“Both Sides”

They aren’t the same but it still makes me nervous

When a conservative man who utterly snaps on women and he gets described as a “god-fearing preacher’s son” or “a good kid,” we all are angry and disgusted and don’t doubt the reality of the victims (plus this murder got to cover for his violent racism with “sex addiction,” which is a whole additional discussion).

But then when men (and people that engage in a similar problematic behaviors associated with that kind of social entitlement) on the left (or popular with the left) exhibit problematic behaviors ranging from casual sexism to outright assaults, they get to be “missing stairs” with people making excuses for their behavior or lack of meaningful improvement of their behavior because they’re vocal “allies” or “feminists”. They get to say the right words and skip doing the work and then they get a pass too on the minor stuff, or worse. And then people get to be surprised when the house of cards falls if they do something publicly bad enough.

I’m definitely having a lot of trouble processing this and other recent events and re-mapping that into my own experience; thst said, I’m sharing this as a concrete example and not as fishing for sympathy—I’ve gotten that already and I don’t need to rehash it. So: I told people about Jordan’s secret filming and my abuse and abuse of others at his hands, but people still loved going to his bar because it was popular, and he had the vocal “good person,” feminist public reputation—the Josses, the preacher’s sons. And it’s easier to dismiss intimate partners, because truly we can’t know what goes on behind closed doors. I get it; I struggle with it too. But right or left, a lot of the excuses we make for truly disturbing or problematic behavior are so similar.

Conflict is not abuse. People are allowed to make mistakes and learn from them, but people that have a base disrespect for The Other will feel more comfortable acting entitled (or worse) toward vulnerable populations.

And jesus FUCK this was so clearly a racially motivated hate crime. I’m not trying to make it only about the violent misogyny part because it’s so deeply used to amplify the vocal racism against AAPI people. I’m pissed off he gets to “have a bad day” and use “sex addiction” to cover for his hatred.

Also he “had a bad day”? The fucking victims had a bad day. That sheriff… the excuses are terrifying. I’m sure he’s a “good person” even though he posted racist memes about the “Chinese virus.” Is he just one bad day away from yelling a racial slur? Harassing Asian Americans? Abusing women? Murder? That man gets to have a gun.

My Statement on the Criminal Impact of Jordan Hester to Me and My Community

Jordan Hester’s mug shot, taken when he turned himself in on multiple felony charges of “secret peeping”

A little background:

Former Bhavana Beverage Director Accused of Secretly Recording Women

Ten Women Tell WRAL Former Raleigh Restaurants Manager Sexually Assaulted or Harassed Them

I want to divide what I want to say into two parts: what happened to me and how it continues to affect me and my concerns about what happened or can happen to others in the future if they are not aware that Jordan is not a safe man to be around.  

Jordan taped me without my consent, and that’s what he’s pleading guilty to today. That action changed the way I interact with the world. I don’t enter a room the same way; when I go home with a date for the first time, I scan the room for cameras. I keep tape over my webcams at home. I get nervous about security cameras and being observed in public. I feel reflexive anxiety in the back of my mind years later. Jordan is here because he filmed me–and others–without my consent but our relationship did other damage to me as a person. I have spent and will continue to spend years in therapy coping with what happened during that relationship. 

I am asking that the court order him to register for what he did. I understand the burden of registration, and I am not making this request lightly or out of anger. I am making this request because Jordan’s intelligence, charm, and chosen vocation combine to mask the very real danger he presents to the women around him. Jordan and I both met and worked in the food service industry. Very rarely are hospitality professionals given background checks, and a charming person that’s good at the job and good with customers can start over in a new place without accountability. Jordan was good at his job and he gained a great deal of power in our industry. This was true even ten years ago when I worked downtown, where he was friends with my employer and the owners of other lucrative restaurants. He had power to influence hiring and firing in the community.

I think a lot of us like to believe that we’re pretty savvy–that we can spot a dangerous man, a creepy man–and avoid him. The problem with Jordan is that he is intelligent, educated, and knows the language of feminism. He presented himself to the world as a feminist ally, a safe man to be around. At the same time in our personal relationship he would talk about social engineering, manipulation; he made it clear to me that he took pleasure in his ability to fool the people around him. That he believed that he was more intelligent, and more worthy than anyone who disagreed with him. 

Jordan also used all the right words in public to bolster his reputation and use it as a shield to make us question our experiences. Publicly, he was a vocal and staunch feminist, familiar with using language about women’s’ rights and quoting authors on the subject. I dated him while he was bartending and even preparing to be the bar manager at a restaurant that preceded Bida Manda. He spoke about wanting to be a mentor to women, and “giving women a chance to break in” a mostly male craft cocktail field at that time. Privately, he would say it was because women “follow commands better.” I remember him saying it that way: “commands.”

Jordan showed me–in fact he gave me–copies of the videos of the other women, as if he was showing off his trophies. They didn’t know. He always seemed like he wanted to have one-up on other people, particularly women. The way he flaunted it to me reinforced that I might never know what he had or knew about me. I heard rumors and stories about his behavior, but he always had an explanation or excuse, like, “We were drunk,” or “she doesn’t like me because I dated her and then dated her roommate.” 

It’s disturbing, but there are men out there who are ignorant about consent, even if willfully so. Who believe that if a girl is too drunk to consent it’s not “real” rape or who believe that harassing young female employees is something that happens at every work place. I want to be clear: Jordan is not one of those men. He KNOWS those things are wrong. He did them anyway. He knows that rape is wrong, and even asked for my consent during sex fantasy play, something that has become even more disturbing now that I know what he has been accused of in real life. He knows how important a woman’s consent is yet repeatedly filmed women in private encounters who had not given it. 

Jordan is an intelligent man in an industry that lacks accountability. It would be so easy for those around him to simply not know that he is dangerous. He could move, use a nick name, and he’s a new person. It’s not uncommon for service industry employees to be hired on the spot without even a resume or reference check. For his part, it’s good that Jordan is here taking responsibility. Jordan may get counseling. That’s also good, and I genuinely hope it helps him. 

That being said: he knew what he was doing was wrong and he did it for a decade. He knew that people would think what he was doing was wrong and he bragged about his ability to manipulate. He knew that he was hurting women around him and he blamed them, over and over. I am asking that the court have him supervised and registered to warn other women of a danger that’s hard to spot beneath his public veneer.

 


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Cultural Miasma

Horrorcore for Kids

I’m not ready to reflect on the life and legacy of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and I’m conflicted about how her life and what her loss means to those close to her as a human will be over-shadowed by The Discourse; however, in the same way I would happily dance on the grave of David Koch, as a public figure I think that we, culturally, are able to seek interpretation of legacy in the moment. 

That said, the he Republicans will be gleefully jacking off all the way to securing a lame duck appointment no matter what the outcome of the election is. This was what they sold their souls to Trump for, the best case scenario–a 6-3 court for generations. 

So, there’s that. And lots of people—especially women or adjacent marginalized groups—are mourning something abstract but intensely personal to a shared experience. There’s a weight right now like when HRC lost (and the discourse leading up to that during the campaign). It’s hard not to feel that as a shared trauma from having seen so much of your life, career, and experience reflected in someone twice as qualified (or more) taken half as seriously.

So yeah, it feels personal to reflect on both her life and the current political climate surrounding her death. This isn’t about me, but it’s about the patterns and feelings I and other non-male people spend so much time with.

I’m only very roughly paraphrasing this from actual conversations, but: “You’re so angry, Madison. Have less anger, why are you angry at all men?”

1.) Why shouldn’t I be angry?

2.) I’m not angry at “men,” I’m angry an patriarchal power systems that got us in this mess but yes, I use “men” as a shorthand in phrases like “we eat the men at dawn.”

3.) It’s fascinating how few “men” think I’m angry at them, personally, for being shitty and that they happen to pack dick in various ways. 

So sure, dismiss my experiences and absolve yourself of how your misogynistic bullshit upholds the status quo because I’m just “angry at all men” and you can’t listen to the people trying to tell you you’re being An Ass.

Truly, for the love of the false god, someone please explain to me what parts of our anger are unjustified or lack nuance or lack basis in fact. 

But you know what? If they’re the allies we need then I’ll give them the fucking cookies they want and stroke their egos and cover for their blind spots. It’s what we’ve always had to do and that’s what feels so crushingly hopeless. Always, always, we have to catch flies with honey. If you’re carrion instead—or a fly swatter—you’ve offended their fragile sensibilities or robbed them of the protector role that stokes their egos. They like strong women as long as they still get to be stronger. 

I feel haunted by that passage in The Handmaid’s Tale where Luke tells the narrator that he’ll “take care of her,” even when she’s lost access to her accounts and credit cards. Luke means well, but she thinks to herself that that’s not the point; it’s the loss of independence, of the agency to control her own circumstances that’s the point. The sinking feeling of that is the cost to convincing a subset of allies to support the work. 

RBG gave everything she had right up until the very end like the god damn Giving Tree and that’s the anger I have. That’s the generational anger of women and other people in “giver” roles. It doesn’t stop; it’s a never-ending clear cutting program. Even when we’re “strong,” we have to play by rules we didn’t make. Dissent is “hysteria,” self-respect is “selfishness,” awareness is “blind anger,” professionalism is “unlikable.” 

So whatever, I’ll bake the cookies when I can and fawn how they want and let parts of my soul die if it’ll help the next girl–feels like a fucking hamster wheel though. 

 


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Feminine Musicians, Guitarbois

Feminine Musicians, Guitarbois 

I have a friend that’s the frontwoman and composer of a metal band, Valentine Wolfe. She kicks ASS. The skills, the aesthetic, the soaring voice, the storytelling. Goth as hell, ethereal. Her duo partner and spouse taglines her as “half Veela, half Dementor.”

While watching them on stage, the masc-leaning person (another musician) next to me commented, “She’s too cute; she’s not spooky, she’s spoopy!”

And I kept thinking, Why? What do you mean by that? Is it her soft, lilting, feminine speaking voice? Her aesthetic of long hair and dresses? Why did he need to say that?

I wish I had pointed it out, but as another femme performer not wanting to rock the boat… I didn’t. Comments made by this person and other people about my own femininity as a performer made me second guess myself.

We get judged and dismissed for being too feminine, too cute, too sweet, even when we’re writing songs about death rot–even when “too feminine” isn’t, like, a thing. Who even gets to define that? To femme for what?

When I go to upload my music for distribution, the genre options are “singer songwriter” and “female singer songwriter.”

When I was first getting started, someone at a con came up to my now-husband, Richard, and asked, “She was great! Who writes her songs?”

He was sort of taken aback. “…She does.”

Listen, I use my femininity as part of my act. I will happily show as much cleavage as I legally can for adult shows and solicit tips. I understand there are pros and cons to that, but at the same time: I am my own product but I’m also more than my act.

I see it click when people start taking me seriously when we’re behind-the-scenes. That I’m more serious and thoughtful than my public persona. That I do a lot of work and consideration before I put myself out there, and that I’m always trying to learn more.

I feel like I have to better, more organized, more professional to be taken seriously because of the way I look; I mean, I’m literally a clown sometimes. And this is me as a white woman; women of color and gender non-conforming folks have tons of other bullshit on top of that.

At the same time, when I’m in “character,” I feel like my anger or activism gets treated as “safe,” or part of a bit. I can say the same thing off stage in the same tone and people find it much more confrontational (“confrontational” in that I’m speaking openly on a topic and not couching assertions). I guess part of it is that I’m much more open and authentic on stage and in my public voice than they realize; I’ve seen this play out in my private life too, when I talk openly about my feelings or health but I’m not taken at my word.

(An aside, but to be totally fair: I get it! I do do bits and joke and smile when I’m angry or have panic attacks that are mostly “freeze” or masked. I try really hard to take that into consideration when I’m communicating in my personal life, to varying degrees of success.)

Anyway, I was revisiting my thoughts on this because of the hot take going around that Taylor Swift is the Millennial Bruce Springsteen and I am on board. I don’t love-love Taylor Swift and she has the same kinds of White Feminism problems I do, but she’s still the dominant voice in her songwriting even when she’s collaborating. She describes what she sees.

Regardless of how you feel about Taylor Swift, it’s an interesting read comparing Baby Boomer and Millennial radio sensibilities and the way we treat men writing about women vs. women writing about men.

Taylor Swift is also an underrated guitarist.

At any rate, it’s a complicated topic and I’ve had experiences in my own life where my art was influenced by the men around me in negative ways. The topics of my songwriting, the kind of music I liked, the kind of “girly” guitar I played.

“Fuckboi” wasn’t a common term for me when I was in my 20s, but those kinds of negging dudes are “guitarbois.” Some of them don’t even play guitar! Or anything! But they have a lot of opinions on how I do music, and it’s distinctly different from offering constructive criticism or talking shop. They want to make sure they’re still higher in the pecking order.

I actually made a micro-game about it called “Punch a Guitarboi,” because externalizing my feelings is how I keep from obsessing. Also my sprite is cute!


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Ask Them Why

Ask Them Why

Icarus helped me write this

I think one of the most telling things about “anger” has been asking why I shouldn’t be angry, either literally in conversation or hypothetically when I’m in the shower thinking about all the conversations I’ll never have but coming up with fire responses anyway.  

It mostly boils down to two things:

1.) “You shouldn’t be angry at me” and 2.) “It doesn’t look good/like I think it should look.”

Neither address the truth or justification of my feelings, or even the lack thereof. It absolutely centers their feelings over my experience of myself regardless of the causes. And seriously–if I’m being a huge bitch or have something wrong, then I should be called out. It’s just that for me, their reasons for why I shouldn’t be angry drip pretty shallow and mostly revolve around their discomfort, or my unwillingness to center their comfort even when it’s not directed at them. 

On some level, I wonder if they’re hedging? That they’re more afraid of me now and want to make sure I’m not going to go after them. Any angry woman is threat, a possible “false accuser,” “crazy.”

Two friends–at least twice each–determined that because I directed anger toward them (regardless of their own gender) that I must be mad at “all men.” I feel like I’ve been caught in an intersection between the personal and cultural anxieties of a particular group of people who chose to deal with it by trying to control or dismiss me rather than consider having to face their own actions in the future, even as a hypothetical. 

The other issue here is how much “angrier” my neutrality is received, and that has a lot to do with the way I’ve been asked to reassure people that aren’t involved in the community case that I’m not angry at them, or I won’t “turn” on them, or that they’re “one of the good ones.” 

Even though I feel like what I’ve done to move my case forward–contacting the other women involved, going to the police–was right and actionable, evidenced truth, there are people that see me as more vindictive, more volatile, more of an unknown quantity no matter how transparent I’ve been. In some cases, it’s felt like they wanted more energy from me to reassure them that I don’t have it out for them or “all men”.

It made me think about how men/masc people have to put effort into remembering gender contexts, male privilege, that lots of people are afraid of male-bodied people because it’s #NotAllMen but #EnoughMen. And like, it’s not the same because there are other gender dynamics at play here but I’m not trying to be scary and I try to keep that context in mind. 

That said, I think some people have a skewed view of what “scary” from me and other people post #MeToo is right now, and want them to ask why.


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Getting Checked Over Eyelash Curlers

Getting Checked Over Eyelash Curlers

Me with a fancy eyelash curler

When I was in high school, one of the girls in school choir with me belonged to a fundamentalist- type evangelical church; I think it was a Pentecostal branch.

Anyway, she wasn’t allowed to wear pants—only long skirts—-and wasn’t allowed to cut her hair or wear makeup.

We were on a choir trip—I was maybe 15, 10th grade—and we were changing on the bus and getting ready.

At this point in my life, my personality was much the same as it is now except I had a bad case of “cool girl” and “one of the guys” and “not like other girls,” which is it’s own internalized misogyny for another time.

So we’re on the bus, getting ready, and I see this girl using an eyelash curler—just a curler, no mascara and no other makeup.

I don’t remember if I commented to another friend about it then or at a later time, but I remember scoffing at how “prissy” or “high maintenance” it seemed to use an eyelash curler, period. (I have come a long way in my cosmetic and feminist journey.)

My other friend looked at me and said flatly but not unkindly, “Madison, that’s all she can do.”

And then the context hit me. That was all show was allowed to do according to her religion to accent her eyes. She wasn’t allowed to wear makeup, so she found other ways to express that part of herself, whether it was intentional subversion or not.

I think about it, sometimes, in the way I use and think about makeup now. Other people have spoken more on this topic than me so I’ll be brief here, but I feel like there’s this perception that people are using makeup out of insecurity, and some definitely probably are sometimes–even me, when I’ve got eye bags from chronic fatigue.

But for a lot of people and for me, it’s a tool I can use to assert my space and influence how I am perceived by other people. Maybe that comes from an insecurity about exerting control over my environment, but I get a lot of joy out of choosing to look how I do.

There’s privilege with that, too. I have the money and time to do makeup, and a steady hand without disability. But I’m lucky. It makes me feel lucky, or pretty—even in my full-face clown greasepaint for Metricula—or just… fun. It makes me feel present because I had to look in the mirror and make choices.

All that said, I was humbled by my friend and I’m grateful for it. I also own two forty dollar eyelash curlers.


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We Aren’t Allowed to Scream

We Aren’t Allowed to Scream

Obviously I’ve been going through a lot lately, and doing a lot of thinking, therapy, and self-analysis.

The thing that continually has surprised me is some of the stuff “woke” men/masc/enbies have said to me about how I should act or feel while I’m in the middle of a legal case prosecuting my abuser. (For more on that, see here, here and here. It involves a nearly a score of women over a thirty year period, and my felony accusations are just a small part of that.)

I’ve been told I’m too angry, and that it’s setting a bad example; that I’m not using my platform the right way; that I should have gone to authorities sooner because “truth matters” even when you have to take a risk and it could have helped prevent other victims; that I shouldn’t call out allies for their behavior right now because it contributes to my struggle to maintain support networks; that I’m not sad/crying enough so I must be doing well with it; on and on.

It’s stifling. I’ve also noticed that a lot of men have been treating me differently since I came forward–more defensive. I feel like some men have messaged to offer me support, but then also wanted my acknowledgement? Approval? Something past, “Thank you, that means a lot to me.” They want me to reassure them they’re one of the good ones, one even going to the point of trying to justify a “grey area” sexual encounter as if I were an arbiter. If I haven’t gone out of my way to give them approval, I’ve occasionally been treated as somehow hostile to them or as if I’m withholding something they deserve because I’m stuck up. 

I like giving people validation and helping them feel good about themselves, but this constant call to center someone else’s feelings over my own is draining. Look, I have a lot going on, and I’m still able to fill that support role for some people, particularly those closest to me or the other survivors of Jordan that I’ve networked with. But past that, I can’t do all of that for other people at the same level as before. I’m trying to balance it.

As far as the criticism I’ve faced, I’m trying to sort what I think was valid and in good faith and what was not. Just because I’m in a prolonged crisis situation doesn’t mean that I’m immune from feedback, criticism, or being called out for inappropriate behavior. Some of what I’ve seen, though, is bad faith criticism or anger at me that I think comes from a place of insecurity. Some people are defensive around me, or projecting what I think is an unfair vengeance narrative on my actions. I am angry. That doesn’t make me vindictive.

I have a lot of trauma around being “exposed” or secretly observed/recorded, and honestly part of coping with the overwhelming stress and paranoia of that was trying to be as open-book as possible. If there is a problem with my thinking or perception, I want it to be easy to identify so I can address it or look at it from a different angle. An excerpt from the essay below was posted on Instagram by a Black woman activist about “call out culture” and it struck such a chord with me; this idea that just stating what happened to you is harm to the other person.

The idea that simply naming harm and/or violence is punitive, is frankly laughable. Very rarely are people accused of harm/violence punished for their actions.

It’s an idea that describing the hurt and fear someone may have caused you is aggressive in and of itself, and that you need to be “above it” or you’ve invalidated yourself or your story. There’s a difference between lying or twisting a truth and saying “this is what happened to me” when you feel unsafe or exploited and other avenues of stabilizing the situation (stabilizing, not necessarily resolving) have been rejected or aren’t accessible. I have done my best to be open, available, and clear and to admit my own mistakes or the validity of how someone may have interpreted my actions. 

It’s not enough to try and stay mindful and kind; I have to be perpetually calm, accepting, and measured to get taken seriously, to not be seen as hysterical or vengeful or man-hating.  

It’s like I can have a little anger, as a treat, but I’m not the one who gets to decide.

 

Takiyah Thompson (PettyPapi on Instagram) writes on RiotRevlot:

There is a hyperfocus on how victims and survivors choose to handle their abusers both within society as a whole, and within the movement. Should a survivor or victim publicly account the abuse or harm they experienced, the focus and scrutiny is instantly placed on the accuser.

We tell survivors to do everything besides confront and publicly account the abuse they’ve experienced. No community is exempt from espousing this victim blaming rhetoric. We say pray it away, talk it out in private, keep it in the family. Anything to spare abusers a fraction of the pain and trauma victims have known.

In the movement, the same victim blaming rhetoric is being repackaged as woke with the rejection of public accountings of harms being twisted into what is now pejoratively described as “call out culture.” What those who scrutinize survivors fail to realize is that public accountings of harm are usually the last ditch effort employed by survivors in an attempt to protect others and achieve consequences for their abusers.

Over the past month there have been a slew of survivors coming forward with their stories, calling out people who have been harmful or violent. While it may be easy to chalk the phenomenon up to feelings of hopelessness stemming from quarantine related restlessness, the situation deserves a more rigorous analysis.

At the time of this writing, 55 days have passed since George Floyd was murdered by pig cop Derek Chauvin. Protests and riots have rocked every corner of Turtle Island. Within a matter of days the Minneapolis 3rd precinct was burned to the ground. Cop cars were similarly torched In Atlanta, New York, Los Angeles, and Oakland. For the first time in recent memory, protests and memorials have been staged to honor black women and Trans people such as Breonna Taylor, Oluwatoyin Salau, Nina Pop, and Tony McDade.

In the past 55 days, the masses of marginalized people, particularly Black marginalized people have been injected with a demystifying dose of clarity, consciousness, and a renewed will to live and fight.

We have chosen this moment to speak our truth, not from a sense of suicidality or boredom. Rather, we are speaking our truth because there has never been a more materially opportune time to do so, because we are choking on the secrets we’ve kept in an attempt to protect our abusers from public scrutiny.

There is popular assumption that victims do not see the human complexity of our abusers. There is a burden placed on survivors to show kindness and grace toward their abusers. This burden we place on survivors ignores the fact that victims of abuse are usually the ones who have shown their abusers the most care and kindness, which was what put them in a position to be drawn in, manipulated, and ultimately abused.

Some have argued that publicly naming our abusers and the harm and/or violence we’ve endured is one sided, punitive, and carceral. That if we speak about the harm we’ve experienced, we are creating a one sided narrative. That when we talk about violence all too prevalent in the movement, we are the ones doing “state’s work.” Some have even likened call out posts to lynchings (try not to laugh!).

It’s interesting how this charge of “doing state’s work” is never leveled at the sexual abusers, antiBlack non-profit directors, or other wolves dressed up in revolutionary clothing, the people whose harmful and violent actions maintain the -isms we say we are committed to eliminating. Doesn’t the state smile to itself every time a strong and powerful comrade is pushed out of the movement because of racism, sexism, or any other oppressive violence?

The idea that simply naming harm and/or violence is punitive, is frankly laughable. Very rarely are people accused of harm/violence punished for their actions.

When someone is publicly accused of harm or violence the most common outcome is a mass unfollowing on social media. Let’s be clear, unfollowing someone is not a punishment. Choosing not to be friends with someone is not carceral. Deplatforming and distancing one’s self from someone accused of abuse is not “disappearing” someone. And above all, a call out post is decidedly NOT a lynching.

More often than not it is the accusers who are the ones punished. All too often, people who accuse the powerful and clouted are ostracized and ignored. Victims are labeled “drama” or worse, smeared as complete liars. Rumors begin circulating about the mental health status of victims and accusers.

When survivors go public with an accounting of harm and/or abuse, an overwhelming hush ensues. Something interesting recently happened to me. On Instagram, I addressed some of the harms and violences that myself, my family, and comrades had endured at the hands of local so-called community organizers. To my surprise, the post was shared dozens of times and yet only a fraction of that number contacted me to offer words of encouragement or support.

What this revealed to me is that we don’t have a callout culture at all, instead we have a whisper culture. A culture wherein accusations of harm and violence are shared privately and discussed in small cliques rather than brought into the open where contradictions can be resolved. In a whisper culture there is only rumored antiBlackness, rumored rape, rumored violence, rumored abuse, rumored evictions, and rumored misogynoir. In a whisper culture we talk about the accused and the accuser, but not to them. We piece together our own character assessments of each individual in an attempt to asses the plausibility of accusations.

It’s often assumed that call out posts “shame” those accused of being harmful and/or violent. This position is just that, an assumption. The reality however is that very rarely do individuals who have been called out display shame. More often than not, individuals accused of being harmful are still showing their faces at protests, still maintaining their internet presence, still raping people, still being antiBlack, still speaking on panels, still writing books, and still positioning themselves as authorities on truth and justice . To say call outs in themselves shame the accused is presumptuous at best and a straight up lie at worst.

What we are calling shame might in all reality be a cognitive dissonance response. What has been labeled as shame may actually be the discomfort of being confronted with the fact that ones actions have acted in accordance with all we wish to destroy.

Ultimately, a call out is no different than a scream. If someone is stabbed, they’ll likely scream. Pushed down a flight of stairs, scream. Shot, scream. If someone is harmed or violated in some way it is expected that they will vocalize that pain. Why then do we ask the authors of call out posts to keep their scream to themselves? Why do we tell them when, where, and how they are allowed to scream? This is not liberatory.

A scream does not have to be articulate. A scream does not have to sound good. A scream does not have to be quiet and considerate. Victims do not have to be held to a higher standard than the person who violated them. Victims do not have to be perfect.

Instead of whispering to one another about the uncomfortable dissonance of a survivor’s scream, our movement has to prioritize the violence and harm that initiates the scream. If all of our energy is focused on the tone a survivor takes, we will never be able to address the life and death matters that leave the most vulnerable lives hanging in the balance.


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Yes, I *am* angry

There are masculine people that use the language of self-care and social justice to absolve themselves of ever having to experience criticism and then will attempt to dismiss anyone holding them even mildly accountable as a hysterical woman. 

They maintain a public shield.

The reason they lash out at people in private instead is because if they did it in public, they might open themselves to critique if more than “their” side is available in public discourse. They will say it’s to avoid airing “dirty laundry,” or to protect *you* from criticism. 

“I’m doing this to protect you, it’s for your own good, that’s why I’m agreeing with you publicly but behind closed doors I’m going to use my knowledge of what you’re going through against you and remove the avenues for you to speak up personally and professionally because I’ve been monitoring it.This is so sad, look what you’ve done to yourself.” 

So I get to be one more girl afraid of a volatile masc person in her organizations, and any defense I take to protect myself or others will feed into the “angry hysteria” and “crazy ex girlfriend” narrative. 

I’m not entitled to discussions, or explanations, or apologies, but neither are they free from my criticism and disappointment in their cruelty. Their carefully constructed dismissals and anger illustrate that my fear of retaliation from them isn’t paranoia.  


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#NotAllMen, right?

I know #NotAllMen, but who would like to use me publicly for some woke credibility but privately attack me for personally invalidating other  sexual assault survivors next? What it’s gonna be next? So far men/boys have told me I have invalidated other survivors by:

1.) not crying enough, 2.) being too angry, 3.) insulting burner culture, 4.) not doing enough to publicly distribute help resources despite pending legal proceedings, 5.) going to the police, 6.) not accepting “help” from allies that makes *them* feel better, not me.  

5 out of those 6 were from vocal feminist allies. I’m not saying that I should be free from criticism or consequences from what I say and do. Even in the middle of all this, my accountability is important. But fuck, I’m trying so hard and I know that’s not always good enough but I’m trying to juggle a lot of things here and I apologize that things are getting dropped. But that said, maybe don’t try to use me for public credibility leverage while privately making sure I know that not only am I doing this wrong but that I’m specifically invalidating other victims by doing it. If that’s true, then why the public/private divide? 

Why have these all been men and boys? I’m not saying that I’m incapable of invalidating other survivors but I’m just at such a loss. I mean, on some level I knew that this would happen and it wouldn’t just be theoretical, and I’m still in and ready. But I thought it would be strangers mostly? That said, I’m overwhelmed with the support the community  and our friends have given the (increasingly large) group of us. Thank you. 


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