adrienne rich, “split at the root” (via beneathbixbybridge)
i remember everything about the first time i read this (1994).
27 May 2012 / Reblogged from beneathbixbybridge with 37 notes / feminist art feminist boredom silence feminist privacy concerns
TRIGGER WARNING WHATEVER I FEEL GROSS PLZ DON’T TELL MY MOM I’M NOT READY TO HAVE THAT CONVERSATION UGH UGH THIS FEELS LIKE COMING OUT
to contextualize oversharing as a tactic:
- caution, the ways we speak in hushed tones
- being a “shitty person”, carefully measuring our words out to not transgress upon anyone’s hard-won autonomy and safety
- except that that can be silencing, quiet isn’t necessarily safer
- and sometimes we can deal with difficulty, sometimes you just need to say everything that’s bothering you in a space for you won’t be abandoned for it
- not always
- but sometimes
- if we politicize support and care but only in certain contexts then we miss something
- if we support survivors but we don’t support people who just feel bad then we don’t give them space to assert their feeling-bad as something that may be pre-politicized
- for example sometimes it takes us a long time to name rape as rape and violation as violation. the first hint is the feeling bad but when we say the feeling bad we’re being crazy, we’re being hysterical
- in many communities, feeling-bad and oversharing it is only valued and received gently when it’s understood as political
- I’m thinking of all the people I know who would call a rape joke out as fucked but wouldn’t listen to someone vent/participate in a climate of non-venting as normal and healthy and how they are contributing to silence
- because we aren’t finished figuring out how to live together, how to practice intimacy, how to relate, how to resist etc, together
- and feeling awful is relevant
- feeling awful is relevant
- feeling awful is relevant
- I don’t know what it means but it is relevant
How am I to integrate these experiences:
When I was eighteen and had just been assaulted by a friend who I knew and trusted I didn’t call it assault. I was without an adequate language for the mess of grief and betrayal I felt. I did not have the words to call it rape. That came later. At the time I only felt wrecked. (You know this story, why am I telling it to you, you know it)
important. it’s true that it is fucked that certain people think certain things should only be talked about in certain ways in certain spaces. (that is, in the ways and spaces that make them feel comfortable. that is, in therapy, but not an hour after therapy. or ten hours after therapy. therapy or other designated spaces as containers for feelings so they don’t inconvenience other times and spaces and people who only want to be bothered for an hour, once a week, or for however long the meeting lasts.) and the thing about not being abandoned; there are so many ways of abandoning someone. i would also like to support telling a story, or the story, again and again.
16 May 2012 / Reblogged from hysteriarama with 30 notes / feminist privacy concerns hysteria silence space matters your dry heat feels like power control freaks price tags
i was going to die, sooner or later, whether or not i had even spoken myself. my silences had not protected me. your silences will not protect you…. what are the words you do not yet have? what are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence? we have been socialized to respect fear more than our own need for language.
i began to ask each time: “what’s the worst that could happen to me if i tell this truth?” unlike women in other countries, our breaking silence is unlikely to have us jailed, “disappeared” or run off the road at night. our speaking out will irritate some people, get us called bitchy or hypersensitive and disrupt some dinner parties. and then our speaking out will permit other women to speak, until laws are changed and lives are saved and the world is altered forever.
next time, ask: what’s the worst that will happen? then push yourself a little further than you dare. once you start to speak, people will yell at you. they will interrupt you, put you down and suggest it’s personal. and the world won’t end.
and the speaking will get easier and easier. and you will find you have fallen in love with your own vision, which you may never have realized you had. and you will lose some friends and lovers, and realize you don’t miss them. and new ones will find you and cherish you. and you will still flirt and paint your nails, dress up and party, because, as I think emma goldman said, “if i can’t dance, i don’t want to be part of your revolution.” and at last you’ll know with surpassing certainty that only one thing is more frightening than speaking your truth. and that is not speaking.
"audre lorde (via diamondmind)
15 Apr 2012 / Reblogged from theanimalnamesofplants with 825 notes / feminist narcissism feminist privacy concerns silence feminist ethos
adrienne rich, “women and honor: some notes on lying,” on lies, secrets, and silence
29 Mar 2012 / 12 notes / feminist archiving silence
wait. wait. wait wait wait wait. um. first of all, everyone knows if you don’t want to be written about, don’t date a writer. (and who isn’t a writer? we all have the internet.) this goes double for dating feminist writers, who are probably committed to telling the truth about their relationships. “you’re hurting me” and “ethics” and “discretion” are such obvious coverups—by self-identified feminist men—for behavior both atrocious and foolish that they don’t want exposed or theorized. it is also what jennifer doyle calls, in sex objects, “the stubborn ignorance (and optimism) of male privilege.” good luck with this one, guys. really. we were dumb, but you were dumber, and you should read the audre lorde prominently displayed on your bookshelves. we certainly have.
29 Mar 2012 / 94 notes / feminist terror feminist privacy concerns silence
carolyn steedman, dust: the archive and cultural history
(clio is the goddess of history. i love that her name means “to make famous” or “celebrate.” indeed.)
audre lorde, “the transformation of silence into language and action” in sister outsider: essays and speeches (via youthfulindiscretion)
22 Feb 2012 / Reblogged from youthfulindiscretion with 46 notes / feminist privacy concerns feminist terror silence
michel foucault, the history of sexuality, an introduction: volume I
michel foucault, the history of sexuality, an introduction: volume I
this makes me think about when i said that i felt like privacy rejected me and so why be silent. this also make me think about when we were first dating and he was like, “i know you like to keep your relationships private” or, much, much later, when mikki said to me, “this must be really hard for you. the relationship has been so theatrical from the beginning and you’ve always been such a private person.” one of the reasons i was always so private, i think, is because that’s what allowed me to actually be vulnerable.
i became less private, perhaps, during all of those terrible couples therapy sessions—not my idea—in which silence is considered an affront to the entire process. i remember one time, in particular, when i felt like the therapist and my boyfriend were colluding to try to get me to speak on a subject, even though i clearly didn’t want to, even though it was hardly the worst of our problems, but perhaps a convenient one for him, a way for him to make it look like i was acting out on issues that were all in my head, or maybe it was our worst problem, related to the fact that i thought he was all talk about the relationship but wouldn’t do anything, least of all protect me or my feelings. anyway, they both appeared rational, your dry heat feels like power, while i was clearly on the verge of some traumatic reaction—i felt terrible, i felt like no one cared that i felt terrible, not to mention overpowered—and i had already said i didn’t want to talk about it. and so i didn’t. i fucking refused to talk about it and remained silent as a form of speech and self-protection and i’m glad i did. vulnerability is a privilege. anyway, when i was ready i did talk about it, right here, on my tumblr.
