk to position himself by the door, saying that "Once I say this, I know I'm going to have to make a run for it." Most of the women laughed indulgently, and I even found myself grinning along.
...one thing I remember from my own college days that I see played out over and over again is this male habit of making nervous jokes about being attacked by feminists. In my undergrad days, I often prefaced a comment by saying "I know I'll catch hell for this". I've seen male students do as they did today and pretend to run; I've seen them deliberately sit near the door, and I once had one young man make an elaborate show (I kid you not) of putting on a football helmet before speaking up!
All of this behavior reflects two things: men's genuine fear of being challenged and confronted, and the persistence of the stereotype of feminists as being aggressive "man-bashers." The painful thing about all this, of course, is that no man is in any real physical danger in the classroom -- or even outside of it -- from feminists. Name one incident where an irate women's studies major physically assaulted a male classmate for something he said? Women are regularly beaten and raped -- even on college campuses -- but I know of no instance where a man found himself a victim of violence for making a sexist remark in a college feminist setting! "Male-bashing" doesn't literally happen, in other words, at least not on campus. But that doesn't stop men from using (usually half in jest) their own exaggerated fear of physical violence to make a subtle point about feminists.
There's a conscious purpose to this sort of behavior. Joking about getting beaten up (or putting on the football helmet) sends a message to young women in the classroom: "Tone it down. Take care of the men and their feelings. Don't scare them off, because too much impassioned feminism is scary for guys." And you know, as silly as it is, the joking about man-bashing almost always works! Time and again, I've seen it work to silence women in the classroom, or at least cause them to worry about how to phrase things "just right" so as to protect the guys and their feelings. It's a key anti-feminist strategy, even if that isn't the actual intent of the young man doing it -- it forces women students to become conscious caretakers of their male peers by subduing their own frustration and anger. It reminds young women that they should strive to avoid being one of those "angry feminists" who (literally) scares men off and drives them away.
Criticism is not fists! This is a brilliant observation.
Of course, it's obvious. If I say "Your idea is sexist," then I'm not literally slugging you in the face. But at the same time, the joking frame allows the analogy to pass unnoticed. And when it passes unnoticed, its effect can be insidious. The women act to protect the man's feelings. They soften their criticism so they won't fulfill the violent imagery of the man's preemptive metaphor.
But I want to take it farther than Hugo does. People don't just say "don't attack me" as a way of getting feminists to back down. They also say it because they have a sense of being attacked. Criticism is not fists, but people really seem to perceive it that way.
And the less privilege the person who's making the criticism has, the more it feels like an attack. In this post, Ginmar (feminist veteran and SF writer) quotes Amanda Marcotte (ex-campaign blogger for John Edwards, who writes for the feminist blog Pandagon) : "“The less right you have to talk in the eyes of the hierarchy, the louder you seem. Which is probably why black women are seen as the loudest people ever.”
We see this in a lot of places, right? The common sense conviction that women talk more than men cannot be supported, and in fact, people find data that suggests that -- in ordinary conversation -- men talk more than women. If researchers externally impose a requirement that both men and women speak the same amount, then they both report that it feels like the men hardly got a chance to talk at all.
Women aren't supposed to talk, so when they talk, they're seen as talking A LOT. Black women really aren't supposed to talk, so when they talk, they're seen as talking REALLY LOUDLY.
Women aren't supposed to criticize, so when they criticize, it's not just words -- the surprise of their criticism feels like fists. And when women of color criticize? Well, then it's World War III.