I was born in Germany in 1987. I write poems but would rather watch music videos and study cultural theory than read poetry. I'm not sorry. I also write everything but fiction. I don't write because I'm interested in language but because I'm interested in what's behind language. I live for secrets. The revolution must be radical.
“Every time I speak up about misogyny in the lit world, I am met with resistance, as if it’s merely a matter of personal opinion that violence against women is a global epidemic, as if it’s merely a matter of personal opinion that one in four women will experience sexual violence in her lifetime, that one in five women will experience rape, that I can’t think of a single non-male person in my life who hasn’t been subjected to male violence in one way or another.”
Which is more feminist: attempting to use the patriarchal family structure and the marriage industrial complex to my advantage as an artist, or subsisting on my own strength and hustle? Is seeking an arrangement wherein a man sustains me while I achieve maximum success and freedom the most feminist thing ever, or just a cliché admission of my reliance on capitalist patriarchy? Are we only feminists if we struggle? Are we only feminists if we are alone? Can I at once work to break down a heteronormative capitalist system while reaping its benefits: money, time, freedom, leisure, and peace of mind?
The idea of “grey area rape” is bullshit. Rape is rape. But what they don’t tell you is that unraveling that experience is complicated because it cannot be homogenized.
Due process doesn’t really exist. According to RAINN, only 2 out of every 100 rapists spend a single day in prison. This is because those laws the victims and their advocates are supposed to follow so thoroughly make it impossible to prove what happened to them.
[…]
In the aftermath, you lose your best friends, who don’t know if you can talk about normal things, who need you to need them so badly you have to run. Sex is over for many victims, so is trust. The ‘fame’ these bros think we’re aiming for is pages and pages of internet comments so lethal you forget living outside of a cloud of suicide contemplation. That is what due process is.
Submissions are currently open for Bye Bye Bukowski, an anthology featuring erasure poems about erasure.
The literary canon is built on the erasure of marginalized voices and experiences, i.e. the literary canon is fancy speak for “the voices of white cisgendered heterosexual men.” It’s exhausting, to say the least. Not only do these texts continue to dominate literary spaces, but these privileged and oppressive narratives permeate far beyond the page and into the beliefs that shape real human interactions and experiences in the world.
Let’s burn it down is my forever rallying cry! If only it were that easy — writing against the status quo is hard, often miserable work, but I’m nonetheless committed to and interested in how we can use language to subvert the power of language. How can marginalized voices inhabit spaces that aren’t built for them to inhabit? How do marginalized voices build new spaces when they are, by definition of being marginalized, still going to be marginalized?
There are, of course, many ways to answer these questions, and I hope we keep at it. One of my answers has been to make erasure poems about erasure — not only is there an immense level of personal satisfaction in taking a Sharpie to Bukowski and bringing my own truths to the surface while shutting up his woman-hating ass, but the act of erasure also reflects the function of oppression — to silence — yet in this case the silencing is a justified silencing, allowing the voice that has been suffocated to come to the surface while still cognizant of the fact that there is no “pure escape” from oppressive forces.
Bye Bye Bukowski - Submission Guidelines
1. Who? Anyone who doesn’t identify as a white cis/hetero man (this doesn’t mean we don’t love you, though we are not obligated to love you. shhhh….)
2. What? Send 1-5 erasure poems about erasure — poems that speak to experiences of oppression that you made from erasing words in other texts. Ideally we’re looking for poems made from classically oppressive texts, though you can choose to erase any text (poetry, fiction, cookbooks, newspapers, microwave manuals, whatever).
3. How? Email your submission as a .jpg, .pdf, or .docx with a short bio to [email protected]. Please include 2-3 lines about your work that mentions the title and/or a description of the original text you erased.
4. When? Submissions are open from March 1 - April 30, 2015.
5. Does this go without saying? PLEASE be intersectional in your erasures i.e. recognize your own privileges within systems of oppression i.e. do NOT erase marginalized voices to demonstrate your own marginalization.
6. Bye Bye Bukowski is being edited by Sarah Xerta and will be published by Hyacinth Girl Press in late summer/early fall of 2015 as a chapbook-style, handmade book. Payment will be in the form of one contributor copy.
It’s tempting to start this piece by repeating the obvious, only speaking slowly: Don’t. Write. Literature. That. Is. Misogynist. Because, seriously. It’s not that hard….
This is the new feminism. A feminism that is discarding the model of monolithic female oppression and in its place building a movement around diversity and inclusion. A feminism that seeks to base both theory and action upon what different groups of women have to say about their lives and experiences, rather than imposing a top-down model of liberation drawn from academic theory. A feminism that sees cis and straight women take responsibility for supporting the work of their trans and queer sisters, white women take responsibility for supporting the work of their sisters of colour, abled women take responsibiity for supporting the work of their disabled sisters and so on.
"But was the Alt Lit community’s response to vocal non-men fundamentally different than Gamergate’s? I put the question to Sarah Certa, Jos Charles, Kat Dixon, D. Dragonetti, Kia Groom, and Alexandra Naughton, a group of editors and writers who are neck-deep (or deeper) in the war against the patriarchy. I put my question to the group: how do these two battles against the patriarchy compare? In our conversation, we explore the explicit violence of Gamergate and the implicit violence lurking behind the treatment of rape victims and perpetrators in the Alt Lit community, discuss rape culture’s silencing of victims, and bemoan the codependent relationship between capitalism and the patriarchy. And what we find is that the cost of pushing these issues into the spotlight is the emotional—and physical—safety of those who speak out.”
It’s the day before Valentine’s Day and for the fourth day in a row this week I’ve woken up with chest pains. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I still sleep in the bed where he raped me, in the apartment where so much of the abuse happened. I only got the apartment when I did because he wanted to visit me so badly. It was good for me to move out of my parents’ house (my father’s continued emotional and psychological abuse was making me ill), but traumatic memories have a way of lingering. They are in every shadow. I hope to have the means to move away soon.
But it’s not just my personal trauma that gives me chest pains — it’s also the trauma that’s happening in the world, every day, all day, the sexism, the racism, the transphobia, the classism, the ableism, the empathy-deficit that is so strong I can’t help but think it will destroy the planet long before any bursting sun or meteor will.
And today is the opening day of the movie Fifty Shades of Grey. I haven’t read the book and don’t plan to. I don’t need to read it to know what it’s about. I don’t need to see the movie. I know what emotional and sexual abuse look like. I know what they feel like. I know all the signs. I am still living in the aftermath.
Instead I’ve read many of the articles that dissect the story, and from what I’ve gathered there doesn’t even seem to be much dispute about whether or not the relationship between Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele is abusive, but whether or not that matters. Women like this book — that is, after all, how it sold so many copies — so it can’t be problematic, right? It’s just a book. It’s not real.
But it’s because women like this book that it’s so problematic. The fact that women find this book sexually liberating is so problematic it makes me dizzy. And not because women shouldn’t have sexual agency but because we already so gravely don’t and Fifty Shades only reinforces mainstream sexual violence, i.e. heteronormative male sexuality, i.e. that’s why it’s so popular. If the movie was sexually groundbreaking it wouldn’t be opening at $60 million. If the book was sexually groundbreaking it wouldn’t be mainstream. Misogynist beliefs about sex and sexuality are too deeply ingrained in ourselves and our society for millions of women to suddenly become liberated by a story that people around the world recognize as abusive. And I know this attitude can sound patronizing, and I cringe at that, but that’s also because of the nature of abuse — it’s designed to look like something other than abuse, especially in the beginning. Abuse is designed to make you think you like it. And when you don’t like it, abuse is designed to make you think it’s your fault. Something must be wrong with you. What the fuck is wrong with you, he said… Abuse is abuse because it denies the victim agency to fully recognize that what’s happening is abuse.
I was with my abuser when several of his other victims came forward about his abuse. I wasn’t shocked at their stories (which should have been shocking to me, in the moment), but I felt patronized when anyone tried to tell me I was being abused, and I think that’s because victims are already denied so much agency — by that point my entire life was being dictated by him, his wants, his needs, his moods — that I couldn’t stand yet another person trying to dictate my reality. And besides, listening to those other voices, believing them, would mean I’d have to face reality, to face the real him, but he’d already stripped away so much of my personhood that I didn’t have an “I” with which to face him. I was a nobody. Just a body. And he loved that body. He loved that body more than I had ever loved that body, and, growing up being shamed for my body — by both my father (“hey there, fatty,” “hey there, bubble-butt”), and body-critical American culture, it felt good, for once, to not be ashamed of my body, even though I was depressed, even though he was mean to me, even though I was scared of him, even though he wouldn’t take no for an answer —at least I was sexy as fuck, and I took this distorted thinking as some sort of liberation, some sort of power, when really that was exactly how he wanted me to feel — liberated, beautiful, not abused.
My psuedo-liberation was a product of his emotional and sexual abuse and only reinforced his control over me. He didn’t love my body — he loved using my body. And he damn did he use it up. If I hated it before I don’t know what to call my relationship with it now. There isn’t one. Numbness.
Patriarchy at large functions in much the same way — it denies its own existence through pseudo-liberation of marginalized groups, i.e. claiming that something like Fifty Shades is all about giving women permission to openly talk about sex and is therefore progressive, when what it’s actually doing is further normalizing male narratives of sexual violence, which in turn only reinforces the power of those already in power, i.e. not women.
And it’s not “just a book.” What is “just a book,” anyway? We shape our reality through language and stories. Language and stories reinforce our attitudes and beliefs about the world. No book is “just a book.” No movie is “just a movie.”
Part of me wishes I was able to read the book myself and draw more specific connections between Christian Grey and my abuser, the similarities and differences between them and how both are important to note — no two abusers are exactly the same, especially since many are very skilled at adapting their tactics to the personality and environment of the victim — but the foundation is the same — manipulation, control, confusion, fear, all wrapped up in a big red bow labeled LOVE.
A year ago on Valentine’s Day I remember fantasizing about telling someone that my fiancee was abusing me. But am I being abused? I asked myself this so many times, entirely oblivious to the fact that the answer to my question lay in my need to ask it so many times.
A year ago I was at work, not at all excited for Valentine’s Day. I thought, How could all this rage be love? I was scared to go home, to this apartment. But I went because there was nowhere else to go, and there he was, all showered and clean, with a bottle of champagne and a several-hundred dollar diamond bracelet he’d spent the day searching for at the Mall of America, a handwritten card he’d diligently worked on at the coffee shop.
I am so in love with you I am so in love with you I am so in love with you
Over and over I read the card. It was like water in the desert — I was thirsting for affection, romance, emotional intimacy — signs of all the things that had led me here in the first place, signs that I wasn’t crazy, that I wasn’t being abused, that everything would be okay…
Fifty Shades of Grey is and will continue to be popular and there’s not much I can do about that. Women around the world are and will continue to be abused at alarmingly high rates, and there’s not much I can do about that either. But I’ll keep writing when I can, I’ll keep supporting other victims, and instead of seeing Fifty Shades of Grey I’m going to donate the ten dollars a movie ticket would cost me to The Domestic Violence Relief Fund. I hope you’ll consider doing the same.
P.S. a few months later I burned that fucking card.
As a white person, how do I speak about shutting up? Is it better to just do it, to just shut up?
I’ve been thinking about this for several hours now. I have other things to do but am stuck on this question & won’t accomplish anything else until I attempt to answer it. And by answering it, am I answering it? Because obviously I have decided to speak about shutting up.
But only to say: White people, we need to be better at shutting up.
And by shutting up I mean literally just stop talking so much. Less output, more intake. I say this to you and I say this to myself. And the intake is equally important, because there is a second part to the act of shutting up, to willfully shut up, to make your shutting up make a difference, and that is to actively listen to the voices that your white voice inherently drowns out by being white. And this listening has to be active, meaning, you have to go searching for the voices of people of color. Don’t expect these voices to show up just because you’ve stopped talking — they won’t and that’s the problem. Marginalized voices are in the margins. It’s our responsibility to find them.
For white people shutting up has to be willful because racism is willful. Because oppression is willful, designed to be willful. Because privilege is willfully invisible, operating on the illusion of not existing.
For white people shutting up has to include active listening because racism is systematic and institutionalized, which means white privilege is systematic and institutionalized, which means no white person is exempt from white privilege. Shutting up will make space for the voices of people of color, yes, but if we don’t actively listen to those voices and continue to examine the function and manifest of our own white privilege, the voices we make space for will only continue to be marginalized every time we speak, because white privilege is inherent in how we speak, how we are heard.
I speak often about the act of speaking, about willfully speaking, about taking up space, reclaiming narratives and reshaping realities, about the patriarchy and the intersection of abuse, trauma, rape, sexism and gender, and how so much of this has robbed me of so much of my voice. And it has, but that doesn’t change the fact that my voice is a white voice and heard as one. And recognizing the fact that my voice is a white voice and heard as one doesn’t negate my own experiences of oppression. And that’s what intersectionality (a theory first named by Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989, by the way, yet still not recognized as a word by either tumblr or Facebook (Google?), which is evidence alone of how even vocabulary about marginalization is still marginalized) is all about — this crossing of ideas and experiences and being able to recognize and think about all of them with both criticism and empathy, recognizing that within systems of oppression exist other systems of oppression. Oppression is not a ladder but a multi-dimensional web and so our thinking must be multi-dimensional.
Combating racism is one thing to think about and another to do, to willfully practice. Critical thinking itself is a willful practice but I’m thinking about how this manifests in the world, what we do with the thinking, how it shapes our words and interactions. And the practice is hard work because the practice is inherently flawed, i.e. my practice is inherently white (which does not excuse its whiteness). My critical thinking is inherently white, and that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t do it but actually that I need to do it more. I need to think critically about how I critically think.
And while there are specific things to do (surround yourself with voices of people of color, absorb yourself in the art and literature by people of color — emphasis on “surround” and “absorb” because tokenizing is anti-productive i.e. read Claudia Rankine but don’t only read Claudia Rankine), I also hesitate to make a list of things “to do” because combating racism is not a to-do list. There is no “checking things off the list.” There is no “end” to racism, and if there was it wouldn’t be up to me to define it. But I can help define the beginning of the end of racism by defining the beginning of racism i.e. myself i.e. white people.
Violence against women is a global epidemic. When we come across violence against women in literature and art, it’s not the content that is the problem but who is saying it, how, and why they are saying it.I am all for survivors of abuse reclaiming those narratives through art. We need to reclaim those narratives. We need to reshape our realities.
And this need is exactly why it’s such a problem that men continue to aestheticize images of violence against women, and especially when they do so without explicit context, and especially when editors and readers treat this aestheticization as something deserving of a platform. This doesnothing but give agency to misogynistic tropesand thus further silences the voices of those who already have to struggle so hard to be heard. It’s not a man’s job to articulate these narratives, and women are not objects to be torn apart for the aesthetic factor of a man’s “art.”It’s not cool. It’s not edgy. It’s fucking disgusting, and it’s fucking disgusting that I have to point out that it’s fucking disgusting.
"We are taught in grade school that our bodies and the planet that holds them are largely made from water, and yet we spend our adult lives expecting always to stand on clearly defined, solid ground." —Isobel O’Hare
Sometimes you can only stand up by standing firm. Sometimes you can only hold on by becoming stubborn. A social standing can thus be a material standing. Audre Lorde once wrote: “In order to withstand the weather, we had to become stone” (1984: 160). It would be hard to overestimate the power of Lorde’s description. Social forms of oppression can be experienced as weather. They press and pound against the surface of a body; a body can surface or survive by hardening. For some bodies to stand is to withstand. We can be exhausted by the labour of standing. If social privilege is like an energy saving device, no wonder that not to inherit privilege can be so trying. There is a politics to exhaustion. Feeling depleted can be a measure of just what we are up against.
Diversity work is emotional work because in part it is work that has to be repeated, again and again. You encounter a brick wall. Even when a new diversity policy is adopted somehow things stay in place; they keep their place. I have many examples of these “wall encounters” that I shared in my book, On Being Included. To those who do not come against it, the wall does not appear: the institution seems open, committed and diverse: as happy as its mission statement, as willing as its equality statement. Things appear fluid. I have said this before: things are fluid if you are going the way things are flowing. We can reflect on the significance of frustration here: it is not only that the wall keeps its place, but those who don’t come against it, don’t notice it. This can be profoundly alienating as an institutional experience. No wonder that when the wall keeps its place, it is you that becomes sore.
I have read recently some critiques of feminists for calling out individuals for sexism and racism because those critiques neglect (we neglect) structures. Really? Or is that when we talk about sexism and racism you hear us as talking about individuals? Are you suddenly concerned with structures because you do not want to hear how you as an individual might be implicated in the power relations we critique? I noted in my book, On Being Included (2012) how there can be a certain safety in terms like “institutional racism” in a context where individuals have disidentified from institutions they can see themselves as not “in it” at all.
And how interesting: the individual disappears at the very moment he is called to account.
[…]
Some of the glib dismissals of “call out culture” make my blood boil. I say glib because they imply it is easy to call people out, or even that it has become a new social norm. I know, for instance, how hard it is to get sexual harassment taken seriously. Individuals get away with it all the time. They get away with it because of the system. It is normalised and understood as the way things are. Individual women have to speak out, and testify over and over again; and still there is a system in place, a system that is working, that stops women from being heard. In a case when a woman is harassed by an individual man, she has to work hard to call him out. She often has to keep saying it because he keeps doing it. Calling out an individual matters, even when the system is also what is bruising: the violence directed against you by somebody is a violence that leaves a trace upon you whether that trace is visible or not. And: there is a system which creates him, supports him, and gives him a sense that he has a right to do what he does. To challenge him is to challenge a system.