In the real-life scenario, a few more women talked and none of them solved any of the problems I mention above. In such a real-life scenario, I would have hoped for a great deal of time in smaller groups to process what the anti-racism speakers had to say, and to break down some of the myths our culture holds most dear regarding racism. I would have hoped for gentle challenges, not to a sister�s feelings or to her experiences, but to her interpretations of her experiences, where there are further truths available.
It is an oft-touted but usually unwritten rule within feminism that we must never argue with another if she shows emotion, if it is a tender issue for her, if she evidences any sign of pain. In this scenario, the only safe things to discuss are those about which we don�t give a damn! It can lead to a tyranny of the terribly afraid, and to the damning and silencing of any woman who appears �strong.� And in this scenario, we dishonor our sisters by shielding them from challenges to think harder, farther, and outside the boundaries of patriarchal thought.
There is a danger in allowing a sort of �anything goes� personal view feminism where clearly contradictory (including possibly clearly patriarchal) lines of thought are allowed to exist simultaneously within a feminist framework. While acknowledging that no one is likely to have the entire truth within her grasp, it is nonsense to honor alternate �truths� that promote cultural problems being reframed as personal problems.
Within feminism there is a tendency to act as if each woman�s interpretation of her experience is sacred, and that whatever she has to say must be honored and respected, or else she will be silenced. What those who believe in validating all experiences seem to miss is that this view often privileges the already-privileged by enforcing the silence of those made �Other� by a dominant, culturally-accepted patriarchal view. Women who are different, dis-privileged, are not likely to stay around to listen to this �anything goes� version of feminism, when it is their difference that is being demeaned, degraded, by one who is allowed to speak her bias in the name of sisterhood and inclusivity.
A sisterhood built on tender, gentle nurturing sounds wonderful, and comfortable � so long as one is in proximity to the norm, is privileged more than not. Because gentle nurturing when sisters are denouncing and devaluing and demeaning your people, your own, is not remotely comfortable. And gentle, nurturing patience (and openness to a diversity of ideas, most of which you dealt with the last 200 times you dealt with inexperienced thinkers on this topic) is not easy to bring up in oneself; to be told that you have to do it in order to be heard is nothing short of infuriating.