Instead of looking at who has posted and
how it can be seen as an attack on you, read the text, relate to
reality and see how it could be said of you, and make the conscious
effort of stopping this kind of practice.
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The Five Methods of Domination:
Invisibility
Ridiculing
Withholding information
Dual punishment
Creating shame and guilt
The
following text has been adapted for gender neutrality from the booklet
"The Five Methods of Domination" by Berit Aas, (English translation by
Lotta Larsson, Daphne Sandberg). Adaptation is © S. Jensen and H.C.
Jensen, Södertälje 2005.
------
**Making people feel invisible**
There
is a discussion going on in a long thread. People post their opinion
and reactions to others' postings. Then someone joins the discussion.
He/she posts what he/she wants to say and waits for the responses.
Nothing happens.
People continue discussing the matter as if he/she
never posted anything. Later someone might refer to the posting, but
keeps talking about the person as if he/she was not part of the
discussion. The poster feels awkward and starts contemplating what
he/she posted. Did he/she say something inappropriate? Or stupid?
Soon he/she wishes he/she had not posted anything at all.
This takes place when people are ignored or passed by.
It is a reminder to people that their opinions are unimportant and do not count as much as other people's opinions.
**Ridiculing / belittling**
Someone posts something.
He/she
happens to use words or say something that can be turned into a joke --
like "rotating testies". People start joking about the testies and LOL a
lot.
He/she tries again, but is once more stopped by jokes and
laughter. He/she becomes upset and complains, and people defend
themselves by belittling the offended person.
"That time of the month, is it?"
"It was just a joke. Don't you have a sense of humour?"
"Loosen up, don't take yourself so seriously!"
Some
ways of belittling people and making them feel stupid is to say "I
don't have time with this", "I cannot be bothered with this", "This is
irrelevant, uninteresting, childish, stupid…" or "I don't have patience
with you".
Ridiculing/belittling
takes place when people's efforts and accomplishments are mocked and
laughed at. It also occurs when people are compared to animals, like
chicken, dogs or pigs.
Other examples
are when people are said to be too sensitive or when their feelings and
actions are characterised as typical for their gender/group/political
affiliation/sexual orientation.
**Withholding information**
The
discussions touch the same issue in several groups at the same time.
Some of the groups might be closed. Some of the discussions are held in
private, via e-mails, messaging, or chats. Most internet debate forums
are international sites, so people participating are from many different
time zones. Some people have to go to work, take care of family, are
too tired or sick to stay in the discussion. Next time the issue is
discussed, people who were privileged to get the information the first
time, will say things like "you weren't there, so you have no right to
say anything".
Another form of using
the lack of information to dominate others is to disqualify a person
simply because he/she does not have certain experience. "You are too
young to understand", "if men had periods", "I have an academic
education, you don't" or "easy for you to say, you are not a parent".
Withholding information takes place when people do not receive the same opportunity to take part of information.
One
can also argue that withholding information takes place when people's
work and accomplishments are ignored and not validated.
**Dual punishment**
In
a group, people agree that personal matters should be dealt with in
private, and not in public. Later something happens and a person has
something personal to say to another person. He/she then writes a
private note, as agreed, and next thing that happens is that the other
person goes public with it, accusing the first person of harassing
him/her with the "offensive" note.
Another
situation is that a person complains about why everyone makes
assumptions, and never asks. Next time something happens, another person
asks for an explanation. He/she gets the answer "If you don't
understand, it's no idea to try to explain, you wouldn't understand
anyway."
Damned if you do and damned if you don't.
One
example is when people are blamed for not taking care of something the
society sees as their responsibility, and they are accused of the
consequences of that, but at the same time they are accused of not
taking part of the rest of the society as well.
**Creating shame and guilt**
Somebody
suggests a different method of dealing with things. Someone
misunderstands and reacts on the misunderstanding, accusing the person
of trying to change the subject, taking attention from "important
issues" -- or talking about how the person him/herself is not doing what
is suggested. The person, who suggested the new method starts defending
him/herself, trying to explain, but is interrupted with someone telling
him/her that it doesn't matter, it isn't interesting, one couldn't be
bothered with it or one doesn't have time with this kind of crap. The
person feels foolish. It was probably a stupid suggestion.
Guilt
and shame are induced through double punishment and belittling. People
are told that their ideas and suggestions are not good enough. The
reason the other people oppose people's ideas might be that:
- People think and do things differently
- People do not have access to information controlled by other people.
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These
are the Five Methods of Domination. Our hope is that this knowledge
will be enough to eliminate them. The methods of domination have fewer
ramifications when you understand and recognize them.
