Yesterday I shared this message with the writers in a couple of my workshops, and wanted to expand it a bit here:
Last Thursday, I decided to turn off the news.
Tag Archives: rape culture
we don’t have to take all of it in
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Tagged power of words, radical self care!, rape culture, the power of our desire, turn it off
What I did this summer…
This is a photo I took in Lisbon; part of the #shitgirlsdo project
… or “Yes, we live in patriarchy, and women have been telling you forever that they’re being assaulted by men from infancy through childhood, into adolescence, all through their working and mothering years and all the way up until they die, thanks for finally listening I suppose now you want us to give you a medal”
(This is very long. All summer I’ve been repeating to myself that I can’t write, I’m blocked, I sit down and nothing comes — but the truth is, I have been writing, getting words on paper, struggling through depression and with a feeling of complete helplessness in the face of this current cultural conversation that has been so innocuously labelled #metoo. So this morning, after waking at 12:30am, once again unable to sleep, I decided to combine the morning writes I’d already typed up, and realized they served as a kind of back-to-school essay: “What I did this summer.”)
not apples and oranges, but apples and apples
Oh, good morning. It’s a Monday again. How did the weekend treat you? Were you kind to yourself? Did you make some room for your words?
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Don’t forget about the Writing Ourselves Whole book launch party next Tuesday, December 5! (Click for more deets or to RSVP!)
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Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged aftermath of sexual violence, angry feminist yes please, mainstream media, rape culture, sexual trauma
the violence they hold in their sticky fingers
(Yep, I’m pissed today. Aren’t you?)
Good morning, good morning. How are things where you are this morning? It’s quite chilly in my house today — I’ve got the heater on my feet, trying to thaw out my toes. (Please note: this is my California-acclimation talking — in Midwest or Maine-winter terms, it’s balmy today.)
***
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Tagged rape apologists, rape culture, stand up, tipping point?, women shaming women
in which jen loses her sh*t
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It’s all I can do this morning to keep myself together.
I make black tea for the day, because I’m out of my loose green; Irish breakfast, to go with the soda bread I made last night. All I can do these days is eat. That’s a thing I’m good at: the decisions don’t ruin my life, and I don’t get paralyzed trying to figure out what to eat next. The eating helps me feel just bad enough about myself, but also kills the other awful feelings, the anxiety, the triggeredness.
My editor tells me she wants me to write about this Harvey Weinstein thing. Write about the latest story of a sexual predator that everyone is surprised about. Wait, the guy who promoted Hunting Ground is a sexual super-predator? Are we supposed to act shocked, we who live our lives in the aftermath of manhandling by people like these? Are we supposed to believe all the shock and dismay from various high-powered folks in the entertainment industry? What kind of story can I write about this?
teach them toxic masculinity is not their due
(Just a heads-up: there’s language about rape and sexual violence in this morning’s post. Be easy with you, ok?)
It’s morning on a Monday, and I’m at the computer again. I open the window to get a little feel of the outside. And to try and hear the owls. It’s rush outside right now, just road.
Yesterday in the paper I read an opinion piece by a man who, when he was in college, worked with the rape crisis center and led trainings with frat brothers. The writer described the need for education, that the young men he worked with, as much as they didn’t want to see him there — he called himself the ultimate buzz kill at the party — they still, many of them, needed what he was selling: they didn’t know what rape meant. They didn’t know that a drunk woman couldn’t consent to sex. They didn’t know a woman could say she wanted to have sex and then change her mind. They didn’t know that a woman shouldn’t have to physically fight them off in order to communicate her desire not to have sex.
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Tagged education, kindness, rape culture, what
uprooting and untangling the binds of rape culture
Squash seedlings almost ready for transplant!
Good morning, good morning. What’s the sun doing where you are right now? How is it feeding your heart?
Even though it’s possible, here in California, to garden year-round, I still live with the rhythms I learned growing up in zone 5 out in the midwest, where one had to take a break in gardening overwinter because, you know, snow. But every late February, something about the quality of light changes, and I get called back out into the garden. We moved last fall, so I have a new garden to build here. I’ve put in some carrot and radish seeds, have peas and chard and onions and herbs and nasturtium and sweet pea growing, and I can just barely see the tips of gai lan seedlings. It’s hard not to want to do it all right now, to have the garden bursting with color and fruit and flower that we left behind in Oakland. I’m re-learning the slow work of cultivation.
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Tagged garden, metaphor, radical self care!, rape culture, upcoming workshops, weeding as practice
is it dystopian if it’s happening now?
(cw: discussion of rape and current events)Comments Off on is it dystopian if it’s happening now?
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Tagged rape culture, science fiction
the dance floor was the one safe place to have a body
CW: violence, sex, grief, a graphic detail about rape
This morning, I’m out at my neighborhood cafe, where they are playing club music to wake up the patrons. Or maybe in solidarity and grief and resistance. this cafe is queer-owned/-operated, and has sizable queer clientele. A handful of folks come in who I read as queer; we’re subdued this morning. We don’t smile big. We give each other the side eye, we purse our lips in that sort of sad smile that says, I’m grieving, too, even though I’m out in the world trying to look like I have my shit together. The world feels quieter today, muted, and not just because of the fog dampening the trees and the morning commute.
This morning I am grieving like so many of us are grieving because we’ve had a mass shooting hit us in our back yard. Many others of us are grieving because this is only the latest shooting to target someone or some community we love.
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Tagged culture of violence, dancing, Essex Hemphill, Orlando, queer & trans power, queer murder, queer sex, rape culture, sexual violence
I’m going to use all the details I damn well need
Today I am pissed off. This is a post about rape and rape culture. And uses bad language. And is angry. Just know that ahead of time.
Still reading? All right then.
There is a post on the VIDA website detailing assaults on just eleven (just eleven!) of what sounds like the many many women harassed and assaulted by a famous, well-respected, powerful man in various arts communities. A poet and photographer, he’s been involved in Cave Canem, taught at Sarah Lawrence College and Case Western, and women in the community, in his circles, have known about and warned each other about him for years – and yet only now is there collective voice enough to speak out, over and in spite of his threats to ruin his victims’ careers and credibility if they told.