the dehumanization of feminists

Now Playing: Women's Revolution by Blue King Brown ft. Queen Ifrica (in our resistance, freedom finds a place to dream)

I apologize for my absence from blogging; I've been juggling three jobs, two mental illnesses, a heart that sucks at being a heart, full-time study and all the ups and downs of being eighteen.

But really, mostly, I'm exhausted.

I've been pretty active on other forms of social media; facebook and tumblr, for the most part. And it's really, really exhausting, being a social media feminist. Or any feminist, really. Being a woman who generally sides with the interests of women is kind of hard in patriarchy.

The attacks on Facebook have been particularly vicious and incredibly demoralizing; I used to face this head on, full of enthusiasm, but now it just fills me with exhaustion and anxiety. Anything I say, or anything I do - even things that aren't especially 'feminist' - are endlessly criticized and pointlessly nit-picked simply because I'm out as a feminist. I enjoy Facebook and other social media platforms for feminism because, like many social justice movements, feminism has become a rather grassroots campaign; and the internet encourages such wonderful debate and diversity. I also like Facebook because it's accessible; we can have debates and experiment with different ideas and different forms of expression without the sometimes absurdly-pedantic restrictions of academic discourse. So you know it's not in the pursuit of knowledge that people demand a Chicago-style bibliography or flawless rhetoric every time you dare to suggest that women are, you know, human beings.

I know why this is, of course. The oppression of women and subordinate masculinities by hegemonic masculinity is required and produced by a culture of 'common sense'. Things that adhere to this thought are not questioned; it simply is, it is simply common sense, it is simply how the world works. Things that challenge this are simply not trusted; I know I am not trusted. Why would I be? I am a queer woman of colour, an out feminist, and I don't have a crown or a crucifix to give me any kind of authority. People like me rarely write a single letter of history; our stories are not known, and we fear the unknown.

People excuse what can only be called abuse and harassment because I am a 'feminist'; because feminists have become a breed of monster, an inhuman, unthinking, uncaring menace to society. They forget that I am human, I have human feelings, and I have made human mistakes; any errors I make are simply further evidence that I am simply monstrous. Being out as a feminist is not proclaiming that you are a perfect person or a perfect representation of feminism; it is something I am endlessly accused of failing to live up to, but I have never claimed to be. I fuck up. A lot. Everyone does. And when you hurl abuse at a 'feminist', know that you are hurting a fellow human being and there's only so much I can take. The endless assault on feminists is part of rape culture; by being out as a feminist, I am 'asking for it'; I am apparently a free-for-all for the kind of vitriol nobody should have to put up with.

For feminists, 'the personal is political'. We have no agenda, unless you are really cynical enough to call 'self preservation' an agenda. The queer community don't campaign relentlessly because they want some kind of Gay Domination; it's because real queer folk in the real fucking world are daily bashed, bullied, murdered and discriminated against. I'm a feminist because I've been assaulted, I've been harassed, and there are times - too many times - when I have been genuinely terrified of men. I'm a feminist because I feel compelled to write this; because the bullying has really become too much. Sometimes I just have to remind people that I am a survivor, that I am not making it up when people honk from their cars or assault me, and then they say 'oh, yeah, this isn't for you, I understand you, but it's for all the *other feminists*' WHAT OTHER FUCKING FEMINISTS?

We imagine, falsely, that everyone has an equal playing field; that if someone wins a fight, it's because they are indisputably 'right'. Since when has morality ever had a part in choosing a victor? If this is a war, you have a bigger army, and there was no strategy or brilliance involved in the Battle of Thermopylae. And if you have to resort to threats, ridiculous demands and abuse to 'beat' me, perhaps you really are scared of the little Asian kid who happens to be halfway through a Gender Studies degree.

People fail to imagine feminists complexly. They fail to see us as women, as people, as bodies, as sexual beings, as feminists, as humans, as lovers, as people with friends and families, as people with interests and talents and hobbies, as survivors of abuse and assault; we are all of that and much more, all at once. You can't divorce one facet of our multi-faceted beings; you can't imagine us as bodies without brains or voices without reason. People talk about intersectionality; it's time we applied it to individuals. You will somehow have to learn to imagine me complexly, because that's what feminism is about; and if that's too hard for you, then you are proving that we really do need feminism if women in our society are simply not worth the effort of being considered full human beings. When you tell a rape joke to a feminist to 'put her in perspective', you are probably hurting a rape survivor who has a lot more bloody perspective than you do. When you bully a feminist, you are also bullying someone who has been bullied their whole lives, long before they knew what feminism was.

My whole life people have been telling me that I'm arrogant, that I'm provocative, that I am making trouble where I have no business to, that I am flat-out wrong. It's really not news to me anymore. People are not really in the business of listening to me, or respecting me, or even considering me a full human being without shoving me into a box - 'woman', 'Asian', 'nerd', and now 'feminist'. People are in the business of silencing me, of making me apologize for the space I take up. But I will not apologize for anything. I will not apologize for fighting the good fight.

Little Infinities

I believe in fate, my friend
Because I met you

I still find it so strange that our little infinity
Was born from coincidence
How can accidents be so potent?

I am so used to love
At the tip of the sword
Fate has never been very kind to me
It was always easier to accept
Chaos, in its cruelty

Sometimes I pray, you know
Is it sad that all I can do is pray?
I pray that this barren world is fertile enough for this

Call it a house, a child, a tree
Call it love, call it me.

And I know these scars will bleed
But both of our hearts believe
That all of the stars will guide us home.

Inspired by The Fault in Our Stars 

악몽

I had a dream about you last night.

I remember your sparkling chocolate eyes
The feel of you against me
I remember your muscles flexing around me as if you would never let me go
(But you did, evidently, you did)

I've yet to meet someone with your shoulders
I could never quite wrap my arms around them
But I tried, I tried, I tried
(I remember your heart beating through your shirt
Shaking me, violently
Your demons never played well with mine)

I remember the roughness of your schoolboy sweater
And the man beard on your boy chin
The scent of you, the soft curls of hair
(and I remember the stench of sweat
When you grabbed me without consent
And it clung to me all day, I swear they all knew
But I never said a word)

But I cannot remember your voice
Your sweet, laughing, dark honey voice
Your lips were Cupid's bow
And your words like arrows in me
(You talked of wanting to be inside me
I did not know you meant it quite so literally)

All your kind words
And sweet nothings
Are lost in the terror of your cruelty
That is what I remember
Such volatility
I cried out, and awoke
Tangled in sheets
(Alone.)

How many times did I dream of waking
Tangled in sheets with you?

I had a dream about you last night
An angel with blood dripping from his mouth
The golden boy transformed into a monster

Violent delights have violent ends
Which in their triumph die, like fire and powder
(Which, as they kiss, consume.)

tabula rasa

I am always a little afraid
That you will be his ghost

Forgive me
You are your own person
And I should not compare anyone
To a monster

Much less you, my friend.

It's not that he is a part of you
He is a part of me
A festering wound
A gnarled, ugly scar

And I am afraid that with every embrace
Skin on skin
Breath on breath
A little poison will bleed from me to you
And then back to me, ever more potently

But as summer yields to winter
I yield, too
To reckless faith.

for Ben. 

perfect in the distance

she was perfect in the distance
and i wanted to see her
so i took
one
     step
          closer

and i noticed the way her ankles rolled
in when she walked

she was perfect in the distance
and i wanted to meet her
so i took
one
     step
          closer

and i noticed a smudge of lipstick
on her nose

she was perfect in the distance
and i wanted to greet her
so i took
one
     step
          closer

and i noticed a little bald spot
on the back of her head

she was perfect in the distance
and i wanted to know her
so i took
one
     step
          closer

and i noticed a little red spot
on her chin

she was perfect in the distance
and i wanted to befriend her
so i took
one
     step
          closer

and i noticed a little roll of fat
spilling over her belt

she was perfect in the distance
and i wanted to like her
so i took
one
     step
          closer

and i noticed that her eyes
were red and sore

she was perfect in the distance
and i wanted to kiss her
so i took
one
     step
          closer

and i noticed her lips
trembled and bled

she was perfect in the distance
and i wanted to love her
so i took
one
     step
          closer

and i noticed the scars between her breasts
and along her wrists

she was perfect in the distance
and now she looked at me
like she needed me, desperately

but i took
eight
          steps
                    back

because she was perfect in the distance
and from a distance was the only way i loved her.

pour mes hommes.

I have become a hoarder

Of pretty eyes and beautiful bodies

Of winks, and smiles, and laughter 

All for me, for me, for me

Words fly, and then sparks 

There is a kind of vicious thrill

To living so voluptuously 

To conversing so ferociously 

And it's all mine, all mine, all mine

For the first time in my life

You clutch coffee with me, with me, with me

I think of you in my sleep 

Warm arms and sweet words 

How many times I have been kissed

Loved, admired, adored

And not one of them hurt me

Not one, not one, not one. 

my pain is not beautiful.

My pain is not beautiful
It is terror and bloodcurdling rage
It is coldness and cruelty personified
It is a moan, low and desperate
It is a scream in the night

My pain is ugly, twisted scars
Tear stained pillows and shaking hands
It is deformed bodies and broken bones
Bruises and dried blood
It is words caught in my throat
Crippled nerves and bitter regret

My pain is laboured breath and restless longing
Demons in my head and hands around my neck
It is men with pretty eyes and hands that wander
And hearts that break, then break again

My pain is not beautiful.
I am.

From Anna

And now she is dead, my love
Dead and gone
Sweet Jane, Saint Jane,
Milk and Honey Jane

Have you forgotten, my love?
I lived and died in torment
And now I am here,
In your cabinet of broken things
Mutilated by the violent terror of your affection

And now she is here, here with us, my love
Shall we forgive the Blessed Jane for you?
Will she come to us, your blood stained virgin
You burned a saint and a martyr for her
With the shrouds of dead wives
You made her wedding gown
Our blood is on her hands, too

She left you
As you left her for me
And me for her
But we are friends in death,
Katarina and I
As we were foes in life
Though she stands
Head and shoulders above me

I will not leave you here
I will take any form, drive you mad
And when you cry out, out damned spot
We will laugh and drive you madder still

Come join us, my love
In this broken hearted purgatory
We will lock you in your own cabinet of broken things
For you are the broken one now

Come, come my love
Vengeance is waiting for you

"Take it from me; friends come and go, all throughout life. It's hard to accept that they go, but always remember that if they haven't stuck around, they're not worth sticking around for. You made new friends this year - and I hope, for my sake, they will be life long friends."

- R

I hoped for my sake we would be lifelong friends, too.

Never Grow Up: Another Letter to Seventeen Year Old Me

Now Playing: Sweeter Than Fiction by Taylor Swift (seen you lost in the crowd, seen your colours fade, wish I could make it better, someday you won't remember the pain you thought would last for ever and ever)

Dearest Seventeen,

It's late in the afternoon of the first day of my eighteenth year and I'm nursing a beautiful hangover, but I'm sober enough to tell you that you did okay.

I know you were hoping this year would get easier for you, but it doesn't. Uni is hard, and even though you don't need to catch up in terms of books and papers, you do need to catch up on just being the grown up that you aren't yet. There are fights. There are tears. There are bouts of melancholy that last for days on end. Every day is inebriated with crippling anxiety. But you still do okay.

I want to tell you that you're back in your element. You're back to being the eight year old who knew exactly where she's going; it hasn't changed much, but the detours between then and now have been insightful, if not exactly useful. And I know that doesn't seem like much, because you were bullied so much for being a dreamer, but it's what keeps you strong, and it's what keeps you going.

R leaves. It's not kind, and it's not out of mercy. It's ugly and cruel and you are the target and collateral damage all in one. You don't know whether this is a good or bad thing, or whether you wanted it or not, or whether you expected it or not, but either way your world falls apart. You were broken and he put you back together, and when he left he took the time to rip you to pieces again. There are anxiety attacks, every day. You can't look people in the eye, and you start to stutter again. Some days you can't make it out of bed. But the one thing that keeps you going is that in English class, you can't shut up even if you try. And even when your phone was buzzing with the final assault, you kept talking, and people kept listening. I don't blame you for being dependent on that boy, Seventeen. It doesn't make you weak or pathetic. You're strong. Because no matter what happens, you keep talking, and people keep listening. And no-one is ever going to take that away from you.

You join Guild politics, and it makes you feel alive. You talk to people. You make new friends. Slowly the panic attacks fade and the smile grows. And you learn that people can tell you that x and y is stupid, but you'll do it anyway, and you do so well. You make mistakes, and you get hurt, but that's just growing pain. Everything is reckless and exciting and everything has the sweet tang of freedom. You're growing up, and people are starting to take you seriously. You've always wanted to be a force to be reckoned with, and I think it's finally happening.

I know you're angry, and I know you're hurt. I know you just want to be happy, and in some ways you are happier than you've ever been. But even in the blissful glow of a very recent birthday, I know we've got a long way to go, but we'll make it, together. Without the bullies. Without the haters. Without R. We'll do it alone.

Dearest Seventeen, don't cry. Because on your eighteenth birthday, you do what every eighteen year old does; stumble around. But you've got friends to hold you up, and when you're not intoxicated, you hold your head high just fine by yourself. You'll be okay. Trust me on this one.

Love,
Just Eighteen.