Sometime ago, I wrote a blog entry that was my own. A man who was a so-called progressive, told me to remove it. He said: "I would never write anything that I wasn't prepared to to see on the frontpage of a newpaper". I said, "I would see this on a frontpage; I am not ashamed". I lied. He had just shamed me. I took it down even though two women had already linked to it; I took it down and betrayed them and myself in the process. A month or so later he wrote about rape on his own blog - a nice little theoretical piece that showed no understanding of rape in my view.
Here is my original post, titled Choking on My Words:
Sometime ago, I committed myself to using this blog to speak out about my personal experiences. However, when opportunities arise, I find myself choking on my words. For one, I fear that my personal disclosure will be used to attack me. In fact, other bloggers have already maliciously used the very little I have already disclosed. As well, I fear that speaking out will discredit me. I still live with this male myth that logic and reason exist is some emotional vacuum. Lastly, I fear the reactions of the few people I know personally who read this blog. I would remind them that personal boundaries remain outside of my writing...I am not necessarily prepared to discuss these issues in person.
Okay.
What are some of the things I have wanted to write about? For one, I just finished my first semester of graduate school. I love the field that I have gone into, and I am finding the material engaging and exciting...Also, several years ago I was told that I would never work again, because my depression had become so severe...so, fuck you to those who told me that.
Obviously, I cannot tell my whole story in one blog entry, but I might as well provide the abridged version. When, I was eighteen, and in my second year of university, I went on a ski trip through the university ski club, and was raped. (I hate typing that word.) Well, it was awful...And, everything got much worse from there. For one, my family just couldn't accept it. This what not because they are mean and awful; in fact, they are wonderful. However, they were in shock…and, you see, they are very much products, as we all are, of a victim-blaming culture. So, no one suggested that I go to the police. I cried...then wrote my final exams...then started my summer job waitressing...and began to drink a lot. I lived on my own, so I didn't have very much contact with my family. Still, my father, a psychologist, believed I was depressed and pleaded with me to see a psychiatrist. I agreed to go, and I was put on some antidepressants. It was now the following fall, and I had switched my major from math to English literature (my heart needed comfort). I kept my A average (I was a scholarship student), and then as the year anniversary approached...I just broke. I became suicidal; my psychiatrist committed me to a psychiatric ward.
Okay, so this is getting too long of a post...
So, providing the rest of the story through fast forward mode, I was belittled horribly by the nurses and doctors. For? Well, having the audacity to be depressed about being raped, of course. But, you see, I wasn't depressed about the act itself; I was depressed from the realization that I lived in a culture that okayed my being raped. And, this realization grew as I started to get to know women who were in this psychiatric ward, and started to learn that so many had a history of sexual abuse and/or assault. (I feel like I need a poem by Blake to complement my story of innocence lost.) Anyway, I began to argue with the doctors and that just led to all sorts of hell - physical seclusion, chemical restraint, blah, blah, blah...I would need a hundred blog entries to cover that part if the story.
In short, the rape was no longer talked about, but only my depression. I would spend hours in the office of a psychiatrist giving my feminist critiques of the system…and, at the end of the hour, he would hand me yet another prescription for yet another drug. And, it just went on and on...I can't understand it now.
Anyway, one day I just quit the psychiatrists. I just said, Fuck you, I'm finding a woman psychiatrist. And, then I contacted a sexual assault counselling centre. Well, the first visit, the woman I spoke with, neither an M.D. nor a Ph.D., said, Of course your rape was awful and what do you think you should do about it? When, I left that day I was 90 percent better. I reported my rape, and I was 95 percent better. And, so on.
When I went back to school, I intended to study social development, and then mid-semester I decided to study mental health and women's issues because I get it, and I am passionate about it. Now, I find myself writing papers that echo my thoughts which I pled for doctors to believe when I was only nineteen. The same thoughts that win me As now are the same that won extra time in the psychiatric ward when I was just a young girl.
When I finished my last day of the semester, I felt like I had finally dragged myself out of the quicksand. And, I was filled with this amazing sense of gratitude. School used to be a game to me…a way to boost my ego by being the best. Now, I realize with such intensity what a privilege it is to attend a university, to have access to online research, to have a library card! It is access to considerable personal and political power. When doctors had me alone in a room, my arguments were undermined. Now, I can cite the World Health Organization to back up my position that depression is not an unreasonable response to rape!
When I have written about violence against women on this site, some have come by and suggested that acknowledging it is somehow playing the victim. What they don’t get is that, for me, my own rape was not a single isolated event. If it was, it would not be so difficult to get over. What I refuse to get over is that I live in a culture that sanctions violence against women, and punishes women who try to resist.
When I was about seventeen, I read a speech given by Andrea Dworkin in her book Letters from a War Zone. The speech is titled I want a Twenty-Four-Hour Truce During Which There is No Rape. Addressing a group of men, Dworkin says,
I want one day of respite, one day off, one day in which no bodies are piled up, one day in which no new agony is added to the old, and I am asking you to give it to me. And how could I ask you for less – it is so little.And how could you offer me less – it is so little. Even in wars, there is a day of truce. Go and organize your truce. Stop your side for one day. I want a twenty-four-hour truce during which there is no rape.
When I was seventeen, I understood rape through statistics. Now, I understand through lived experience.
So, I have just begun telling my story. And, what I ask of other women is to begin telling yours. Please report your rapes. Whether it be a single assault or recurring sexual abuse, whether it happened yesterday or decades ago: it is never too late. All the statistics in the world will not matter if we don’t speak out and take action. Make the legal system responsible. Make our society responsible.Make the politicians face the economic costs, if they don’t care about the costs to us as individuals.To the men who are prepared to offer support and raise awareness, thank you, thank you, thank you.I am grateful to you, because in our culture men pay a social price for caring about women’s issues.
To anyone who is about to comment against me in hatred, or take this information to slam me around on your site, okay, proceed. You will never catch me off guard; you will never break me. I have made peace with the battle.
Finally, the post of one single man, gave me the fraction of hope I needed to find the courage to post this story. Small measures of support can make huge differences. I acknowledge and thank him.
Okay, so there it is. The blogger I mention in the last paragraph is A Canadian Lefty in Occupied Land. Unfortunately, I no longer have the link to the post he had written which had encouraged me.
Some things have changed since I wrote Choking on my Words. I feared getting marginalized by focusing on violence and mental health in my studies. So, I have decided to focus on feminist economics and, in particular, paid and unpaid care work which is unequally distributed not only between genders, but according to race, class, and nation states. Feminism is not peripheral to progressive politics. We have to begin to understand how patriarchy is central to the exploitation of peoples by the IMF and the World Bank, and to waging wars on countries to expand empire, and so on.
The past few days we have discussed on BreadnRoses the fact that the Progressive Bloggers community only allow blogs that are more political (as defined by them) than personal.
I am here to tell you that my politics are personal.
I am not interested in watching the ping pong match between the left and the right on the blogopshere anymore. I think the ease with which Harper dismantled the core of Status of Women has been a wake up call to us all. The way in which the Progressive Bloggers community dragged some of us women out as puppets to use the SWC as a soundbyte in positioning itself against "the right", should remind us all the the Liberals are not going to get us where we need to be anymore than the Conservatives.
The time has come for a more radical politics. I believe a storm is brewing particularly among the women of Canada. We must begin to talk about the highly political personal on our blogs, in our living rooms, on our campuses, and in our workplaces. (Notice how what it is to be "professional" serves to silence the private.) We now have confirmation of what we knew deep down: formal equality for women still leaves us vulnerable. We need a cultural revolution.
Ask yourselves, why we are told that personal blogs don't fit in with a political community? Ask yourselves why men in our lives are questioning how personal we get on our blogs?
Our potential power is terrifying.
Alright, let's play by men's rules for a second. Fine, we won't write anything we wouldn't want to see on the front page of a newspaper. And I'd sure as hell like to see the post you deleted. Just once, I'd like to see my own voice, my own concerns reflected back to me. Oh hell, I'd even settle for an intelligent woman, period. Not the patriarchy-kissing clones (both men and women) that dominate practically every mainstream media outlet.
We may not have much else, but we have our blogs. We should never let anyone silence us in what little space we have in the world to speak openly, honestly to each other.
Posted by: Pomona | November 04, 2006 at 04:38 PM
truth is power. anger is beauty. yours is inspiring. your courage in visiting - and now revisiting - this essence-shaping, fire-stoking, power-evoking Life Event is AWESOME and IMPORTANT. i have been questioned and accused for sharing as much personal info as i already do on my blog, but there are a zillion stories untold, too many lines uncrossed. for fear of WHAT? boundaries be damned. they're not even ours, so how come we let them prevent us from speaking our truth?
even though i've dabbled for a lifetime in partisan politics, i've long said what's really needed around here is a bona fide Shake Up. a revolution or an uprising, whatever the fuck you call it needs to happen soon. problem is, we are programmed to be complacent. we have everything. we want for nothing. i always say that people need to really LOSE SOMETHING in order to revolt in the manner that is desperately required now. until then, people remain powerless. but women must not. because you are right, polly. it is our potential power that holds us back, the same power that if we had the courage to truly unleash, could turn politics-as-usual on it's big boring Left/Right head. one of the major reasons for our collective fatigue has to be the inevitable migraine of constantly trying to shove ourselves, our voices, our stories, our PERSONAL, into the confines of conventional politics. it's refreshing to hear a young radical feminist talk in these terms, polly. too many of us (however unintentionally) lose sight or hope or energy or whatever the fuck and end up slogging away inside the prescribed set-up. let's break it the fuck down.
Posted by: pamused | November 04, 2006 at 10:41 PM
That is such a powerful testament, polly. I'm so glad you put it back and so grateful for the chance to read it.
The front page of a newspaper, eh? That is some dork's notion of serious political writing? Wow. Some people's standards are really low, eh?
Imagine a newspaper whose front page was worth reading for a change. Well -- that is precisely what you are doing, and you're giving some of the rest of us the courage to imagine too. Thanks again.
Posted by: skdadl | November 05, 2006 at 04:30 AM
Thanks for the great comments.
You're right, pamused, about people having to lose something to become politicized. I basically lost everything at one point - my dignity, my connection with my family, my security, my money, my future, my dreams - gone. But, I was okay. And, now I'm pretty much fearless. I think this one person saw my blog as some sort of confessional. But, the fact is I ain't a confessin', I'm a preachin' and a practicin'. Seriously. I sit right in the middle of my graduate classes and if someone says something stupid about mental illness, I am really open about having been "mentally ill" and I point out that women and different ethnic groups/and races are over-represented within the mental health system. Some days I walk out of class and think "Oh, fuck...why can't you just play the game?" But, if I don't say something this image of the mentally ill person remains burned into their mind. Suddenly, that homeless person is also the woman in class. Suddenly, the possibility opens that there are problems with "the system" and not just the one presumed crazy guy on the street. I suppose my one worry is that being open in life and on this blog will threaten my success in academia, if I choose to continue down that route. But, so be it. Some might think, "Well I can't be fully myself at my school or my workplace?" But, it is not a matter of wanting to wear my PJs to school or file my nails in class. It is a matter of refusing to leave my politics at the door.
I'm so with you, pamused: Let's break it the fuck down.
Ooh, ideas....
Posted by: Polly Jones | November 05, 2006 at 11:17 AM
Wow, I didn't know that you originally took that post down. Good to see it up and being talked about again.
Are you dropping out of PB? I hope not, that joint needs shaking up. I'm as big a wonk as anyone, but I've been thinking a lot lately along these lines, as you say,
I am not interested in watching the ping pong match between the left and the right on the blogopshere anymore.
I know I've participated in this, and I'm re-examining the way I engage in party politics. The way that so many issues are used as pawns, from the environment to equality to religion and all the rest, it does a real disservice to society. Going to the PB main page can be quite infuriating because of it.
I'm not leaving PB though, I am still interested in party politics. I one has to realize the purposes and limitations of the legislative part of politics. As you said, the movements are what change society, politicians are just there to change the laws.
Posted by: RP. | November 06, 2006 at 06:51 AM
I always thought politics was personal. How can it not be?
Thank you for re-posting.
Posted by: Scout | November 06, 2006 at 12:56 PM
It's takes a lot of courage to put something like that out there in the public domain. You're in the best position to decide what the right decision is so it's appropriate that you not be worried about what people think.
Be well.
Posted by: Adm | November 06, 2006 at 01:29 PM
RP.,
I appreciate everything you're saying. I like party politics too. But, agree that using people's lives as pawns obscures issues and is ultimately really disrespectful to a lot of people who, let's face it, don't have the time and access to technology to bang these issues around on blogs.
As far as dropping out of PBs goes, not at the moment. For now, I am happy to have made it past the gatekeepers and to partake in shaking things up. However, it concerns me that the more radical voices of the NDP, the Greens, the marxists, separatists, and those crazy feminists are being subsumed under capital 'L' Liberals. I don't want really progressive thought to be diluted in some people's desperate attempts to fend off The Big Bad Right. I am worried about the right and I hate Harper. But, at least, I know where they stand. I am tired of other men being pro-women only when it suits them. If they are so scared of the right, they'd better start taking women's issues (and people's issues) more seriously and get me on their side. Y'know what I'm sayin'?
Posted by: Polly Jones | November 06, 2006 at 08:01 PM
I tend to agree that the public-private distinction in politics is largely an illusion. But "personal" politics to me is kind of equivalent to relationships for the underclass: A high-stakes, high-drama game in which everyone loses in the end. After all, politics is how we distribute resources; it necesarily entails conflict. If one advocates for something on the basis of a personal experience, they should expect to be attacked on the basis of that experience. That's not pleasant and it's obviously not something that I want to be a part of.
That having been said, obviously politics has to be personal to a certain extent. If a politician beats his wife in his personal life, that matters a great deal to his public life. If Stronach slept with a married man with three children, that matters a great deal to me insofar as her public life is concerned.
Also: I'm sorry that you've experienced what you have. Some of us that struggle with depression know that the only way to deal with it is to thrash around and struggle against it, and we admire those who, like you, seem to be doing so.
Posted by: Aaron Unruh | November 08, 2006 at 01:41 AM
But "personal" politics to me is kind of equivalent to relationships for the underclass: A high-stakes, high-drama game in which everyone loses in the end.
The underclass?
Their relationships?
I don't think you get what I mean by personal politics. A personal politics can inform a very academically grounded politcal position.
Thank you for your thoughts on depression.
Posted by: Polly Jones | November 08, 2006 at 10:21 AM
"A personal politics can inform a very academically grounded politcal position."
I didn't say it can't. Obviously political principles derive from personal views and experiences. But there is a difference between conducting politics on the basis of personal experience and on the basis of the principles that come from them. An important one, since I would rather have my views bashed, not my person.
Posted by: Aaron Unruh | November 08, 2006 at 02:13 PM
I should add that this is an important distinction for feminists to grasp. If they wish for politics to be personal, then they should fully expect that the criticisms, attacks, and conflicts inherant in politics will also be personal.
Posted by: Aaron Unruh | November 08, 2006 at 02:16 PM
I think you need to grasp the distinction between personal-political and personal. Personal lives are sometimes relevant to political issues. For example, if I hold myself up to be a defender of women's rights and immigrant rights but employ a low-wage undocumented nanny, my personal life is relevant.
I don't think feminists have ever said that personal lives shouldn't be grounds for attack. If you're referring to the Stronach case, I think many people object to the double standard and the use of sexist terms like slut and bitch.
Posted by: Polly Jones | November 08, 2006 at 07:53 PM
Wow! Powerful, powerful piece, Polly. Thank you so much for reposting it. I hope it's ok that I've linked and quoted from it.
And Aaron, yes, the personal is political, political being:
political
adj 1: involving or characteristic of politics or parties or
politicians; "calling a meeting is a political act in
itself"- Daniel Goleman; "political pressure"; "a
political machine"; "political office"; "political
policy" [ant: nonpolitical]
2: of or relating to your views about social relationships
involving authority or power; "political opinions"
3: of or relating to the profession of governing; "political
career".
Posted by: Berlynn | November 08, 2006 at 11:28 PM
I think I said something like this the first time you posted it, but I have to say it again: This is an amazing, powerful post. You are amazing for being able to put it out here, and even more so for being able to put it out here again after having shame inflicted on you. Thank-you.
Posted by: Scott | November 21, 2006 at 04:06 PM