Is this what it takes?
Six lives, another shooting, utterances of mental illness and gun regulations.
This morning, I tried to find an article about Elliot Rodger's killing spree. Just that - just the numbers and the facts. Instead, I was met by a wave of articles in reaction to the killings - ones that discussed how prevalent violence towards women still is, how important it is to have conversation about it and be aware of it, how even things that seem as small as derogatory sexist language (which, by the way, don't seem small to the people at whom it is inherently targeted and who know the implications of it) - are unacceptable, and a path to this kind of thing. Disrespecting women is not okay - not by using sexist language, not by feeling entitled to their bodies, not by shooting and stabbing people when they won't sleep with you.
And when I saw this wave of articles, I felt a slight and quick sense of relief. Finally, I thought, some people are starting to get it. Finally, conversations are being had about these patterns, about this culture. For so long, I'd been pointing out inequalities and how prevalent sexism still is, and now people are listening.
Then I paused, and I let that sentence run through my head a couple times like a song lyric.
For so long...
...and now people are listening.
And now people are listening.
And now people are listening.
And now people are listening.
And only now are people listening.
Is this what it takes?
Is this what it takes to realize that sexism is rampant? That violence toward women is deemed acceptable and even encouraged by certain groups, schools of thought, institutions? That telling teenagers that males always want it and that women are withholding it (not to mention the various and sometimes equally damning consequences of saying yes and no) is perpetuating ideals that make rape culture a thing? That the sentence "boys will be boys" is one of the most privilege-heavy, ignorant, bullshit fucking sentences that is used on the daily to pardon and excuse sexist behavior? That "friend-zoning" is nothing but a sense of entitlement towards women's bodies? That cat-calling and sexual advances maybe aren't so harmless? Maybe aren't so flattering? That being treated like an object with the sole purpose of the sexual satisfaction of others maybe isn't all that great? That being told I'd look prettier if I smiled isn't just some backwards compliment? That asking "What were you wearing?" after someone is sexually assaulted isn't fucking acceptable - isn't human - isn't okay?
Is this what it takes to realize that women are people?
That women are valuable?
That women are still being treated like shit?
That it's not our fault?
And do you know why I'm so mad? Because no one listens to me.
No one.
Listens.
To me.
I am open about my views on women's rights, about how shitty it feels to be verbally harassed on the regular and it be totally accepted in a public space. I am open about my frustrations with the lack of equal representation in media, about how absolutely harrowing it feels to be scared walking home at night. I read articles about Vancouver women being pulled into parks - sometimes in broad daylight - and sexually harassed.
Weekly.
Often.
And I still have to bear the burden of feeling awkward every time I ask someone not to talk about women a certain way. I have to bear the burden of being dismissed as an angry feminist.
Dismissed, disregarded, ignored, written-off, because I am passionate about turning this car the fuck around.
Silenced, gas-lit, called "too-sensitive" or "over-reactionary" because I am worn down, panicking, aware of the silent and lethal gas we're all breathing.
People will listen to me when I talk about other things, sure. When I've had a frustrating customer at work, or I'm having a hard time with other personal issues pertaining to my creativity or productivity - when I've had a fight with a friend or family member, others are there with open arms, warmth, and support.
But then I talk about sexism, and how it affects me, and everyone's eyes start to glaze over. Everyone becomes listless, floats away, breathes the invisible gas a little bit deeper and I'm left talking to no one. I'm left with a sticker over my forehead that says "FEMINIST" and I am avoided like the plague. I am left. I am left, I am left, I am left.
So.
Is this what it takes?
People dying at the hands of a man who did us the favor of making his reasons explicit? Who kindly outlined and expressed his misogyny, so that the rest of us could finally put the pieces together and realize - oh - this is a weird pattern. Maybe these numbers have something to do with these other numbers.
It's not a fucking connect-the-dots, guys. It's human lives.
(Is that what I need to say? "Human", instead of "female"? #yesallpeople instead of #yesallwomen? Will people listen to me if I call myself an "Equalist" instead of a "Feminist"? Will people finally fucking listen to me if I sugar-coat it and be sure to say "some men" instead of "men"?)
I feel hopeless. I feel disappointed.
Some distant part of me that isn't fed-up and ready to burn down a fucking building is glad these conversations are finally happening. I will get back to that more grounded place soon, but right now I am Kali, I am Durga, and I am so fucking mad. And I am allowed to be. I am entitled to that.
It's just that - one murderous guy can do something horrific and then, all of a sudden, we're listening. We're receptive. But when myself and other women speak about our very own experiences with sexism (and we've been doing this from the start), we not only get shut-down, but we get undermined, mocked, ostracized, threatened with more of what caused us to speak out in the first place.
I'm going to share a piece of advice with those of you who feel awkward approaching this mess:
Listen.
Please, listen. Allow yourself to be affected.
Even if - you're a man, and you can't have the same experiences.
Even if - you feel awkward.
Even if - the person you're talking with gets emotional (employ some empathy and you'll see why).
Even if - it all just seems like too much to bother with (because you have women in your lives whom you love - and it affects all of you).
Even if - you think feminism is scary, or too much, or an overreaction. Listen, and you'll see. You'll see what we're talking about, and why we're talking about it. We want to talk with you. We come in peace.
This matters. It all matters. What I say matters. What women say matters. Listen to us. Listen to us from the start, don't wait for the bodies to pile up.
Please, everyone. Open your heart and lend us your ear. We deserve to be heard.
-S
Wednesday, May 28, 2014
Monday, May 19, 2014
Blood Potato Ale
I must remember that I am loved, when I feel like this.
By my friends, by my family, by my lovers, by me.
Even when I feel like a speck of dust, I exist and cannot be forgotten even if, perhaps, I want to be.
When I woke up this morning I felt at first as though I felt incapable, inept - I was a speck of dust, how could I write zine content or letters or a fifteen-minute comedy set? How could I do those things if I was just a mote, suspended in a ray of sunlight, if I'm lucky - or perhaps in some fibre of the carpet, lost to the world?
But then I remembered I am a human, with a big human body and all the muscles and tendons and brain electricity and oxygen I need to get up and do any one (or two, or three) of a million things and, even worse than not being able to do those things, I...
I didn't want to.
But I did.
But I didn't.
But I did - I was just slammed up against this wall inside myself, this big, concrete wall that can't be kicked through with steel toes or gusto. And worse, it drains you. The longer you push, the more energy it takes, and then you have to lean to stay upright - and it saps, it saps, it saps. Then you're slumped against this wall so high you can't see the top. The pull of the beauty on the other side is so magnetic that you're pressed as hard to the wall as you can possibly be without breaking a rib, but the more you touch the wall, feel how cold and smooth it is, the more tired you become. It's a trap. It's a horrible, murdering trap.
So I got home from brunch, tired. Put on my pyjama pants, tired. Put on a big, striped shirt left by a lover that still smells like him, tired. Put on the kettle, tired. Chose a tea, tired. Removed a wasp from the windowsill, tired. Curled up in blankets, tired.
And now I sit here, tired. I'm being sapped but I'm lethargically chipping away at this colossus that wants me dead. My head is so heavy but I'm resting it against the wall, and my hands, light and quick as daddy long-legs, type away. The clicking sounds a lot like a chisel.
I may not do everything I want to do, today. I may not win this. I don't even know what winning looks like. But I will write. I will sleep. I will be.
I will remember that I am loved. That my heart is open like a fragrant flower, feeling pleasure at the sun's attention. That even though I am slumped against this stone, I am, for all intents and purposes, a divine being. I have much power, but also many lessons to learn. They are, in their right, all one in the same. I will move through, I will gather and forage, I will transcend. Such is the way, and sometimes we forget.
By my friends, by my family, by my lovers, by me.
Even when I feel like a speck of dust, I exist and cannot be forgotten even if, perhaps, I want to be.
When I woke up this morning I felt at first as though I felt incapable, inept - I was a speck of dust, how could I write zine content or letters or a fifteen-minute comedy set? How could I do those things if I was just a mote, suspended in a ray of sunlight, if I'm lucky - or perhaps in some fibre of the carpet, lost to the world?
But then I remembered I am a human, with a big human body and all the muscles and tendons and brain electricity and oxygen I need to get up and do any one (or two, or three) of a million things and, even worse than not being able to do those things, I...
I didn't want to.
But I did.
But I didn't.
But I did - I was just slammed up against this wall inside myself, this big, concrete wall that can't be kicked through with steel toes or gusto. And worse, it drains you. The longer you push, the more energy it takes, and then you have to lean to stay upright - and it saps, it saps, it saps. Then you're slumped against this wall so high you can't see the top. The pull of the beauty on the other side is so magnetic that you're pressed as hard to the wall as you can possibly be without breaking a rib, but the more you touch the wall, feel how cold and smooth it is, the more tired you become. It's a trap. It's a horrible, murdering trap.
So I got home from brunch, tired. Put on my pyjama pants, tired. Put on a big, striped shirt left by a lover that still smells like him, tired. Put on the kettle, tired. Chose a tea, tired. Removed a wasp from the windowsill, tired. Curled up in blankets, tired.
And now I sit here, tired. I'm being sapped but I'm lethargically chipping away at this colossus that wants me dead. My head is so heavy but I'm resting it against the wall, and my hands, light and quick as daddy long-legs, type away. The clicking sounds a lot like a chisel.
I may not do everything I want to do, today. I may not win this. I don't even know what winning looks like. But I will write. I will sleep. I will be.
I will remember that I am loved. That my heart is open like a fragrant flower, feeling pleasure at the sun's attention. That even though I am slumped against this stone, I am, for all intents and purposes, a divine being. I have much power, but also many lessons to learn. They are, in their right, all one in the same. I will move through, I will gather and forage, I will transcend. Such is the way, and sometimes we forget.
Thursday, May 15, 2014
Milk Chocolate
Okay - stifled.
I've got my nest of clothes from the floor onto the bed, but I am distracted. I am tired. I am checking Facebook over and over and over again and I am somewhere, buried under a mountain of apathy and diluted angst, furious. Stirring. This is the excitement and zeal I felt earlier, but something grey and dull and heavy has it's hands around my throat and I am limp on the floor, losing consciousness. Not for good. The oppression only visits, but I am absolutely sick of it's doing so.
I feel very... angry.
I can hear my mother's voice saying that this is good - the anger's fire is what burns up all of the cobwebs, the stops, the blocks, the barriers. It is Durga's flame that courses through you, incinerating all that is unnecessary and inhibiting. I could murder this plight. I am so absolutely furious at this force within myself that suppresses, mocks, cajoles me into sickly sweet assention, concession. I lay my body down under it's weight and flick through distractions, small morsels on the too-bright melatonin-inhibiting light from my little phone.
What is this bullshit? What is this emaciation in my creative life? I am starving, I am weak, I am pale, I am blue under the eyes and fighting for breath with my small, dry, shriveled lungs.
Where is the smell of the ocean? Where is the paint on my hands? Why are my lips not raw from kissing the earth and it's dirt and it's people? Why am I so soft, when the soles of my feet should be calloused and my arms and legs and core sinewy and able? The sun should be soaked into my skin. My voice should be loud and moist and clear and rising and falling in the velvety night. It should sound like red wine. I should be writing until I fall asleep at my desk, singing until kisses move over my mouth like the tide on the sand, halting the sound. I should be running through this evening, smelling the world and coming home to fall into a heavy sleep, dirt still on my hands and feet.
What is this cycle, this pattern I have created? Why am I so estranged from my mother nature, from the song of my soul? I fight through these reeds to get to her, but it is so hard, consuming is so hard, I am force fed, I am told I am what I am not and I believe them because if I don't, I am punished. I wear a muzzle and a collar and I am servile. I will not break from being so until I actually don't care what others have to say about my body. If I am attractive or not, if I smile enough, if my hair looks a certain way. I will not be unrestrained until I know where to find my happiness instead of looking for it in stores where people are paid money to help me give them my money so they can pay the people to help me get my money again.
I cannot. I cannot.
I am nauseated. My mother, she would say this is good. Barf it up, she would say. Get it out - it's only the world. You are only barfing up the world, so heave away. Heave and choke and sputter and spit and weep - it is only the world. But once you are empty, you will be free.
The real world, your mother nature, your writing, your beauty, your song - it will all come to you. You must act as a vessel. Stop trying to build, to accumulate the right receptors for what you are trying to be, what you are trying to be, what you are trying to be. What are you trying to be?
Barf up the world. For once you are a vessel, it will come into you.
I've got my nest of clothes from the floor onto the bed, but I am distracted. I am tired. I am checking Facebook over and over and over again and I am somewhere, buried under a mountain of apathy and diluted angst, furious. Stirring. This is the excitement and zeal I felt earlier, but something grey and dull and heavy has it's hands around my throat and I am limp on the floor, losing consciousness. Not for good. The oppression only visits, but I am absolutely sick of it's doing so.
I feel very... angry.
I can hear my mother's voice saying that this is good - the anger's fire is what burns up all of the cobwebs, the stops, the blocks, the barriers. It is Durga's flame that courses through you, incinerating all that is unnecessary and inhibiting. I could murder this plight. I am so absolutely furious at this force within myself that suppresses, mocks, cajoles me into sickly sweet assention, concession. I lay my body down under it's weight and flick through distractions, small morsels on the too-bright melatonin-inhibiting light from my little phone.
What is this bullshit? What is this emaciation in my creative life? I am starving, I am weak, I am pale, I am blue under the eyes and fighting for breath with my small, dry, shriveled lungs.
Where is the smell of the ocean? Where is the paint on my hands? Why are my lips not raw from kissing the earth and it's dirt and it's people? Why am I so soft, when the soles of my feet should be calloused and my arms and legs and core sinewy and able? The sun should be soaked into my skin. My voice should be loud and moist and clear and rising and falling in the velvety night. It should sound like red wine. I should be writing until I fall asleep at my desk, singing until kisses move over my mouth like the tide on the sand, halting the sound. I should be running through this evening, smelling the world and coming home to fall into a heavy sleep, dirt still on my hands and feet.
What is this cycle, this pattern I have created? Why am I so estranged from my mother nature, from the song of my soul? I fight through these reeds to get to her, but it is so hard, consuming is so hard, I am force fed, I am told I am what I am not and I believe them because if I don't, I am punished. I wear a muzzle and a collar and I am servile. I will not break from being so until I actually don't care what others have to say about my body. If I am attractive or not, if I smile enough, if my hair looks a certain way. I will not be unrestrained until I know where to find my happiness instead of looking for it in stores where people are paid money to help me give them my money so they can pay the people to help me get my money again.
I cannot. I cannot.
I am nauseated. My mother, she would say this is good. Barf it up, she would say. Get it out - it's only the world. You are only barfing up the world, so heave away. Heave and choke and sputter and spit and weep - it is only the world. But once you are empty, you will be free.
The real world, your mother nature, your writing, your beauty, your song - it will all come to you. You must act as a vessel. Stop trying to build, to accumulate the right receptors for what you are trying to be, what you are trying to be, what you are trying to be. What are you trying to be?
Barf up the world. For once you are a vessel, it will come into you.
Saturday, May 10, 2014
The Large Intestine
I'm running away from my widely publicized (ha, comparatively so) blog. Why? I don't know. It's not what I want it to be, as well as in the public eye? Double whammy.
This is so, big. I am so, free.
I'm at a coffeeshop, eating a muffin, drinking a tea, getting to work on my creative projects. And what did it take? Seemingly, one person to shake me out of my routine. One person whose presence forced me to redefine my values. I was asked questions I had never asked myself, made to feel things I wasn't sure I was capable of feeling. When someone looks into your eyes so deeply, day after day, you wonder - what do you see, there? What is it in me that causes you to gaze, so intently? That causes you to pay attention? Perhaps I should follow your lead and find out.
And I am swept up.
I am now, effortlessly, as if the blocks were never there, meeting people. Making things. Writing. Singing. Living. Talking. Crying, when I need to. Laughing shortly thereafter. Not feeling like I should wallow for a prescribed 20 minutes before allowing myself to feel joy or delight. Allowing myself. I am no longer regulating so heavily. A very picky, very attentive, very tyrannical part of me has calmly stepped back.
Even now, I think, "Maybe this could be a pattern - I could write, blog, for 20 minutes as a warm-up before I begin my projects. I could come here often and have a pattern, build this, wear it in." I am trying to make things easy for myself but in doing so, make them harder. Make them sharper - with more corners and lines to step over, more things to remember, more things to foresee. But it is so easy, now, to let go of things as quickly as I conceive of them. Some I grasp to, fighting as they wriggle, slippery fish in my ice-cold, wet hands. Some are driftwood. I am learning discernment from the most peaceful place.
Now, to go feel the tip of my pen glide across paper.
This is so, big. I am so, free.
I'm at a coffeeshop, eating a muffin, drinking a tea, getting to work on my creative projects. And what did it take? Seemingly, one person to shake me out of my routine. One person whose presence forced me to redefine my values. I was asked questions I had never asked myself, made to feel things I wasn't sure I was capable of feeling. When someone looks into your eyes so deeply, day after day, you wonder - what do you see, there? What is it in me that causes you to gaze, so intently? That causes you to pay attention? Perhaps I should follow your lead and find out.
And I am swept up.
I am now, effortlessly, as if the blocks were never there, meeting people. Making things. Writing. Singing. Living. Talking. Crying, when I need to. Laughing shortly thereafter. Not feeling like I should wallow for a prescribed 20 minutes before allowing myself to feel joy or delight. Allowing myself. I am no longer regulating so heavily. A very picky, very attentive, very tyrannical part of me has calmly stepped back.
Even now, I think, "Maybe this could be a pattern - I could write, blog, for 20 minutes as a warm-up before I begin my projects. I could come here often and have a pattern, build this, wear it in." I am trying to make things easy for myself but in doing so, make them harder. Make them sharper - with more corners and lines to step over, more things to remember, more things to foresee. But it is so easy, now, to let go of things as quickly as I conceive of them. Some I grasp to, fighting as they wriggle, slippery fish in my ice-cold, wet hands. Some are driftwood. I am learning discernment from the most peaceful place.
Now, to go feel the tip of my pen glide across paper.
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