beginning our dissent

to write & bend light

[skye-writing]

you don’t have to make history

In its original context, famed bumper sticker “well-behaved women seldom make history” wasn’t actually an exaltation of revolutionary women. It was historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s way of recognizing the voiceless majority: the women who keep the world running while the rest of us burn it down.

Right now I’m seeing many calls to action in the United States, and make no mistake: I’m grateful for them. It’s high time we instated collective action on this kind of scale. I think everyone can do at least a little. But in the spirit of Ms. Ulrich (who is one of my favorite historians), I think there’s a missing piece we ought to remember.

The wheels of progress have always been greased by invisible labor. Behind every great man there’s a a great woman, they say - more like an entire host of them. For every leader, every hero, every revolutionary who muscles world leaders to the table, there’s someone who makes dinner. There’s someone who lends an ear and a comforting shoulder when the odds seem too high. Someone who pays the bills, watches the children, makes the appointments you’re too burned out to make. For every person changing the world, there’s at least one more quietly running it. 

It’s only within that infrastructure that we’re able to meaningfully organize at all. Even the best and brightest break down without food and sleep. Yet it’s so easy to ignore it precisely because it’s so constant. I take for granted the bus service that delivers me to and fro every day - the bus service that enabled me to attend last night’s protest. I take for granted the warm cafe my friends holed up in to decompress afterward. We’re battling uphill these days, but we forget just how much steeper the hill could be.

So here’s to the well-behaved women, and men. Here’s to the ones who care for us as humans so we can care for the world as activists. We might not remember their names, but we can unearth their invisible work.

[wit-witch]

fuck this shit.

fuck being “well behaved”

fuck praising women who conform to patriarchy

fuck this shit! FUCK THIS SHIT

well behaved women don’t make history, women should misbehave, women should rebel, women should stop being feminine and compliant and obedient towards men.

fuck the idea of praising this bullshit.

fuck this pro-patriarchy crap

[omnivore-odyssey]

I actually don’t care what the original purpose of the quote was, because the message it’s being used for now is much more effective. We don’t need an underclass of women preforming domestic labor for the rest of us to be revolutionaries; what we need is cooperation so that domestic labor can be shared fairly, and then everyone can be invested in revolution, including those “well-behaved women”

[skye-writing]

Whether or not we need it, it exists. The least we can do is see that those who have lived and died within it get recognized. And we definitely don’t need to rag on them for not doing enough, which I see a lot of out in the world.

[burinazar]

holy shit those responses :/ way to devalue the lives of millions of strong, talented, amazing, IMPORTANT women throughout history whose sin was to not conform to our modern standards of outspoken liberalism

[skye-writing]

you don’t have to make history

In its original context, famed bumper sticker “well-behaved women seldom make history” wasn’t actually an exaltation of revolutionary women. It was historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s way of recognizing the voiceless majority: the women who keep the world running while the rest of us burn it down.

Right now I’m seeing many calls to action in the United States, and make no mistake: I’m grateful for them. It’s high time we instated collective action on this kind of scale. I think everyone can do at least a little. But in the spirit of Ms. Ulrich (who is one of my favorite historians), I think there’s a missing piece we ought to remember.

The wheels of progress have always been greased by invisible labor. Behind every great man there’s a a great woman, they say - more like an entire host of them. For every leader, every hero, every revolutionary who muscles world leaders to the table, there’s someone who makes dinner. There’s someone who lends an ear and a comforting shoulder when the odds seem too high. Someone who pays the bills, watches the children, makes the appointments you’re too burned out to make. For every person changing the world, there’s at least one more quietly running it. 

It’s only within that infrastructure that we’re able to meaningfully organize at all. Even the best and brightest break down without food and sleep. Yet it’s so easy to ignore it precisely because it’s so constant. I take for granted the bus service that delivers me to and fro every day - the bus service that enabled me to attend last night’s protest. I take for granted the warm cafe my friends holed up in to decompress afterward. We’re battling uphill these days, but we forget just how much steeper the hill could be.

So here’s to the well-behaved women, and men. Here’s to the ones who care for us as humans so we can care for the world as activists. We might not remember their names, but we can unearth their invisible work.

[wit-witch]

fuck this shit.

fuck being “well behaved”

fuck praising women who conform to patriarchy

fuck this shit! FUCK THIS SHIT

well behaved women don’t make history, women should misbehave, women should rebel, women should stop being feminine and compliant and obedient towards men.

fuck the idea of praising this bullshit.

fuck this pro-patriarchy crap

[omnivore-odyssey]

I actually don’t care what the original purpose of the quote was, because the message it’s being used for now is much more effective. We don’t need an underclass of women preforming domestic labor for the rest of us to be revolutionaries; what we need is cooperation so that domestic labor can be shared fairly, and then everyone can be invested in revolution, including those “well-behaved women”

[skye-writing]

Whether or not we need it, it exists. The least we can do is see that those who have lived and died within it get recognized. And we definitely don't need to rag on them for not doing enough, which I see a lot of out in the world.

[skye-writing]

you don’t have to make history

In its original context, famed bumper sticker “well-behaved women seldom make history” wasn’t actually an exaltation of revolutionary women. It was historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s way of recognizing the voiceless majority: the women who keep the world running while the rest of us burn it down.

Right now I’m seeing many calls to action in the United States, and make no mistake: I’m grateful for them. It’s high time we instated collective action on this kind of scale. I think everyone can do at least a little. But in the spirit of Ms. Ulrich (who is one of my favorite historians), I think there’s a missing piece we ought to remember.

The wheels of progress have always been greased by invisible labor. Behind every great man there’s a a great woman, they say - more like an entire host of them. For every leader, every hero, every revolutionary who muscles world leaders to the table, there’s someone who makes dinner. There’s someone who lends an ear and a comforting shoulder when the odds seem too high. Someone who pays the bills, watches the children, makes the appointments you’re too burned out to make. For every person changing the world, there’s at least one more quietly running it. 

It’s only within that infrastructure that we’re able to meaningfully organize at all. Even the best and brightest break down without food and sleep. Yet it’s so easy to ignore it precisely because it’s so constant. I take for granted the bus service that delivers me to and fro every day - the bus service that enabled me to attend last night’s protest. I take for granted the warm cafe my friends holed up in to decompress afterward. We’re battling uphill these days, but we forget just how much steeper the hill could be.

So here’s to the well-behaved women, and men. Here’s to the ones who care for us as humans so we can care for the world as activists. We might not remember their names, but we can unearth their invisible work.

[wit-witch]

fuck this shit.

fuck being “well behaved”

fuck praising women who conform to patriarchy

fuck this shit! FUCK THIS SHIT

well behaved women don’t make history, women should misbehave, women should rebel, women should stop being feminine and compliant and obedient towards men.

fuck the idea of praising this bullshit.

fuck this pro-patriarchy crap

[skye-writing]

Ulrich’s use of “well-behaved” needs to be taken in historical context. The women she’s referring to are women whose lives were unfairly circumscribed but who lived as well as they could within those limits. You can, and should, acknowledge said unfairness, but interpreting this post as “praising women who conform to patriarchy” is veering pretty close to victim-blaming.

Ulrich’s specialty as a historian is colonial women in early New England, so let’s go with that. Say you have a woman in rural Massachusetts who was legally her husband’s subordinate. She lived and died a housewife and did nothing of historical note. Suppose, though, that she was also a wonderful cook, a capable farmer, a kindly neighbor, and an inspiration to her children and grandchildren. Suppose she lived to a ripe old age, and her funeral was packed with people who loved and respected her. Suppose she didn't have a career in the modern sense, but she worked harder than most anyone in 2017 can imagine to keep herself and her family alive. Suppose her descendants still speak fondly of Great-Granny Mildred. Maybe they even use her recipes.

Is this woman’s life meaningless? Is she not worth praising because she didn’t dismantle patriarchy all by herself? Is she insufficiently respectable because her areas of expertise happened to be “women’s work”? Because regarding the latter - running a home and raising a family already get precious little respect. They’re unpaid and undervalued, and they undergird the whole damn world. It is not at all feminist, or even remotely kind, to dismiss the sheer amount of effort that takes because the women doing it aren’t interesting enough.

It’s worth at least saying thank you, that’s for damn sure.

[skye-writing]

you don’t have to make history

In its original context, famed bumper sticker “well-behaved women seldom make history” wasn’t actually an exaltation of revolutionary women. It was historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s way of recognizing the voiceless majority: the women who keep the world running while the rest of us burn it down.

Right now I’m seeing many calls to action in the United States, and make no mistake: I’m grateful for them. It’s high time we instated collective action on this kind of scale. I think everyone can do at least a little. But in the spirit of Ms. Ulrich (who is one of my favorite historians), I think there’s a missing piece we ought to remember.

The wheels of progress have always been greased by invisible labor. Behind every great man there’s a a great woman, they say - more like an entire host of them. For every leader, every hero, every revolutionary who muscles world leaders to the table, there’s someone who makes dinner. There’s someone who lends an ear and a comforting shoulder when the odds seem too high. Someone who pays the bills, watches the children, makes the appointments you’re too burned out to make. For every person changing the world, there’s at least one more quietly running it. 

It’s only within that infrastructure that we’re able to meaningfully organize at all. Even the best and brightest break down without food and sleep. Yet it’s so easy to ignore it precisely because it’s so constant. I take for granted the bus service that delivers me to and fro every day - the bus service that enabled me to attend last night’s protest. I take for granted the warm cafe my friends holed up in to decompress afterward. We’re battling uphill these days, but we forget just how much steeper the hill could be.

So here’s to the well-behaved women, and men. Here’s to the ones who care for us as humans so we can care for the world as activists. We might not remember their names, but we can unearth their invisible work.

[skye-writing]

fashion as resistance: call for interviewees

I am currently working on an article for [women’s website*] about fashion as resistance. I’m leading with the “resistance hats” worn by women in Nazi-occupied France (check out fashion historian April Calahan’s podcast on that here), and I would like to add a modern angle as well. I’m looking for women who employ fashion as visible resistance to oppressive governments, especially…

religious women, hijabis in particular

ethnic minorities

women with something tangible to lose from resistance, i.e. being fired or disowned

Those are just a few of many perspectives, though, and I’m sure I’m missing some. If you have anything at all to say on this topic, please message me! I’m hoping to get all interview subjects lined up by the end of this week, Feb. 4th. Unfortunately, I cannot pay you, but I will try my hardest to do your study justice.

Thank you!

*will disclose via PM - contractual obligations, yadda yadda

[big-block-of-cheese-day]

“[I]if you ask an artist what’s most important in a time of disaster, their answer will almost always be “more art.” This is the Don Draper rule: What people most want to hear is that whatever they’re doing right now is okay.“

- Matthew Dessem, Slate.

[funereal-disease]

I’m not sure whether this is intended to be a critique of the original statement or just some added context for it. If it’s a critique, then I disagree: I think that fighting to make life worth living is just as important as fighting to save people’s lives. That means art, that means adventure, that means joy. It’s not about apathy; it’s about not letting those things be stolen.

[big-block-of-cheese-day]

It’s a bit of both. Clearly, fashion designers are not going to be drafting injunctions, nor would that be a good use of their time. But I’ve seen so much “I’m going to keep doing the same things, but if I toss in a vagina reference or put a hijab on it, now it’s - ta-dah! - Resistance™” that anything of this sort engenders in me some skepticism.

(That’s not to say that your project isn’t useful or interesting. It’s worth waiting to see what you’re going to do before judging it.)

Even when people go out of their comfort zone to do something like protest in the streets, the main thing they get out of it is the sense of satisfaction that they’re doing something, anything. I did it and that’s how I felt! Engaging in an action that makes you feel less powerless while not actually wielding power seems to me to be … circular.

Maybe it’s not my place to say that some hijabi fashion show will never move the needle with the red state voter who buys bulk socks at Costco. Maybe, as we don’t have a vote of no confidence mechanism and impeachment only gives us a different face to the same horrible policies, morale-boosting is all we have.

But it’s worth asking what the goal is and working backward to see how this gets us there.

[skye-writing]

I got the idea for this project from reading about “resistance hats” that women wore in Nazi-occupied Paris. From this article:

French women … for almost six years remained as fashion-conscious as they could, in spite of shortages of fabrics and materials, especially leather, as a way of retaining pride in their own identity and of refusing to be humiliated by their conquerors.

Emphasis mine. My focus isn’t really on actively changing policy through aesthetics (I’m skeptical of many such efforts as well) but on using them to maintain a sense of dignity. Existing unapologetically in a society bent on your destruction may not be legislative change, but it’s a victory all its own. It’s announcing that you will celebrate your culture no matter the cost.

Hats, historically speaking, mean a lot to French women. Refusing to give them up is a nice little fuck-off to people trying to conquer you. I see parallels to Muslim women refusing to give up their hijabs, to black women bent on keeping their natural hair. It’s not that I think it can actually change policy. But I don’t think changing policy is the only important form of activism, either. Doing your part to preserve a culture that people in power want destroyed is important too.

[big-block-of-cheese-day]

I’m asking this with all seriousness: where does the Don Draper rule end and the Resistance begin?

[skye-writing]

I don’t think it’s useful to consider the two distinct, actually. I don’t think there’s any specific moment where Resistance begins, because resistance, like oppression itself, isn’t discrete. One is baked into daily life, and therefore so should the other be. It’s like - the best way I can put it is that eating nutritiously isn’t just about one meal. It’s about your diet as a whole.

I think considering life and activism 100% separate contributes to a lot of activist burnout, actually. Under that dichotomy, if you’re doing activism, you’re necessarily putting your life on hold, and that wears on people. I think framing it as a spectrum, not a series of discrete acts, is more helpful.

[big-block-of-cheese-day]

I agree that we can’t take the maximalist position that every moment not spent fighting is a moment wasted. I also see how daily choices can aggregate to something important, though that’s probably vastly overstated.

Yet I see over and over again a lot of slacktivism, virtue-signaling and just plain business as usual valorized as actually useful in achieving a political goal. Before the election, it was the “[thing I do anyway] is a radical act” nonsense that people patted themselves on the back for. It was self-serving then and it’s self-serving now.

Maybe I’m just projecting because, post-march, I’m paralyzed by indecision regarding what to do next. It felt good to be surrounded by like-minded people, but it also felt like all the signs were aimed at me, a person who nobody there needs to persuade. Seventy flavors of vagina pun do not a persuasive movement make.

My representatives are true-blue from Community Board through both Senators. I see how scheduled, permitted protest is mostly just self-validating. I did the same in 2003 against the Iraq War and that was utterly pointless and probably validated negative opinions of the anti-war set. Disruptive actions just drive people on the margins into the arms of politicians who claim to be able to restore order and normalcy. I’d reach out to Trump voters, but I don’t know any of them outside of a few work contacts I talk to about once every other month. I have no money to donate.

So continuing to do my thing, but adding a twist and calling it Resistance, has appeal. I could also switch from Uber to Lyft, or go to Starbucks more (at the expense of my independent, Muslim-owned local coffee shop) or any other number of things listed on a half-dozen slapdash google docs floating around. But I just can’t bring myself to think it will do anything but enhance my sense of self-satisfaction. The solution would be to elevate self-satisfaction to a noble goal, but the cognitive dissonance would be just too much.

[skye-writing]

I think that depends on what your goal is. I think small actions are valuable and should be commended as small actions, not condemned for failing at being bigger ones. There is indeed often a sense of mismatch - people bragging that their vagina puns “take down the patriarchy” or other such eye-rolling nonsense. With “take down the patriarchy” as a goal, sign-waving falls pitifully short. But reframing that goal as “I will make my fellow activists’ day a little brighter and show them we’re all in this together” reintroduces proportionality. It’s not failing at being a larger action; it’s succeeding at being exactly what it is.

And I think that’s really important, because while I do often see the sort of self-aggrandizing slacktivism you’re complaining about, I also see people settle into inaction because they don’t think they can do anything big enough. I think breaking things down into achievable chunks not only disrupts that cycle of apathy and anxiety, it makes it easier to see the next step. Everyone starts somewhere.

I don’t want to claim that framing fashion as resistance is going to dismantle the Cabinet or anything. But I think that for the specific goal I’m setting out to meet - bringing dignity to oppressed people’s lives - it’s a good effort.

Addendum: I also think that business as usual can, actually, be an act of resistance. In its original context, the famed bumper sticker "well-behaved women rarely make history" isn't in praise of revolutionary women but rather in recognition of their ordinary counterparts. Of the women, and men, who quietly keep the world running while history gets made. There's a huge amount of invisible labor underlying every society, and especially any concerted social movement. Without it, the splashy stuff could never exist.

[skye-writing]

fashion as resistance: call for interviewees

I am currently working on an article for [women’s website*] about fashion as resistance. I’m leading with the “resistance hats” worn by women in Nazi-occupied France (check out fashion historian April Calahan’s podcast on that here), and I would like to add a modern angle as well. I’m looking for women who employ fashion as visible resistance to oppressive governments, especially…

religious women, hijabis in particular

ethnic minorities

women with something tangible to lose from resistance, i.e. being fired or disowned

Those are just a few of many perspectives, though, and I’m sure I’m missing some. If you have anything at all to say on this topic, please message me! I’m hoping to get all interview subjects lined up by the end of this week, Feb. 4th. Unfortunately, I cannot pay you, but I will try my hardest to do your study justice.

Thank you!

*will disclose via PM - contractual obligations, yadda yadda

[big-block-of-cheese-day]

“[I]if you ask an artist what’s most important in a time of disaster, their answer will almost always be “more art.” This is the Don Draper rule: What people most want to hear is that whatever they’re doing right now is okay.“

- Matthew Dessem, Slate.

[funereal-disease]

I’m not sure whether this is intended to be a critique of the original statement or just some added context for it. If it’s a critique, then I disagree: I think that fighting to make life worth living is just as important as fighting to save people’s lives. That means art, that means adventure, that means joy. It’s not about apathy; it’s about not letting those things be stolen.

[big-block-of-cheese-day]

It’s a bit of both. Clearly, fashion designers are not going to be drafting injunctions, nor would that be a good use of their time. But I’ve seen so much “I’m going to keep doing the same things, but if I toss in a vagina reference or put a hijab on it, now it’s - ta-dah! - Resistance™” that anything of this sort engenders in me some skepticism.

(That’s not to say that your project isn’t useful or interesting. It’s worth waiting to see what you’re going to do before judging it.)

Even when people go out of their comfort zone to do something like protest in the streets, the main thing they get out of it is the sense of satisfaction that they’re doing something, anything. I did it and that’s how I felt! Engaging in an action that makes you feel less powerless while not actually wielding power seems to me to be … circular.

Maybe it’s not my place to say that some hijabi fashion show will never move the needle with the red state voter who buys bulk socks at Costco. Maybe, as we don’t have a vote of no confidence mechanism and impeachment only gives us a different face to the same horrible policies, morale-boosting is all we have.

But it’s worth asking what the goal is and working backward to see how this gets us there.

[skye-writing]

I got the idea for this project from reading about “resistance hats” that women wore in Nazi-occupied Paris. From this article:

French women … for almost six years remained as fashion-conscious as they could, in spite of shortages of fabrics and materials, especially leather, as a way of retaining pride in their own identity and of refusing to be humiliated by their conquerors.

Emphasis mine. My focus isn’t really on actively changing policy through aesthetics (I’m skeptical of many such efforts as well) but on using them to maintain a sense of dignity. Existing unapologetically in a society bent on your destruction may not be legislative change, but it’s a victory all its own. It’s announcing that you will celebrate your culture no matter the cost.

Hats, historically speaking, mean a lot to French women. Refusing to give them up is a nice little fuck-off to people trying to conquer you. I see parallels to Muslim women refusing to give up their hijabs, to black women bent on keeping their natural hair. It’s not that I think it can actually change policy. But I don’t think changing policy is the only important form of activism, either. Doing your part to preserve a culture that people in power want destroyed is important too.

[big-block-of-cheese-day]

I’m asking this with all seriousness: where does the Don Draper rule end and the Resistance begin?

[skye-writing]

I don’t think it’s useful to consider the two distinct, actually. I don’t think there’s any specific moment where Resistance begins, because resistance, like oppression itself, isn’t discrete. One is baked into daily life, and therefore so should the other be. It’s like - the best way I can put it is that eating nutritiously isn’t just about one meal. It’s about your diet as a whole.

I think considering life and activism 100% separate contributes to a lot of activist burnout, actually. Under that dichotomy, if you’re doing activism, you’re necessarily putting your life on hold, and that wears on people. I think framing it as a spectrum, not a series of discrete acts, is more helpful.

[skye-writing]

fashion as resistance: call for interviewees

I am currently working on an article for [women’s website*] about fashion as resistance. I’m leading with the “resistance hats” worn by women in Nazi-occupied France (check out fashion historian April Calahan’s podcast on that here), and I would like to add a modern angle as well. I’m looking for women who employ fashion as visible resistance to oppressive governments, especially…

religious women, hijabis in particular

ethnic minorities

women with something tangible to lose from resistance, i.e. being fired or disowned

Those are just a few of many perspectives, though, and I’m sure I’m missing some. If you have anything at all to say on this topic, please message me! I’m hoping to get all interview subjects lined up by the end of this week, Feb. 4th. Unfortunately, I cannot pay you, but I will try my hardest to do your study justice.

Thank you!

*will disclose via PM - contractual obligations, yadda yadda

[big-block-of-cheese-day]

“[I]if you ask an artist what’s most important in a time of disaster, their answer will almost always be “more art.” This is the Don Draper rule: What people most want to hear is that whatever they’re doing right now is okay.“

- Matthew Dessem, Slate.

[funereal-disease]

I’m not sure whether this is intended to be a critique of the original statement or just some added context for it. If it’s a critique, then I disagree: I think that fighting to make life worth living is just as important as fighting to save people’s lives. That means art, that means adventure, that means joy. It’s not about apathy; it’s about not letting those things be stolen.

[big-block-of-cheese-day]

It’s a bit of both. Clearly, fashion designers are not going to be drafting injunctions, nor would that be a good use of their time. But I’ve seen so much “I’m going to keep doing the same things, but if I toss in a vagina reference or put a hijab on it, now it’s - ta-dah! - Resistance™” that anything of this sort engenders in me some skepticism.

(That’s not to say that your project isn’t useful or interesting. It’s worth waiting to see what you’re going to do before judging it.)

Even when people go out of their comfort zone to do something like protest in the streets, the main thing they get out of it is the sense of satisfaction that they’re doing something, anything. I did it and that’s how I felt! Engaging in an action that makes you feel less powerless while not actually wielding power seems to me to be … circular.

Maybe it’s not my place to say that some hijabi fashion show will never move the needle with the red state voter who buys bulk socks at Costco. Maybe, as we don’t have a vote of no confidence mechanism and impeachment only gives us a different face to the same horrible policies, morale-boosting is all we have.

But it’s worth asking what the goal is and working backward to see how this gets us there.

[skye-writing]

I got the idea for this project from reading about “resistance hats” that women wore in Nazi-occupied Paris. From this article:

French women ... for almost six years remained as fashion-conscious as they could, in spite of shortages of fabrics and materials, especially leather, as a way of retaining pride in their own identity and of refusing to be humiliated by their conquerors.

Emphasis mine. My focus isn’t really on actively changing policy through aesthetics (I’m skeptical of many such efforts as well) but on using them to maintain a sense of dignity. Existing unapologetically in a society bent on your destruction may not be legislative change, but it’s a victory all its own. It’s announcing that you will celebrate your culture no matter the cost.

Hats, historically speaking, mean a lot to French women. Refusing to give them up is a nice little fuck-off to people trying to conquer you. I see parallels to Muslim women refusing to give up their hijabs, to black women bent on keeping their natural hair. It’s not that I think it can actually change policy. But I don’t think changing policy is the only important form of activism, either. Doing your part to preserve a culture that people in power want destroyed is important too.

[skye-writing]

fashion as resistance: call for interviewees

I am currently working on an article for [women’s website*] about fashion as resistance. I’m leading with the “resistance hats” worn by women in Nazi-occupied France (check out fashion historian April Calahan’s podcast on that here), and I would like to add a modern angle as well. I’m looking for women who employ fashion as visible resistance to oppressive governments, especially...

religious women, hijabis in particular

ethnic minorities

women with something tangible to lose from resistance, i.e. being fired or disowned

Those are just a few of many perspectives, though, and I’m sure I’m missing some. If you have anything at all to say on this topic, please message me! I’m hoping to get all interview subjects lined up by the end of this week, Feb. 4th. Unfortunately, I cannot pay you, but I will try my hardest to do your story justice.

Thank you!

*will disclose via PM - contractual obligations, yadda yadda

[skye-writing]

Emma Cline's 'The Girls' Proves The Best Cult Coverage Holds Up A Mirror To Real Life

Cults occupy a strange, liminal corner of our collective imagination, shacking up with incense, robes, and droning hymns. They’re both a punchline ("drinking the Kool-Aid") and a punishing threat. They’re a bright, screaming extreme against which all

Baby’s first litcrit is live today! Check out my analysis of cults in literature over at Bustle.com.

[mysteryofthings]

I find this piece, especially the first half, to be very well-written but also offensive to cult-survivors. It is true that cults exist along a spectrum–some socially acceptable religions are just as damaging and controlling as groups labeled cults. But it by no means mitigates cult’s harmfulness. I am not a fan of more modern cult apologists, including some of those quoted here.

I have no idea where Laurence Iannaccone is getting her information when she says, “We now know that nearly all the anti-cult claims were overblown, mistaken, or outright lies. Americans no longer obsess about Scientology, Transcendental Meditation, or the Children of God.” Scientology, TM, and the Children of God CAN BE dangerous. Perhaps she is referring to the fear of imaginary cults?

Martha Marcy May Marlene and The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt are not exaggerated scenarios (except to create humor, in the latter’s case–by that standard, many moments and aspects are exaggerated); they have actually happened to real people. We should not discount cult-survivors’ experiences.

I think one of my problems is that cults don’t just exist in “liminal corner of our collective imagination,” they exist in real life. You are definitely right in the paragraph beginning, “This isn’t to say that alternative movements don’t sow dysfunction and leave lasting wounds. It’s to say that mainstream ones do too.” It’s just that the earlier part of the review seems to downplay cults rather than point out how sympathetic many cult members actually are.

And, in spite of how well cult converts (are these converts or survivors? because those are two different things) seem to test, many cult survivors, even from seemingly “benign” cults, struggle with finding jobs, a home, and friends. Kimmy Schmidt and Martha more closely resemble cult-survivors than ones who seamlessly transition into society.

[captainino]

… is she saying child abuse in THE CHILDREN OF GOD was overblown/mistaken/outright lies?? Because there’s photographic evidence (and lots of detailed description) … made by the official church, tons of first hand accounts from abuse victims, and murder-suicide of by an abuse victim/child of the founder (he killed one of his abusers)!!

edit: Oh yikes… this is horrible…

“The public, the media, many psychologists, and the courts largely accepted the claim that cults could ‘brainwash’ their members, thereby rendering them incapable of rational choice,including the choice to leave.” (yeah, because they do brainwash members…)

“Though cults, and new religious movements more broadly, no longer hold the terrifying sway they did a generation ago, our fictional treatments of them remain rooted in hyperbole. 2012’s Martha Marcy May Marlene stars Elizabeth Olsen as Martha, struggling with PSTD after her escape from a Jonestownian commune.” (How is that hyperbole?? Any psychologist with experience in cults will tell you PTSD is a normal outcome… as will former cult members.. take me for example!! Also, it wasn’t “Jonestownian” - describing it as such IS hyperbole, the movie was not!!).

of course bustle is like one step up from jezebel in their victim blaming/abuse denying

[skye-writing]

Hi, OP here. Also a cult survivor, though I’d hoped I wouldn’t have to disclose that. I will try to be charitable in my response, but I confess I am very frustrated at the way this article has been misinterpreted. 

My point is not that more prototypical cult experiences (Children of God, Scientology, etc.) do not exist. My point is that as cults go, they are comparatively rare. By holding them up as the central example of what cults are, we risk eclipsing more subtle forms of trauma that exist all around us. As I literally say halfway through the piece: 

This isn’t to say that alternative movements don’t sow dysfunction and leave lasting wounds. It’s to say that mainstream ones do too. This is what anti-cult rhetoric so consistently forgets: wherever there is hierarchy, wherever there is community, there will of course be struggle. By narrowing our sense of outrage to fringe societies, we diminish the abuses all around us.

Of children who are abducted every year, only a very small fraction are taken by strangers. The vast majority are abducted by family members. And yet our main cultural image of “abducted child” is “someone who’s duct-taped and forced into a van”. It’s not that such abductions never happen. They do! But by focusing on them to the exclusion of more mundane tragedies, we falsely imply that the one is much more common than the other. And that prevents us from seeing what’s going on right under our noses. 

Which is the whole point of my article: it’s not just those Other people who can be abusive. It’s not just Other people who join cults. It can be anyone, because these abuses exist on a spectrum. When I say there’s no fundamental difference between people who’ve joined cults and people who haven’t, I’m saying that since it can be anyone, we ought to stop Othering them. As I say in the second-to-last paragraph: 

Fact is, there’s no hard-and-fast line between a healthy community and a toxic one. There’s no yellow CAUTION tape, no Greek chorus screaming to abort. The WBC can be both a vitriolic hate group and the home of everyone Lauren Drain has ever loved. Until we get more comfortable with ambiguity, we can’t fully understand or empathize with her story.

Or, to use an example from the article itself: 

In recent years, we’ve come to understand that sexual assault is so much more than a knife-brandishing stranger in the bushes. It’s both more common and less splashy than most media implies; as such, it’s increasingly difficult to spin it into an Other. Real pain is more insidious and more tenacious than that. Convincing the public that many victims know and even love their rapists is a tall order, but we’re getting there.

Is pointing out that most rapists are known to their victims apologetics in any way? No! Of course not! It’s pointing out the nuances of the problem. It’s saying that these aren’t discrete evils but rather part of the human condition, and unless we learn to understand that this stuff can happen to anyone, we can’t fight it as well as we ought. 

[captainino]

Well I’m sorry you felt you had to reveal something you didn’t want to, and I don’t think you should do anything you don’t want to do, but I think it’s a good idea that you did, personally, because without that background, your article sounds very unempathetic instead of just flawed. I just completely disagree that because there is from time to time a focus on cults that anyone believes it happens more than abuse elsewhere (is that what you’re saying? A little unclear). I also disagree that there aren’t sometimes clear warning signs between a cult/high demand group and a mainstream religion or some other type of group. Yeah, both share similar dangers, but from my own personal example, there is a difference between a religion that will convince someone that watching a medicine commercial is more likely to kill them than denying all medical treatment (and then tons of members die as a result) and your typical Methodist church, no matter how much that could also fuck one up. And that cult is one that is more accepted by society! And when you say that all the people she loved were there, you just sound like my dismissive mother (still totally entrenched in the cult) that brings up all the friends I made there whenever I make any criticism, even about things like sexual abuse. Yeah, I know I made great friends there because we overcame a lot of shit together and we “got” each other with our abnormal view of reality… but so fucking what?? It is totally irrelevant to the fact that there are serious dangers in cults.

Also, studying and understanding how cults work can actually help understand similar phenomenon in larger society. For example, my therapist, who’s focus is cults, is able to analyze how the trump movement has similar characteristics, even though it’s obviously not a cult strictly speaking. There’s just no problem in my mind focusing on the negative aspects of cults, along with the mundane or moments of happiness. And if you don’t like how it’s received, then maybe don’t use quotes that imply brainwashing doesn’t happen, because you’re right, anyone can join a cult because anyone can be brainwashed. Maybe don’t refer to a realistic depiction of ptsd as “hyperbole” (in case you’re not sure what that means, it means “exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally”).

[skye-writing]

My point is less “focus on the positive” and more “respect ambiguity”. It’s terrible that your mother pushes you to focus on your friends when you’re trying to discuss trauma, and that’s not at all what I’m trying to do. What I want to do is allow cult survivors to discuss the entirety of the experience, and it’s a lot harder to do that when we focus only on the most recognizable aspects. Lauren Drain, for instance, wants to talk about her loved ones and her positive experiences within the WBC, even while denouncing it overall. It’s the reviewers who are castigating her for not focusing solely on the bad, which is completely unproductive (not to mention that silencing victims is cruel). 

I agree that studying the mechanisms of cults is helpful in analyzing similar phenomena. That’s what I had meant to get across in my article. You aptly note that Trumpism in particular shares many characteristics of cults. But it’s very difficult to talk about that with people who are stuck on the idea that all cultists live in the woods and summon demons, which is why I think it’s so important to broaden the perception of what a cult entails. It can be subtle. It can be insidious. That’s what I liked so much about Emma Cline’s novel: it shows the mechanism at work, even if things look totally normal on the outside. That’s very powerful and necessary, I think. 

Not to get too deep into it, but the cult I was in was very much like the one Cline writes about. Outwardly, there wasn’t anything wrong, but I was dying inside. It didn’t look much different from your average kinda-cringey New Age group. But it was just as damaging as the more dramatic versions we see in most cult media, and I’m really glad more diverse portrayals are popping up. It’s how I imagine people who were raped by their significant other might feel when it’s acknowledged that rapists aren’t just knife-wielding strangers in the bushes. I didn’t mean that people think cults are more common than other types of abuse - I meant that subtle abuse, of whatever type, is more common than its more obvious equivalent. That’s what I meant by using the word “hyperbole” as well - it’s not hyperbole to show that such groups exist, but it is hyperbole to speak as though they’re necessarily the defining example. 

I’ve already written a novel, so just one more point and then I’ll let you go - my objection to the word “brainwashing” isn’t that the effects aren’t real (I know they are, intimately) but that the word itself draws an artificial boundary. Every single person has some bizarre and unsubstantiated beliefs. It’s a spectrum, like I said. When people writing about cults use the word “brainwashed” uncritically, they’re implicitly letting society at large off the hook. It sets up a dichotomy between “poor gullible people who join cults” and “everyone else”. But it can happen to anyone, and I really hope allowing more ambiguity in how we talk about cults can get people to see their victims as less of an Other. 

Anyway, sorry for the novel. Have a great day! It’s always nice to talk with a fellow survivor. 

[skye-writing]

Emma Cline's 'The Girls' Proves The Best Cult Coverage Holds Up A Mirror To Real Life

Cults occupy a strange, liminal corner of our collective imagination, shacking up with incense, robes, and droning hymns. They’re both a punchline ("drinking the Kool-Aid") and a punishing threat. They’re a bright, screaming extreme against which all

Baby’s first litcrit is live today! Check out my analysis of cults in literature over at Bustle.com.

[mysteryofthings]

I find this piece, especially the first half, to be very well-written but also offensive to cult-survivors. It is true that cults exist along a spectrum–some socially acceptable religions are just as damaging and controlling as groups labeled cults. But it by no means mitigates cult’s harmfulness. I am not a fan of more modern cult apologists, including some of those quoted here.

I have no idea where Laurence Iannaccone is getting her information when she says, “We now know that nearly all the anti-cult claims were overblown, mistaken, or outright lies. Americans no longer obsess about Scientology, Transcendental Meditation, or the Children of God.” Scientology, TM, and the Children of God CAN BE dangerous. Perhaps she is referring to the fear of imaginary cults?

Martha Marcy May Marlene and The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt are not exaggerated scenarios (except to create humor, in the latter’s case–by that standard, many moments and aspects are exaggerated); they have actually happened to real people. We should not discount cult-survivors’ experiences.

I think one of my problems is that cults don’t just exist in “liminal corner of our collective imagination,” they exist in real life. You are definitely right in the paragraph beginning, “This isn’t to say that alternative movements don’t sow dysfunction and leave lasting wounds. It’s to say that mainstream ones do too.” It’s just that the earlier part of the review seems to downplay cults rather than point out how sympathetic many cult members actually are.

And, in spite of how well cult converts (are these converts or survivors? because those are two different things) seem to test, many cult survivors, even from seemingly “benign” cults, struggle with finding jobs, a home, and friends. Kimmy Schmidt and Martha more closely resemble cult-survivors than ones who seamlessly transition into society.

[captainino]

… is she saying child abuse in THE CHILDREN OF GOD was overblown/mistaken/outright lies?? Because there’s photographic evidence (and lots of detailed description) … made by the official church, tons of first hand accounts from abuse victims, and murder-suicide of by an abuse victim/child of the founder (he killed one of his abusers)!!

edit: Oh yikes… this is horrible…

“The public, the media, many psychologists, and the courts largely accepted the claim that cults could ‘brainwash’ their members, thereby rendering them incapable of rational choice,including the choice to leave.” (yeah, because they do brainwash members…)

“Though cults, and new religious movements more broadly, no longer hold the terrifying sway they did a generation ago, our fictional treatments of them remain rooted in hyperbole. 2012’s Martha Marcy May Marlene stars Elizabeth Olsen as Martha, struggling with PSTD after her escape from a Jonestownian commune.” (How is that hyperbole?? Any psychologist with experience in cults will tell you PTSD is a normal outcome… as will former cult members.. take me for example!! Also, it wasn’t “Jonestownian” - describing it as such IS hyperbole, the movie was not!!).

of course bustle is like one step up from jezebel in their victim blaming/abuse denying

[skye-writing]

Hi, OP here. Also a cult survivor, though I’d hoped I wouldn’t have to disclose that. I will try to be charitable in my response, but I confess I am very frustrated at the way this article has been misinterpreted. 

My point is not that more prototypical cult experiences (Children of God, Scientology, etc.) do not exist. My point is that as cults go, they are comparatively rare. By holding them up as the central example of what cults are, we risk eclipsing more subtle forms of trauma that exist all around us. As I literally say halfway through the piece: 

This isn’t to say that alternative movements don’t sow dysfunction and leave lasting wounds. It’s to say that mainstream ones do too. This is what anti-cult rhetoric so consistently forgets: wherever there is hierarchy, wherever there is community, there will of course be struggle. By narrowing our sense of outrage to fringe societies, we diminish the abuses all around us.

Of children who are abducted every year, only a very small fraction are taken by strangers. The vast majority are abducted by family members. And yet our main cultural image of “abducted child” is “someone who’s duct-taped and forced into a van”. It’s not that such abductions never happen. They do! But by focusing on them to the exclusion of more mundane tragedies, we falsely imply that the one is much more common than the other. And that prevents us from seeing what’s going on right under our noses. 

Which is the whole point of my article: it’s not just those Other people who can be abusive. It’s not just Other people who join cults. It can be anyone, because these abuses exist on a spectrum. When I say there’s no fundamental difference between people who’ve joined cults and people who haven’t, I’m saying that since it can be anyone, we ought to stop Othering them. As I say in the second-to-last paragraph: 

Fact is, there’s no hard-and-fast line between a healthy community and a toxic one. There’s no yellow CAUTION tape, no Greek chorus screaming to abort. The WBC can be both a vitriolic hate group and the home of everyone Lauren Drain has ever loved. Until we get more comfortable with ambiguity, we can’t fully understand or empathize with her story.

Or, to use an example from the article itself: 

In recent years, we’ve come to understand that sexual assault is so much more than a knife-brandishing stranger in the bushes. It’s both more common and less splashy than most media implies; as such, it’s increasingly difficult to spin it into an Other. Real pain is more insidious and more tenacious than that. Convincing the public that many victims know and even love their rapists is a tall order, but we’re getting there.

Is pointing out that most rapists are known to their victims apologetics in any way? No! Of course not! It’s pointing out the nuances of the problem. It’s saying that these aren’t discrete evils but rather part of the human condition, and unless we learn to understand that this stuff can happen to anyone, we can’t fight it as well as we ought. 

[skye-writing]

Emma Cline's 'The Girls' Proves The Best Cult Coverage Holds Up A Mirror To Real Life

Cults occupy a strange, liminal corner of our collective imagination, shacking up with incense, robes, and droning hymns. They’re both a punchline ("drinking the Kool-Aid") and a punishing threat. They’re a bright, screaming extreme against which all

Baby’s first litcrit is live today! Check out my analysis of cults in literature over at Bustle.com.

[skye-writing]

antiquarian’s creed

Vaguely inspired by E. Pauline Johnson’s “The Song My Paddle Sings”

~

I long for ancient things,

for the steel of ancient rings -

for lutes that sing and embers ting/

ling red and bloody rare.

For silks untold,

drapes brilliant bold,

for strings of gold and silver bright

upon a threadbare night.

For parchment dry,

for stones to scry,

for groaning rafters high with dust -

with generations’ must.

For gems aglow,

for shelves ablaze

with tomes that crow of leaner days. 

When mem’ry, pale and eldritch, sings,

indeed I long for ancient things.

[skye-writing]

no one said empathy was easy

This just in: it’s fucking hard.

I’m hardly exempting myself here: I struggle with instinctive bias as much as anyone. There’s no real “overcoming” - you don’t overcome your deepest instincts; you learn to work with and around them. You’re never “finished”. There is no ultimate salvation, no eschatological end to the work of building compassion.

There is no purity, only process. But, my god, you have to at least start the process.

In many tangible ways, the left is doing just that. We’re fighting tooth and nail for women, for ethnic minorities, for the LGBT community, for the disabled, for the impoverished, for the imprisoned, for the marginalized and disenfranchised of all stripes. We’re fighting like hell, we’ve won in many ways, and we’re going to keep winning. And now we’re going to see just how far our commitment to kindness and dignity extends. We’re going to figure out whether our principles are meta-level or object-level.

Because here’s the thing: women and gay people and black people are not the real outgroup.

Not to leftists, anyway. By and large, we on the blue side of things do not have trouble empathizing with a gay couple denied the right to marry. With a teenage girl denied contraception. With a trans woman harassed in the bathroom. To those of us on the social justice left, extending kindness and compassion to such people is not difficult. Which - don’t get me wrong - is wonderful. It’s nothing short of astounding that so many of us now empathize so easily with people considered universally repulsive a few generations ago. It’s one hell of a win, but there’s still more work to do. Because empathy, real empathy, isn’t only about those for whom it comes easily.

It’s not just about the innocent. It’s about the outgroup.

And rarely is an outgroup so explicitly, cartoonishly distinct as Donald Trump and his “basket of deplorables”. I won’t deny just how deplorable many of them are. I abhor the racism, the xenophobia, the sexism, and the overall entitlement present in too many Trump supporters’ rhetoric. But I also abhor the prison industrial complex in all its iterations, and that includes the idea that a person is garbage once they do something wrong. Many on the left correctly bemoan the inhumanity of our prison system and the dearth of resources available to the formerly incarcerated. I want to take that further. I want to indulge the radical idea that a person need not be a good person to deserve the rights and dignities a just society should accord them.

This is what humanizing the outgroup really looks like. This is what it takes. It’s fucking hard. I won’t deny that for a second. And it’s not about excusing or passively tolerating injustice, as many have erroneously assumed. I won’t take Trump’s, or anyone’s, vitriol lying down. Neither will I forget that a human being is so much more than the worst thing she’s ever done. A just society does not give up on its citizens when they make mistakes. It scolds, but then it teaches. It helps them grow. It welcomes them back, ultimately, to the fold.

The test of compassion isn’t how many kittens you can save. It isn’t extending sympathy to the obviously sympathetic. It’s really, truly reckoning with the fact that people who disgust, horrify, and enrage you are people nonetheless. That’s where it gets real. That’s where it gets difficult. That’s where it’s important.

[morganeashton]

I want to add to this: If this post gives you a kneejerk reaction, if it literally fucking ENRAGES YOU, don’t feel like you have to fight that to be respected. Don’t. Be angry. Be FURIOUS. And love the hell out of that rage. Never take something I post as a moral guidline for you. If you can’t have empathy for someone who terrifies you, who enrages you, who threatens your wellbeing, then don’t, and accept and love that you don’t, that you’re putting yourself first and that’s a deep act of self-love in and of itself. ALWAYS put self-love before trying to love someone who’s hurt you. For those of you who this post does resonate with, for those of you who, like me, have been angry for long enough that we’re physically sick and emotionally weary from the toll it’s taken on us and we want another way, we have work to do. If this post resonates with you, it’s likely you’re one of the ones who is here to spread love in the face of hate. Don’t let it make you feel morally superior to the ones who are angry, and let yourself BE angry, or sad, or scared when it does arise. And, again, make sure you’re doing it out of self-love first, that you’re doing it because you’ve reached a point that spreading love, even to your “enemies”, is all you CAN do, and not because you’re repressing your anger and trying to be a “good person” for the pat on the back. Be honest with yourself, respect your feelings, and let love arise naturally for whatever YOU feel needs to be loved first, starting with your own heart.

[skye-writing]

I appreciate this reply, and I want to clarify a few things. 

First off, I don’t see anger and empathy as inherently opposed. It’s entirely possible to be deeply, deeply furious with someone you still consider a human being and deserving of all the rights that that implies. You can take my advice and still be angry, if that’s what you feel is best. 

That said, don’t confuse anger-the-emotion with anger-the-expression. Feel the hell out of whatever you need to feel, and fuck anyone who tries to stop you. But your very real and very valid emotions don’t automatically justify actions you take in expressing them. I might be so furious at my partner that I want to burst into flames, but if I punch him or lock him out in the cold, that’s still on me. My emotions deserve validation. My actions don’t, not necessarily. 

Please feel your anger. Your sadness, your grief, your terror, your rage. All of it. It doesn’t make you morally inferior. But please do your best to express it in a way that doesn’t create more suffering in the world. I am angry with the people who made this happen. I also believe very strongly in a world where those who do wrong get a chance to make it right. 

[skye-writing]

no one said empathy was easy

This just in: it’s fucking hard.

I’m hardly exempting myself here: I struggle with instinctive bias as much as anyone. There’s no real “overcoming” - you don’t overcome your deepest instincts; you learn to work with and around them. You’re never “finished”. There is no ultimate salvation, no eschatological end to the work of building compassion.

There is no purity, only process. But, my god, you have to at least start the process.

In many tangible ways, the left is doing just that. We’re fighting tooth and nail for women, for ethnic minorities, for the LGBT community, for the disabled, for the impoverished, for the imprisoned, for the marginalized and disenfranchised of all stripes. We’re fighting like hell, we’ve won in many ways, and we’re going to keep winning. And now we’re going to see just how far our commitment to kindness and dignity extends. We’re going to figure out whether our principles are meta-level or object-level.

Because here’s the thing: women and gay people and black people are not the real outgroup.

Not to leftists, anyway. By and large, we on the blue side of things do not have trouble empathizing with a gay couple denied the right to marry. With a teenage girl denied contraception. With a trans woman harassed in the bathroom. To those of us on the social justice left, extending kindness and compassion to such people is not difficult. Which - don’t get me wrong - is wonderful. It’s nothing short of astounding that so many of us now empathize so easily with people considered universally repulsive a few generations ago. It’s one hell of a win, but there’s still more work to do. Because empathy, real empathy, isn’t only about those for whom it comes easily.

It’s not just about the innocent. It’s about the outgroup.

And rarely is an outgroup so explicitly, cartoonishly distinct as Donald Trump and his “basket of deplorables”. I won’t deny just how deplorable many of them are. I abhor the racism, the xenophobia, the sexism, and the overall entitlement present in too many Trump supporters’ rhetoric. But I also abhor the prison industrial complex in all its iterations, and that includes the idea that a person is garbage once they do something wrong. Many on the left correctly bemoan the inhumanity of our prison system and the dearth of resources available to the formerly incarcerated. I want to take that further. I want to indulge the radical idea that a person need not be a good person to deserve the rights and dignities a just society should accord them.

This is what humanizing the outgroup really looks like. This is what it takes. It’s fucking hard. I won’t deny that for a second. And it’s not about excusing or passively tolerating injustice, as many have erroneously assumed. I won’t take Trump’s, or anyone’s, vitriol lying down. Neither will I forget that a human being is so much more than the worst thing she’s ever done. A just society does not give up on its citizens when they make mistakes. It scolds, but then it teaches. It helps them grow. It welcomes them back, ultimately, to the fold.

The test of compassion isn’t how many kittens you can save. It isn’t extending sympathy to the obviously sympathetic. It’s really, truly reckoning with the fact that people who disgust, horrify, and enrage you are people nonetheless. That’s where it gets real. That’s where it gets difficult. That’s where it’s important.

[skye-writing]

For seven days I walked, my crossbow limp beside me, my quiver saddened. The forest wilted smaller every morn. I slept where I fell: folded bones in pale defeat, a tree sheared from its fundament. I slept where I fell like the hills sleep. I slept like dabbling in death.    On the sixth night I had kindled a shivering fire and watched the stars blush and grow. Moonlight tipped into the Sabbath; I bowed my head, cursory in penitence, when I pulled the flask from my woollens. It was easy to sin, so close to the dirt. I sipped and suckled until the night was rosy. And then: twisted by flame and fervor, I saw her.    It was Them, really, a dozen limbs in lavish ingress, but together they made Her. A maiden made of moss and alabaster, spidersilk and sea. A Madonna parceled in six. They were pale and soft and rendered in simpering lips. In the grove beneath those mottled hills they danced and danced, and when my drunken feet dragged me closer, I saw: they were naked, every one.    I was too sodden for shame. I stood in wonder, slack with awe for the white limbs keening and spooling like ribbons. A clutch of satin joints. Cream poured into form. I stood with my lips parted until the tallest maid met my eyes and smiled.    “At last,” she said. “How long we wait!”

from my upcoming “Thus I Spake”

[skye-writing]

I was born a dog. The world yanked me yowling from my mother’s womb. The room went damp, they said. My mouth was full of teeth and hurt, and I wailed until the night was broken. When my mama shook me, they say, I swallowed her finger. Blood bubbled from the bony hilt, and in return they buried me alive. I was born a dog, spoiled and bent. Seven days later I emerged from the earth in proper pink and white, and that is the skin I have worn ever since.    I am twenty now. I live with my nine-fingered mother in the house my father built. When I was born snarling, he ran before he could meet me. But I know him in his house. His face in the queer slanted wood grain. Sometimes I feel his feet under the floorboards, searching. He never met me, but I always say hello.    My mother has nine fingers and grey sifting the yellow from her hair. When I was small she nursed me on tufts of butter, as yellow as downy morning sunshine and the hair she took pride in then. It made my mouth slick and soft. Quiet. Then, and only then, she would kiss me goodnight.

 from my upcoming “Typhoid Laurel”

[skye-writing]

Vintage Bloggers Share Their Favorite Fashion Eras — PHOTOS

As your average fashion plate can probably attest, vintage influence is everywhere. From Gatsby parties to Bettie Pag

My latest article for Bustle is up! A series of interviews with some of my favorite vintage gals.