Talking About #FemFuture

Flavia Dzodan, of Red Light Politics (and Tiger Beatdown, among other online publications), has written one of many responses to the recent (click here to download the pdf!) report by Courtney Martin and Vanessa Valenti, which is meant to be kind of a State and Future of the Dis-Union look at the landscape of online feminism. You should read both the report and the responses, if the topic is of interest to you. Valenti and Martin are right that the movement puts a lot of pressure on the women who do the heavy lifting, and it causes a lot of burnout. More pressure, of course, is put on those women by people who send them rape threats and hate mail for taking their views off Tumblr and into the “street” (mainstream media outlets.)

Flavia is a feminist I read as a palate cleanser when I feel like I’ve read (or written!) too many bikini-waxing-name-changing things about personal choice issues in a short period of time, and I want to get my teeth into something more intersectional and social-justice-y. I don’t always agree with her, but she never pulls her punches. To wit!

Years ago when I started writing publicly, I made the decision to write in English (instead of Spanish or Dutch) because a) it’s the language most spoken in my surrounding and b) my written Dutch is appalling. I lack nuance, I lack depth, I have the vocabulary of a child and quite frankly, it’s a language that limits my ability to communicate on the level I wanted to. Besides, when in 2002, the Euro came in, I quickly threw myself into the political consequences of this Union and I thought I’d be more effective writing in a language that is widely spoken within the area. However, because I am simultaneously in (i.e. part of this online feminism by virtue of writing, blogging, creating media, etc in the English language) and outside (i.e. I live in Europe and the bulk of what I write and communicate is about WoC living in Europe), I get pretty much ignored. When feminist organizations in The Netherlands organize events, they do not know I exist. Sure, I know for a fact I am read by some (in fact, the biggest feminist NGO in the country has me listed in their blogroll), but I do not speak the “local language”. Oh I do speak Dutch all right. But I speak of a feminism that is practically alien to them. I shout about immigration reform and death of WoC, I yell about State violence directed at WoC, I insist on the hierarchical nature of a White Supremacist Patriarchal State… all the topics that local feminist organizations won’t touch with a ten foot pole. So, I simply do not get invited. They will happily bring Caitlin Moran over from the UK to give a talk (they did last year) but those like me simply do not exist locally.

So, what I’m hoping to talk about, a little, is how you can (or wish you could, or already do, or if you don’t want to) incorporate a more intersectional, international tone to online feminist discourse. What role DOES immigration reform need to play in these discussions? Minority women? Trans women? Poor women? And how to get those voices heard. You know, just a fun easy-going Friday morning discussion of the future of gender politics and the discussion thereof in our culture. No big. When you’re done, here’s a tour of Olivia Pope’s apartment from Scandal.