“I am a Monster, and I am Proud” — Robin Morgan
January 17, 2007 by womensspace
Robin Morgan
I want a women’s revolution like a lover.
I lust for it, I want so much this freedom,
this end to struggle and fear and lies we all exhale,
that I could die just with the passionate uttering of that desire…
Oh mother, I am tired and sick
“How do you stop from going crazy?”
No way, sister, no way.
May we go mad together, my sisters.
May our labor agony in bringing forth this revolution be the death of all pain.
May we comprehend that we cannot be stopped.
May I learn how to survive until my part is finished.
May I realize that I am a monster.
I am a monster.
I am a monster.
And I am proud.
– from the poem, Monster, by Robin Morgan, 1971
The poem excerpted above, “Monster,” written in response to something Robin Morgan’s then small son said about her genitals, was, in the words of NYC-Big City Lit, iconic, “virtually defin(ing) the scope of early feminism.” Birthed in women’s struggles for freedom and full humanity, the poem captured the imaginations of millions of feminist women, inspiring them to challenge and resist the many brutalities, small and large, which women suffer everyday because they are women.
If the central imagery of the poem is going to be enlisted in a different type of political struggle, then circulated and otherwise blogged, it seems right to me that this classic of the women’s liberation movement, be acknowledged and named, with full credit given, if not immediately by the the person using the imagery (because she or he wasn’t aware of the poem, perhaps), then by those of us interested in honoring the great leaders and mothers of our own movement. That’s what you do– you know?
[Edited to change the date of the writing of the poem to 1971, instead of 1961.]
Heart
To all those responding to the bloggers (unintended?) plagiarism; yes amazing, and so was the women whose thoughts these were, and the movement she and her sisters galvanized, those heady days in the ’70s, steered by Robin Morgan and a few other amazing women. Her words the first feminist writing I read.
Amazing.
No better lesson for what men do to us, for how our history is buried and appropriated. Colonization, it’s called.
To this day I can’t stand to look at bonsai.
Wow. Yeah, Heart.
Talk about cultural appropriation.
And I note that neither of these two blogs have you on their “feminist” blogrolls …
While they’re at it, why don’t they just write, “Not a man, but *better* than a woman. Hear me roar!”
That’s the whole point, isn’t it?
“I can do anything, anything, I can do anything better than you …” … including being female??!!
Mary S.
“And I note that neither of these two blogs have you on their “feminist” blogrolls …”
There are then some things to be grateful for.
Well, my trackbacks don’t work so I can’t send links out. Next best thing is to post them and click on them to get folks’ attention.
http://renegadeevolution.blogspot.com/2007/01/perfect.html
http://nexyjo.blogspot.com/2007/01/best-post-ever.html
http://sanacrow.livejournal.com/42737.html
http://jjcohen.blogspot.com/2007/01/it-is-time-for-feminism-of-monstrous.html
http://www.megite.com/science/1168950769/21#item_3
http://rosefox.livejournal.com/1128879.html
http://lilairen.livejournal.com/425269.html
http://lettersfromgehenna.blogspot.com/2007/01/off-edge-of-map.html
http://faultline.org/index.php/site/sheer_poetry/
http://musingsonlifelawandgender.typepad.com/
It’s not going to do not to acknowledge Robin Morgan’s imagery, poem, and herstoric writings which invoke this same imagery, as though they didn’t exist.
Heart
The ignorance would be laughable if it wasn’t so pathetic and sad.
My nickel’s worth to little light that I posted:
“Monster,” is an amazing poem written by Robin Morgan. The least you could do, little light, is give Robin Morgan credit when you plagerize her work and try to pass it off as your own.
The most you could do if you have no originality, is when you co-opt someone else’s work, to try to not let it go so completely over your head that you’re not even in the same ball park with what the author is getting at, let alone on the same page.
May I suggest “Invisible Woman?” It’s a really short poem by Robin Morgan. Maybe you’ll get that?
– Luckynkl
Heart:
I linked to the post because I thought it was wonderful. The theme of “woman as monster” is nothing new, there have been countless takes on it, good and bad, for thousands of years…from the depictions and tales of the Medusa to the prayers and dances used in honor of Kali as both a woman and a destroyer. Universities study the phenomena (http://faculty.pittstate.edu/~knichols/monster.html). From Frankenstein to modern pop horror/sci fi lit, the exploration, depicition and musings about the monsterous feminine is nothing new. Many women, even in blogs, have used such imagery. I doubt LittleLight was writing anything other than what she felt using imagery that appealed to her, as so many do. I won’t be removing my link, because i think her piece is amazing, and very much her.
Heart, it’s really not clear to me why you didn’t structure your post this way: “Dear LittleLight, you may not be aware that in the 60s Robin Morgan was making a similar point as you…it’s fantastic to see how certain liberatory revisions of ‘body image,’ including monstrosity, keep coming up when we try to think our bodies through in a fashion beyond oppression.”
It’s a great thing to share your knowledge, and to create connections between old feminisms and new. It’s not such a great thing to immediately accuse LittleLight of plagiarism, in a manner that is likely to start another blog war and which creates divides when there could have been bridges.
I’m a teacher, and I have to be alert to plagiarism. This is convergence, not plagiarism; to be honest, “monster” remains a fairly empty category in Morgan’s poem, whereas LittleLight fills it brimful with a wealth of mythological references. No philosopher is the first to use the word “truth,” no poet the first to write about “beauty,” and nobody alive can have read everything that pertains to their writing. A query is a better starting place than an accusation. That’s not because it’s better to be weak. It’s because it’s better to be completely right than half-right.
Renegade Evolution, yes, I agree that woman-as-monster is a classic theme in poetry and literature. I also think that given the ongoing tensions between radical feminists and transgendered persons and their advocates, it’s not going to work to fail to acknowledge Robin Morgan’s poem, especially in another poem which declares that it is time for a “feminism of the monstrous.” The theme of Robin Morgan’s poem is in fact, solidarity among the monstrous, i.e., women. Yes, failing to acknowlege Morgan’s poem can be justified. I can also say I think the thing to do is acknowledge Morgan’s poem, at least at some point.
Joseph Kugelmass, have you read Robin Morgan’s entire poem, “Monster”? That’s an excerpt up there. Her poem fills a book. Before I comment on what you say about Morgan’s monster as an empty category, it would make sense to find out whether you have actually read her poem in its entirety.
I nowhere accused little light of plagiarism. This is what I said, being very careful not to accuse her:
If the central imagery of the poem is going to be enlisted in a different type of political struggle, then circulated and otherwise blogged, it seems right to me that this classic of the women’s liberation movement, be acknowledged and named, with full credit given, if not immediately by the the person using the imagery (because she or he wasn’t aware of the poem, perhaps),
I think I was very clear about that. Others have commented and accused little light of plagiarism– that is their view. I did not accuse her of plagiarism. That is my view.
You say you are a teacher, Joseph Kugelmass. I am a writer. Acknowledging writings which are similar to one’s own, particularly when you are offering your writings to those in a movement to which both you and the other writer belong, is important. I have given little light the benefit of the doubt that she has never read Morgan’s poem. I will still give her the benefit of that doubt. From now on, though, many more people know about Robin Morgan’s poem, “Monster,” if they didn’t before, a poem very central to the women’s liberation movement in the United States, especially. I find the erasure of older feminists and their writings to be pretty horrifying, and so I have made it a priority in my own feminist activism to make sure these important writings are preserved and not erased, and that is also one reason I have blogged as I have.
One reason I posted this, too, is Queer Dewd/BitchLab, to her credit, reminded Belledame and her commenters of Morgan’s poem early on in Belledame’s thread about little light’s poem. From what I could see — and I haven’t gone back to read over the last few hours, so it may have changed by now — Belledame played right past what Queer Dewd said, as did other commenters. Nobody said a word about Morgan’s poem, even when QueerDewd/BitchLab said, “Hey, don’t forget Robin Morgan.” BitchLab was right to do that. And there should have been some response. When there was no response, I blogged about it.
Finally, there are important political reasons for my blogging about this. This poem that Robin Morgan wrote, “Monster,” was about the reaction of her small son to Morgan’s own genitals, the same reaction men and boys throughout the ages have had to women’s genitals (when they weren’t using women’s genitals for their own reasons). Women have been made, always, by men, to be monsters. Feminism has been, in part, about gutting this misogynist usage of the word “monster” and of similar words of their power to shame and denigrate us because we are women. Yes, we’ve been made to be monsters by men. So what. We’re proud of what and who we are, no matter what men say about us. We don’t care what they say; fuck them. I think it’s important for me to foreground this particular theme in radical feminism right now, particularly in that I’ve observed that we have been falsely and wrongly accused of calling transpersons “monsters.” We haven’t done that. That’s not true. The lies about radical feminists are going to come to a severe end, if I have anything to say about it, and I do have something to say about it, and plenty to say. All of us, as radical feminists, do have a lot to say about that. To accuse us of calling transpersons “monsters,” is to lie about us. I’ve known precisely one person who identified herself as a radical feminist to call anybody a “frankenstein” or a “monster,” in the way radical feminists are being accused of using those terms, and that person is, herself, a transwoman, someone who has done radical feminism and radical feminists, our entire movement, women, just in general, great, great harm. I’m not going to let that go down without calling it out, when I have opportunity.
As to blog wars, I don’t participate in them. Usually, I miss them entirely and don’t know about them until they are over with. If anybody makes a blog war about this, I will not be attending. I am speaking my own truth here. That’s all.
Heart
OMG, he’s like an actual teacher. Holy shit, wow. Everybody Panic!
Hey Kugelmass, when you write stuff like this on your blog,
“Very recently, Truly Outrageous linked to a post on the “feminism of the monstrous” which I (and many other people) found wonderful. Then a blogger named Heart took it into her head to accuse LittleLight (who wrote the post) of plagiarism. I’m a teacher”
Took it into her head? Unless English is your third or fourth language, which it doesn’t seem to be as you claim to have the privilege of talking about TV as an academic pursuit, you probably realize that ordering your words in that manner isn’t putting you in the “objective” camp that you clearly want to position yourself in, awaft on a load of sanctimonious crap.
“Bloggers need to be nice! And stop trashing each other! We’re all writers here, especially ME ME ME, and hey, you there, knock it off, YOU are stupid and don’t really get it, now do you, so hey, stop hating! Listen to me already!”
Good grief.
I should also say that I do think little light’s poem is very beautiful, powerfully moving, which in my mind is all the more reason for us to have this discussion.
Heart
Whether or not LittleLight was plagiarizing, there is plenty of crap flying on that blog post about this one. One bit was so absurd, I felt compelled to rebut it, so I posted:
Speaking of amazing, I found this piece of absurdity particularly astounding.
Dw3t-Hthr said…
It’s been clear for some time that Heart and her ilk are extremely threatened by the idea that a transwoman could have any sense of personal power or strength; that Little Light is willing to actually be publically herself is terrifying.
Dw3t-Hthr, you clearly have no idea what you are talking about. Nobody I know feels threatened by a transwoman merely having some sense of personal power or strength. But then, people who profess to know what others must be thinking rarely have a clue.
Aletha
I wonder what would happen if I said something like, “little light and her ilk.”
I don’t really wonder, I know. And, I don’t write that way, never have, never will. But that some feel so very confident in writing this kind of thing, “Heart and her ilk,” speaks volumes. What might my ilk be? The ilk of that subjugated and oppressed class known as women? The ilk raped, incested, beaten, brutalized, sold, made to be chattel, tortured in every conceivable way?
Clearly, the time has come for us as radical feminist women, lesbian separatist wimmin, Amazon wimmin, to rise. It’s enough.
Heart
The point of interest in all of this is not ‘plagiarism’ but the erasure and often, misrepresentation of Morgan/things from that generation in some current feminist discourse.
To the general reader, at least - one without any history with Little Light in particular, or transwomen in general - the parallels between Morgan’s poem and Little Light’s post *do* look like a case of convergence. And I am less picky about references and citations in blog posts than in journal articles - a lot less picky.
It is truly ironic that in identifying someone’s work as borrowing the ideas of another and using them as her own, you cannot even bring yourself to mention the name of the entry, the blogger, or the site that links to her work.
And you ascribe the theme of the monstrous feminine to one poet, as if other artistic works have never treated the subject, and as if other artistic works will never treat it again.
As if all poets, when discussing how the planets revolve around the sun, feel it necessary to footnote their treatments with the works of Galileo.
As if all feminist poets, after referring to the lives of women, send their prose with a works cited page out of fear that their words are not truly spoken or they have no knowledge of their own experiences enough to string words together to articulate them.
Also, ironically, I think you’ve revealed your true political reasons for invoking this appeal to literary authority.
Yes it’s beautiful, but the genesis of that beauty comes from Robin Morgan’s mind.
It’s plagiarism. I said it, not you Heart. Did anyone read what you said, or did they read what someone else told them you said.
The word plagiarism comes from a Latin verb meaning “kidnap”. I think that says it perfectly. But if that’s not good enough for someone:
MLA, APA, Chicago & Turabian styles say taking someone’s idea and presenting it as your own is plagiarism.
So do I.
OK wait, so I looked back to the post itself, and tell me if I misunderstand, the point is:
1. LL did not reference Morgan
2. Perhaps this is because LL does not know Morgan
3. Therefore let us reference Morgan, who is important and worth remembering
AND
The imagery of this poem is being enlisted in a different type of political struggle, and that difference should perhaps be discussed / made clear (for various reasons).
————————————————————————————-
But I am still not sure, from reading LL’s poem, to what degree it actually enlists Morgan’s imagery directly, since there is so very much written on the monstruous.
Thanks, profacero. The issue is erasure. It is also mischaracterization and misrepresentation.
Sylvia’s Revenge, I’m not following you. I linked to little light’s post in my own post, first link, second paragraph down, not counting the excerpt of Morgan’s poem, “Monster.”
Heart
But … but … they do such a *better* job of being women than we do.
Can’t we just get over it, and pay obeisance to them for that?
We never really knew how do do feminism until *they* came along and brought us into the light, while keeping the spotlight on themselves.
Being *born* female is such a nasty, creepy slimey thing that we need to have the way shown to us by those who were not so cursed.
Copycats are better cats, seems to be the point in all of this.
Mary S.
Profacero, exactly. Let’s talk about the apparent erasure. Let’s talk about Robin Morgan and her poem, “Monster,” which is beautiful and brilliant and worth talking about. Let’s talk about the difference between the struggles/issues of women and the struggles/issues of transwomen. Let’s talk about who has made whom to be monstrous and why and when and where.
Mary Sunshine, I love you.
xxxooo
Heart
I don’t ascribe the monstrous feminine to one poet. I do think that if feminists are going to talk about the monstrous feminine, they need to acknowledge feminist work which preceded their own– particularly when that work is specifically brought to their attention.
Heart
profacero we speak from our educations. Mine wasn’t yours. Now that the word has been used, I will call what is being done to women here, and elsewhere, erasure.
And I’ll call it plagiarism too, because the word means “kidnap”.
The nonsense that has been spouted about Heart’s post is quite incredible, and, I believe, deliberately disingenuous. There is no way anyone could read that post and come away thinking ‘Heart accused LL of plagiarism’, that’s simply not what it says! This seems to be yet another form of the attacks we’ve seen lately, which involve accusing radical feminists of saying things that they never said, and then abusing them for it. The nastiness of it all is shocking to me.
Robin Morgan rocks. I discovered her relatively recently, when I came acros an anthology of her writings in a secondhand booksale, and fell in love immediately. I love the discovery of new radfem writers, it’s such a enlightening experience.
Edited
The very language in the description of this work is suspect. Maybe this isn’t what she (I decided to choose a pronoun for little light, since “she or he” is so ambiguous) wanted to use, and she referred to scholarly works on monstrous feminism. Why only this particular book?
Edited
Profacero, I see that; but honestly when people draw on ideas to write reflections of personal experience relating to those ideas, the use of the idea to create a sense of identity is a homage in itself. When I speak about experiences as a bisexual woman and my understanding of my own sexuality gradient, should I be faulted somewhere else because in all my personal reflection, I didn’t pay homage to the works of innovators in bisexual politics and the Kinsey scale? Should an assembly of people who agree with me be collected to expose that my personal reflections did not come with its works cited appendage? If I’m not well versed in that area besides my reflections and general knowledge of a theory backing my reflection, should I not speak for fear I step on the toes of someone poised to motivate personal reflection and action I’ve created? And if it is discovered, why not approach me personally? I’m sorry; it just does not appear very genuine that this is a crediting gesture, about erasure of feminist contributions. If anything, the opposite is true: people identified with the movement and recognized its power. But in this case, it wasn’t allegedly the proper person bringing that sentiment to the fore.
I get the strong feeling there’s some history here I don’t know about.
This is a fair point:
“I do think that if feminists are going to talk about the monstrous feminine, they need to acknowledge feminist work which preceded their own– particularly when that work is specifically brought to their attention.”
But all these comments started flying about the airwaves, on several websites, before LL could have had the chance to get/read/digest the Morgan poem.
“And I note that neither of these two blogs have you on their “feminist” blogrolls …”
for what it’s worth, i’ve had heart’s blog on my blog roll for over a year.
and for the record, i never claimed to be a feminist. i like to think of myself as a student of feminism though, and i consider myself lucky to have access to the writings of people like heart from which to learn. i’ll add that i never knew that robin morgan wrote about pride and monsters so long ago. i thought the first reference was done by mary daly. and that is but one reason why i come here, to this blog, to read and learn.
I’ve just realised that what I wrote above makes it sounds like I was deliberately stirring. That wasn’t my intention, I just meant to point out that this is part of a general trend at the moment. Please delete that comment if it sounds like stirring, or like it may draw negative attention this way.
I should think before I type. Duh.
There is no way anyone could read that post and come away thinking ‘Heart accused LL of plagiarism’, that’s simply not what it says!
I read that very last sentence in her post as saying that someone isn’t being credited, let’s remember the creator of these ideas. Isn’t one version of plagiarism not giving credit where credit is due?
This seems to be yet another form of the attacks we’ve seen lately, which involve accusing radical feminists of saying things that they never said, and then abusing them for it.
Yes, it’s not so much that people disagree about stuff it’s the LIES. The downright fabrications and the third, fourth, fifth hand distortions. Makes it impossible to really discuss the issues at all. (and there are potentially some useful discussions to be had).
I read the anti-radfem hate fests, and my reaction was constantly - but that’s not what happened, that’s not what was said, but whaaa ???!!!!!
By the time it had gone on and on and got worse and worse I just lost all ability to put any coherent reply together about it.
Copycats are better cats, seems to be the point in all of this.
Nah, the bottom line is men. That’s the way its been since the patriarchy first crawled out from under its rock.
No matter how low on the totem pole a man may be in the male hierarchy, he takes comfort in knowing that he will always be considered to be above even the most kingly of women. That’s why we call it patriarchy. Shit rolls downhill, baby. And at the bottom of that ladder, we can always find women.
Less we have any doubts, do we see transppl challenging men’s spaces? Of course not. It remains intact and unchallenged. Because shit never rolls sideways or uphill, baby.
Robin Morgan does a piece on men’s colonization of women. And compares women’s bodies to the land that men seek to colonize. It’s a brilliant piece and one which merits mention and attention. It should wake more than a few people up.
Sylvia’s Revenge, the poem “Monster” has been around for a long time, has been cited to thousands of times in other feminist books, and is a poem which, for the first time so far as I know, speaks of what little light refers to as a “feminism of the monstrous.” That was and is, in fact, the central and specific theme of Morgan’s poem. Morgan’s poem is specifically political, in a way other works about women as monstrous are not. In the same way, little light’s poem is specifically political in a way other works about women as monstrous are not. It makes sense, then, to talk about that. If little light (or anybody, in any similar situation) had never heard of the poem, the thing to say might be, “Oh, wow, I never heard of that poem, interesting, I’ll have to take a look.” I didn’t approach little light personally because my central concern was not accusing little light of anything, but was erasure of the work and writings of radical feminists like Morgan, as I’ve already described, and again, not by little light because little light wrote the poem she wrote, but by the way Morgan’s work was not mentioned at all, by anybody besides QueerDewd.
If I should write a poem and entitle it, “The Masters Tools and the Master’s House,” dealing with that particular feminist theme, one would expect at some point to read some reference to Audre Lorde and her work, either here or in other blogs which might be discussing my poem. If nobody mentioned Audre Lorde at all, or if, when one person did, in passing, (as Queer Dewd mentioned Robin Morgan), there were no response to the mention, I’d expect those concerned with Audre Lorde’s work and writings to write about them, to write about Lorde, particularly if in their mind, Lorde’s work was being erased, as I believe the work of older radical feminists has been and continues to be erased.
Whatever is being or has been said about this thread, it is here, it speaks for itself, for anybody who actually reads what is here for themselves. The lies and distortions you’ve described, therealUK, laurelin, and others are, again, along the lines of the same erasure I’ve described. That *is* how the work and activism of radical feminist women has, in large part, been erased– by distorting it, mischaracterizing it, telling lies about it.
Heart
When someone points out that the work you’ve done is using someone else’s work, whether you knew that or not you then have an obligation to acknowledge, particularly when it’s so bleeding obvious. Regarding not knowing this was Morgan’s poem, for anyone, being a feminist requires more than simply saying you are.
This has happened time immemorial to women’s work. Men take it and call it their own.
knitting goddess your compass needs recalibrating. we’re talking here about the appropriation of women’s work.
Laurelin,
Thanks for your first post. It made a lot of sense to me.
Any excuse to set off an anti-radfem hatefest is a good one for our enemies.
Female reality has to have *some* expression, regardless of the consequences (unless physical or socioeconomic injury could be one of those consequences).
Mary S.
I don’t have time to read all the comments right now. I will only say that I don’t think (of course, I don’t know) that LL plagerized (as I understand the term). If she (I am pretty certain she opts for that pronoun so I’ll honor that instead of using “he or she”
knew of Morgan’s poem it would have been cool for her to give a nod in her direction. If she didn’t, well, you’ve called her attention to it. In all events, I am moved by both poems; I honor LL’s poem (indeed, I called her a poet in comments on her blog).
I can say that *I* had never read Morgan’ poem before and I am deeply grateful to you for providing me the opportunity! It is a lacking in my own education that I am proud to have now completed. Thank you.
Oh, btw, thanks for the link (though I’m not clear *why* you linked to my humble site!).
Denise. *That* isn’t Morgan’s poem. It’s a tiny tiny excerpt.
Thanks, Pony. That much I *did* understand.
So many others don’t. Judgements are being made, based once again, on what someone else tells them, instead of reading for themselves.
Following is Robin Morgan’s poem, Monster, in its entirety. Remember, it was written in 1971. By way of context, Morgan’s husband, whom she is referring to in the poem, was one of the founders of the Gay Liberation Front, one of the first gay liberation organizations in the U.S. Although he was married to Robin Morgan, he (and other pro-feminist men at the time) identified as a “fag,” as “effeminate,” and as variations of those words. The words were intended to be outrageous and confrontational (the earliest version of “we’re here, we’re queer, get used to it”
and were intended to be a move in the direction of deconstructing masculinity and heteronormativity. Morgan’s poem was written as some of these “conscious men” talked in the kitchen.
The poem imo is as right on time today as it was when it was written.
Denise, exactly; those who didn’t know about the poem before, do now, and that’s all good, that is a good result, in my opinion.
Monster
by Robin Morgan
Listen. I’m really slowly dying
inside myself tonight.
And I’m not about to run down the list
of rapes and burnings and beatings and smiles
and sulks and rages and all the other crap
you’ve laid on women throughout your history
(we had no part in it — although god knows we tried)
together with your thick, demanding bodies laid on ours,
while your proud sweat, like liquid arrogance,
suffocated our very pores.
Not tonight.
I’m tired of listing your triumph, our oppression,
especially tonight, while two men whom I like –
one of whom I live with, father of my child, and
claim to be in life-giving, death-serious struggle with –
while you two sit at the kitchen table dancing
an ornate ritual of what you think passes for struggle
which fools nobody. Your shared oppression, grief,
and love as effeminists in a burning patriarchal world
still cannot cut through power plays of maleness.
The baby is asleep a room away. White. Male. American.
Potentially the most powerful, deadly creature
of the species.
His hair, oh pain, curls into fragrant tendrils damp
with the sweat of his summery sleep. Not yet, and on my life
if I can help it never will be “quite a man.”
But just two days ago on seeing me naked for what must be
the three-thousandth time in his not-yet two years,
he suddenly thought of
the furry creature who yawns through his favorite television program;
connected that image with my genitals; laughed,
and said, “Monster.”
I want a woman’s revolution like a lover.
I lust for it, I want so much this freedom,
this end to struggle and fear and lies
we all exhale, that I could die just
with the passionate uttering of that desire.
Just once in this my only lifetime to dance
all alone and bare on a high cliff under cypress trees
with no fear of where I place my feet.
To even glimpse what I might have been and never never
will become, had I not had to “waste my life” fighting
for what my lack of freedom keeps me from glimpsing.
Those who abhor violence refuse to admit they are already
experiencing it, committing it.
Those who lie in the arms of the “individual solution,”
the “private odyssey,” the “personal growth,”
are the most conformist of all,
because to admit suffering is to begin
the creation of freedom.
Those who fear dying refuse to admit that they are already dead.
Well, I am dying, suffocating from this hopelessness tonight,
from this dead weight of struggling with
even those few men I love and care about
each day they kill me.
Do you understand? Dying. Going crazy.
Really. No poetic metaphor.
Hallucinating thin rainbow-colored nets
like cobwebs all over my skin
and dreaming more and more when I can sleep
of being killed or killing.
Sweet revolution, how I wish the female tears
rolling silently down my face this second were each a bullet,
each word I write, each character on my typewriter bullets
to kill whatever it is in men that builds this empire,
colonized my very body,
then named the colony Monster.
I am one of the “man-haters,” some have said.
I don’t have the time or patience here to say again why or how
I hate not men but what it is men do in this culture, or
how the system of sexism, power dominance, and competition
is the enemy, not people — but how men, still, created that system
and preserve it and reap concrete benefits from it.
Words and rhetoric that merely
gush from my arteries when grazed
by the razoredge of humanistic love. Enough.
I will say, however, that you, men, will have to be freed,
as well, though we women may have to kick and kill you
into freedom
since most of you will embrace death quite gladly
rather than give up your power to hold power.
Compassion for the suicidal impulse in our killers? Well,
on a plane ride once, the man across the aisle –
who was a World War Two paraplegic,
dead totally from the waist down,
wheeled in and out of the cabin — spent the whole trip avidly
devouring first newspaper sports pages
and then sports magazines,
loudly pointing out to anyone who would listen
(mostly the stewardesses) which athlete was a “real man.”
Two men in the seats directly behind me talked the whole time
about which Caribbean islands were the best for whoring, and
which color of ass was hotter and more pliant.
The stewardess smiled and served them coffee.
I gripped the arms of my seat more than once
to stop my getting up and screaming to the entire planeload
of human beings what was torturing us all — stopped because I knew
they’d take me for a crazy, an incipient
hijacker perhaps, and wrestle me down until Bellevue Hospital
could receive me at our landing in New York.
(No hijacker, I understood then, ever really wants to take
the plane. She/he wants to take passengers’ minds, to turn
them inside out, to create the revolution
35,000 feet above sea level
and land with a magical flying cadre
and, oh, yes, to win.)
Stopping myself is becoming a tactical luxury,
going fast.
My hives rise more frequently, stigmata of my passion.
Someday you’ll take away my baby, one way or the other.
And the man I’ve loved, one way or the other.
Why should that nauseate me with terror?
You’ve already taken me away from myself
with my only road back to go forward
into more madness, monsters, cobwebs, nausea,
in order to free you — men — from killing us, killing us.
No colonized people so isolated one from the other
for so long as women.
None cramped with compassion for the oppressor
who breathes on the next pillow each night.
No people so old who, having, we now discover, invented
agriculture, weaving, pottery, language, cooking
with fire, and healing medicine, must now invent a revolution
so total as to destroy maleness, femaleness, death.
Oh mother, I am tired and sick.
One sister, new to this pain called feminist consciousness
for want of a scream to name it, asked me last week
“But how do you stop from going crazy?”
No way, my sister.
No way.
This is a pore war, I thought once, on acid.
And you, men. Lovers, brothers, fathers, sons.
I have loved you and love you still, if for no other reason
than that you came wailing from the monster
while the monster hunched in pain to give you the power
to break her spell.
Well, we must break it ourselves, at last.
And I will speak less and less and less to you
and more and more in crazy gibberish you cannot understand:
witches’ incantations, poetry, old women’s mutterings,
schizophrenic code, accents, keening, firebombs,
poison, knives, bullets, and whatever else will invent
this freedom.
May my hives bloom bravely until my flesh is aflame
and burns through the cobwebs.
May we go mad together, my sisters.
May our labor agony in bringing forth this revolution
be the death of all pain.
May we comprehend that we cannot be stopped.
May I learn how to survive until my part is finished.
May I realize that I
am a
monster. I am
a
monster.
I am a monster.
And I am proud.
Thank you for posting the entire poem, Heart. I am very moved; especially by the following:
“My hives rise more frequently, stigmata of my passion.
Someday you’ll take away my baby, one way or the other.
And the man I’ve loved, one way or the other.
Why should that nauseate me with terror?
You’ve already taken me away from myself
with my only road back to go forward
into more madness, monsters, cobwebs, nausea,
in order to free you — men — from killing us, killing us.”
But then, it only got better and better. I will definitely have to pull out that Robin Morgan book I’ve been sitting on, under a stack of other feminist books - top of the stack it goes.
Always surprised by her. Don’t know why; I must just keep underestimating.
Thanks, Heart. My spouse (with a degree in philosophy and a penchant for keeping everything) actually had this in her collection. Still, it’s cool to have it online!
Oddly, I wonder what happened to her son. Did he ever become “quite a man”?
Oh god she is brilliant.
These are the parts that move me:
while you two sit at the kitchen table dancing
an ornate ritual of what you think passes for struggle
which fools nobody. Your shared oppression, grief,
and love as effeminists in a burning patriarchal world
still cannot cut through power plays of maleness.
***
Sweet revolution, how I wish the female tears
rolling silently down my face this second were each a bullet,
each word I write, each character on my typewriter bullets
to kill whatever it is in men that builds this empire,
colonized my very body,
then named the colony Monster.
***
I have loved you and love you still, if for no other reason
than that you came wailing from the monster
while the monster hunched in pain to give you the power
to break her spell.
***
Heart
Heart I am reminded of a writing teacher who threw a textbook across the desk at me, with an expression of contempt. Then picked up a book of poetry, waving it around “Here at least you have something. It’s all here”.
Maybe we should read the poetry, the words of our foremothers, discuss what we understand from the words. Once in a while. There, at least, we’d have something.
*I didn’t stay in English. I had to work.
To me radical feminism isn’t about competition and hierarchies of knowledge. I have often written down and thought up ideas that I thought were original, only to find that my sister predecessors thought and wrote the same things, almost verbatim, 30 years prior. It is at those times that I know I am connected to something larger and stronger than myself. Having a shared mental connection ties me to those women like nothing else can.
Language is symbol; language is myth. Powerful images that recurr across differing populations need to be shared; not shunned.
Yes, Q Grrl, I’ve had that same experience of writing something I thought I’d thought of first, then learning another woman (or man) had had those same ideas. I think we’ve probably all had that experience. As a matter of fact, what good writing really does is, or one thing it does is, it puts into words what others have felt but haven’t articulated to themselves yet, and so the reader “recognizes” herself in the words and feels connected to those who similarly recognize themselves.
This isn’t about that, though. It’s also not about competition or hierarchies of knowledge. I think it’s about feminist women acknowledging the work of other feminist women in a world in which feminist women’s work is erased, ignored, disparaged in an ongoing way.
Powerful images definitely do need to be shared– which is one reason to share Morgan’s poem with women who apparently have never heard of it (with a few exceptions.) What is circulated and passed around, taught in unversities, published, and what is erased, suppressed, censored, disparaged– that is all about power and the way power is negotiated in particular contexts and times in history. There are evidently many, many self-identified feminist bloggers who aren’t aware of a poem that was once described as “The Anthem of Feminism,” and not long ago, either, just 30, 40 years ago. There’s a reason for that, and it is called erasure. To say so isn’t to be competitive. To say so is to refuse to participate in the erasure of the work of feminist women.
Language is myth and symbol and so on, yes, but its writers, and its readers, read and write in specific contexts. Language is either published or suppressed for political reasons. Those reasons are always interesting and worth discussing.
Heart
So why do you wish to suppress Little Light’s words? Because they touch on the same vein as Robin Morgan’s? Using the same symbols and methaphors is not plaigarism and does not diminish what Ms. Morgan wrote. Instead of creating a gap, I would think it would create a bridge of common experience.
I suppose I feel there’s a certain timeliness of little light’s words; I still remember the visceral reaction I had on reading Robin Morgan the first time; and I can compare that to the visceral reaction I got from little light’s words. You can’t ignore that kind of passion, you can’t ignore that atriculate and eloquent attempt to communicate that which is fairly incommunicable these days.
Q Grrl, how could I — even if I wanted to, which I don’t — “suppress” Little Light’s words? If anything, my and others responding to little light’s words, even critically, is more likely to gain her words an even wider reading than they might otherwise have had.
I am concerned about the very thing you say you are concerned about — making sure that feminist women’s words are not suppressed. Not Little Light’s. Not Robin Morgan’s, either.
Whether little light’s, or any writer’s, words create a gap or a bridge will have to do with all sorts of factors, including negotiations around power, including politics, including history, including herstory. People on opposite sides of the political spectrum, any political spectrum, you name it, can use the same symbols and metaphors, sure enough, but as weapons against one another, in order to create gaps, in order to cause obfuscations and mystifications of various kinds, in order to conceal instead of reveal, to burn bridges rather than to build them. What we see in what others write will always be informed by our own politics, our own goals, values, hopes, experiences, and so on, as well. So, it’s not going to work, I don’t think, to assert that little light’s (or anybody’s) use of symbols and metaphors like those Robin Morgan used won’t diminish what Robin Morgan wrote, won’t create a gap. Depends on who is reading. Depends on history/herstory. Depends on what’s gone down between the writer and the women reading. Depends on all sorts of things.
Heart
And really, it’s in discussions like this that we find out, or decide, or establish, or gain insight into whether, in fact, bridges will be built or burned, gaps will be closed or created.
Heart
Q grrl, responsive to your last post up there (we cross posted), yes, this is why I wrote this morning as follows:
womensspace Says:
January 18th, 2007 at 6:01 am
I should also say that I do think little light’s poem is very beautiful, powerfully moving, which in my mind is all the more reason for us to have this discussion.
Heart
****
Heart
oops, missed that post. Sorry.
A couple of things.
First, about plagiarism in the U.S. It’s a very odd thing. Plagiarism is when you appropriate someone’s exact words or images. Using an idea is not plagiarism.
This reached a level of absurdity when lesbian activist Sarah Schulman realized that the musical “Rent” was a direct appropriation of the plot and characters of her novel, “People in Trouble”. To make the story even weirder, Schulman was a theater critic and wrote a review of the play without even realizing the similarities. It took a friend of hers to point out the entire plot and nearly all of the characters were based on her novel. Schulman used this personal experience to write a book called “Stagestruck” which I have yet to read. In the book she does not focus solely on her own experience, but expands the idea to how queer ideas have been consistently ripped off and distorted by mainstream culture.
My other point is that seeing similarity between Little Light’s poems and Robin Morgan’s does a disservice to both writers, in my opinion. Back when I was an English major, I’d have written a 30 page paper on how dissimilar the two works are. But I hope I’ve gotten over that tendency. It really is the worst kind of pedantry.
I guess if I’m forced to take a “side” in this debate, I’d support Little Light. This isn’t plagiarism, this isn’t even colonization or appropriation. It’s an age-old concept that both writers appropriated in different ways for different purposes. Writers constantly go back to the same themes because they work. If Morgan isn’t required to state her influences and predecessors, then why require it of Little Light? Why not enjoy both works and both writers?
I actually hate that Robin Morgan’s work is being appropriated in this discussion. I’d rather celebrate her along with hundreds of thousands of other fabulous feminist writers.
Ravenm, I don’t see similarities, particularly, between the poems themselves. I see that Robin Morgan’s poem, “Monster,” centered around the theme of feminism as monstrous, received zero mention in the discussions of little light’s poem around the same ideas, in all the venues the poem was discussed.
I have a lot to say about the way little light’s poem might be appropriation and colonization, and I’ll write about that in time. Morgan may well have been required to state her influences and predecessors. If she used the same imagery and ideas they used and didn’t mention it, then it would have been right for someone else to, and right for her to agree that it was right. She’s a class act and always has been; I believe, based on all I know of her work (and I know it well) that’s what she would have done.
As to Robin Morgan’s work being “appropriated” in this discussion, there I will have to strenuously disagree with you. Robin Morgan is a radical feminist, just as I am, and others here are. We aren’t “appropriating” our own leaders and our own theories and politics–they belong to us. By contrast, transgender people have frequently mischaracterized and denigrated Morgan’s work. I have personally engaged with transwomen who persisted in calling Morgan a “bigot,” a “Nazi,” “Mussolini,” “David Duke,” and why? Because she is woman centered. Because she is a radical feminist and radical feminist politics are often not appreciated by transpeople. My thinking is, that is possibly a reason there was little discussion of, or even (apparently) knowledge of her poem on the blogs discussing little light’s poem.
I can’t appropriate a politics, feminist work, that I believe in with all of my heart. But others can, have and do appropriate the work of radical feminists all of the time, often without realizing it, and often while trashing the radical feminists whose work they are in the process of appropriating. It’s important to me not to participate in that and to call it out if I get an idea it might be happening again.
Heart
Lots of people here have seen me engage the transwoman who was engaged in all of that trashing and denunciation of Robin Morgan, publicly, on the internet. As profacero says, there is a history here that goes way, way back. Robin Morgan wrote about the intrusions of transwomen into woman-only space in the 70s. That forms a context for discussions of this type. Not many feminists are aware of that herstory, that context, but I am, and when it makes sense, again, I am going to make sure it does not get erased.
Heart
Yes, using someone else’s ideas and not acknowledging source, when the ideas have been expressed is plagairism, whether expressed on the internet, a cocktail napkin or written in a book published 40 or more years ago. And yes, style guides used in humanities departments in universities all over the the United States refer to it that way. It’s not mutable.
Heart wrote: “I can’t appropriate a politics, feminist work, that I believe in with all of my heart. But others can…”
Heart, when you say this, it sounds as if you have granted yourself immunity from a specific standard that you then apply to others. If you do one thing and I do the exact same thing how can you be right and I be wrong? How does anyone measure how much you or I believe in something with all our hearts? I am trying to be open to your idea but it honestly sounds like you are claiming you don’t have to live up to the same standards that others do. Maybe you can explain it in a way that makes sense to me. But maybe we’ll have to disagree.
As for Morgan, her poem is an obvious appropriation of other writings that go all the way back to Mary Shelley, a feminist who used the image of a monster for purely political reasons. Shelley also invented the modern novel. Not bad!
And more power to Morgan for knowing that history. Morgan is an incredibly well-read woman. Her use of references to ideas from our ancestors brings nuance and deeper meaning to her poem for those of us lucky enough to have read the work that is referenced.
So just as Morgan wasn’t referenced, neither were all those other amazing writers who have spoken of the monstrous in reference to human beings who are “othered”. Refencing other writers with similar work doesn’t seem to happen much at all on the internet outside blogs that are specifically devoted to literature.
Pony, plagiarism is not “using someone’s ideas and not acknowledging the source”. Otherwise, “humanities departments in universities all over the US” would refuse to include Shakespeare’s work in their curricula. That dude never came up with a new idea in his life.
“I’d rather celebrate her along with hundreds of thousands of other fabulous feminist writers.”
Why can’t Morgan be a better writer than anyone else, everyone else, or at least *someone* else, dare she; or maybe be, even, as good as someone else!
Because clearly she isn’t!
I heard RIGHT HERE that her monster was an “empty category.”
Now, “empty category” is really just a way to sound smart when calling someone, well, less derivative and cliched, but as long as it’s male cliches being tossed about, well, it’s mythic and brimful and protected by smart teachers who skulk around the internet policing what is or isn’t covered under copyright statute 0.42.2e! And that’s smart! Smart! My shirt collar just pressed itself.
But female poets are boring. The ones born female at least. They don’t have friends, readers, zealous Captain America’s to the rescue–I mean, what could those chicks possibly have to say that’s of any interest to men? Unless they talk about fucking. Unless they’re young enough to physically personify sex. Editors love that stuff. Get your name on the cover of Fence literary journal along with a picture of a Suicide Girl. Careers are built on less.
Who the hell has even heard of Morgan and her monster? It’s kinda dry. Boring. She doesn’t have teachers, swell guys, each and every one a spot of joy, thumping statutes in her honor.
And if that ain’t the meaning of life.
Or so they say.
Heart:
Do not publish this if you wish, I don’t want to start trouble or what have you, I don’t want to be accused of, just as many of the radical bent are sick of, “starting trouble”…but I do have a question or two…and I really ask them because I am interested. Hell, I have read your blog off and on (more off, really) because you are linked over at Witchy’s Place, and I love and respect that gal, despite our different views, but this whole thing? Well, yes, an attention grabber.
One: LL said she had not read Morgan’s work…which means she was not trying to erase Morgan in the least, and considering LL’s situation, she really was coming at it from a whole different view. This is not an attempt to make light of what Morgan was saying, but in truth, all things considered, Morgan and LL, due to their situations, could not possibly be creating from the same place, could they?
Two: I am just going to flat out ask what a lot of people are hedging around…is the problem that LL (not a born woman, but a woman none the less) used similar metaphor to Morgan (a born woman)? I will say now I think that being trans is probably a lot more strife than those who are born women understand, but I will also say I can see why feminists, especially of the radical bent, see that being a trans woman and being a born women are different (in that trans women, while undoubtedly knowing they are different early on, do have a period in which they CAN take advantage of being male, and born women do not have that time). Is that really part of the issue?
And lastly, I want to say…well, I had not read Morgan. And YOU brought her to my attention, and I have been reading…so, all this aside, really, what you wanted, the attention of those who had not known about Morgan now focused on her work…well, that has happened. And it is a good thing, but I don’t like to see LL being hurt for it. She’s probably dealt with pain most of us cannot imagine.
Keep Speaking Your Truth, and I won’t say much…cause, yah, well…
-RE
It’s *so* odd, but I’d *swear* I heard violins just now!!!!
Hey, I’m proud of that comment that didn’t make it past moderation!
Amy:
I will take that as scarcastic….and file under typical….
Hey, that was a great post, Rich– sorry, I just got home now to moderate.
Ravenm, I think appropriation happens when people enlist what doesn’t belong to them — what they haven’t paid for, what they don’t believe in or even know about — to their own projects in a way which disrespects those who have paid for whatever it is or who do believe in what has been appropriated. It’s not about living up to standards– it’s about respect and integrity. When New Agers, for example, adopt, write about, use, sell what belongs to indigenous or aboriginal people, that’s appropriation. It disrespects the history and culture of those to whom whatever they have borrowed and used belongs. I believe that white people wearing dreadlocks is appropriation, unless they are Rasta and can wear dreadlocks with a deep and full appreciation of the meaning dreadlocks have to Rastafarians. Appropriation is using something that doesn’t belong to you disrespectfully, harnessing it to projects the people it belongs to would not endorse or agree with.
Another example that comes to mind would be as follows. A while back I was poking around on the internet and came across a BDSM site with cyber-dungeons and so on and the slogan of the site was an Audre Lorde quote. That was an example of appropriation of Audre Lorde’s work because Audre Lorde was anti-SM and her anti-SM views were published and widely circulated. The dungeon website people were using Lorde’s words iow to support a site Lorde would not have endorsed. That’s disrespectful, obfuscating, and exploitive, in the way it uses Lorde’s words in a self-serving way without respect for what Lorde actually believed, or without bothering to even find out what Lorde really believed.
Renegade Evolution: is the problem that LL (not a born woman, but a woman none the less) used similar metaphor to Morgan (a born woman)? I will say now I think that being trans is probably a lot more strife than those who are born women understand, but I will also say I can see why feminists, especially of the radical bent, see that being a trans woman and being a born women are different (in that trans women, while undoubtedly knowing they are different early on, do have a period in which they CAN take advantage of being male, and born women do not have that time). Is that really part of the issue?
Yes.
And Renegade, yeah, I am glad Morgan’s poem will now be more broadly circulated than it has been, and that more feminists have read it and been encouraged by it. I really appreciate your peaceable posts very much. And I also like witchy-woo, so we have some common ground anyway!
Amy:
Heart
heart:
Can I ask why it is an issue?
Pony–
Why should my compass of academic honesty be recalibrated simply because the material is written by a woman and feminist in nature? Are we really so special and unique that we need a whole separate ethical system from the patriarchy? Is there something inherent in our biology, our brains that means we have our thumb on collective consciousness?
Surely not. Yes, a community should protest the appropriation of creative work, but when the appropriation has actually happened. As many people have pointed out, well-informed art is that is usually pulls from many of the same cultural influences as other works, resulting in eerie similarities. Knee-jerk reactions only undermine the sincerity and believability of legitimate accusations.
Yes, you can ask, but I think your question is disingenuous.
Mary:
You can think whatever you like, I am of no mind to stop you, but I am honestly curious as to why it is an issue.
RenegadeEvolution, an answer is, to be born into the world female is to experience a certain kind of brutality at the hands of men from the moment of one’s birth and in an ongoing way, until we die. All of us born female know this brutality, recognize it, and have made our way against it and in the face of it. It is reflected in women’s art, writings, medicine, spirituality, specific traditions and practices, herstory, stories. It is evident in the way we encounter one another and in the way we encounter men and society just in general. Whatever women have created, whatever ways women have been in the world, have made for ourselves in the world, all of it has been touched by the brutality of our subordination as females, and that is the experience out of which we all, as females, must necessarily speak and do our own work. To be less than conscious here is to deny the facts of women’s subordination and is to actively disrespect women and our struggle for full humanity and so is to participate in our ongoing subordination. To appropriate our lives and experiences, or our writings, our work, is deeply disrespectful (and some other things worth talking about for a long time) in the same way other kinds of appropriation along the lines I’ve already mentioned are deeply disrespectful. Appropriation wherever it happens makes resistance to having been colonized and brutalized that much more difficult and real revolution and the upending of patriarchy that much more distant and out of reach to us.
I’m going to blog about this from a little bit different angle soon, maybe today, depending how busy I am.
Heart
Heart:
I look forward to reading it. And while *I* may not agree, in many ways, i agree…if that makes ANY sense at all. (insomnia…makes me less than rational)
Are we really so special and unique that we need a whole separate ethical system from the patriarchy?
No. The basis of our challenge to appropriation is not some claim of specialness or uniqueness or biology. The basis of our resistance to appropriation of our lives, bodies and work is our standing as people brutalized from the time of our births and from time immemorial because we are female. Appropriation is never justifiable for conscious people, including appropriation for the reason that patriarchy hurts men too.
Heart
“This seems to be yet another form of the attacks we’ve seen lately, which involve accusing radical feminists of saying things that they never said, and then abusing them for it. The nastiness of it all is shocking to me.”
Oh, yes.
“I’ve just realised that what I wrote above makes it sounds like I was deliberately stirring.”
No, it reads like the truth. No need to shy away from it.
And thank you.
Heart: where in Little Light’s poem does she reference transsexuality/transgender?
She does write:
But anyone who has grown up lesbian, come of age as a lesbian before it became all the rage, knows exactly and instinctively that this is the deeper message patriarchy feeds lesbians: you must really be a man.
This poem could (and is) about anything, any grieving that women outside of gender normative behavior experience. Not all poems are meant as autobiographical. It is, very importantly, the symbol and metaphor that are expressed.
Your criticism seems hinged on your sense of outrage that a trannie had the audacity to use a metaphor that a woman used 26 years ago. I have to ask, on what planet do you live? There is no appropriation; although there is a brief, very brief similarity.
But then, your outrage at appropriation is, I suppose, not really that different from my outrage at your appropriation (after 3 marriages and many children) of lesbianism. Is that a low blow? Yeah, but not as low as yours.
Why is “Male Terrorism” one of the tags to this entry?
You know often when I say I am culturally black I am told by POC that is bullshyt. When I ask why it is bullshyt if race is a social construct, then why cannot I construct my race? I am often told, “Well at the end of the day you are white and people will see you as white, and you will always have white privilege, so that is that.” This type of reasoning keeps me out of women of color spaces; it gives WOC, particularly some younger women reason to disrespect me, not once giving me an ounce of respect for being OLDER or having my experiences, all because at the end of the day I am white.
Yet it is exactly that reasoning that is justifying allowing a biological born male to be accepted as a woman. I do not think biological males should be discriminated against during transition, or if they never officially transitioned, but how is it that they are embraced openly, but I do not. If blackness is so special and only open to “real” members, then why can’t womanhood have that right to exclusive membership? Why are women seen as discriminating against a biological male, but people who deny my blackness is not?
To me, it is ONCE AGAIN, biological males dictating the lives of the oppressed with their agenda through a garnering of sympathy from the collectively oppressed.
“Well at the end of the day you are [male] and people will see you as [male], and you will always have [male] privilege, so that is that.”
What sympathy do I get, “You don’t understand what its like to really be black, you can never really be black, at the end of the day you are not black, if you medically altered the color of your skin that would be self-hatred [I would never consider that anyway], because black is a group collectively oppressed, etc etc etc etc.” Maybe I should do black drag. Females are collectively oppressed as well, but by making the comparison I will be accused of trying to trump gender over race, when both are trumped by what males want/desire/dictate/act on/command/mandate. It is no matter how one puts it, divide and conquer for “da man.”
Just like black culture is so appropriated into white society to the extend that whites can no longer recognize when whites are appropriating what was originally black, I think the same could be true for men appropriating the works of women. There is room for innocence, but there is also a whole lot of room for “unintentional” (usually that word is criticized when it is whites pleading their intent or lack of) erasure. There is nothing wrong with pointing it out. Actually I think if POC pointed it out it would be seem as an act of empowerment, yet when women of all colors point female acts, hence empowerment out, it is the same old same, STFU Bytch you are causing problems for men and male sympathizers (even if it is at the expense of women). Take one in the ass for the team.
I am sure my comments will be negated because of my white supremacy, my female stupidity, my lower class crassness, my overall asshattery, my unwillingness to blindly side with one side, yet when people throw out phrases like false analogies or straw arguments, they do not define the straw nor do they examine the very hypocrisy in their stance that makes the opposition a straw.
ChasingMoksha, nail-hammer-bang, says: You know often when I say I am culturally black I am told by POC that is bullshyt. When I ask why it is bullshyt if race is a social construct, then why cannot I construct my race? I am often told, “Well at the end of the day you are white and people will see you as white, and you will always have white privilege, so that is that.” This type of reasoning keeps me out of women of color spaces; it gives WOC, particularly some younger women reason to disrespect me, not once giving me an ounce of respect for being OLDER or having my experiences, all because at the end of the day I am white.
Yet it is exactly that reasoning that is justifying allowing a biological born male to be accepted as a woman. I do not think biological males should be discriminated against during transition, or if they never officially transitioned, but how is it that they are embraced openly, but I do not.
YES.
Going back to reading your comment, chasingmoksha.
Angry and Queer, one of the categories for this post is “Male Terrorism” because Robin Morgan’s poem “Monster” is about male terrorism (and Robin Morgan’s life’s work has been about male terorrism).
Heart
Dang, chasingmoksha. That comment is AWESOME and should be a blog post on your own blog. It is a privilege that it is a comment on mine!
My favorite parts:
EXACTLY.
Your black drag comment is insightful as well. That kind of drag would be hate speech, truly, like blackface, minstrelsy. But female impersonators? (Not talking about transwomen, talking about female impersonators, big difference.) That is completely accepted as oh-so- camp and kitsch and funny and goddamn, they look more like women than women do, never mind the way a girl or a woman feels looking at the performance for cash and accolades of what amounts to her brutalization by men, who don’t know what that’s about and never will.
Heart
ChasingMoksha, nail-hammer-bang
Just had to say that again!
Yeah, Q Grrl I don’t disagree with you that little light’s poem likely resonates with all sorts of people, including females, and in particular, gender nonconforming females, no matter the sex of who they love, whether they are lesbians or het or however they identify.
little light is an outspoken transwoman, though, a person born male. This matters. I think it is entirely possible to appreciate the poem itself — as I did, and reminded you of it when you missed it — while at the same time, while appreciating the work on its own merits, rejecting what amounts to appropriation of imagery and metaphors belonging to females– like Lilith. Like the Gorgons. Like Cybele and Baba Yaga, Hel and Ashtoreth, Lamia and Scylla, Kali and Kapo ‘ula-kina’u. To do this is to invoke and appropriate what is sacred to females.
I could write some beautiful poetry around certain kinds of issues I have great familiarity with, but which I remain largely an outsider to. It would touch people. It would move people. They might say so. If I began to invoke imagery or deities or practices of marginalized people groups which do not include me as a member — however well I might feel I relate, understand, whatever my experiences might be — then I am still appropriating, and however beautiful my words, however moving and powerful, no matter who might find their own reality in what I write and might, on that basis, connect with me and feel me, still, they have valid reason to challenge me where I have appropriated.
Say I wrote something very beautiful and powerful, which many people could relate to, invoking imagery or language from, say, Rubyfruit Jungle, or Stone Butch Blues or something like that. Then what if I didn’t acknowledge the authors of Rubyfruit Jungle or Stone Butch Blues? And what if, say, you
came along and said, “Hey, Heart, do you realize your imagery was used years ago, back in the early days of gay/lesbian rights by _________?” Would you be out of pocket to ask me something like that? To remind me? To ask that I acknowledge those who have paid and paid and paid in a way I never have and never will? To acknowledge those who have laid down their lives in a way I never will? I don’t think you’d be out of pocket at all. I think you would be right to say something like that to me.
I’m not outraged that the metaphor was used 37(not 26 :P) years ago, but that it was invoked in the context of feminism, by a person identifying as a feminist, who did not acknowledge Morgan’s work in the way I’ve just described, and by the fact that Morgan’s work was not acknowledged by many others, even when they were reminded of it (i.e. in Belledame’s thread by Queer Dewd).
Eh. I see your low blow and I’ll let it alone. It is what it is.
I know how you feel, Q grrl– you’ve told me many times :P. I don’t think anything I’ve written is a low blow to anyone, so there, I’m not with you. And I think outrage over appropriation and colonization are, well, appropriate for brutalized people. But as to my marriages, appropriation of lesbianism and so on– yes, I hear you and actually, I think you’re right. Whether I thought you were right or wrong, though, whether I agreed with you, disagreed, thought you were really mean, thought you had ulterior motives, thought you just wanted to get a lick in, whatever, no matter what, this would not be something I would attempt to argue you out of, let alone to shout you down over, and particularly not in public on a feminist blog. I wouldn’t let anyone jump to my defense about it either, as against you, particularly men, anti-feminists, particularly people with zero dogs in the fight (let alone zero dogs that can hunt.) Particularly people with old axes to grind or new axes to sharpen at women’s expense. To do so would be to deeply disrespect you and, yes, to appropriate your life and reality, a life and reality I have not shared, will never share, and have been largely an outsider to.
Of course, I have my own thoughts about all this, my own ideas that I think are intelligent and valid and so on. But face to face with you, and with your outrage over what seems to you to be my appropriation of your life and reality, no question. I’m going to step aside, STFU and work very hard to listen respectfully. It’s the right thing to do.
Having said that, I would like to not continue this particular discussion, in this thread, right now. I am pretty sure this is not the last time it’s going to come up, so we’ll have a chance again someday I am pretty sure.
Heart
One more comment and I will not monopolize (talk too much) any more, I promise.
I just do not understand why people do not see the dynamics of it all, especially when intersectionality is/is not superimposed. How can it be played with a covering or exposing blanket for one dy