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[writemelovehere-blog]

Nonfiction thoughts on existential hunger

[writemelovehere-blog]

[writemelovehere-blog]

What do we do when inequality is built into the way we speak to each other?

[writemelovehere-blog]

Thoughts on the election, white privilege and our biases

[annfriedman]

It’s hard not to notice that, from the earliest days of agony columns to the newest crop of online advisors, almost everyone involved is female. Examples like “agony uncle” Phillip Hodson and sex-advice columnist Dan Savage are the exceptions that prove the rule: Advice remains, more or less, the domain of women. “It’s hard to talk about without sounding very gendered, but I think women are just emotional animals,” Havrilesky says. “When you have less power, you study and observe the people with power in order to understand them, and you have a stake in doing that. Whereas when you’re in power, you have no motivation to understand the people around you.” And understanding the struggles of others is key to the agony aunt’s job description.

The 2015 renaissance of the agony aunt - The Pool UK (via annfriedman)

[writemelovehere-blog]

Favorite Books, version 2015

As the end of the year approaches everyone is publishing lists of well, everything, that somehow describe 2015.

Well, I’ve decided to get on this bandwagon and publish my own list: my favorite books I’ve read in 2015. It’s a short list that describes the books that have most imprinted themselves on me and, to be honest, my identity. The books are doomed to the life of being repeatedly opened, spines cracked and read by me, underlined, with notes made in the margins.

The first book: When Women Were Birds, by Terry Tempest Williams

The second book I just finished and am eager for a second reading to gather the pieces of meaning I missed.

The second book: The Agronauts by Maggie Nelson

Though I picked two memoirs, an area of literature I had ignored until the first book was recommended to me, they are un-alike in every way except that they are written by woman. The books carry the distinctive voice of each writer. It is the woman’s voice that draws me in for both pieces of literature. The questions of how do other women find their voices, what are their experiences and how do they express those experiences is something I obsessively look for in women’s writing.

Williams starts with the death of her mother and the mystery of her inheritance: bookshelves full of her mother’s empty journals. She picks up memories of her life and situates them among myths and tales, all while trying to discover her mother’s voice, struggles to express her own voice, and encourages her readers to find their voices.

Nelson writes about her queer relationship and juxtaposes it with the literary theory she teaches. Her voice and perspective is the first of its kind I have read and it placed me into a sphere of thought that I had not ventured into before. This book was enlightening/shocking/absorbing/familiar, by page it was lending some new insight that I filled pages of my journal with quotes, unable to underline or mark up the margins in the library book.

[writemelovehere-blog]

I beheld and still behold in anger and agony the eagerness of the world to throw piles of shit on those of us who want to savage or simply cannot help but savage the norms that so desperately need savaging.

Maggie Nelson, The Argonauts

[writemelovehere-blog]

I was experimenting with voice, what I could say and still be heard in an atmosphere of prescribed truths.

When Women Were Birds, Terry Tempest Williams

[writemelovehere-blog]

Here is an article recently written by Rebecca Solnit, where she expounds on another version of mansplaining. 
She delves into the white male literary canon that “encourage this narrowness of experience,” and how those in marginalized groups such as women, black people, and the transgendered just can’t take a joke.

This reminds me of a few months ago, maybe even a year ago now, when my husband and I were watching a female comic. I found her hilarious (I’m sorry, I can’t remember her name! She had a special on Netflix if that narrows it down). My husband did not. Which lead us to an interesting conversation where I discovered my husband did not think many women were funny or at least he found more men funny than women. Stunned, I started polling men (all white dudes since I live in an all white dude area). The repeated answer I got to my question was no, women are not as funny as men.

Shocked and angered, this article brought back those feelings. That men are rarely asked to look beyond themselves and empathize with someone who is not a reflection of themselves. I do think this is changing…a little (I’m thinking Amy Shumer, an all female Ghostbusters movie, and hit tv shows lead by women like Scream Queens and Jessica Jones). But there are still times where it’s like pushing against a brick wall (example: my husband has been watching and enjoying more female lead tv shows and movies, but refuses to get on board with an all female lead Ghostbusters. I shake my head sadly at this and tell him repeatedly that Harold Ramis is dead, it’s time to move on :).

Read this article by Solnit. I recommend also her essay “Men Explain Things to Me.”

[lezbianprince]

When a mass shooting occurs, we talk about gun control and mental health issues, but we never talk about toxic masculinity or male violence. Women have access to guns. Women suffer from mental health issues. So what’s the difference? Why can’t we talk about it in those terms?

[fuckyeahfeminist]

Because the moment we do, we’re blamed for “reverse sexism” and “hating men.” (Ahh the irony…) But in reality, talking about toxic masculinity is utterly essential. It’s not about hating men or saying that they’re inherently violent beings– quite the opposite! It’s about working to free them from gender roles that are restrictive and brutal, to point out the fact that a great deal of violence is based on social structures of what it means to be a “Real Man.”

If these gender norms change, the violence can be reduced. Enter: Feminist activism.

Watch this TED talk by Tony Porter and this video by Jackson Katz for more.

[writemelovehere-blog]

Feminist in a Small Town Void

We were discussing something at work the other day...what, I'm not sure, something that involved women at work and my coworker, a woman, turned to me after my pro-feminist comment, and said, "oh yeah, you're into that woman thing." That woman thing...? What? Aren't you a woman? Stunned, I didn't reply. I did decide to start a blog detailing thoughts, articles, and quotes involving feminism and my frustration of living in a Midwest town where feminism is still seen as a dirty word. Here I want to document my voice as a woman. Here I want to be heard.