Hello friends,
I want to talk about consent and why it matters.
But before I do, I want to say that the context of this is my more recent attempts to be less uncompromising, less fundamentalist, about things. To sit in the grey areas (@raisingalegacy has a fab post on this, and her stories are so thought-provoking), to lean into nuance. Because often I find myself really hardening - and often, while mothering and living, I’ve found myself taking pretty hard stances on things.
Now with hindsight, I feel like those hard stances betray a lack of confidence and courage. They betray fear - a fear that engaging with views that are not my own may see my own ideas come crumbling down. And as I write this, it strikes me that fundamentalist religious beliefs can sometimes have this at their very core. The refusal of extremist believers to engage with any idea or opinion or person that is condemned by their religion, may in fact stem from the possibility that that idea or person might actually make sense. Might actually reveal to them something flawed and shaky about their own beliefs.
You don’t have to be an extremist of any kind to experience this. It is what many white people experience when confronted with the reality of white supremacy - or what adults encounter when adultism is pointed out to them. The very foundation we base our legitimacy as people begins to crumble. It can feel scary.
Anyway, back to consent. I want to talk about it from this place - a place of openness and being prepared to recognise that consent culture in my home can look different to consent culture in your home, or your educational setting, or your office. And also that perhaps (perhaps!) consent culture isn’t fully possible in some setting and environment because their very existence depends on a lack of consent. Maybe you see where I’m going with this..
But first, consent. An understanding of consent in early years settings is what brought me to consent-based home education, and self-directed education. It started with Montessori for me. And while there is an understanding that the child is to be revered and respected in Montessori, I don’t remember seeing explicit writing or talk about the role of building a culture of consent. This I found somewhat worrying. Because how can you have true respect without consent?
I spoke in my instagram stories recently about how consent comes in many forms. There is what some sociocracy advocates and trainers call “negative consent”, the kind of consent that sociocracy is based on, which looks a bit like this:
A family gathers to discuss the state of their living room. One parent is annoyed that games get started on the floor and not put away. Another parent feels that a shared space should be open to everyone, but also for this very reason people should keep the volume at an acceptable level. One child wants to be able to play games in the living room. The other complains it’s too loud when they choose to sit and read on the sofa. Everyone voices their concerns and opinions. Everyone is heard and valued. Someone then puts forward an idea: whoever starts a game needs to clean up when they are done with it, and if people want to be loud they need to go into another area of the house, or outside. Everyone is asked to consent. One person says they cannot consent because they feel like there should be a time limit to putting away the game; some games are left lying around for days because the person isn't ready to be finished with it. They propose that there could be a limit of one day after which the game needs to be tidied away. They go around the circle and everyone consents to the amended proposal: games to be tidies up when finished or within a day, people wanting to be loud to move elsewhere. Not everyone is thrilled (one of the children has a hard time putting away games), but everyone is willing to give it a go. It is not set in stone, they are just trying it out. It is “good enough for now, safe enough to try.” This is the kind of consent we sometimes give because we live in community, and we can’t be enthusiastic about everything, and we can’t do things the exact way we want to do them all the time, we need to take other people’s needs into account. This type of consent is crucial in any community.
Sometimes this is the type of consent that happens in our family too. We are four very different people with very different needs. I suppose my worries about this kind of consent are two-fold: some of us might be willing or tempted to equate our desires with our needs, and if we hold more power in the family then we are more likely to succeed. The other is the extent to which some people are more willing to compromise than others. The extent to which some people will go along with things more readily than others - and while this can be a positive attribute, it could also lead to those people “tolerating” things that actually trample on their boundaries, or feeling resentful later because they feel they were somehow, even very gently, pressured into agreeing.
This dynamic of negative consent can work beautifully, but can also serve to replicate power dynamics that already exist. It needs to be carried out carefully. It’s not easy, and there’s no one way to do it either.
It also needs to be rooted in a sense that all people are deemed worthy in that space, and that they have all been empowered to advocate for their own needs. That the balances of power are acknowledged and actively worked on. That all people are even aware of where their personal boundaries lie, and that they are fully entitled to uphold them.
Essentially, negative consent can only work if you already have, or are actively working, on building a culture of consent in your home or setting. A culture of consent is the opposite of a culture of coercion. So while some people will focus on the absence of coercion, others will focus on the presence of true consent. They are very similar really - just seeing things from a different place.
Consent culture is fundamentally about people feeling comfortable to say no, or yes, without fearing repercussions of any kind. Repercussions can be physical, tangible, but also very abstract and psychological or emotional. It is also, equally, about others recognizing when someone is not comfortable (even if they are saying nothing), and backing off. In their book on consent, Marcia Baczynski and Erica Scott define consent culture as “a culture which emphasizes collaboration to create the most mutually beneficial interactions possible.”
Consent is not only about autonomy, and yes and no. It is collaborative. It happens in relationship. Connection, trust and mutuality are key. An understanding of autonomy and boundaries is crucial. It is messy and complex and not fundamentalist.
I’m going to talk more about enthusiastic consent on my next post. And more about how this, too, is not just an enthusiastic yes, but so much more. And why this matters. And why it isn’t going to happen in some places unless they radically change.
Thanks for reading!
I hope you have a wonderful week ahead
Fran x
I love your thinking on all of this. Your initial thoughts on allowing others ideas in makes me think of the steelman technique. (The “strawman fallacy” is a way of creating a weaker, less genuine form of someone’s argument and then attacking that to win easier. This is the opposite.) The steelman technique requires you to build up and strengthen opposing viewpoints before engaging with them. In this way, honesty with yourself allows for the best understanding and growth.
And your discussion on boundaries...phew! It’s all some complex and nuanced. Bria and Daveed have a great episode on boundaries on their Rethinking Self-Directed Education podcast. They put forth the idea that boundaries are not things to be crossed by other people, they can only be crossed by self for not disengaging with the other person not complying with your requests.
Of course, as they discuss at length, it gets more sticky when the environment you’re in isn’t allowing you to uphold your own boundaries. Age, temperament, and power all muddle this even more. Bria even talks about how her (now born) baby will likely make it hard for Bria to uphold her own boundaries especially because she doesn’t have a full village on which to depend (as we did ages/cultures ago). Anyway just an interesting parallel and extension of your discussion here.