Real Life Activism v. Anonymous Internet Writing and Why the Differences Matter
Jun 24th, 2009 by admin
There is a substantial and important divide, I believe, so far as feminist bloggers/internet personalities go, between those of us who blog and comment under our own real life names and those who blog and comment anonymously, under screen names. Those who write anonymously, under screen names, ultimately have no accountability so far as what they have written (or approved). Nobody knows who they are or anything about them, really. If things go too deeply sideways for them somehow, they are free to vanish, delete their blogs, and show up in an hour under a new screen name with a new invented persona and to start over. Nobody is going to call them to account publicly for what they have written, because nobody knows who they really are. They won’t end up on any FBI/CIA watch lists if they threaten people or strategize violence. Their jobs, if they have jobs, aren’t going to be endangered by what they have committed to text. Their families are not going to read, become alarmed, and make trouble for them. The Ann Bartows, Rebecca Motts, Lucinda Marshalls and Marcella Chesters of the internet, women who, like me, write under our own names, are situated differently from those who write anonymously. We must consider our reputations, our credibility, our careers, families and real-life activist lives. Those who write anonymously don’t really have to worry about anything at all. The way the two groups write is going to be different. Our concerns will be very different. Our exposure and the level of our risk will be cosmically different.
Heart
Both are important and there does not need to be a divide. Accountability in some patriarchal laws eyes can be very skewed and because of that, open activists have been metaphorically and physically shot down. There are countries and laws that prevent the freedom of speech and that includes women’s rights. In the area of family law, womens rights activists children are treated more harshly and the only way to protect them is to provide the information anonymously. Only a handful of advocates are in the position to speak for those who cannot whilst there are so many that cannot. It really depends on the person and how responsible they are with that information. We try to be, however there are times when the rage of what is done to children and women comes through in our writing. It does not mean that the cause is “wrong” it just is a terrible reality.
I don’t think Heart is saying that being anonymous is wrong, nor that women don’t often have very good reasons for choosing to be anonymous. Nor that rage is even a problem.
I think she’s stating that violence is wrong. No argument there.
I think she’s also saying that women who are not anonymous are subject to threats, threats to which anonymous women aren’t subject. No argument there, either.
I guess I’m missing something (and am I ever glad to miss it), but I don’t see how these are even controversial ideas!
I think she’s also saying that women who are not anonymous are subject to threats, threats to which anonymous women aren’t subject.
Exactly. And other kinds of real life difficulties of the kind I listed.
It isn’t controversial at all! The differences are invisible though, I think, to many who post anonymously. They aren’t out there in the same way I (and others) are and it’s not going to be readily apparent to them the difference that makes in what we write and how we conduct ourselves online, what we allow, what we approve, etc.
funnie, you aren’t really missing anything, other than that I have had to hugely distance myself from feminists who advocate for violence. I want no part of it, I want it on record that I want no part of any of it.
“I want no part of it, I want it on record that I want no part of any of it.”
Count me in on that.
I had something to say this morning that was inspired, in part, by your ‘non-violence’ post. You can find it here, at Vyckie Garrison’s No Longer Quivering forum, if you are interested: http://nolongerquivering.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=open&action=display&thread=254&page=2
I applaud you for being ‘out there’ and taking the risks.
I have many regrets that I write under my own name, for it lies open to very personal attacks. But in the long run I think it was a wise decision to have the self-respect to use my own name, for I feel if I am anonymous I giving the sex trade too much power.
What has very hard is that anyone who wishes to attack mostly by psychological means can do so - often have the cheek to call me “Becky” as they say how mentally ill I am, how deluded I am, how I am just a man-hater.
I choose to not punish their words, or respond to them, but it does not stop the pain going deep. As Andrea Dworkin stated -
“I left still sickened, humiliated by the insults, emotionally devastated by the abuse. Time passes, but the violence done is not undone. It never is.”
The most frightening thing was when my mother read my blog and did more mental abuse on to try to stop me writing.
But it in the long run made me more determined.
I suppose I choose to write in my name, because my mother, my stepfather, all the johns that raped me and the sex trade - expect women like to be too terrified to say our real.
I am proud that I survived and was able to claim my name as my own.
Rebecca, I feel that way too– I am proud to speak up in my own name, proud of who I am.
So true that it leaves us open to attack from those who hide under the cover of anonymity. Anyone googling my name will come up with posts attacking me by name, written by people who hide behind anonymity. And the same with you. Those who attack you using your name hide behind anonymity.
Thanks, Sargasso Sea, I’m looking forward to what you wrote because I know ahead of time it is going to be *good*!
To be very clear and to reiterate and agree with funnie, I don’t have any problem with women posting anonymously on the internet. Women have *very* good reasons for doing so. I don’t think there’s anything “wrong” with doing that, at all. In fact, in general, I think it’s the wisest thing to do.
I do think that what anonymous posters are doing is different from what I am doing and what other women who post under our own names are doing. And, I think it sucks when women who post anonymously publicly attack women who don’t, using our names. when they aren’t willing to use their own names.
When I say I want nothing to do with advocating for violence, I am talking about *violence.* Opinions that are different from our own are not violence. Insults are not violence. Being an asshole or jerk does not equal being violent. That’s the reasoning MRAs use to justify hitting women: “Well, she was violent with her WORDS.” Right.
Sorry I disagree. Words can be violence. Souls and lives are destroyed by verbal and psychlogical violence. I’m thinking in particular of children but of course, grown women too.
Agreed, it’s entirely different to blog anonymously or in one’s own name. As a pro-feminist guy, my identity and name are less important in blogging about man’s longest war (the war against womankind) than the blog’s images and words directed toward greater freedom. In the “About …” and “Why I don’t have comments here” sections of my blog, I’ve stated other reasons.
The vast archives and variety of what Heart blogs about, absolutely amazing. I honor whatever choice anybody makes about blogging anonymity (or not), as long as nobody is incited personally to wielding a spear (or in this week’s North Korean government threat-speak, a nuke … not that industrial-militarism globally had not been mega-weaponry-wielding for a long time). My preference is for spiritual solutions; recently blogged about Nemesis as iconic Goddess, for invocation of spiritual self-defense.
We all blog for various reasons. In one sense, for me it’s an outlet to put safely creative form to my concerns about patriarchy’s violence, and then have energy left for day-job social activism less directly related to my pro-feminist philosophy, but also good for human growth and development.
It can only be challenging to be in Anonymum’s or Heart’s different positions from their various perspectives. To honor the challenge, I give thanks for wisdom shared and creativity expanded.
Sis, I definitely agree that words can be abusive and that verbal/emotional abuse destroys lives. I think in order for words to constitute abuse the speaker has to have power relative to the person they are abusing, i.e., parents and children, husbands and wives, employers/employees, police/citizens, men/women. Words spoken by people who have no power over us, while they may inflict pain/be offensive/insulting/hurtful/destructive/harassing, are not in my opinion, in the same category as abuse. For one thing, we can safely avoid and ignore people who haven no power over us.
When I say I’m opposed to violence, I’m using this definition:
vi·o·lence (vī’ə-ləns)
n.
Physical force exerted for the purpose of violating, damaging, or abusing: crimes of violence.
The act or an instance of violent action or behavior.
Abusive or unjust exercise of power.
Jude, I appreciate your comments and really like your references to the Goddess.
Hi all,
Just putting my thoughts out there: but I know in my case, I choose to use an alias on the internet, mainly because the former adult abuser in my life (my father), was just released, and I don’t want him to find me, nor read my writings etc.
For me, it is a protection method more than anything else.
Princessjo, that’s the best reason ever to use a screen name.
Respect,
Heart
Anonymous women are subject to threats though. And that’s why they’re anonymous. I don’t attract MRA threats generally, but a lot of women do. And that’s why they conceal their identity. It’s frighteningly easy to find someone in real life, and there are a lot of dangerous men out there.
I don’t really understand the point that’s being made here. Everyone understands that women who use their real names on the internet are likely to be subject to recriminations, (I couldn’t write about my employment situation for example if I used my real name, or gave details of my employers) and that’s why we don’t use our real names.
Hi Heart,
Well I don’t use my real name, which is robably obvious. I do have legal and social reasons for not doing so. This *does* provide me with a bit more freedom to speak than I would have otherwise. The real shame is that, while I do not advocate anything illegal on my blog, merely provide social/political commentary, I recognize that if it were ever linked with my real name I would suffer job discrimination (if I ever find a job again, ha), personal attacks, and possibly worse. Where is the free speech we hear liberals talk about, when it comes to feminists?
Polly, the point that is being made is that because of the kind of activism we do, some of us really can’t write anonymously. In order for me to write about my activist life — my lawsuit against the Religious Right, for example, my experiences in the Quiverfull movement, my excommunication, my old publication, my published writings — I have to write under my real life name. I would not be able to write under a screen name because it would be obvious who I was, the moment I began talking about my life (or it would be easily discoverable). I’m the only one who published the magazine I published. I’m the only one who has successfully filed an anti-trust lawsuit against eight organizations on the Religious Right. I’m the one who has written the published work I’ve written.
This transparency subjects us to all sorts of threats, real life and online, such that we have to, as you say so well, Amananta, self-censor for our own safety at times. Anyone can look me up on the internet — including employers, family members, anyone — and see what I’m saying today. This places me at risk in all sorts of ways. It means that at times I have to take a very adamant stand against something, or for something, whereas I would not have to if I *could* be anonymous on the internet, which I really can’t be.
On a secondary, or maybe tertiary, level, it is extremely upsetting when feminists or progressives target me by name because they are mad at me about something, when they do not write under their own names so their level of risk or vulnerability is not remotely the same as mine. They are exploiting a vulnerability I have because I *do* put myself out there. They can say whatever they want, largely without repercussions. I can’t, and they know that. As feminists, especially, I think they ought to be above that kind of thing.
Amananta, I do not consider individual acts of self-defense to be violence.
Heart -
My Facebook page and blog are linked, and there’s a picture of me front and center on Universal Plume, so I wouldn’t call myself an anonymous blogger. My online persona isn’t so much a persona as it is a vastly less filtered me. I do the same dances of conformity most of us do to get through the day…though I do transgress in some areas in real life.
These transgressions are what I call my activism. It’s not formal, it’s not sanctioned, it carries no stamp of approval and the only member of the club is me.
Claire Nichole Lee, age 31, born in Anaheim CA and currently living in Costa Mesa CA reporting for duty! I am the author of Universal Plume. Google me, I dare you.
I put my face to what I write too. I’ve taken big risks…my abusive family, social enemies (some of whom are very privileged and powerful), and places of employment are all fully aware of who and what I am. It’s only a click away, and I’ll point people in that direction. I even leave my blog up on random computers so people will find it!
I don’t give a fuck who knows about my writing or who reads it. I don’t hide. There’s a shit-ton of ‘controversial’ stuff I’ve written on the internet that could be used against me. Easily.
Part of being a feminist/progressive/revolutionary is, in my opinion, taking these kinds of risks (those of us who can). Refusing to hide who you are and what you believe all by itself is an incredibly radical act, because that alone carries with it serious and potentially life-long consequences, several of which I have already experienced/am experiencing. My opinions, choices, and honesty have been keeping me in the margins for some time.
I do understand that there are some situations that would render this kind of transparency mortally dangerous, and I have the utmost respect for those women who blog under assumed names for these reasons (and really, any others…we can’t always understand why people make the choices they do, but it’s important to trust and respect their process). The first duty of any revolutionary is to survive, after all. Women do what they must.
Standing in solidarity with every blogging/non-blogging feminist/woman-lover who blogs openly or doesn’t. Standing in solidarity with all feminists who do whatever they can to advance the cause of women’s rights. There’s more than one way, there’s no one right way. Each according to their own ability (as my favorite formerly blogging feminist used to say…Darkdaughta, anyone? ;)).
Love,
Claire (CJ)
This is a very interesting commentary. I’m not the paranoid type, and most of the things women used to say back in the day were a thousand excuses for not being out of the closet. Being an out lesbian in a real job with real people (conservative corporate types that most feminists never get to know personally or well), was supposedly a risk. I was fired from a job, and it probably was because I was an out lesbian. However, you get hired or not for a million reasons, and after awhile I stopped caring much.
My feminist articles were published, enemies read them, and life went on. I see myself as a very small persistent fish, and perhaps a lot of the paranoia and fear is about self-aggrandizement to begin with. I know it is sad to say this, but patriarchy could care less about our lives or ideas, but we can be powerful for each other!
The Internet, well, it is all public knowlege and all email is tracked.
All of my mail, email etc. at work is opened, and in my industry, I have no real first amendment rights. My boss already fired me once, I already came out to my parents, I used to send my family my very radical feminist magazine, and everyone knows I am a radical humorless lesbian
I’ve seen all the personalities, I’ve met almost all the great lesbian feminists around the world, so now, I don’t care all that much about individual people in cyberspace. Well I do care, but it is all unreal to me, compared to the feminism that once was so personal and connected and community based.
I don’t recognize a lot of what women say is feminism these days. It seems great on the idea level, but not very practical. Perhaps it’s the contradiction of getting a place at the ice cream counter compared to something weird in radical land today. Whatever radical self I once was, time has now completely passed me by.
I often feel that my feminist sensibilities come from a very different time, and in a youth oriented Internet, some of the same social rules of engagement obviously have disappeared, or the young women never learned these rules. So a lot of things on these blogs can come off as verbally violent or obscene to me, but the women who write like this are unaware of this. Or they are but have no logical consistency of language. Again, IRL, I hardly know any women who use this kind of language if they clue into the milieu.
Internet feminism to me is about ideas and what women are thinking. The words that appear here are very different from the words I hear coming out of the mouths of everyday women I work with, know, see day in and day out. The real women I know never talk about politics, are unaware that there is homophobia, even if it pops up in front of their faces, and are somewhat clueless about sexism in general. They struggle in an ignorance or in a denial that I often don’t understand at all, but I have great compassion for the struggle of orginary women to make extraordinary lives.
I admire Heart for using her name, and I see her as somewhat of a professional journalist with the ethics of a journalist. Her writing and reporting demonstrate a professional ethics I can relate to. It’s why I count myself lucky to have discovered this blog first, rather than a lot of others that aren’t grounded in journalism or fairness at all. The idea of journalistic fairness has disappeared, just as newspapers and fact checking journalism are no longer with us. Even people who report the news on T.V. make verbal grammar mistakes that would have been unheard of 20 years ago. Like the thank you letter or the calling card or the silver tea pot… well… sigh…
Since people have told me all my life that I shouldn’t speak up, do that particular job or should beware of some danger… well at some point, I just stepped out of feminist paranoia to develop new ideas.
I got bored with paranoia, and thought a lot of it might simply come out that lesbian illness known as “attention starvation.” This is not meant as an insult, but as an observation of how lesbian invisibility breeds a certain kind of paranoid thinking.
Courage to me is about who you eat dinner with, who you talk to IRL, but the Internet and its beauty is about women expressing ideas that I never hear IRL. It’s knowing that those women have ideas in ways that seem to elude general female conversation. (Now don’t take this as an insult, you know how women talk to each other, and you know average straight women simply don’t talk the way lesbians do… it’s an observation). We just had a baby celebration party at work for one of my colleagues, and it was true social strangeness for me. It revealed that women show love over children, they show kindness and caring and make my office a fun place. But they aren’t feminists at all, yet I’d rather hang out with them then a lot of what passes for feminism these days.
A real name… when the Internet seems so unreal to begin with, is a bit of a misnomer to me. I help out on many unrelated blogs, and we deal with people all over the world, most of whom we will never ever meet. It is a different world.
If I ever have the opportunity to meet IRL life some of the women I admire on the Internet, well, then a real name is in order.
So I admire Heart for being “a real” self, and I admire other women for writing about ideas in new ways. I’m not sure what it all means yet, because the technology itself might be giving women a new kind of voice that they hide IRL, or that they may be discovering for themselves. And also, men come on the Internet and pretend to be women. Heck, my ideas are so weird sometimes that women think I am a man, and this really cracks me up. Being an old dinosaur feminist, well, I no longer belong in contemporary Internet feminism. My ideas are too eccentric, and a lot of times, I have more in common with someone born in the 1940s than with people born in the late 1960s. I’m content with the activism I did in the past, and have great ideas to share for those who want to hear.
This is a bit rambling, but I truly admire the struggle to work out ideas. These days I feel the most satisfaction working cooperatively with other business women and entrepreneurs. I love the work we do together, and the fun we share.
I love this little blog and will try to live up to its standards of integrity. It took me awhile to figure it all out, but after a couple of years of writing on blogs, I feel I’ve found a small intellectual rest stop on the information highway.
It is a kind of comforting old time feminist religion that I love, and that I had previously thought had disappeared with Gen X,Y and Z. My parents were the depression generation, not baby boomers. And since I had no children, I don’t understand the weird vulgar anger of Gen X feminists…
I know Heart has demonstrated how she walks the talk, and I appreciate how she doesn’t just fly off the handle and ban people from blogs. She has a certain emotional maturity, and heck, it is comforting to talk to middle aged women who are so super Internet smart. Maybe it is a kind of manners or a sensibility from a grounded leftist past, and even though leftist has never been a good description for me, I like the people who were out there then, and who are with us now. I treasure this feeling that even a dino can find the right people to do “dino-talk with.” And since I never had kids myself, the mean out thereness of a new generation just can be a bit too much for me.
We arn’t this small community anymore. My feminist and lesbians groups were small… no more than 45 members max. Our lives were very together, we shared, we cared. Now, that “movement” because big and unrecognizable to me. I kept working and studying, and felt proud of my accomplishments. My previous feminist colleagues always related to this, and we celebrated how life had become better as they years went by. But this is not exactly the case today…. so there you have it… Guess I’ll go watch tributes to Michael Jackson and Farrah, and I must admit I’m sad that Ed McMahon is gone. No more “Heeerrr’s Johnny”
The biggest recurring problem I see much more from those who hide their real identity for whatever reason is the unleashing of toxic energy. This toxic energy is different from anger over injustice or violence. It is corrosive and most of the time that effect is intentional.
There were dark times in my past before I disclosed being a rape survivor where my energy was highly toxic and I am glad I wasn’t on the Internet back then because I might have been tempted to spew those toxins anonymously. Sometimes I spewed that toxicity at those who deserved it, but more often I spewed it at anyone who irritated me.
The fastest way bloggers can lose me as a reader — even if I agree with their general stance on the issues — is to spew toxicity and then refuse to be accountable for doing so.
Sometimes this toxicity is directed at me but often it is spewed at others. I’ve stopped reading multiple feminist bloggers who are IDed only by their screen name when I’ve come across what felt like toxin throwing parties. When the party ends, I rarely return as a reader of those blogs because of the number of times the toxicity has returned.
I choose to use my legal name when I started blogging because I didn’t want anyone to have the power to threaten me with the outing of my real identity. This definitely came with risks, but my location mitigated some of those risks. My boyfriend/rapist and other men who inflicted violence onto me are half a country away from me. This decision has definitely impacted how I express my opinions and my feelings for the better.
There’s so much to respond to! But this:
YES.
I’m not sure if I care one way or the other about whether anger is toxic or if is about upset over social injustice. I do know there is a lot of grandiosity in radical feminism that seems almost quaint to me 30 years later. Wether women use real names or Internet names doesn’t seem to prove much of anything at all. The main difference I see is IRL vs. Internet feminists.
I personally think that a lot of the toxic anger stems from a sense of personal failure IRL. You can be queen of a radical feminist site, even as your life is in economic shambles. It’s why I don’t read the words of many business women on these pages.
We could say we have the potential of being transformative in life.
We could say we could create forums for women’s greatness to shine through.
If you have so many hours in a day, where will the focus be? I love working with women on projects, the sheer fun of this. So my focus is on getting real things done. There are whole worlds out there that are of great concern to feminists that I feel indifferent about.
Prostitution, pornography… the evils of patiarchy will not go away.
The suppressed anger of women will not go away. I am not indifferent to prostitution or pornography, but I just don’t deal with it IRL. I would be horrified to even dress in the style many young women dress in today.
Since women suppress so much of who they really are IRL, perhaps this toxicity on the Internet is simply the shadow side of women.
Some of it is simply inter-generational anger. When I was a young lesbian, I truly looked up to, sought the advice of, and hung out with my elders. I really loved the women who were born in the 30s and 40s. I was open and thankful for their presense in my life. I never resented their accomplishments, I didn’t get all mad because some of my elders were property owners. When I was working low paid jobs for long hours, I dreamed of bettering myself, not tearing down my elders for their material rewards. Heck, I loved it when lesbians bought houses! I treasured the advice Pat Bond gave to me and my partner in the late 80s, “Get a house before you turn 40 or you’ll end up poor and in an apartment like me!” She wasn’t mad about being poor, she was an actress, she just wanted my life to be better. I listen to people when they talk like this. It might seem like common place advice, but somehow for me, just having an elder lesbian look me in the eye and really care about my future pushed me forward. Now, the young women can be truly mean, truly angry at their sense of failure in the world. But I can’t help but think that if you act mean, you might just scare away an older generation.
I think Heart’s is one of the few radical feminist sites where I read real business accomplishment, for example.
Hey, do I really want to eat lunch with a 20-something who says “F” this and “F” that all the time? No, I don’t want to be bothered. Use of the “F’ word tends to cause me to mentally write off that person a tiny bit. A small thing, but “F” is what men do to women, and when women use this word, well, I wouldn’t have them IRL as a part of my social circle. But on the Internet, well this language is common place. To me, it is about social contempt for other women. It’s a tiny detail, but remember it is the details that reveal the person.
Internet feminism bears little or no resemblance to the feminism of my youth. It doesn’t seem as fun anymore, it is all about doom and gloom or silly class warfare. Ironically, the very feminism that pushed me forward in my youth, would now hold me back today.
All that anger and toxicity from a youth raised by baby boomer parents? Or maybe many of these women haven’t felt that they’ve accomplished as much, but I feel I’ve accomplished a lot in a time when there was literally nothing. To make a lesbian life out of nothing is its own reward, and I often feel sorry for the young lesbians of today, or even the separatists of this day.
Or perhaps feminism simply made women crass in a way that didn’t exist for older lesbian generations. I know an 85 year old lesbian who never had a bad word for anyone, who remembers your name the first time she meets you, and who made her life out of nothing.
She never whines, she just does stuff in the community. A 68 year old lesbian DJ asks you what your favorite song is, and then she plays it for you, and always remembers it! Imagine that! If you like a rap song, she knows all the rap music, if you like Joni Mitchell she celebrates that. What impresses me is her dazzling smile, her kindness… hey this woman grew up in a time when bars were raided by police, she survived one of those. She got fired from her teaching job, she got dishonorably discharged from the military. She’s a working class dyke who hands out little “checks” as presents to women who graduate from college each year. Many a young down and out dyke has ended up on her living room couch no questions asked. You don’t hear her ever say the “F’ word. She has a kind of serene smile that I never see on the resentful mean lesbians of today. She’s a personal heroine, and she wouldn’t get Internet feminism, because she embodies feminism!
I met a 65 year old lesbian who invited everyone to her house on weekends to hang out, cook together and be together. Her one rule was “no swearing in my house.” I never felt safer or more loved than when I visited her.
If we are fighting porn and an objectifying culture, perhaps we should be aware that we could becoming the crass creatures the media and raunch culture is turning women into. As the culture becomes more toxic, so women on the Internet might be becoming this unkonwingly.
Whether you use a real name, an Internet name or whatever, is not the same as being together IRL with lesbians or feminists you admire and like to be with. If the ideas don’t serve a greater good for women, then they are ultimately meaningless.
Do radical feminists on the Internet treat each other well? Well, I’d say largely not. Is there a respect for elders on the Internet? No.
What made for an earlier generation of lesbians is a kind of kindness. That’s what makes them so great to be with. It is a paradox that radical feminist under 50-somethings got so bad, that lesbians 60 and over said enough, we want a conference where we can be ourselves without having to deal with youth. That is what it has come to.
The generations of lesbians born before Stonewall should think about this. Internet feminism has a lot to be desired. I think many of us are trying, but it isn’t easy. Can you succeed if women hate you for it? Go on other sites and listen to the trashing of other hardworking Internet feminists. A lot of you know what’s going on, but do you say anything about it? Think about it. Heart actually does, and I think that sets her apart.
Maybe the road to non-violence is for women to be heard into being, even if the words are toxic at times. We can aspire to better things, we can be uplifted by words, and we can take the over 60 lesbians as examples of the best who have survived. I’m still going to memorial services for lesbians under 50, so my elders are precious to me…
P.S. Sorry for the length of this. It’s a very important subject that goes way beyond real names or Internet names. It is way bigger!
Satsuma -
Fuck is a word that means something much different to the generations behind you, I think. I find it very useful, as do many of my age group. You don’t have to use it or like it, but it seems silly to exclude people or dismiss them based on their preference for a certain word.
Unconditional respect for elders is an outdated idea. Age does not necessarily equal wisdom or clarity or maturity. Age is often, at least in my experience, merely the number of years one has been alive. Those over 50 are just as capable of making mistakes as those under 50. We are all human, we are all learning.
A basic level of respect should be accorded everyone, it’s true. But no special deference should be given anyone based solely on date of birth. What you propose seems hierarchal, rigid, and strange to me…automatic respect based on years lived, and certain words being forbidden because they violate arcane standards of politeness? This is an issue of personal tastes and preferences, and perhaps a bit of elitism. This is not about feminism.
Perhaps younger feminists/lesbians do not define success and happiness the way you do. Perhaps younger feminists and lesbians wish to do away with a system where few have much and many have too little. Perhaps the system that has benefitted you does not benefit others. Perhaps our experiences are not your experiences. Perhaps our ways are not your ways. Perhaps feminism has changed/grown/evolved/shifted in ways that are not negative, just different.
Perhaps your view of the world is not the only view, or the right view. Perhaps it’s just one view among many. Perhaps your view is not privileged by your age or social status. Perhaps your view is not privileged by your experiences or the timeframe you came of age in feminism/adulthood.
Perhaps you are mistaken in several, if not all, of your assumptions. It’s always a possibility.
I forgot to add that I believe advocates who are anonymous online can be participating in real life activism. Some people can’t write about their experiences using their real names because of legal issues or because of other consequences of doing so.
What comes to mind first are those who have survived rape and who have blogged about their experiences with police and/or the courts as they are dealing with those systems or who blog about the aftermath of unreported violence while disclosing non-anonymously would be unsafe. By doing so they reveal important experiences and insights from a personal perspective.
These bloggers for the most part take a very different approach to blogging and online activism than the anonymous bloggers who go toxic.
I don’t regard my opinions as mistaken, nor do I see contemporary feminism as doing anything to change the declining world around me. Yes, there is a right and a wrong, and no I don’t subscribe to moral relativism. In my personal life, I do not associate with women or men who use vulgar language, and it is a conscious choice. And no, I don’t regard youth as automatically ignorant, but as I get older I have less time for the vulgar and want to focus on the substantive.
Feminism opened opportunities for women worldwide, but it did not end pornography. In fact, feminism now embraces pornography, BDSM and it sits on the sidelines as the U.S. goes into further social decline. I am not mistaken in any of the assumptions I run my life on. And I never imitated a world that never existed earlier. We had quite a bit of invention out there. I just have very clear verbal boundaries and standards, and I think a lot of women are unaware of just how offensive they sound a lot of the time. Crassness, and profanity are not the norm in my world, and if that is the norm in your world, maybe your standards are too low. Raise the bar a bit, and other things are elevated as well. Live in the gutter and the life goes there as well. If people cross those boundaries and standards in my daily life in the world, those people will not be let into my life. It’s as simple as that.
If young feminists really want to change the world, they’ll have to do the hard work. I’m not all that impressed with what I see in Los Angeles. It’s mostly imitative work, but it lacks originality. And although it may seem odd, I don’t hear most women my age or older using the “F” word in social situations. They’ve built a life, they respect the people around them. The lack of attention to detail in language is simply that, a lack of attention. Language is one of the most powerful elements of feminist analysis. Mary Daly understood language, so did Lillian Faderman and so did Betty Friedan for that matter. Yes, age is a hierarchy, and yes, a lesbian over 50 group is completely and utterly different from a 20-something lesbian group these days. Lesbian culture has become pretty degraded in the big cities, it’s not very fun to be around. So if the “F” word is there, just count me out, I have other people to talk to seriously. The “F” word is a form of verbal anti-woman violence to me. And to me what you say IRL is who you are. And I have always stood for this. Perhaps most people don’t pay attention to this, but it is a key to my understanding the quality and character of each individual I meet. The Internet is something that is not real, and its language is sad, but there you have it.
abyss– good points. Lately I’ve been thinking about all this. I read all kinds of blogs, both out of personal interest and for work. I realized today that I don’t really know any of the people writing, or whether they have Internet names or not. On the Internet, I think I have lost interest in names, because they all are kind of weird anyway
Satsuma -
Well, there you have it. If you wish to exclude people based on what words they do and don’t use, that’s obviously at your discretion. I don’t get it, but okay.
I do think that once one gets to a place where they feel they are never wrong and only they hold understanding of truth, it’s a sign of arrogance and elitism.
We all have our flaws. I’ve got plenty.
I’m not down with hierarchy, or capitalism, or politeness. I like the word fuck. I’m okay with my feminism looking different than the feminism of generations before. Makes sense. Movements and ideas change over time. Good changes, bad changes, neutral changes…things change. It’s natural. Doesn’t mean the world’s ending or that there’s no hope.
All will be well in feminism and the world. One way or another.
Is language violent? Is the “F” word violent? Just wondering.
Satsuma, my thoughts about language violence are up there in comment number 11.
Re, the F word, I never uttered the F word even one time until about 10 years ago, with great difficulty. Even then I didn’t say it, I just typed it. I wrote the word for the first time in the company of feminists on the Ms boards. At the time, it seemed like some kind of breakthrough for me, no more ms nice girl, kind of a deal, look, I can say this word. After I got the hang of using the word, I used it quite a bit for a while in writing. I had noticed a lot of Second Wavers I very much loved had used the word in their feminist writings– Andrea Dworkin, Catharine MacKinnon, Gloria Steinem and others. Using the word seemed like a reclamation effort of sorts, like something the Second Wave did, or many Second Wavers did.
More recently, I have pretty much stopped using the word, in part because it is really troubling to so many women. Also, I don’t want my kids to grow up hearing that word at home or reading things I’ve written that include that word. It’s not a word I want to be hearing at home myself and I sure don’t want the kids to be using it on one another or on anyone else. I can’t tell them not to use it if I’m using it. I never really could bring myself to say that word easily in the first place. And these days, I don’t have anything to prove to anyone (including myself!). Which is not to say you, Claire, or anyone else, are trying to prove anything in using the word.
The word doesn’t seem transgressive to me in a feminist way anymore. It’s so common, for one thing. I’m not bothered if other women use the word. I used it too for a while and had my reasons and I figure, they probably do as well.
I think if parents fear their children picking up the bad language they use, then that’s a good indicator that maybe adults should be spared obscenity too. I know my sister-in-law banned a foul mouthed friend of one of my brother’s because he thought he had the right to blare out the “F” word in front of her children. I remembered really respecting her as a protective mother after that! Your serious explanation of your use of the “F” word and what it meant to you I appreciate. You know how merely saying you object to obscenity on radical feminist sites invites contempt. In fact, any appeal to a higher anything is often dragged down.
All I know, is that the little things, like a word, reveal the character of people. And if you think that it is ok to just swear and never consider the impact of this on the Internet, then perhaps you are not taking yourself all that seriously either. Thanks Heart for another thoughtful answer, you’re one of the few who bothers. It is a sign of someone who sees a larger picture.
I don’t recall my very most favorite bestest feminist heroines ever using the word in print, nor did they use obscenity at book readings or lectures I attended– Mary Daly, of course, being #1 on my list of greatest feminist who ever lived in the 20th century. I know I know, I think she should become a feminist saint, what can I say.
To tell you the truth, the feminist greats who used this word always made me slightly suspicious. Andrea Dworkin did, but it always made me step back a bit.
The feminists I worked with around the world were intelligent, dedicated and blessedly free of the 4-letter word addiction that so plagues most of the feminists on the Internet today. I’d mostly read feminists, or worked with women around the world. I’m not very local in my interests actually, more interested in global feminism. And of course, I knew hundreds it seems lesbian clergy all over the place, and clergywomen just have more dignity in my opinion. Since I wasn’t a part of the 60s revolution, was not even in America for half of the 80s, and was a student for most of the 70s, I wasn’t focused on the sexual revolution, I steered clear of the druggies and bars. So I just stayed away from most of the stuff that seems so off putting on the Internet now. I don’t recall Nancy Wilson, who now leads MCC nationally, ever using a bad word, even though she was proudly working class. Janice Raymond had a natural graciousness about her too. Women I looked up to like Sally Gearhart had a loving embracing language that made you feel as welcome as a cozy cottage in the rain, as the tea kettle whistled.
Language means something of great depth to me, I revere the women who were so instrumental in a life that was inspiring and adventurous to me in the cause of women’s liberation. Perhaps that inspiring lovely time worldwide is long gone, but really, when I think of a quality of life issue… I will continue to not take as seriously “vulgar language feminists’ compared to well spoken ones.
Japanese feminists were gracious and wonderful, their hospitality and sanity a wonder to behold. Of all the feminists around the world, I will perhaps love Japanese women the most. To me they represented a kind of civility that is remarkable, and to this day they are still in my life, still working with me, still passionately being true sisters. The word sisterhood seemed most powerful in my travels and life abroad, and like the left bank American ex-patriot lesbians of another era that I loved so much, I think the life abroad of a young lesbian is transformative and uplifting. This feeling of an international sisterhood, and a connection at a young age to a very different culture and language really made me think about English.
I discovered all kinds of things about my own culture living abroad, and to this day, I still quote Milton, because my Japanese sisters so loved great English literature. Elegance, kindness, hospitality, generosity, dedication, perceptiveness… this was the legacy of amazing Japanese feminism. What a rude awakening when this ex-pat came home to the USA and listened to the language of lesbians in San Francisco! Maybe Japan just spoils you
Heart, I learn so much from your blog! I hardly think you are anonymous because you write about very personal things. I appreciate that you have international posts, as well as what your daughters did for your birthday.
We have a strange culture here in the US. Youth in South America, where I lvied for years, are different: I never entered anyone’s home there without their kids coming and introducing themselves to me and making me feel welcome. Here there is a huge rift between youth and adults. Our consumer culture creates it. Occasionally, I meet someone in their teens or twenties who has social graces and a good level of maturity. I still have friends of all ages, but not like I did overseas. It is so rare to find an American youth even close to the maturity level of those who were my friends in Brazil and Spain.
I grew up a swearer. It made me feel adult and tough. Now I hate to read these words, to me it seems like an easy or lazy way out and writing is so much richer when it is specific.
I still swear, but nowhere near as much, and I refrain when I’m in someone else’s home - that is their sanctuary.
P.S. - I’m writing this on a break (to dry out- it’s raining every day in New Mexico) from the National Rainbow Gathering. Some of it is magical and has the feeling of a temporary village. But the sexism! Especially among the men! All I have heard from them is ‘that girl, that chick, that ‘b’….’. So I found the Fairy Camp where the people are open, doing all kinds of ritual; the energy there is great, and that’s where I’ve been hanging out.
julia, so true re the Rainbow people! As it always was, so it shall ever be, sexism-on-the-Left-amongst-the-hippies, world without end, amen. I’m glad you found some good energy there in all of that!
And thanks for your kind words. xo
Yes Julia, I am surprised at the maturity level of American youth vs. young adults in different countries. We’ve had many events in people’s homes, and if you visit a Mexican family, an Iranian family or people from other countries, their children always come in and introduce themselves. They have charm and grace, and I think most cultures outside the U.S. maintain this. Even black families who moved here from the islands seem strikingly different in manners and mores.
I do agree that marketing deliberately divides youth from elders, and Joni Mitchell explains this well. Marketing is a very divisive incideous thing in America. But still, I wonder at the truly sharp decline in manners of children and teenagers, and it’s a bit disturbing.
What is rainbow people?
Rainbow Tribe
For me it is very important to use bad language on my blog.
I believe that show the visceral reality of living inside prostitution having a sanitarised language does not do justice to the person I had to be then.
Andrea Dworkin was a poet who used bad language with care and great skill.
I, like her, want my language to shock the reader. I want to break down easy reading that allows the reader to be detached.
Bad language does make the reader angry. I want them to be angry about the conditions in the sex trade.
I used bad language because it was used as mental warfare against me, so I will reclaim the words back.
It gives me power.
I have written a post on this subject.
I think people have a variety of reasons for choosing words, and what they mean. We won’t agree rmott at all, but I do respect your writing, truth and courage. And I admire Andrea Dworkin who had the courage to talk to all women and take them seriously. We each have our own purposes in life, and I respect that.
Rebecca, when you use this language, you are describing what was done to you, your own violation, your own battering. When others use this language, they invoke this spectre of violation and battering that is your story. You do it as an authentic expression of your lived reality, to tell your own truth. Others often do it to inflict pain and to silence others.
Respect,
Heart
Thanks Heart. That s a wonderful point, for far too many use language to spread hate and all too often to silence by intimidation.
Thanks Heart and Rebecca. That is the big difference. I was watching a lecture by Gail Dines awhile ago on YouTube, and her pornography lecture was very graphic. It had to be to illustrate what this is doing to women, and there is no way around it. So if you are describing what happened to you, certain words apply.
But when a feminist says “F-YOU” that to me is wrong, because what this really means is you are saying “get raped” technically speaking.
It is fair to say that all women have a right to describe what happened to them. There has to be a place for all women to say what their real truths are, both good and bad. Some of the life stories will be horrifying and ugly…escaping prostitution or a violent marriage, for example. Other lives will be more mundane, like being a lesbian in a straight society and getting annoyed all the time
So if we pay attention to language in context we’ll know that women should be the very last people on earth to call each other “B—-” or to write “F” word all over their commentary. I know I tend to have less respect for the “F” word using women as a matter of course, but they might not know this.
Hi Heart,
I’m one of those bloggers who writes under her real name (most of the time).
I am doing research for one of my pieces and have been trying to learn more about Margaret Sanger. I came across your old site and saw your defense of Sanger. When I tried to post a response, however, it would not show. This is why I am posting it here. I would love to hear more about what those who identify as feminists think.
If we’re going to praise Margaret Sanger for her good work (which is great), then why shouldn’t we be critical of her for her misdeeds? We all know that people hate to speak ill of the dead, but when it comes to public figures it’s important to get to the bottom of the issue since these individuals’ actions impacted so many other people’s lives–it is not just about Margaret Sanger but about all those whose lives were ruined by negative eugenics-based policies.
Margaret Sanger may have had the best of intentions, but she promoted some ideas–see her “A Plan for Peace”–that many of us would abhor today. It was pretty much the nail in the coffin for me when I found out that she spoke at KKK gatherings for women. If she was not racist, then she was very naive.
Sure, her patronizing approach may have been symptomatic of the attitudes of her class, race and time, but that doesn’t change the reality of the act. Was American slavery not racist because it was acceptable to most white people at that time? Were men not sexist because most people thought it was acceptable for women to be treated as inferior in those days? Do we judge reality according to a standard of what is accepted by the majority at a given time or do we truly believe that there are enduring, universal truths and inalienable, natural rights which have existed throughout history whether or not they were ignored?
It gets tiring–that is, really old–for people of color when history is rewritten or certain unpleasant details glossed over (see Cecil Rhodes of the Rhodes Scholarship) for the sake of one, usually white, individual’s legacy.
Hi, Annah–
My short answer is, we *should* be critical of Margaret Sanger for her eugenics-based politics which were racist, classist and ableist. She was wrong. Eugenics is wrong. Strategizing the elimination of any group of people as somehow less-than-human, subhuman, in the way, a problem, is strategizing genocide and is always, always hideously wrong. No group of people qua group of people deserves to be deleted from the universe. No question.
Good point on Margaret Sanger. Eugenics really did lead to some horrible things, and it’s still out there stalking the universe.
I don’t think you can look at any major historical figure that didn’t have major flaws, and the point of history is to get at the whole person, not just cover up all their ideas.
Most people out in the world are racist, sexist and homophobic, or they are willfully ignorant about any group other than their own.
And this ignorance is increasing not diminishing, no matter how much information is out there to the contrary.