I get told this a lot. Don't argue with trolls, Kitty, don't keep fighting with them, they're assholes, they just want the attention. Just block them. Just walk away. Just pretend you don't hear them. Don't look. Don't speak. Don't respond.
I used to do that. Used to bottle up my rage, vent it elsewhere. Then I realized that by not directing my rage back at these people, even just the once, I was internalizing it. I was taking it out in the wrong place, at the wrong people. And that's just ridiculous. I've had enough of wasting energy preaching to the choir and playing nice.
If someone catcalls me in an intimidating way? I'm going to confront them.
If someone publishes my personal details on a website to try to shut me up? I'm going to get even louder.
None of this "turn the other cheek" bullshit. I am not a passive person. I am not the docile type. I am a feral cat and I will claw back. As well I should, really. What sort of world is this when someone suffers abuse and harassment and is told the best method to deal with it is to shut up and sit down? Bless your hearts, I know there are people reading my blog who have said this in the interest of maintaining my mental health- I know you mean well, but I am not in the business of playing dead, and to hold my tongue exhausts me more than to fight back. I do not have the privilege of "just ignoring it"- as a fat girl, as a sexual woman, as a fat sexual being, as a sex worker, I would have to completely block out human interaction to have safe space. To ignore it is to submit to it.
"I do not take the high road. I take the low road and blows below the belt are my absolute favorite. The best revenge is not living well. The best revenge is revenge. My mouth and mind and typing fingers are weapons of mass destruction and I pity those ignorant idiots who would leave insults about mine or any women's bodies in comment boxes because there's ways of hunting people down. Lots and lots of ways. It's not as anonymous as they think, as stupid as they are.
I'd like to say things that would haunt them for the rest of their days, because their hideous words stay with me eternally. Their insipid spouts of "no fat chicks" are branded onto my soul, so they must reap what they sow. If I am in my worst way and I talk to you, you will know you have been talked to. I want to punish you with the unforgettable shit you will take to your grave and hurt you long after you are dead in the ground. may my poison bore holes in your dry, decaying bones."
I've been beginning to read through the SCUM Manifesto, a classic in the history of feminism that is often blown off as "too angry" and "crazy talk". And yes, it's sometimes pretty amusing, very much a product of its time, and certainly pissed off at patriarchy and capitalism- quotes like "Eaten up with guilt, shame, fears and insecurities and obtaining, if he's lucky, a barely perceptible physical feeling, the male is, nonetheless, obsessed with screwing; he'll swim through a river of snot, wade nostril-deep through a mile of vomit, if he thinks there'll be a friendly pussy awaiting him" is definitely the product of someone who is livid at male privilege.
Yet I find myself drawn to it, find myself surprised at how often I nod at Valerie Solanas's words and say "actually..." When I saw the article about the women in Egypt who fought back and caned the self-appointed "morality police", I cheered. India's Pink Vigilantes who shame abusive husbands and corrupt politicians by banging on their doors as a mob? That's AWESOME. When thugs attack two men on a fancy dress night out wearing dresses for being "fags", and those men turn out to be fucking cage fighters? I say justice.Pacifism has almost always ridden the coattails of people ready to be aggressive back. As a sex worker and a woman who is constantly made aware of the ways in which capitalism and patriarchy seeks to keep me quiet and in my place? I'm all for fighting back. Writing strongly worded letters only works when people read them.
I don't feel the need to use a bomb where diplomacy has a chance- however, I'm definitely not going to tell marginalized groups they're being "too angry" and that they should just deal with individual and systematic violence with peaceful resistance. There is a space for anger that can be healthy:Healthy anger is not aggressive, nor is it passive. The formidable center is clear and assertive. It is responsive but not reactionary.So yes. If punching back is "feeding the trolls", I am a total feeder. I will stuff them with my pointed fury until they burst. Because it allows me to do alchemy with my own anger, transforming the possibility of hurt and victimhood into strength and a push back. I will not be kept down. And I will definitely not be kept quiet.
Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean.(And when you wonder why I'm so into My Little Pony? It's my unicorn chaser for LIFE.
Maya Angelou
Blog title is a nod to Ani Difranco.)
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5 comments:
I think this post conflates things that are actually different.
For example, I agree that anger is a valid emotion and that expressing it and directing it at people who have done something shitty is often ok. But I think there are hugely important differences between the righteous anger of Cho raging specifically against people who would try to destroy others by bullying them about their appearance, and a document like the SCUM Manifesto which directs violent, irrational hate at an entire gender based on their group membership. I read that document and I think of all the men I know that are good human beings and... it's just not cool. Even if they're privileged. It's not ethical, or logical, or (I suspect, anyway) effective.
This is along the lines of why I refuse to shut up about the asshole who (by the revised definition of rape) raped me with a speculum after I told him to remove it. I'm angry at what he did, angry at his denial of it, angry that he still tries to silence me and maintain that he's a good guy.
Fuck the haters. I agree that sometimes you just have to speak up.
I've been pondering anger for a while. Last year a friend of the OH angered me so much I wrote a pretty anger and pointed rant on a journal that no longer exists. I said some pretty nasty things and he took it personally. Quite rightly so, as it was a very personal rant. I was of the mind of "if you don't like what I wrote, don't act like a dick and anger me or don't read it" then it started causing problems for me and my OH.
I took the whole blog down to appease the problem, appologuised to the friend for hurting them, but not for being angry, and left it at that.
A year later my OH says that person wants to make ammends. I email and then am shouted out saying I'm aggressive, disrespectful and should be punished. Wait, hold the phone here, since when do you have the right to say I need to be punished for my anger?
I am (was?) torn, between keeping the peace between my OH's friends and tearing him a new one. I chose instead to ignore him and not aknowlege his existance.
I do take full responsibility for my actions, and the consequences there of, but what angers me the most is this guy doesn't, and no ammount of trying to tell him so will beat it into his misogynistic head and sometimes that causes problems with him still being my OH's friend.
I would love to fight the good fight and keep the anger burning with him, but he's not gonna learn, so I back down as in what is the point?
First off, and most importantly, BRA-FUCKING-VO! Insert some serious weapons-grade hooting and clapping right here!
I think that anger is a double-edged sword... I think it's fair to say that anger is a dangerous and toxic thing... when you store it in the emotional equivalent of several toxic waste barrels and shove it into some concrete bunker in your heart. Because not only does that set up some serious toxic cleanup later (because it will leak, and fester, and scar you), you've also just told yourself that you're not entitled to your own feelings.
Not sure if you saw this, but yesterday on Salon, there was an article about a website called "The Dirty", where people basically slut-shame the hell out of anyone, posting their picture and personal details. The rationalization of the site owner was that if you take a digital pic, inevitably it's going to get online and be mocked. And I call full on hellfire-shenanigans on that sort of logic, because it's the same sort of logic people ascribe to trolls: Well, it's the internet, and haters are just going to hate.
Sure, haters are gonna hate, and trolls are going to be gleefully hiding under their bridge until someone comes clip-clopping along over it. But to simply take such asshattery at face value is wrong. Don't vent your anger trying to invest time in changing the mind of a troll - you never will. But you can say this far, no further, and fuck you asshole. Because you are sticking up for yourself, and while they'll still act the same way, you've given yourself a gift: self-respect. And you may have bloodied the nose of said troll enough to make him or her think twice.
On the other hand, I had to deal with a horde of "concern trolls" on my blog when I started discussing HAES philosophy, and as it related to my own experiences with putting myself through the weight-loss meatgrinder. I did have some donnybrooks, but I also realized that there was a point where I had reached some sort of internet tipping point and they were just flocking in like crazy. Eventually, I had to put all comments into a moderation queue that required some sort of ID verification for a few months. I was able to take it off, but sometimes the infestation becomes too much.
If people take the time to examine their anger and understand what it is that it's telling them, and not just being startled or afraid about what it is that it's making them feel, I think they'd find themselves in a much happier and healthier space.
I think that one can have unresolved anger toward situations/people/etc....
But that doesn't mean that one is spending one's entire life wallowing in such!
I'm not about to forgive some things. However, I don't think of them all that often, either; they're not relevant much.
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