I have a friend who gets really mad when she gives an opinion on children and is dismissed by people who point out she doesn't have children.
She doesn't think it should matter. She's worked in child care before. She's been around a lot of children. She sees children in the wild and knows how they act so her opinion is valid.
Which, sure, she's more than entitled to her opinion. And in some areas it is an informed opinion. But it does not hold as much sway as the opinion of someone who has kids.
She does not have a lived experience, she has an observed one. And they are different.
Having a discussion with a male friend of mine yesterday about the Barbie movie award nominations. I made a joke post that I think it's actually kind of brilliant marketing that Robbie and Gerwig weren't nominated for Best Actress and Best Director, that everytime you watch the movie or talk about the movie from here on out that will be the coda. Totally fits with the theme of the movie.
His take is that it's nothing but pearl clutching. That there was no actual snub. That because Gerwig got a nod for screenplay and the movie is up for Best Picture that's enough.
And I was going to let it go but...
I've been seeing this take a lot. And it's always from men. (at least from what I've seen) There is no sexism and let me explain why...
Dude...
I see all of your arguments and I get that you think they are valid opinions. But you don't have a vagina.
You have observed sexism in your life. We've lived it.
I get that we all live under the patriarchy but the experience is different. You're like a fish in water, once it's pointed out you might be like, oh wow, yeah, this system has definitely been here all along. I'm like a dolphin in water. Yes, it has, and I know how to navigate it, but I need to go to the surface to breathe. There is a difference.
You have an observed experience and I have a lived one.
When a man wants to tell me how there isn't sexism in an issue that I'm just seeing something that isn't there I feel the exact same way as I do when my childless friend wants to discuss the best way to parent. You don't really know. You just think you know.
And women know.
There are men out there that think women will blame sexism or the patriarchy for everything when honestly most of us gaslight ourselves about it more than we acknowledge it. Didn't get a promotion we're really sure we deserved? We must not have worked hard enough. Guy on the bus stared a little too long and made us uncomfortable? Probably was just zoned out and not even looking at us. Voiced an opinion and was ignored? Probably they just didn't hear us. We try to talk ourselves out of it. To pretend we don't know.
But, yeah, we know.
It's our lived experience. When we talk to each other about it we bring it up. Do you think it could have been? Yeah, it was. It's there. All the time. And you think we are seeing things.
That we are clutching our pearls over something that doesn't matter because of reasons.
Reasons you've observed.
But until you've lived it, your opinion just doesn't matter as much as mine. Sorry.
A lived experience just carries more weight.
I'm pretty well versed in trans issues. It was something that I read a lot about even before Katie transitioned. I've got a pretty firm grasp on legal issues, medical issues, social issues. I can speak a very educated opinion. But if Katie tells me I'm wrong then I'm wrong. Because it's not my lived experience. I have the experience of being a family member, of being a friend, of reading a lot about issues, of paying attention, but I will never have the lived experience of being trans.
Her opinion counts more than mine. If we disagree my opinion just doesn't matter as much as hers.
Lived experiences carry more weight than observed ones.
And unless you know, just know that you don't know.
You know?
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