Feminism can be iconoclastic
Feminism can be iconoclastic, and all the more so when it calls itself Third World. But we have all let ourselves be infected with the leprosy of egotism, which remains the most difficult disease to cure, for what egotists, like lepers, inevitably undergo is a loss of feeling and are consequently apt to injure themselves without realizing it. I can let neither light nor air enter me when I close myself up and exist as a crystallized I, be this I feminine or masculine, female or male. Woman (with capital W) may therefore kill women if She loses the contact and speaks of Herself only according to what She wants to hear about Herself. - Woman, Native, Other, Trinh Minh-ha
Feminism is a space of power, change, and hope. It is a place where women have risen together, and fallen as well. It is a place of complication; because oppression is never singular and solitary, but many. It is a movement that is not simply one, but several. There is not just one feminism, but multiple. Feminists do not all believe or share the same values. Some of us choose to believe in only focusing on the issues of women. Others of us choose to fight intersecting oppressions. But regardless of what we believe or practice, there is no authentic One True Feminism that one must all believe in. Because what's most important about feminism, isn't who's right or wrong, or whose viewpoint is more authorized and credible, but to remember that feminism is a place wherein incredible women (and even, yes, men) strive towards one final goal: equality.
I have been contemplating this post for quite some time now. And I have attempted to start this so many times. But every time I tried to write, the words simply wouldn't come out, until I read the passage above by Trinh Minh-ha. I originally had no intention of writing this, because I had believed after I left the conversation with ginmar, that what had occurred between us was over, and would settle like dust and be forgotten like any other debate. I never imagined that when I first got involved in the discussion that having opposing viewpoints would result in so much fall-out.
Feminism can be iconoclastic, and all the more when it calls itself Third World.
Feminism is ultimately a site of contestation. And when feminism is directed at one specific established institution or power regime, such iconoclasm is progressive as it creates change. But when the iconoclasm occurs between two, three, or four feminists, and results in regression, we have ultimately lost our goal and our vision and need to ask ourselves, quite frankly, "What the fuck are we doing?"
We have all let ourselves be infected with the leprosy of egotism.
Feminism is a very personal thing, and something not everyone identifies with. What's more important isn't who's right or wrong when we have conversations, but that we are actually having them. These conversations can raise awareness and create change. These conversations can shed new light on ideas never previously examined. When a feminist contests or challenges another feminist's viewpoints, such a challenge and discussion can often lead to greater understanding of topics that might not have been considered. When ginmar explained to me how my previous understanding of privilege was wrong, I learned something very important, and incredibly valuable. ginmar was able to call into question what I had previously considered an already enlightened understanding of privilege, and what it means to be privileged. By showing me how I was actually not as informed or aware, I realized I had weaknesses in my own personal paradigm that I absolutely must examine and address closely. And I also realized that I must also spend more time considering what it means to be privileged, and if there is one universal answer or definition for what "privilege" even is.
At this point in time, I have not uncovered the meaning of privilege. I think it's something I still need to think about more closely. It's something that is more complicated than I realized, and my own privilege has caused me to not consider issues as carefully as I should've. Privilege is not easily definable, and is a site of constant disagreement. But at that site, I was able to take away very important information. I had believed, even though my conversation with ginmar did not go as smoothly as I wish it could've, that I still was able to walk away at the end with something very meaningful. And even though I was very offended and upset by some of the things she said and ways in which she acted and responded towards me, which I did not consider fair or very nice and polite at all, at least she still taught me something, and that was something I truly appreciated.
What egotists, like lepers, inevitably undergo is a loss of feeling and are consequently apt to injure themselves without realizing it.
What does it mean to be right, and how do we determine that? Beliefs are something that are so variegated and often so polarizing that it is impossible to determine if there is a right or wrong. There is only what one believes is most right or most wrong, and then sharing in those beliefs with like-minded people. To ginmar, her beliefs and actions are absolutely right. And as she is someone who is a very prominent voice in the radical feminism community on LiveJournal, many others identify with her as well; in a sense, ginmar is a voice of authority in many ways, on many issues. She is someone who is respected and read and loved by many. And the work she's done and her presence in the feminist community is important.
I know that there are people who might disagree with me, or have had personal issues with her before, and that is fine. Because it is your belief. And there are others, still, who will, and have, directed me to wank, in order to make ginmar into a subject of ridicule for her behavior. I will admit, I personally ridiculed her for the way she acted towards me. My response has been criticized by a few who don't agree with it. And I can see why they wouldn't, because it can feel and seem mean-hearted. To me, however, I wasn't ridiculing ginmar as a person or a feminist, or her work. I was ridiculing, instead, the way in which she chose to react towards me, the shut-down of the conversation, and the way she responded to others who saw, quite clearly, that she wasn't being very fair with me. I could not help but laugh at it, because I felt it was just so stupid. This was just one internet debate. It wasn't a particularly healthy or productive debate, other than the one kernel of knowledge I was able to take away from it. But I couldn't believe that I had spent so much time and invested so much energy in it, when I wasn't being taken seriously or treated with the respect I had continued, even despite repeated personal attacks, to try and give her.
We all make mistakes. I make them all the time. I might be making a mistake now in writing this, I don't really know. But I know I have to say something, because this has gone too far. And I have no intention of staying silent when so many people ended up hurt over what I had originally considered, and labeled, "feminist fail." For me, feminist fail occurs when feminism is not productive, and when a feminist conversation results in absolutely nothing. It also occurs when a feminist attempts to act in an anti-feminist way. Sometimes the feminist involved doesn't even realize what she's doing. And often that's because, as humans, it's sometimes hard to judge our own behavior objectively, from a third party angle.
I can let neither light nor air enter me when I close myself up and exist as a crystallized I, be this I feminine or masculine, female or male.
If we are always so busy looking out at the world, we never have time to actually contemplate what we look like when the world looks at us. And that is a perfectly human thing to do. It's not something everyone does. But that's okay. Because we all have flaws. We're not all perfect. And we shouldn't be expected to be. But most of all, what's most important, is that we remember if we are criticized, there might be a reason for it. To deny the probability of having made a mistake, or the inherent fallible nature of your humanity is to get far too caught up by a mode of belief that can be very damaging to yourself and to your relationships and those who truly care about you.
I suffered for nearly half my life from a debilitating mental illness. This illness caused me to have clinically psychotic delusions of grandeur, severe suicidal tendencies, incredibly histrionic and harmful behavior, and many other issues that I don't think I feel comfortable listing here yet. But I will just say this: it wasn't until I started listening to people, actually willing to understand where they were coming from, did things slowly start to get a little better for me, my relationships, and for the people who cared about me.
Not listening when those closest to you are speaking is incredibly damaging.
And you know what? There's nothing wrong with realizing that being human simply means you aren't perfect. You can fall down and make mistakes. But there are people there who love you who will want to help pick you up and support you every step of the way. It makes no sense to push those who truly care away out of self-righteous conviction and fear of critique. If you do not accept criticism from others, you will never grow. Criticism is one of the most important things on the road of self-development.
Woman (with capital W) may therefore kill women if She loses the contact and speaks of Herself only according to what She wants to hear about Herself.
Too often, feminists make the mistake of not listening when others are speaking to them.
I personally make this mistake all the time, especially when I am emotional. But I try, oh god, do I try, to listen to other people. Because I understand far too well just how important it is to listen, to try and understand how they feel, because a relationship is a two-way street, and how the world perceives me is yet another relationship that I have to navigate. And if I am not listening to what the world is saying, and telling the world that the world is wrong for how it views me and just doesn't understand me, I am not listening to what the world is saying in the first place.
It isn't that the world is wrong for how it views you, it's the fact that you don't give the world a chance to view you properly by listening to what the world is saying when it speaks to you in the first place. And sometimes those things are incredibly valuable, because they can help you grow as a person, and also help you heal. Those things will give you strength if you take from it what you can and learn to change and evolve into someone stronger and better than the person you were before.
It's easy to believe that when the world is criticizing you, it is somehow a personal attack on your character and your beliefs, and ultimately is a form of oppression and harmful to your interests. It's easy to buy into that because no one likes to be wrong or told they're wrong. It's hard to admit to making a mistake. But we all make them. And there's nothing wrong with that. What is wrong is if you refuse to admit you've made a mistake or can ever have any fault. What is wrong is if you refuse to deny the natural fallibility of your own humanity. What is wrong is if you cut down those who care the most for you, and continue to care even after you've burned bridges, all because a mistake was made that causes you to operate in a mode of denial and refusal to admit responsibility and accountability for your own actions and behavior. But this, too is another mistake.
And what is so incredible about being human is that while we make mistakes, we can also try our best to learn from them and fix them. We can try our best to rise above the limitations of being human and the flaws our own character. We can try, too, to make amends, and say, "Hey, this is stupid. I'm sorry about all of this. Let's start over." And we can try, as well, to forgive. We might not forget, but we can forgive.
And I think learning to forgive and understanding that humans are not perfect, that we all make mistakes and we all make judgment errors, that some of us struggle more than others and need help in understanding where we've strayed, and need the patience and the support and enough faith to not give up, is one of the most important values we can have as human beings.
Some of you may feel you have been incredibly wronged or slighted by the fall-out in the aftermath of what I had originally intended, and even, in some ways considered, to be simply a very heated debate with someone who simply had a very different idea of not only feminism and privilege, but also a very different concept of online behavioral conduct. I believed that the way ginmar reacted to me, which I considered incredibly upsetting and offensive to me, was simply the way she usually operates and what was normal and acceptable for her and the community in which she is most active. So, while I made this post about her, just to highlight my absolute disappointment in having engaged in a conversation that was not only rife with personal attacks against me for no particular reason other than the fact that I have a college education, but also not very productive, I still considered ginmar someone whose work I could respect. Even if I found that after my conversation with her that I could not respect her as a person due to how she treated me, I believed, and still believe, that ginmar's work and contribution to the world of feminism is infinitely invaluable.
Feminism is fraught with problems and issues and disagreements. This is just how feminism is, like any other thing in the world. But what I think is more important than anything is realizing that because there is no solitary movement, what we do individually to raise awareness in the communities we are in, is the most important, most valuable thing, any feminist can do. What we do individually to speak out and try our best to inform and educate others will, word by word, help to create the momentum we need to push feminism forward. What we do individually to raise awareness, contest old ideas, and challenge areas of oppression, collectively creates an incredible force that continues to move, shake, and change the way in which others may foster ideas about gender, sexuality, race, class, disability, or any other sociopolitical issue problematized by systematic oppression.
ginmar, if you are reading this, I want you to know that there are many people who care about you more than you know. And even though you have chosen to cut those people out of your life, whether or not you want them to care about you, they still do. And I think that says something incredible about who you are; that people, even after feeling hurt and burned, still love you and care. I hope you will try your best to read this with an open heart, and understand that I am doing this because I've been where you are far too many times in the past seven years. I am not a stranger to places like fandom_wank, or to anonymous hate memes, and the amount of animosity towards me in the past due to my professional affiliations and the things I was doing in certain other movements online, have garnered me an overwhelming amount of unjustified hate -- simply because of who I was and where I was in that point in my life. I am speaking in vague terms, because I have interests and people to protect, but I am no stranger to online, or even full-out, coordinated social media attacks by actual groups of individuals who wanted to discredit me, character assasinate me, and tear me down. Your friends are not attacking you through their critique. They are simply trying desperately to help you open your eyes and see the areas in which you might have weaknesses that you can improve and strengthen, and become an even better and healthier person.
I chose to engage you on your journal for one reason only: I had respect for what you did, but I also have respect for organizations like Feministing and Feministe. Because I believe there is a collective power in every single individual feminist that is out there doing work for the community. And I believe even if people make mistakes, that we can learn and grow. I understand many people have reservations about organizations such as Feministing and Feministe. But to me, these organizations are important for what they have done in raising awareness and the change they have been able to catalyze. You are also important in the larger conversation of feminism. And I sincerely hope that you can try to see the value of yourself and your own work. I also really hope you can learn to have more belief and faith in yourself and in those who still care about you. As well as in people like myself who honestly only wanted to have a conversation and not start a war, because I believed I could learn from you. Please don't take this the wrong way, but I also hope you can value yourself a little more as a person. That you would say you are shutting down your blog and erasing all the work you have done, as well as your own identity, is self-silencing and oppressive to yourself; and I recognize that as a sign of someone who does not truly understand the value of who she is and the impact her work and her presence has in her community.
If you are choosing to opt-out because you are too emotionally drained and tired, that is one thing. But to allow a feminist debate, and the reactions of those who might have been offended by the contents of the debate, to result in what has happened, is something you should consider and re-examine a little more carefully. You have such passion and an invested interest in the work that you do, and while I do not agree with many of your beliefs, I hope you can understand that everyone has different ideas and beliefs of the world. Learning how to have a little more tolerance might not be a bad thing. Being open to accepting the help of others and listening to what they have to say can be very valuable to you. Knowing when to seek out help, is also incredibly important. Especially when you are struggling with certain challenges that go far beyond your personal abilities to navigate on your own.
I have chosen to take a public angle in addressing you, because this is no longer about our debate, but about far too many other things. I hope you can understand my reluctance and ultimate rejection of the idea of contacting you privately. I am not interested, nor do I want, to get into some kind of an online war filled with negativity and anger, as that is not only damaging to the people around us who we must interact with, but also to the feminist community as whole. And I hope that what troubles and challenges you are currently dealing with are ones you will surpass, and ones that you can both learn and grow from, not just as a woman, but also as a friend and feminist.
As for those of you reading who have been caught up in this storm, I'll just leave you with one final consideration: Sometimes being a friend means mastering the art of timing. There is a time for silence. A time to let go and allow people to hurl themselves into their own destiny. And a time to prepare to pick up the pieces when it's all over. - Gloria Naylor
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Feminism is a space of power, change, and hope. It is a place where women have risen together, and fallen as well. It is a place of complication; because oppression is never singular and solitary, but many. It is a movement that is not simply one, but several. There is not just one feminism, but multiple. Feminists do not all believe or share the same values. Some of us choose to believe in only focusing on the issues of women. Others of us choose to fight intersecting oppressions. But regardless of what we believe or practice, there is no authentic One True Feminism that one must all believe in. Because what's most important about feminism, isn't who's right or wrong, or whose viewpoint is more authorized and credible, but to remember that feminism is a place wherein incredible women (and even, yes, men) strive towards one final goal: equality.
I have been contemplating this post for quite some time now. And I have attempted to start this so many times. But every time I tried to write, the words simply wouldn't come out, until I read the passage above by Trinh Minh-ha. I originally had no intention of writing this, because I had believed after I left the conversation with ginmar, that what had occurred between us was over, and would settle like dust and be forgotten like any other debate. I never imagined that when I first got involved in the discussion that having opposing viewpoints would result in so much fall-out.
Feminism can be iconoclastic, and all the more when it calls itself Third World.
Feminism is ultimately a site of contestation. And when feminism is directed at one specific established institution or power regime, such iconoclasm is progressive as it creates change. But when the iconoclasm occurs between two, three, or four feminists, and results in regression, we have ultimately lost our goal and our vision and need to ask ourselves, quite frankly, "What the fuck are we doing?"
We have all let ourselves be infected with the leprosy of egotism.
Feminism is a very personal thing, and something not everyone identifies with. What's more important isn't who's right or wrong when we have conversations, but that we are actually having them. These conversations can raise awareness and create change. These conversations can shed new light on ideas never previously examined. When a feminist contests or challenges another feminist's viewpoints, such a challenge and discussion can often lead to greater understanding of topics that might not have been considered. When ginmar explained to me how my previous understanding of privilege was wrong, I learned something very important, and incredibly valuable. ginmar was able to call into question what I had previously considered an already enlightened understanding of privilege, and what it means to be privileged. By showing me how I was actually not as informed or aware, I realized I had weaknesses in my own personal paradigm that I absolutely must examine and address closely. And I also realized that I must also spend more time considering what it means to be privileged, and if there is one universal answer or definition for what "privilege" even is.
At this point in time, I have not uncovered the meaning of privilege. I think it's something I still need to think about more closely. It's something that is more complicated than I realized, and my own privilege has caused me to not consider issues as carefully as I should've. Privilege is not easily definable, and is a site of constant disagreement. But at that site, I was able to take away very important information. I had believed, even though my conversation with ginmar did not go as smoothly as I wish it could've, that I still was able to walk away at the end with something very meaningful. And even though I was very offended and upset by some of the things she said and ways in which she acted and responded towards me, which I did not consider fair or very nice and polite at all, at least she still taught me something, and that was something I truly appreciated.
What egotists, like lepers, inevitably undergo is a loss of feeling and are consequently apt to injure themselves without realizing it.
What does it mean to be right, and how do we determine that? Beliefs are something that are so variegated and often so polarizing that it is impossible to determine if there is a right or wrong. There is only what one believes is most right or most wrong, and then sharing in those beliefs with like-minded people. To ginmar, her beliefs and actions are absolutely right. And as she is someone who is a very prominent voice in the radical feminism community on LiveJournal, many others identify with her as well; in a sense, ginmar is a voice of authority in many ways, on many issues. She is someone who is respected and read and loved by many. And the work she's done and her presence in the feminist community is important.
I know that there are people who might disagree with me, or have had personal issues with her before, and that is fine. Because it is your belief. And there are others, still, who will, and have, directed me to wank, in order to make ginmar into a subject of ridicule for her behavior. I will admit, I personally ridiculed her for the way she acted towards me. My response has been criticized by a few who don't agree with it. And I can see why they wouldn't, because it can feel and seem mean-hearted. To me, however, I wasn't ridiculing ginmar as a person or a feminist, or her work. I was ridiculing, instead, the way in which she chose to react towards me, the shut-down of the conversation, and the way she responded to others who saw, quite clearly, that she wasn't being very fair with me. I could not help but laugh at it, because I felt it was just so stupid. This was just one internet debate. It wasn't a particularly healthy or productive debate, other than the one kernel of knowledge I was able to take away from it. But I couldn't believe that I had spent so much time and invested so much energy in it, when I wasn't being taken seriously or treated with the respect I had continued, even despite repeated personal attacks, to try and give her.
We all make mistakes. I make them all the time. I might be making a mistake now in writing this, I don't really know. But I know I have to say something, because this has gone too far. And I have no intention of staying silent when so many people ended up hurt over what I had originally considered, and labeled, "feminist fail." For me, feminist fail occurs when feminism is not productive, and when a feminist conversation results in absolutely nothing. It also occurs when a feminist attempts to act in an anti-feminist way. Sometimes the feminist involved doesn't even realize what she's doing. And often that's because, as humans, it's sometimes hard to judge our own behavior objectively, from a third party angle.
I can let neither light nor air enter me when I close myself up and exist as a crystallized I, be this I feminine or masculine, female or male.
If we are always so busy looking out at the world, we never have time to actually contemplate what we look like when the world looks at us. And that is a perfectly human thing to do. It's not something everyone does. But that's okay. Because we all have flaws. We're not all perfect. And we shouldn't be expected to be. But most of all, what's most important, is that we remember if we are criticized, there might be a reason for it. To deny the probability of having made a mistake, or the inherent fallible nature of your humanity is to get far too caught up by a mode of belief that can be very damaging to yourself and to your relationships and those who truly care about you.
I suffered for nearly half my life from a debilitating mental illness. This illness caused me to have clinically psychotic delusions of grandeur, severe suicidal tendencies, incredibly histrionic and harmful behavior, and many other issues that I don't think I feel comfortable listing here yet. But I will just say this: it wasn't until I started listening to people, actually willing to understand where they were coming from, did things slowly start to get a little better for me, my relationships, and for the people who cared about me.
Not listening when those closest to you are speaking is incredibly damaging.
And you know what? There's nothing wrong with realizing that being human simply means you aren't perfect. You can fall down and make mistakes. But there are people there who love you who will want to help pick you up and support you every step of the way. It makes no sense to push those who truly care away out of self-righteous conviction and fear of critique. If you do not accept criticism from others, you will never grow. Criticism is one of the most important things on the road of self-development.
Woman (with capital W) may therefore kill women if She loses the contact and speaks of Herself only according to what She wants to hear about Herself.
Too often, feminists make the mistake of not listening when others are speaking to them.
I personally make this mistake all the time, especially when I am emotional. But I try, oh god, do I try, to listen to other people. Because I understand far too well just how important it is to listen, to try and understand how they feel, because a relationship is a two-way street, and how the world perceives me is yet another relationship that I have to navigate. And if I am not listening to what the world is saying, and telling the world that the world is wrong for how it views me and just doesn't understand me, I am not listening to what the world is saying in the first place.
It isn't that the world is wrong for how it views you, it's the fact that you don't give the world a chance to view you properly by listening to what the world is saying when it speaks to you in the first place. And sometimes those things are incredibly valuable, because they can help you grow as a person, and also help you heal. Those things will give you strength if you take from it what you can and learn to change and evolve into someone stronger and better than the person you were before.
It's easy to believe that when the world is criticizing you, it is somehow a personal attack on your character and your beliefs, and ultimately is a form of oppression and harmful to your interests. It's easy to buy into that because no one likes to be wrong or told they're wrong. It's hard to admit to making a mistake. But we all make them. And there's nothing wrong with that. What is wrong is if you refuse to admit you've made a mistake or can ever have any fault. What is wrong is if you refuse to deny the natural fallibility of your own humanity. What is wrong is if you cut down those who care the most for you, and continue to care even after you've burned bridges, all because a mistake was made that causes you to operate in a mode of denial and refusal to admit responsibility and accountability for your own actions and behavior. But this, too is another mistake.
And what is so incredible about being human is that while we make mistakes, we can also try our best to learn from them and fix them. We can try our best to rise above the limitations of being human and the flaws our own character. We can try, too, to make amends, and say, "Hey, this is stupid. I'm sorry about all of this. Let's start over." And we can try, as well, to forgive. We might not forget, but we can forgive.
And I think learning to forgive and understanding that humans are not perfect, that we all make mistakes and we all make judgment errors, that some of us struggle more than others and need help in understanding where we've strayed, and need the patience and the support and enough faith to not give up, is one of the most important values we can have as human beings.
Some of you may feel you have been incredibly wronged or slighted by the fall-out in the aftermath of what I had originally intended, and even, in some ways considered, to be simply a very heated debate with someone who simply had a very different idea of not only feminism and privilege, but also a very different concept of online behavioral conduct. I believed that the way ginmar reacted to me, which I considered incredibly upsetting and offensive to me, was simply the way she usually operates and what was normal and acceptable for her and the community in which she is most active. So, while I made this post about her, just to highlight my absolute disappointment in having engaged in a conversation that was not only rife with personal attacks against me for no particular reason other than the fact that I have a college education, but also not very productive, I still considered ginmar someone whose work I could respect. Even if I found that after my conversation with her that I could not respect her as a person due to how she treated me, I believed, and still believe, that ginmar's work and contribution to the world of feminism is infinitely invaluable.
Feminism is fraught with problems and issues and disagreements. This is just how feminism is, like any other thing in the world. But what I think is more important than anything is realizing that because there is no solitary movement, what we do individually to raise awareness in the communities we are in, is the most important, most valuable thing, any feminist can do. What we do individually to speak out and try our best to inform and educate others will, word by word, help to create the momentum we need to push feminism forward. What we do individually to raise awareness, contest old ideas, and challenge areas of oppression, collectively creates an incredible force that continues to move, shake, and change the way in which others may foster ideas about gender, sexuality, race, class, disability, or any other sociopolitical issue problematized by systematic oppression.
ginmar, if you are reading this, I want you to know that there are many people who care about you more than you know. And even though you have chosen to cut those people out of your life, whether or not you want them to care about you, they still do. And I think that says something incredible about who you are; that people, even after feeling hurt and burned, still love you and care. I hope you will try your best to read this with an open heart, and understand that I am doing this because I've been where you are far too many times in the past seven years. I am not a stranger to places like fandom_wank, or to anonymous hate memes, and the amount of animosity towards me in the past due to my professional affiliations and the things I was doing in certain other movements online, have garnered me an overwhelming amount of unjustified hate -- simply because of who I was and where I was in that point in my life. I am speaking in vague terms, because I have interests and people to protect, but I am no stranger to online, or even full-out, coordinated social media attacks by actual groups of individuals who wanted to discredit me, character assasinate me, and tear me down. Your friends are not attacking you through their critique. They are simply trying desperately to help you open your eyes and see the areas in which you might have weaknesses that you can improve and strengthen, and become an even better and healthier person.
I chose to engage you on your journal for one reason only: I had respect for what you did, but I also have respect for organizations like Feministing and Feministe. Because I believe there is a collective power in every single individual feminist that is out there doing work for the community. And I believe even if people make mistakes, that we can learn and grow. I understand many people have reservations about organizations such as Feministing and Feministe. But to me, these organizations are important for what they have done in raising awareness and the change they have been able to catalyze. You are also important in the larger conversation of feminism. And I sincerely hope that you can try to see the value of yourself and your own work. I also really hope you can learn to have more belief and faith in yourself and in those who still care about you. As well as in people like myself who honestly only wanted to have a conversation and not start a war, because I believed I could learn from you. Please don't take this the wrong way, but I also hope you can value yourself a little more as a person. That you would say you are shutting down your blog and erasing all the work you have done, as well as your own identity, is self-silencing and oppressive to yourself; and I recognize that as a sign of someone who does not truly understand the value of who she is and the impact her work and her presence has in her community.
If you are choosing to opt-out because you are too emotionally drained and tired, that is one thing. But to allow a feminist debate, and the reactions of those who might have been offended by the contents of the debate, to result in what has happened, is something you should consider and re-examine a little more carefully. You have such passion and an invested interest in the work that you do, and while I do not agree with many of your beliefs, I hope you can understand that everyone has different ideas and beliefs of the world. Learning how to have a little more tolerance might not be a bad thing. Being open to accepting the help of others and listening to what they have to say can be very valuable to you. Knowing when to seek out help, is also incredibly important. Especially when you are struggling with certain challenges that go far beyond your personal abilities to navigate on your own.
I have chosen to take a public angle in addressing you, because this is no longer about our debate, but about far too many other things. I hope you can understand my reluctance and ultimate rejection of the idea of contacting you privately. I am not interested, nor do I want, to get into some kind of an online war filled with negativity and anger, as that is not only damaging to the people around us who we must interact with, but also to the feminist community as whole. And I hope that what troubles and challenges you are currently dealing with are ones you will surpass, and ones that you can both learn and grow from, not just as a woman, but also as a friend and feminist.
As for those of you reading who have been caught up in this storm, I'll just leave you with one final consideration: Sometimes being a friend means mastering the art of timing. There is a time for silence. A time to let go and allow people to hurl themselves into their own destiny. And a time to prepare to pick up the pieces when it's all over. - Gloria Naylor
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