This is an absolutely brilliant piece, and will be required reading for my students in the fall. Victoria Smith, I remain one of your biggest fans for the stunningly insightful analysis of women's situation you offer us all. Thank you.
Brilliant as ever. Fight and flight are always mentioned as instinctive ways to stay safe. Freeze and fawn not so much, maybe because they’re usually the ways women and those with less resources stay safe. This substack explains all the drawbacks of those tactics.
Indeed but there’s a difference - fight and flight is based on research with only male subjects - what you call freeze and fawn, is more naturally female I think - but I’m reminded of research (sorry I forget who - Swedish I think) where females when frightened will ‘gather and hide’ that is we are programmed to take our children to safety. Interesting.
I remember now - it’s Taylor and ‘tend and befriend’…
I look forward to the day -- not far off -- that the academics like Amia Srinivasan look around and realize the clapping has stopped and they just have to stand alone next to the things they wrote while the hissing starts.
Thank you for this. I'm reading 'Swimming Against the Current' by Riley Gaines, which is really excellent. Gaines talks about someone unplugging the sound (p54) as dead silence takes over what is usually a chattering female space. This is when male swimmer Lia Thomas enters the changing room for the women's NCAA Championship. An abusive situation yet no-one is supposed to challenge it. The NCAA even changed the changing rooms to unisex, a totally unecessary change if Thomas was actually a woman.
No one writes so insightfully, so clearly, so boldly, as Victoria. I was almost in tears reading this and thinking of Peggy's fortitude in what is very much an ordeal.
Thank you for articulating this so well. I've followed a lot of similar tribunals but found this one particularly distressing. Sandie Peggie's father died less than a month ago after a long illness and his funeral was held less than a week before she took the stand. I note, that despite this, she didn't have a support team behind the witness stand. He brought his wife, some friends and his parents -not just in the room but sitting directly behind him. It struck me as both pathetic and cruel at the same time.
Brilliantly incisive, thank you. "Nothingness work" is such a perfect term to describe this female erasure of the self in the face of what is like manspreading on the Tube, but it is male egospreading. However small we make ourselves, it is never enough, some men (not all but far too many) just happily expand themselves further. A cartoon in the early '80s in the Guardian by Posy Simmonds shows a woman smiling in apology when she walks into a door, smiling in apology as she makes a complaint to customer service over the phone. So well trained in the work of self-erasure. Then one day you look into the mirror and there is no one there.
Thankyou Victoria, for putting into words some half realised thoughts I had on this topic. A trans identified male doctor, imposing into a female changeroom where a much older female nurse was simply trying to get changed. Her need for privacy while dealing with a period leak trivialised and framed as bullying of a male Dr. So much so, that her employer punished her. If Dr Upton can't empathise with nurse Peggie around changerooms - how can he possibly treat genuine female patients? If he has no self awareness (and I'm hoping that's what it is, rather than malice) how can he be an effective, safe doctor?
This was such a good read! This part especially resonated:
We’ve all been there. Sod it, we think. I’ll indulge him. I’ll smile at him. I’ll laugh at his jokes. I’ll use his words. I’ll pretend I don’t mind. I mean, how important is it really? What does it cost me really? If it makes him happy, what kind of nonsense is ‘my dignity’ anyways? We are never, ever thanked for this, only punished when we reach the point of saying ‘no’. It costs nothing to smile – well, only a little self-respect – but that smile will be taken as a promise.
This is an absolutely brilliant piece, and will be required reading for my students in the fall. Victoria Smith, I remain one of your biggest fans for the stunningly insightful analysis of women's situation you offer us all. Thank you.
Hear hear!
It is no accident that it is a nurse whose acquiescence is taken for granted. The emotional labour of nursing work is almost never recognised.
Brilliant as ever. Fight and flight are always mentioned as instinctive ways to stay safe. Freeze and fawn not so much, maybe because they’re usually the ways women and those with less resources stay safe. This substack explains all the drawbacks of those tactics.
Indeed but there’s a difference - fight and flight is based on research with only male subjects - what you call freeze and fawn, is more naturally female I think - but I’m reminded of research (sorry I forget who - Swedish I think) where females when frightened will ‘gather and hide’ that is we are programmed to take our children to safety. Interesting.
I remember now - it’s Taylor and ‘tend and befriend’…
I look forward to the day -- not far off -- that the academics like Amia Srinivasan look around and realize the clapping has stopped and they just have to stand alone next to the things they wrote while the hissing starts.
Thank you for this. I'm reading 'Swimming Against the Current' by Riley Gaines, which is really excellent. Gaines talks about someone unplugging the sound (p54) as dead silence takes over what is usually a chattering female space. This is when male swimmer Lia Thomas enters the changing room for the women's NCAA Championship. An abusive situation yet no-one is supposed to challenge it. The NCAA even changed the changing rooms to unisex, a totally unecessary change if Thomas was actually a woman.
No one writes so insightfully, so clearly, so boldly, as Victoria. I was almost in tears reading this and thinking of Peggy's fortitude in what is very much an ordeal.
Thank you for articulating this so well. I've followed a lot of similar tribunals but found this one particularly distressing. Sandie Peggie's father died less than a month ago after a long illness and his funeral was held less than a week before she took the stand. I note, that despite this, she didn't have a support team behind the witness stand. He brought his wife, some friends and his parents -not just in the room but sitting directly behind him. It struck me as both pathetic and cruel at the same time.
You're the best
Brilliantly incisive, thank you. "Nothingness work" is such a perfect term to describe this female erasure of the self in the face of what is like manspreading on the Tube, but it is male egospreading. However small we make ourselves, it is never enough, some men (not all but far too many) just happily expand themselves further. A cartoon in the early '80s in the Guardian by Posy Simmonds shows a woman smiling in apology when she walks into a door, smiling in apology as she makes a complaint to customer service over the phone. So well trained in the work of self-erasure. Then one day you look into the mirror and there is no one there.
Brilliant, Victoria!
Thank you. You are a phenomenal thinker and writer.
Thankyou Victoria, for putting into words some half realised thoughts I had on this topic. A trans identified male doctor, imposing into a female changeroom where a much older female nurse was simply trying to get changed. Her need for privacy while dealing with a period leak trivialised and framed as bullying of a male Dr. So much so, that her employer punished her. If Dr Upton can't empathise with nurse Peggie around changerooms - how can he possibly treat genuine female patients? If he has no self awareness (and I'm hoping that's what it is, rather than malice) how can he be an effective, safe doctor?
This was such a good read! This part especially resonated:
We’ve all been there. Sod it, we think. I’ll indulge him. I’ll smile at him. I’ll laugh at his jokes. I’ll use his words. I’ll pretend I don’t mind. I mean, how important is it really? What does it cost me really? If it makes him happy, what kind of nonsense is ‘my dignity’ anyways? We are never, ever thanked for this, only punished when we reach the point of saying ‘no’. It costs nothing to smile – well, only a little self-respect – but that smile will be taken as a promise.
I have been there so many times.
Just so you know, your new book is the talk of radfem tumblr.
This is utterly brilliant, powerful and insightful. It's heartbreaking that in 2025, the ideas articulated here are still marginal.
Bookmarked to share, re-read and reference.
Thank you so much.
HazelRa likes to provoke. I like to ignore him.