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1 November 2019
(no subject)
1 November 2019 15:50I feel like queer feminist spaces have kinda failed as a project.
On the one hand of course politics impacts our lives & we should talk about it.
On the other hand, when individual choices are politicised - it makes queer, feminist, alternative communities less safe for that very exploration and freedom that they advertise as possible. You know, like. There's communities where being sexually liberated and into kink is good and others where being anti kink is good. There's communities where you are praised for transitioning to a binary gender, or to a non binary gender, or to a gender non conforming place, or for embracing your gender as is. There's communities where you get praised for being "gold star" and others where you get praised for being sexually fluid; communities where you're praised for allowing trans people into your sexuality, and others where you're shunned. There's communities where you're praised for glamming up and others where you're supposed to go without make up and...
...when you read about feminism and feminist communities, rhe basic values are that there's no one right way to be a woman. We are individuals, we are being controlled by shame and judgement, we need to forge our own path. And similarly in queer communities, basic values about authenticity, desire...
...but when you're in these communities it is *wall to wall* judgement about whether hour behavior and identity fits an approved politics. And that's a lot less welcoming and freeing than, say, spending your time volunteering at an otter sanctuary or joining a sewing club where thst kind of conversation won't even come up.
There's too much talk about outcomes, and not enough about what "good" feels like.
And I guess it makes me kinda despair about those spaces, as someone who does still have a need for those conversations and ideas. But doesn't want them to be accompanied by judgement and shame no less profound and damaging than the judgments and shame I get from regular folk.
(For example, I feel like the closest you get to the conceptual experience of being non binary is joining an origami club where you only talk about paper and make cranes and boxes for each other. Or going for a nice walk. I feel like the furthest you get is...in a queer space where you're asked for your pronouns and then continually interrogated about your relationship to gender, the nuances of your sexuality, judged on your gendered presentation, and then everyone decides whether that's acceptable or not, and then your sexual worth is put into a hierarchical pecking order dpenendent on whether you've got a desirable gender or not. I can't think of any space less comfortsble than that)
I feel like rhe politics where gender is infinite and women can be anything need to be enacted in a space where those politics are not discussed. Does that make sense? I feel like women sitting in a circle talking about, say, whether Kink is pro/anti woman needs to happen on one evening, and not be brought into an environment where the goal is women just being themselves. I feel like the complexity of gender politics needs to be explored and discussed - but not at a LGBT dance night. I think a strong political perspective about what strangers ought to do about their gender, sexual, romantic or life directions is *actively unhelpful* to people exploring those things.
The personal is political, but it's also *personal* - and it's hard to make these very difficult life choices and discover ones authenticity when you know you'll be punished for failure if you don't make the right choices *by your own allies*.
(I wish I could engage with political ideas from my community for more than an hour without these vivid, unhappy memories coming back up, of how controlling and messed up progressive spaces can be in real life...)
On the one hand of course politics impacts our lives & we should talk about it.
On the other hand, when individual choices are politicised - it makes queer, feminist, alternative communities less safe for that very exploration and freedom that they advertise as possible. You know, like. There's communities where being sexually liberated and into kink is good and others where being anti kink is good. There's communities where you are praised for transitioning to a binary gender, or to a non binary gender, or to a gender non conforming place, or for embracing your gender as is. There's communities where you get praised for being "gold star" and others where you get praised for being sexually fluid; communities where you're praised for allowing trans people into your sexuality, and others where you're shunned. There's communities where you're praised for glamming up and others where you're supposed to go without make up and...
...when you read about feminism and feminist communities, rhe basic values are that there's no one right way to be a woman. We are individuals, we are being controlled by shame and judgement, we need to forge our own path. And similarly in queer communities, basic values about authenticity, desire...
...but when you're in these communities it is *wall to wall* judgement about whether hour behavior and identity fits an approved politics. And that's a lot less welcoming and freeing than, say, spending your time volunteering at an otter sanctuary or joining a sewing club where thst kind of conversation won't even come up.
There's too much talk about outcomes, and not enough about what "good" feels like.
And I guess it makes me kinda despair about those spaces, as someone who does still have a need for those conversations and ideas. But doesn't want them to be accompanied by judgement and shame no less profound and damaging than the judgments and shame I get from regular folk.
(For example, I feel like the closest you get to the conceptual experience of being non binary is joining an origami club where you only talk about paper and make cranes and boxes for each other. Or going for a nice walk. I feel like the furthest you get is...in a queer space where you're asked for your pronouns and then continually interrogated about your relationship to gender, the nuances of your sexuality, judged on your gendered presentation, and then everyone decides whether that's acceptable or not, and then your sexual worth is put into a hierarchical pecking order dpenendent on whether you've got a desirable gender or not. I can't think of any space less comfortsble than that)
I feel like rhe politics where gender is infinite and women can be anything need to be enacted in a space where those politics are not discussed. Does that make sense? I feel like women sitting in a circle talking about, say, whether Kink is pro/anti woman needs to happen on one evening, and not be brought into an environment where the goal is women just being themselves. I feel like the complexity of gender politics needs to be explored and discussed - but not at a LGBT dance night. I think a strong political perspective about what strangers ought to do about their gender, sexual, romantic or life directions is *actively unhelpful* to people exploring those things.
The personal is political, but it's also *personal* - and it's hard to make these very difficult life choices and discover ones authenticity when you know you'll be punished for failure if you don't make the right choices *by your own allies*.
(I wish I could engage with political ideas from my community for more than an hour without these vivid, unhappy memories coming back up, of how controlling and messed up progressive spaces can be in real life...)