Overly Emotional

Lately I have been feeling overly emotional; almost crying at every twist or turn. Today, I told my student, just start writing. Write your story, whatever it might be. She told me, "I have no story worth telling." I told her, "Everyone has a story." I asked her how she would respond to Patricia Hill Collins's text, Black Feminist Thought, the reading for that day, just off the top of her head. She confided in me, "I want to be an ally, but it is really hard." She is a white student, a repeater of mine, and we have always had a good connection. She is smart, she knows what is going on in terms of her privilege, she reminds me of me. I validated her; affirmed that it is hard to be an ally. I also explained that it is her responsibility to confront the reasons why it is hard for her, to write about that. Mostly, I just told her to write. And I think I told her that because I too, need to start writing. I almost started crying while my professor was lecturing today. This was for a few reasons, mainly, that it brought me back to my re-education. I remember being an undergraduate learning feminist theory; luckily, I went to a school where the feminist theory I learned was mostly women of color feminism/material feminism, feminist theory that matters, at least to me. And it changed me. I remember reading Alice Walker's, In Search of our Mother's Gardens, which I recently reread for my comprehensive exams, and all I could think about was how deeply impacted I was and continue to be by those women's words. I think that it is through these words that I learned more about myself, and my privilege, than I ever could have from white people writing about privilege (although, I think this is important as well.) I think it was so important because what I learned, was that their feminism was not meant for me, but at the same time, it was exactly meant for me. Professor Kildegaard taught me about standpoint theory, which has been problematized as essentialist, exclusionary, and a slew of other things. While I can see these critiques, I will say that learning this lesson, that those from the margins see the dominant much better than those in the center see the margins, changed my life. I realized that much off the time I am on the inside, although my queerness, femmeness, lower-classness, complicates this. But although these multiple identities complicate my privilege, they do not erase the fact that I navigate the world as a white person, and that as a white person, I perpetuate many of the injustices I critique, although, I hope to work in solidarity with those around me. But my allyness does not dismiss the pain I have caused. This I know. I have been working with high school kids, teaching them a "Disrupting Privilege" curriculum. You know what is hard? Teaching a bunch of students, who are students of color, immigrants, refugees, single mothers, lower-class that they still have privileges. And these students have been countlessly hurt by people who occupy similar positionalities as me. They have no reason to trust me. None. Except listen to their stories of being privileged and marginalized, of being pulled over by the police for being perceived as a bad kid, but which could definitely be attributed to the fact that this perception is due to her racial identity, as a black woman. I heard from a Latino boy that his family used to not be able to cook their traditional food without going to a special grocery store, but now Walmart and Target sell it. They read this as progress. They force me to confront my identities all of the time, to reign them in, attempt to facilitate conversations with and not at them. I remember, as an undergrad, Dr. Conrad told me to never stop using my voice; that my voice was important. That was one of the first times I had ever felt that way. I remember reading Malcolm X and running back to my room. In tears, I wrote. I wrote that my privilege was ultimately connected to someone else's oppression, to violence, and to pain. I wrote that our histories were connected, and that they were connected because my whiteness is acceptable, whereas blackness and brownness, have not been, in normative society. I wrote, by hand, I scrawled. When went to work for an Environmental Organization that summer, they asked me, "What is the biggest issue facing our society." After listening to people drone on about capitalism, and alienation (which, are significant and very real problems) I said, "Racism." I was made to feel silly, slight head nods, and a "Yes, racism is one issue for sure," from the leader. I was in Boulder, so of course, I was made to feel silly. But my feeling was then, and is now, that racism, as complicated by other intersectional identities, is the biggest problem facing our society. I would change that now, maybe to say that white privilege is the biggest issue facing our society, as it really isn't about hate, but about normalization of whiteness, and perpetuation of whiteness as an ideology. Yes, I would change it to that. My professor told me that she would be offended if I didn't ask her to be my advisor. I asked her immediately. She told me that she was invested in my work. I still sometimes question why? She had a student, an undergrad recently, who she said, reminded her of me, in a good way. She asked me to TA with her on a feminism and intersectionality class. She is a Chicana, queer, feminist. I do not know why she is invested in me, why she would want me to teach with her, work on a piece together. It is an honor. She is one of the only professors of color I have ever had. But I remember writing in my first class with her, reading performance work (the first day of class), reminded me of the work feminists of color have already been doing forever. I do not know women of color feminism better, or embodied in the same way as women of color, but my respect for it resonates in my body, in ways white feminism never has. I think that impressed her. One time, after confronting a weird situation in class, and leaving in tears, she followed me out, hugged me, and told me that what I said was important. That class was terrible, but it did confirm the notion that there is potential and possibility in the relationally we experience with those who are different than us. This does not erase our complicated pasts, and identities. We cannot ignore or deny those things. But we can work through them. We do work through them, when we are invested in making the world a little better. I told my student to write her story about the challenges of being an ally; about what prevents her from committing to being an ally. This isn't to recenter whiteness, but to push her to a place where she has to reflexively engage with herself. I told her to start writing. Just start writing, see what comes out. So, I came home, and this is what I needed to write because sometimes what we tell others, is really what we need ourselves.

I still believe that I am a writer, after this somewhat miserable break, after somewhat miserable comprehensive/qualifying exams. The worst part: after you are done, you kind of forget what it looks like to live life among the normal. It's like that move about the war in either Afghanistan or Iraq (I didn't watch the film, except the end-so I don't really remember the details)and at the end after all of the horrible things have happened that this man, this soldier caused, he cannot even pick out cereal. He just walks to the cereal isle and stands there because he cannot do anything. It's as though all the things that normal people just do, without even thinking, escape him. And he just stands there, not even really looking, just lost, just waiting. I still feel like I am not finished because really, in the end, I am not finished (This whole dissertation thing is just beginning); but, my body still isn't sure about whether or not I will be starting another question in a couple of days. Although we have discussed it, chatted about trying to reintegrate back into my life, my body has a hard time respecting that. Taking one books back to the library helped a little, playing copies amounts of virtual Scrabble, and real-life virtual video games, An entire eight season Office marathon, sexy time, dates with ma' boo and with friend, movies, all of it...my body is still unsure of what to do. Yesterday, I broke down because I was so tired and I just needed to lay in bed, not doing anything, not even watching T.V. I just had to be done. I wanted to go to yoga today and I could not force myself to get out of my chair. I will go, but not today. I want to do a cleanse, but not yet, not until I get some semblance of normalcy bad in my life. I know it is graduate school, I know this is what is supposed to happen. I know taking these exams doesn't make me a smarter/better person, but it does make me think in theory, and thinking in theory does not always equate to the thinking about the body. And that is the most challenging thing, what does the body do after you have trained it to sit and type for hours on end. How do you train your mind to stop thinking "that" way, that pretentious academic way. What now? The performance anxiety should be calmed, but it isn't, because my body isn't sure what to do now, so there is anxiety about that? I am not sure how to reinvigorate the relationships that are invariably changed because of my six-month hiatus from their lives. And how do I think about myself, as a femme, a queer scholar, an intersectional feminist, and anti-racist? Does completing this project change how I think of myself? How could it not? I am excited and nervous to proceed, not just with my project, but with my life. But I am gonna keep going, keep pushing towards reclamation of queer femme-ininity, and try to reforge new pathways through old relationships. I only hope they are as forgiving of myself, as I am trying to be.

Frustrating

The sheer amount of clothing stores/companies that appropriate Indigenous culture, customs, and values. While everything is a sort of cultural appropriation of something else, and nothing is really original, I think we can do better. Forever 21 and Urban Outfitters seem to be most guilty of this. This is almost worse (if ranking what is better or worse in this situation was useful) than turning Indigenous folks into mascots or costumes, because this is becoming engrained into the cultural imagination as o.k. Of course mascots and costumes are entwined in the perpetuation of stereotypes as normative and appropriate, but everyday-wares? It is not a tribute or honoring, it is identity/culture tourism and not everyone has the same freedom and mobility to move about these cultural identities and locations, as some more privileged folks do. Everything has embedded ideologies and messages, and we have to be self-reflexive shoppers. What does it mean to buy a knock-off of someone’s religious and spiritual garb and wear it to the bar. Seems disrespectful and tasteless to me; But hey, who am I?

TUMBLR

Make sure to check out my new TUMBLR: http://femmeinfinity.tumblr.com/ It is some of my originals, but a lot of reflags with comments. I will continue to post here, post my qualifying exams/dissertation proposal in a couple of days. Until then, see the very short things I am doing on my TUMBLR.

Policing femininity

I am getting really sick of all the "gate-keepery-ness" surrounding femme and femininity and even queer for that matter. This stems from a couple of things: 1.) The sort of butch-o-phobia that CAN come with claiming a femme identity, and 2.) People saying that femme is sort of ridiculous circa 2011. These are not compartmentalized, but are woven together, to sort of allow me fodder of frustration. This is also a rant. A RANT! An unorganized rant! As I once wrote (Not that I am a mystical genius, just someone who cares about the interconnection of academic and public activist projects.): If we are to express a desire for queer politics, should there be gate-keepers, who maintain a boundary of the queer canon, whilst others, should not have access to either identifying or being a part of the larger queer political movement? In doing this, who do we metaphorically put up a, “NO (insert marginalized groups) Allowed” sign for? And more importantly who experiences, the materialized e/affects of not being allowed to participate when bodies are dismissed? I am just saying, and this came from Tumblr today, that there was all this discussion around being radical, about being queer, and then someone had the audacity to ask, "What's femme about pajamas?" Fuck that, what isn't femme about pajamas? Just like the haters who say femmes don't need there own conference, because, hey, "What would we talk about?" I'm just saying if you would post that, you probably don't identify as femme (and all of the vast expressions emanating from that space) and should maybe ask it in a way that is indeed, asking a question; not with the underlying assumption that just because you don't know what we would talk about, doesn't mean we don't got some shit to throw down! But again, back to pajamas. My hetero friend asked me once, after writing a paper, if she could identify as a hetero-femme. At first, I was like yeah, definitely. Gender is fluid, sexuality is shifting. I took too many gender studies courses and now I am open to anything...o.k. no, but seriously, it didn't bother me. Then I kind of got annoyed, I was like NO! Femme is my thing and a thing that femme lesbians do. It is rooted in a specific historical and history/cultural context, and it's mine. All mine. So then I thought about that, because that is what I do. Think about shit. All day long. And then I type about shit. And I read two books, one that had an outro by Judith Butler that may have changed my life and the other by these two fabulous sassy femmes who talk about femme as, "A sustained gender identity...a contestatory lesbian identity, a radical feminist position, and a subversive queer model"(Harris and Crocker 1-10). Damn. I wish I had written this book. As for the JB, I do not worship the ground she walks on, but I do think she is effing smart, and despite people thinking she's a white supremacist, with no desire to talk about race, or class-I think she is the opposite. And she's a philosopher, all philosophers are dense, complex, and theoretical. But what I like about this outro essay she wrote are the questions she poses, "If sexuality always threatens to dissolve identity, then what is the final status of those categories by which we seek to understand our sexuality? Are the conceptual means by which we guard against the very sexuality that we seek to affirm? When we seek to judge what will be lesbian, and what will not, do we purport to know precisely what we cannot know? The rush to judgment forecloses the anxiety over the unknown. And yet, was it not the unknown, the not yet, and not ever fully known that drew us here, drew us together, and still, auspiciously, holds us apart?"(Butler in Munt 230). So is holding tightly to our identities, holding us apart? Of course we cannot give up our identities, that isn't even what JB would be saying, but she is asking if they hold us apart and if there are ways to be both invested in material identities and work to disrupt the gate-keeperyness around them. This is not a neo-liberal project, this is a very real concern. So I want to push back on people who say femme IS this, or it ISN'T that because really who knows? So, should my friend be able to identify as hetero-femme, in a post-structuralist utopian society-definitly; in the here and now, I guess if she is reflexive about what that identity means to me and people in my community, I am cool with it? I am looking for allies, in a world that renders me invisible (except for virtually.) To me, it insinuates that she is questioning heterosexual norms and recognizing that gender is performative and performance, and in the end that makes me feel like she is at least trying to negotiate femininity through a heterosexual lens that isn't heterosexist. And there is something to that, to opening up political spaces, for joining together. I don't expect this looks like some happy ending of a fairytale, alliances through and across differences are a lot of friggin work. Work that is very well worth it, work that should not be bound solely in visual identity characteristics; although always aware of the way the material is bound with the ideal/symbolic; but also bound up in the idea of not giving up on each other and being willing to say I am queer, no matter who ya do, in your bedroom, in the street, or for a camera. So in the end, basically, I am saying wear your damn pajamas and revel in femme. Because femme is not an identity bound up only with the visual, but like any other identity, it is something we process over, write about, dress up as, and do. I will never think that, "Femme is who I am." I will think, "Femme fits most comfortably for me at this moment, at this space in time, but it may change (although I hope it doesn't too drastically, because I love my bad-ass boots and skirts.)" And most of all, I don't think we need gender identity police telling me that pajamas aren't as sexy as what a femme should wear, cause' I do femme, and I am wearing long underwear and leg warmers and I feel pretty sexy. And to just talk briefly, I am sick of seeing all of the "Down with the butch-femme dichotomy" bullshit. To me that is just a perpetuation of mostly butch and trans phobia, because I feel like often accompanying these types of propaganda, are women, who claim femme identities, and say they aren't into butches. DO NOT GET ME WRONG! I do NOT think gender and sexuality have to be bound up in the same ways for every person; desire is so complex that it cannot be the same for everyone. But why does it have to be said in such a derogatory way? Like, oh, and that woman over there who prefers short little masculine bois, must be living in some archaic notion of heterosexual fantasy, because she is doing a take on butch-femme. Excuse me, let me bow down and kiss the feet of some folks OBVIOUSLY more enlightened. As I said, desire is complicated, but promoting yourself, while marginalizing another group, who obviously faces some serious friggin dangers everyday, is kind of annoying. Femmes face violence too, I am not tying to exhaust all of the options for ways of being and experiencing the world, but lets not put down a group for the sake of another. (I am probably perpetuating what I am saying not to perpetuate right now, but I am tired and it is getting late, and ma lady is almost home after being gone for a week, so excuse the fact that my brain is, uh, elsewheres.) I will support femmes who desire femmes, as long as they don't do that at the expense of butches, transguys, and genderfuckingqueers. Because like identity, our desires shift and grow over time and with experience and exposure, so you never know who you are going to meet, love, and let's face it, sleep with. Goddess bless. (P.S. I am annoyed at the autocorrect, and apologize for any of its stupidity.)

What the hell am I doing?

So I started this thing here: http://femmeinfinity.tumblr.com/

May migrate there eventually. The layout looks to be much more dynamic.

I have been prepping to take my comprehensive exams, which is a pretty hellacious process, when in PhD school. Of course, much of the reading and prep work was done during coursework, right? Right. Right? Well, the thing is, I have been at my University for FIVE years now, so things start to run together; while this is positive, it also means I just can't remember absolutely everything I need to know. I just can't. Perfection is unrealistic; and at this point I just want to pass. I will even revise if need be.

I have been prepping for this nasty one-month pits-o-hell to culminate, and the thing is, I keep having to do two things:

1.) Remember why I am doing this
2.) That I am excited to do my project, eventually.

I have had two nervous breakdowns, where I really thought I should quit graduate school, while I am ahead. I am not going to do this, but I think, as my lovely baldressed friend has said, "There are unreal expectations for people in academia," or something of that nature. And I have to remind myself, I will never have read everything. It just isn't possible. I also have to remind myself, to quit trying to out-queers A.) Other queers; and B.) Straight folks. It is too exhausting, and I am not that good at it. I realized the other night, while thinking about queer-femme identity, that I really shouldn't even be allowed to do the research based on my current appearance and attitude. Basically, I am exhausted...when people asked me what I was dressing up as for Halloween, I said, "I am putting on clothes that are not my pajamas." And I meant it. If I don't have to, I prefer to wear my sweatpants all day long. Not very femme of me. In fact, I put on bronzer today, and thought to myself, "Maybe this will make me look undead." Like I look dead, and thought makeup was somehow going to fix that.

But femme identity is so much more than visual presentation, or, "looking like what you are." But I feel like femme is rapped up in camp, in a performance of queering femininity. So what does it mean when I really can't imagine myself even leaving my apartment for a day (or three), let alone trying to femme it up when I leave! It's like, I just can't do it: putting on eyeliner seems like both a necessity; and an incredible burden; where if I don't wear it then another femme lesbian is going to notice and pull my funding...wait...I mean, take my femme card away.

But then, that is exactly what I want my project to focus on, that femme-ininity doesn't have to be a competitive thing, femme women shouldn't buy into the same ideologies that govern heterosexual female relations. It is more complex than this, I promise. But coming from a dead person, this is pretty good so far. Maybe my idea needs some bronzer too?

Kenneth Burke: Blog Two, aka: You should probably stop reading now

Burke 2: “But speech in its essence is not neutral. Far from aiming at suspended judgment, the spontaneous speech of a people is loaded with judgments. It is intensely moral — its names for objects contain the emotional overtones which give us the cues as to how we should act towards theses objects…to call a [wo]man a friend or an enemy is per se to suggest a program of action with regard to [her]/him”(177).


Since last class I have been trying to decide if I am a materialist or an idealist (or something else entirely?) To me, these two aforementioned terms are too polarizing, but because I didn’t even really know what they meant, I figured I would spend some time with them during this week’s reading. This is also in light of Foust’s asking me to think of what to do with multiple and competing perspectives, which these different lineages of philosophy have.

The reason I bring this up, in the context of this quotation, is that to name or claim a certain identification with one of these terms is not a morally neutral act; meaning, claiming a materialist identity means something beyond the saying of it. From a critical cultural and performance aspect, it makes a lot of sense to think that speech and the signs that compose speech making, would be situated in larger contexts. Judgments seem to arise from our orientations, which are facilitated and maintained through our various contexts. To Burke, it seems the greatest context is that of piety, not only religious, but the devotion to what is right and wrong. To Burke, it seems this orientation guides the majority of our speech patterns.

But it isn’t that words, signs, symbols, speech are only contextual—but they are laden with emotion and affects (or the pre-linguistic impulse.) Maybe these too are based on context as well, and apt to change. But naming something evokes certain emotional currents in and through the body, so that a name has a visceral response. I am sure that my dog does not know what a name is, or even what “her” name is. However, when I say the sign, “Indigo,” she looks up. Her ears perk up and she often comes over to me. She does not know I-N-D-I-G-O is her name, but she knows the feelings/responses she gets to certain stimuli (my words/touch etc.) Is my dog’s name moral? In some ways yes, because I was the one who renamed her, when the name “Pepper” seemed too banal, and almost platitudinous for her black and white spotted coat. While she is a dog, there is still an amount of power that I am able to wield over her. Something similar can happen for the names we give people, the names we categorize them as— brown, black, white, gay, straight, friend or enemy. We have visceral responses to names, they can evoke a myriad of thoughts and feelings, and by labeling something as different or other, we are able to separate it, orient ourselves away from it, or towards it, or left wondering what to do when orienting oneself one way works in one situation and not another.

So am I a materialist? No. Nor am I an idealist. Materialism seems too intertwined with Marxism, and idealism is too tied up with well, ideals and not enough with material realities. But material realities are only understood through the ideas that make them what they are. So what’s left? Post-structuralism, with an intervention by queer/feminist scholars of color? Seems fitting to me. As for competing ideas and having to make sense of them—I think most ideas work well in tandem with other ideas, so that we can combine materialism and idealism, and post-structuralism, and feminism to allow ourselves an even deeper understanding of something. I think this has to be the case with naming something and with language more generally. Having multiple approaches to understanding language is useful, and it isn’t as though there are completely infinite options, but enough to really dig through the depth that is language making/using. Would Burke agree? I don’t know, but he’s taking on a huge project, so I can’t imagine he would be totally closed off to the idea of multiple interpretations, orientations, and motives.