Break

I quite obviously haven't posted in the past two weeks. Reasons.

But I wanted to come on to say

Happy New Year's!

I'll be back to posting soon, I think.

Where is the offense?

(this video, this tumblr post for gif)

It is not offensive to call someone racist or sexist. 

In our culture, the default is racist and sexist. It should not be offensive to be told the truth, that you grew up in a culture that encouraged bigoted thoughts and behavior because those benefit a hurtful system of power. Even though I exert a lot of effort to educate and improve myself, I know I am racist and sexist - I am saying as a mulatto woman. We all internalize negative messages, even about ourselves. The work of unpacking is unending. We can't stop before the work begins because we're offended. We can't stop because it's hard because it's harder to be the recipient of these harm from these systems of power.

People are called racist or sexist based on their behavior. As long as the problematic behavior is pointed out and the reason/basis for the problem is explained, that call out is valid. 

For example, a while ago, a friend of mine called me out for the way I was blogging about the Sochi Olympics. I didn't understand why at first. I was defensive; I explained why I thought that what I was doing was right. But also I listened to what she said; I asked how I could respect her and her culture. I didn't leave seeing everything the way she did, but I sympathized with her position - I did my best to relate her experience to my experience to understand where she was coming from, why she was hurt. I asked questions about why what I wrote was a problem. Once I understood, I apologized. I thanked her for trusting me. I changed the way I spoke and wrote about the topic.

Of course, I'm still going to mess up, but I'm trying. I didn't deny that the way I acted was harmful. Instead, I changed my behavior so I wouldn't be harmful in the future. I hope that our friendship grew because of talking about this.

Call outs are not about silencing. Call outs are usually meant to be the start of a conversation. One doesn't passively receive a call out nor does one stop talking because of a call out. As I said, I asked why what I did was wrong or hurtful. The call out was part of a conversation: a conversation I needed to listen to and engage with about the topic. Of course, the person who was offended is not responsible or required to engage with you. If they ask you to google it or refer you to other resources, that's still about talking and listening to those specifically educational sources. We aren't offended by out teacher's saying "You are wrong." We listen to our teachers and correct our error. Nor do we require everyone to be a teacher all of the time.

Mthembu highlighted the need to engage in open dialogue about race, despite the potential discomfort. [...] In order to have these vital conversations, Mthembu explained, “We have to allow for mistakes and forgive each other.” (MIT Black Lives Matter event)

Call outs are helpful, educational, trusting. If I am calling someone out, it is because I think they can change their behavior. Often, I only call out people who I care about, people I trust enough not to be violent or hurtful. I call people out because I think, Surely this person wouldn't want to hurt me, surely they'd care enough to change their behavior. Someone - a friend, colleague, activist - has invested time and effort to bring a matter to your attention, likely a matter that they care about and affects them. A call out is supposed to instigate deep thinking: Why was this wrong? How can I improve?

Of course, most times this is not the response. People become angry or defensive.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8xJXKYL8pU[/embed]

They say 'I'm not! I didn't mean it that way! You know I'd never!'

'It's not helpful to call people racist. Surely you've messed up before'

'Why can't you just accept different opinions? Why are you so angry, aggressive, worked up, sensitive?'

A call out is not about any of those things. Some people think that call outs are a call to censorship. But they are not. They are a call to consideration and respect; we have all learned from an early age to express ourselves carefully and with consideration for others. We do not blurt "I want that now! Mine!" We do not throw things to express our anger. We don't cuss at people when we are upset with them. Hopefully. Similarly, we must learn how to empathize and respect people in the way we speak, write, and act.

Arrogant Girls' Club

[caption id="attachment_479" align="alignnone" width="418"] Jenny Holzer, My arrogance knows no bounds and I will make no peace today, and you should be so lucky to find a woman like me[/caption]

Imagine our Amazonian future. Enjoy your vision, visage, victories. Know that loving yourself as a woman – connecting with our history – exploring our witches’ strength and creativity – know that this like all women’s work is real. (via Aria)

Ferguson: More on Rioting

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8v-Pd62hq0w[/embed]

BLACK LIVES MATTER

you don't understand what i'm talking about

BLACK LIVES >> PROPERTY

Ferguson Protests

My friends and I went to one of the protests against the failure to indict Darren Wilson, the murderer of Mike Brown. We ended up being photographed by the Tech. Since Wednesday, there have been national peaceful protests. In addition to protesting the failure to indict the murderer of Mike Brown, our government has failed to indict the murderer of Eric Garner, a murderer who used an illegal chokehold and had his crime caught on camera. It's an absolute perversion of justice to think that black people can be extra-judiciously murdered. I am so proud and honored to be part of a movement to stop racial violence in the country I call home.

[caption id="attachment_473" align="alignnone" width="300"] It me![/caption]

i remember my mother telling me about the white dismissal of justified anger and grief in dc over the gov't sanctioned murder of MLK. While I am proud of my actions, I am sad that I may have to recount my own stories to future generations of young black women. I have written about my white passing privilege before. I feel that it is my responsibility to speak, write, and act in solidarity with black people, my people. The call 'white allies to the front,' strangely enough, applies to me. I do not want to be the face of this movement, but I want to utilize my resources to help protect black lives from institutional - specifically police - violence. We remember and we'll keep on dreaming!

On Facebook, people seem comfortable airing out their unsolicited racist opinions. Some such gems include:

People who are protesting should actually learn about about the situation and how rioting might not get them anywhere but cause more aggravation and riots itself

and

I'm sorry, but i think it's a little far to claim that it is a "burden" to be black in America.

and

1000s of lives, homes, and property have been destroyed in these riots! how terrible

While it is not the responsibility of black or minority people to deal with this sort of blatant ignorance, I have generously taken the time to address some of these concerns.

A Reality of Kindness

All of these statements go against factual evidence. They also go against my personal experience, of the kindness, peacefulness, and empathy exhibited by the protesters in Boston. The national protests have been non violent protests, including marches, die ins and boycotts.

Chief O’Neill said the protesters [in NYC] had not prevented ambulances or other official vehicles from responding to emergencies during the first two nights of demonstrations. No sick person, or civilian with a health emergency has been unable to get help, he said. (via Ny Times)

Protesters have moved to allow ambulances through in NYC. Protests have been attended by children. Protesters have carried injured people to safety, caring for those hurting from tear gas. Furthermore, protesters in Ferguson have tried to peacefully engage with police while helping injured people. In response, they were attacked with tear gas! Who is being violent here? The people carrying an injured woman? Or the people using military grade weapons?

Police fired tear gas at a crowd of protesters who were carrying an apparently unconscious woman to safety during violent clashes in Ferguson on Monday night. (Daily Mail)

Ferguson has often been described as a site of violent riots. While there are sensationalist titles like "Fires and looting at businesses as violence overtakes protests over no indictment in Ferguson," the reality is far less frightening and violent. The description of violent riots is not the reality, not in Ferguson and not nationally! Even the sensationalists have to admit

A short time later, Brown's family issued a statement asking people to keep their protests peaceful (via Fox News, Fires & Looting)

The protesters, an organized political movements, have consistently regulated their own behavior. When people were getting too amped up at the protest I attended, people would begin to chant "This is a peaceful protest" or urge once-strangers to calm down. I linked arms with black women who chastised their male friends for getting aggressive; I was ushered through the throngs by caring men when I told them I had been split from one of my friends; I was offered homemade food by an elderly couple. I was awed by the kindness and concern exhibited by the protesters in Boston; our protest was a gathering of empathetic people who were grieving a national loss of life and justice. Certainly the protest I attended was not every protest, but I don't think you can dismiss the 1400 people who protested in Boston that night nor the students who walked out of class Dec 1. Protests are groups of large people, thousands of people. It's impossible to control the actions of everyone, but protesters are doing their best to keep everyone level headed and in line with a standard of non violent behavior.

Property Damage

it's a disingenuous lie to claim that homes or lives have been destroyed.

Again, let's look to the location that's been described as a site of violent riots:

1 As news of the decision spread, protesters surged forward, throwing objects at officers in riot gear. The sound of gunfire could be heard. 2 Police officers used tear gas and smoke to disperse people who were hurling rocks and breaking the windows of parked police cruisers. A vehicle was set on fire.3 At least a dozen buildings were set on fire around the city, many in the vicinity of Ferguson Market and Liquor, the store Michael Brown was in before he was killed by Officer Wilson. (via Ny Times)

As the Ny Times explains, there have been instances of property damage. With the exclusion of privately owned cars, all property damage has been of either police property or commercial buildings. No private homes have been destroyed. While cops claim to have heard lots of gun fire, I cannot find any news coverage of serious injuries or deaths. So no deaths; no homes destroyed. Just property that was probably insured.

Causation: Was it even protesters?

Returning to the idea that protesters have called for non violence and peace, I wonder: did protesters cause these fires? The Klu Klux Klan has made their presence in Ferguson known, by threatening to use lethal force against protesters. The KKK also has a history of terrorizing black people by setting fires. Racist white people have a history of setting fire to black communities and businesses, as in the Tulsa Riots that destroyed the prosperous Black Wall Street. In those riots, white people killed at least 30 black people in addition to destroying what would now be $30 million in property damage, including the black hospitals.

At around 1 a.m., the white mob began setting fires, mainly in businesses on commercial Archer Street at the southern edge of the Greenwood district. (via Wikipedia)

Other sites have started to connect the KKK to the burning of Mike Brown's church. The KKK is entirely unlike the kind and empathetic people I met at the Boston protests. The KKK's members find joy in bombing churches, killing little children, and inflicting pain on black people. They incite and encourage violence in order to protect white supremacy; they pervert justice and lack empathy. Isn't it more reasonable to think that a violent hate group with a history of setting fires is responsible for fires in Ferguson? Rather than blaming protesters who have explicitly called for peace?

More so, police have been using tear gas canisters and smoke bombs. Both are known to be flammable.

Officers responded by firing what authorities said was smoke and pepper spray into the crowd. St. Louis County Police later confirmed tear gas also was used. (Fox News)

To counter the crowds, local police have attempted to use the same techniques that security forces use around the world, including tear gas, bean bag rounds and wooden bullets. [...] In Ferguson, MO, police have attempted to disperse protesters using smoke bombs – fireworks that generate smoke after ignition. (Al Jazeera)

Although modern smoke grenades are designed not to directly emit fire or sparks, they remain a fire hazard (Wikipedia)

A report distributed today by an Idaho State Fire Marshall shows that tear gas was the source of a house fire on July 12, 2006.  The canister first ignited the fabric covering and foam cushions of a couch in the residence (KHQ)

A video has surfaced of para military appearing individuals starting a fire at one of the confirmed locations, an Auto shop. These individuals are clearly not normal protesters. To ascribe their isolated and unsanctioned actions to the movement is very disingenuous.

Many people who were comfortable airing their uninformed racist assumptions suddenly fall silent when confronted with the deluge of evidence that protesters at the national level have been peaceful.

Moralities of Protest

The Rosewood Massacre was a racially motivated attack on African Americans and their neighborhood committed by a white mob in Florida during January 1–7, 1923. The town of Rosewood, a majority-black community, was abandoned and destroyed in what contemporary news reports characterized as a race riot (with the implication blacks had broken out in violence (Wikipidea)

Unfortunately, our country has a history of violence targeting black simply because they are black. At the same time, white mob violence targeting black communities is often ascribed as being the fault of black people. As if somehow one could provoke a lynching! As if the murder of black people could ever be justified! This tendency of whites to blame blacks for white violence is a historical reality that we must confront and dismantle, brick by brick, word by word. While some people would like to forget about our history of racial violence, that sort of forgetting is a support the dominant narrative of racial inequality. These sorts of narratives are violent and dangerous. I feel that it should be morally clear why you shouldn't blame black victims of racially motivated violence.

It’s depressing that we’re still dealing with these issues, but most of us are on the right side of history. Most of us. (Vanity fair)

I'd never that claim property damage is worse than the possibility of our nation approving of extra judicious murder due to the victim's race. Equating 'property casualties' to the loss of lives, especially black lives in this context, is particularly callous. Black people are not chattel or property. We cannot measure black lives against property values.

[Stop] the senseless killing of young black voters across the United States by law enforcement. (Hands up united)

At no point can individual acts of protest measure up against the injustices and violence of institutions. Even if these acts of property damage are ascribed to black people, the anger is justified! There are clear constitutional and moral protections for the right to assembly and the right to self defense. As members of DGR have wisely written, "Every resistance victory has been won by blood and tears, with anguish and sacrifice." We need to use short and long term strategies and tactics to disrupt the systemic police violence that is actually killing hundreds of civilians and incarcerating us when we flee or try to defend ourselves.

As a black mulatto person, as a woman, as a member of DGR, as a empathetic person, I feel that I cannot be silent or complicit. I urge people to take action to change the messed up violent politics that approve of killing black women and men, children as young as twelve, and that try to measure our value against cop's cars. 

Summary

• Property damage is nothing in response to the extra judicious killing of a man


• Unclear if these were caused by protesters or from other groups such as the KKK


• Smoke bombs and tear gas canisters used by police can cause fires


• Black lives >> property


• What about the national non violent protests? 

Agency Hurts but Pretty Hurts Too

In one of my classes, we were talking about agency as it related to gender and the hierarchy of gendered behavior, performance, and capacity. In particular, women performing masculinity in order to have access to male dominated and male coded jobs. One female student mentioned that she and her friends had debated about what to wear to a career fair - skirt or pants - and the requisite cost toward being taken seriously, getting the job. We just went in pants, she muttered at the end of their considerations. Pretty hurts.

At a minimum, a feminist theory of agency must explain how it is possible for women in male-dominated societies to live in ways that reflect their genuine needs and concerns, and it must explain how it is possible for women to develop critiques of sexist social and political institutions and to mount active resistance. Moreover, it must accomplish both of those tasks without pretending that people are capable of stepping outside their own socially determined viewpoints to attain a God-like perspective. (via britannica) 

I replied that while we might technically call the ability to choose between these "agency," we can't expect either of those options to increase women's agency, the availability of more choices. In fact, both choices reinforce the hierarchies of gender within capitalist competition; they decrease women's agency long term. So in this sense, her conflict and choice was certainly not political nor efficient resistance. And to me agency is tied up in political resistance. The personal is political. Of course some personal choices are act of resistance, but theory must acknowledge the agent who access these choices. Agency describes not only the set of options that we are able to consider due to our socialization, but also those options that are made available to us by our leverage of capital and privilege over a field that is set against women and especially women of color. 

Agency requires a well-developed repertoire of skills in self-discovery, self-definition, and self-direction.(via britannica) 

Your sense of agency within systems of power is based on utilizing your privilege to the best of your advantage, to convince the systems of power to over look your Otherness, to reinforce the system with the fractures of your bones growing back in the shape of the dominator. As long as you move within the field of dominance-submission masculine-feminine, you are increasing the strength of that field and its rules, no matter how you move through it.  Of all the privileges I have utilized to make it here, what's one more? and certainly one such as whether I wear pants or earrings to appease an interviewer's buy-in with femininity. That's not where my work lies. 

There is no denying that there exist dispositions to resist; and one of the tasks of sociology is precisely to examine under what conditions these dispositions are socially constituted, effectively triggered, and rendered politically efficient. [...] Often forget that the dominated seldom escape the antinomy of domination. for example to oppose the school system, in the manner of the British working class 'lads' analyzed by Willis (1997), through horseplay, truancy, and delinquency, is to exclude oneself from school, and, increasingly to lock oneself into one's condition of dominated. On the contrary, to accept assimilation by adopting school culture accounts to being coopted by the institution. The dominated are very often condemned to such dilemmas, to choices between two solutions which, each from a certain standpoint, are equally bad ones (the same applies, in a sense, to women or to stigmatized minorities) (via The Purpose of Reflexive Sociology, Pierre Bourdieu and Loic J.D. Wacquant)

 Agency is not thoughtless or reckless. Agency is not exerted when you perform normative behavior. Agency is not tested when there are no sanctions for your choice. Agency is mute when you voice and reverberate in the chorus of existing power structures. 

I do not see how relations of domination, whether material or symbolic, could possibly operate without implying, activating resistance. The dominated, in any social universe, can always exert a certain force, in as much as belong to a field means by definition that one is capable of producing effects in it (if only elicit reactions of exclusion on the part of those who occupy its dominant position). (via The Purpose of Reflexive Sociology, Pierre Bourdieu and Loic J.D. Wacquant)

Agency is the tears you share when you listen to your friend who was raped. Agency is the weight of a mattress on campus, the lawsuits and the threat of expulsion.

Agency is the threat of arrest and death at a legal non violent protest.  Agency is the pain of a rubber bullet during a media lock out. 

Agency is Strange Fruit and agency is singing at the Lincoln Memorial.

Agency is how much you're willing to give up to make a point.  Agency hurts, but pretty hurts too. Agency is not easy, painless, or quick. It's slow and it hurts and you've got to think long and hard about what you do, what you're risking, the worth of your impulse towards life and liberty. Agency is the pain of learning to unbind your feet, your heart, your mind and learn how to stand again. Agency is the joy of finding yourself outside the field of cruelty, the beauty of standing with your sisters. 

I'm talking about when you put your body and your mind on the line and commit yourself to years of struggle in order to change the society in which you live. (Andrea Dworkin, via DGR)

Agency: It's the Soul that needs the surgery

In one of my classes, we were talking about agency as it related to gender and the hierarchy of gendered behavior, performance, and capacity. In particular, women performing masculinity in order to have access to male dominated and male coded jobs. One female student mentioned that she and her friends had debated about what to wear to a career fair - skirt or pants - and the requisite cost toward being taken seriously, getting the job. We just went in pants, she muttered at the end of their considerations. Pretty hurts.

At a minimum, a feminist theory of agency must explain how it is possible for women in male-dominated societies to live in ways that reflect their genuine needs and concerns, and it must explain how it is possible for women to develop critiques of sexist social and political institutions and to mount active resistance. Moreover, it must accomplish both of those tasks without pretending that people are capable of stepping outside their own socially determined viewpoints to attain a God-like perspective. (via britannica)

I replied that while we might technically call the ability to choose between these "agency," we can't expect either of those options to increase women's agency, the availability of more choices. In fact, both choices reinforce the hierarchies of gender within capitalist competition; they decrease women's agency long term. So in this sense, her conflict and choice was certainly not political nor efficient resistance. And to me agency is tied up in political resistance. The personal is political. Of course some personal choices are act of resistance, but theory must acknowledge the agent who access these choices. Agency describes not only the set of options that we are able to consider due to our socialization, but also those options that are made available to us by our leverage of capital and privilege over a field that is set against women and especially women of color. 

Agency requires a well-developed repertoire of skills in self-discovery, self-definition, and self-direction.(via britannica)

Your sense of agency within systems of power is based on utilizing your privilege to the best of your advantage, to convince the systems of power to over look your Otherness, to reinforce the system with the fractures of your bones growing back in the shape of the dominator. As long as you move within the field of dominance-submission masculine-feminine, you are increasing the strength of that field and its rules, no matter how you move through it.  Of all the privileges I have utilized to make it here, what's one more? and certainly one such as whether I wear pants or earrings to appease an interviewer's buy-in with femininity. That's not where my work lies. 

There is no denying that there exist dispositions to resist; and one of the tasks of sociology is precisely to examine under what conditions these dispositions are socially constituted, effectively triggered, and rendered politically efficient. [...] Often forget that the dominated seldom escape the antinomy of domination. for example to oppose the school system, in the manner of the British working class 'lads' analyzed by Willis (1997), through horseplay, truancy, and delinquency, is to exclude oneself from school, and, increasingly to lock oneself into one's condition of dominated. On the contrary, to accept assimilation by adopting school culture accounts to being coopted by the institution. The dominated are very often condemned to such dilemmas, to choices between two solutions which, each from a certain standpoint, are equally bad ones (the same applies, in a sense, to women or to stigmatized minorities) (via The Purpose of Reflexive Sociology, Pierre Bourdieu and Loic J.D. Wacquant)

Again women, the dominated, the Other, must continue to define agency - our possible actions and resistance - in terms of biophilic creativity and possibility. Look through the fallic fallacy: patriarchs construct us to see our agency in this limited meaningless way.

But it is seeming to me that race (together with racism and race privilege) is apparently constructed as something inescapable. And it makes sense that it would be, since such a construction would best serve those served by race and racism. Of course race and racism are impossible to escape; of course a white person is always in a sticky web of privilege that permits only acts which reinforce ("reinscribe") racism. This just means that some exit must be forced. That will require conceptual creativity, and perhaps conceptual violence. (via White woman feminist at Feminist Reprise)

Agency is violent resistance. Agency is not thoughtless or reckless. Agency is not exerted when you perform normative behavior. Agency is not tested when there are no sanctions for your choice. Agency is mute when you voice and reverberate in the chorus of existing power structures. (Note the phallic thefts: how Bourdieu attempts to give credit to the dominators for activating our work and resistance and erase how in reality dominators actively suppress resistance. Ha! Witches' work is ours and ours alone.)

I do not see how relations of domination, whether material or symbolic, could possibly operate without implying, activating resistance. The dominated, in any social universe, can always exert a certain force, in as much as belong to a field means by definition that one is capable of producing effects in it (if only elicit reactions of exclusion on the part of those who occupy its dominant position). (via The Purpose of Reflexive Sociology, Pierre Bourdieu and Loic J.D. Wacquant)

Agency is the tears you share when you listen to your friend who was raped. Agency is the weight of a mattress on campus, the lawsuits and the threat of expulsion.

Agency is the threat of arrest and death at a legal non violent protest.  Agency is the pain of a rubber bullet during a media lock out. 

Agency is Strange Fruit and agency is singing at the Lincoln Memorial.

Agency is how much you're willing to give up to make a point.  Agency hurts, but pretty hurts too. Agency is not easy, painless, or quick. It's slow and it hurts and you've got to think long and hard about what you do, what you're risking, the worth of your impulse towards life and liberty. Agency is the pain of learning to unbind your feet, your heart, your mind and learn how to stand again. Agency is the joy of finding yourself outside the field of cruelty, the beauty of standing with your sisters.

I'm talking about when you put your body and your mind on the line and commit yourself to years of struggle in order to change the society in which you live. (Andrea Dworkin, via DGR)

Self Perception and Male Violence

This post is basically in conversation with this amazing article at Feminist Current on the rhetoric around male victims of violence. All quotes unless otherwise sourced are from that article. I hope that by being in conversation with this article that I can better understand it and share some insights with you.

Women overestimate their own use of violence but underestimate their victimization. Woman normalize, discount, minimize, excuse their partners’ domestic and sexual violence against them. Women find ways to make it their fault.

To be feminine is to be a good victim, at best a willing victim. Refusal to comply with femininity is seen as violent, an abnormal act of defiance. It's a double bind: if we comply with femininity, we are submitting to male violence. If we resist femininity and male violence, men will target us for even more violence as a corrective political control. In this way women are encouraged to underestimate what we suffer through; it is our "natural" place to suffer. Of course, femininity is not our natural place. Women are not natural subjects to male violence. Men have created a system of indoctrination and conditioning young women to accept male violence as natural. The first model for domestic abuse is the abusive father.

The effect of fatherhood on females is to make [women] male -- dependent, passive, domestic, animalistic, insecure, approval and security seekers, cowardly, humble, `respectful' of authorities and men, closed, not fully responsive, half-dead, trivial, dull, conventional, flattened-out and thoroughly contemptible. Daddy's Girl, always tense and fearful, uncool, unanalytical, lacking objectivity, appraises Daddy, and thereafter, other men, against a background of fear (`respect') and is not only unable to see the empty shell behind the facade, but accepts the male definition of himself as superior. (via Solanas' SCUM Manifesto)

Masculinity is about being at the top of the gender hierarchy and maintaining this position through dominance, violence, and intimidation towards women. Males conditioning women to expect and accept male violence keeps these systems alive. Gaslighting techniques are common necrophallic techniques, especially in long term domestic abuse. 

He blames you for the impact of his behavior.
He becomes upset and accusatory when his partner exhibits the predictable effects of chronic mistreatment, and then he adds insult to injury by ridiculing her for feeling hurt by him. If his verbal assaults cause her to lose interest in sex with him, he says, “you must be getting it somewhere else.” (p. 126) (via Is it really ABUSE?)

Interacting systems normalize male violence, allowing males to describe their own violence as invisible, dismissing their cruelty as inherent and finding resistance a notable aberrant. Remember this beautiful Lierre Keith quote - "Masculinity sexualizes acts of oppression." It is because of this that we can create parallels between all systems of male violence: they rely on the same operating system of metaphors. That legal systems would exacerbate the invisibility of male violence while also displaying and sexualizing the victims becomes obvious.

In contrast, men overestimate their victimization and underestimate their own violence (Dobash et al. 1998). Men are more likely to exaggerate a women’s provocation or violence to make excuses for initiating violence and, where retaliation has occurred, in an attempt to make it appear understandable and reasonable.

Again, men are perpetuating a system in which male violence may be used to "correct" and dissuade female resistance. Refusal to conform to femininity and be available to men is considered provocation for male violence. Even if the woman is a girl; even if the man is a stranger.

Earlier this week a man in a car pulled up next to a 14-year old girl on a street in Florida and offered to pay her $200 to have sex with him. [...] The girl said no. So what does this guy do? He reaches out, drags her, by her hair, into his car, chokes her until she blacks out, tosses her out of the car and then, not done yet, he runs her over several times.  Bystanders watched the entire episode in shock. [...] This was an incident of street harassment taken to extremes. (via huff post)

I relate this example because it demonstrates the entitlement that all men feel they have to all women at any moment. The intersection of the pornification and male entitlement is the extreme violence of this case. Note, also that bystanders did not interfere - men support this violent punishment for refusal; women fear being caught in the extreme correctional violence. Women to are witness to what happens when you attempt to boycott men. Normalized male violence is a form of political control. 

Paul Keene, used the defence of provocation for his killing of Gaby Miron Buchacra. His defence claimed that he was belittled by her intellectual superiority and that he lost control after rowing with her by text over a twelve hour period. That a jury accepted his defence is a further example of how men’s violence is minimized and excused. Not only by men and the women they assault, but by the legal system.

Again, these forms of gas lighting transverse male systems of power in order to make women doubt their own perceptions of male violence. Purposefully, men blind women to the hollowness and cruelty behind the facade of normalcy. They do so with well documented attacks on women's personhood and sense of self.

• He denies what he did.
  A non-abusive partner might argue with you about how you interpret something he did; an abuser denies his actions altogether (p. 128).


• He justifies his hurtful actions or says you “made him do it.”
  Here the abuser is using your behavior as an excuse for his own....He says he’ll stop some form of abuse if you give up something that bothers him, which is usually something you have every right to do (p. 128). (via Is it really ABUSE?)

The right to claim abuse as a mitigating factor in domestic violence homicide cases was vitally important for women like Kiranjit Aluwahlia, Emma Humphreys and Sara Thornton, all of whom had suffered years of violence and abuse at the hands of the men they killed. That such a defence could be used in Paul Keene’s case only illustrates how differently women and men who use violence are treated.

Note again, the difficulties these women are going up against.

• The abuse they faced is erased by the legal system


• The abuse they faced is erased by their abuser


• Their abuser utilizes gas lighting to prevent the movement to self defense


• Women's self defense is seen as abnormal and excessive


• Women's self defense faces higher penalties than the initial abuse


• The gas lighting technique is amplified by male systems of power

A radical feminist perspective, based on an understanding of socially constructed gender roles and differences within the framework of patriarchal society does not mean that all men are violent to women, or that men are genetically pre-disposed to violence. It means the opposite. It means that women and men are socialized and that – within the limits of choice permitted by the social environment – we can choose to be different.

Self Perception and Male Violence

This post is basically in conversation with this amazing article at Feminist Current on the rhetoric around male victims of violence. All quotes unless otherwise sourced are from that article. I hope that by being in conversation with this article that I can better understand it and share some insights with you.

Women overestimate their own use of violence but underestimate their victimization. Woman normalize, discount, minimize, excuse their partners’ domestic and sexual violence against them. Women find ways to make it their fault.

To be feminine is to be a good victim, at best a willing victim. Refusal to comply with femininity is seen as violent, an abnormal act of defiance. It's a double bind: if we comply with femininity, we are submitting to male violence. If we resist femininity and male violence, men will target us for even more violence as a corrective political control. In this way women are encouraged to underestimate what we suffer through; it is our "natural" place to suffer. Of course, femininity is not our natural place. Women are not natural subjects to male violence. Men have created a system of indoctrination and conditioning young women to accept male violence as natural. The first model for domestic abuse is the abusive father.

The effect of fatherhood on females is to make [women] male -- dependent, passive, domestic, animalistic, insecure, approval and security seekers, cowardly, humble, `respectful' of authorities and men, closed, not fully responsive, half-dead, trivial, dull, conventional, flattened-out and thoroughly contemptible. Daddy's Girl, always tense and fearful, uncool, unanalytical, lacking objectivity, appraises Daddy, and thereafter, other men, against a background of fear (`respect') and is not only unable to see the empty shell behind the facade, but accepts the male definition of himself as superior. (via Solanas' SCUM Manifesto)

Masculinity is about being at the top of the gender hierarchy and maintaining this position through dominance, violence, and intimidation towards women. Males conditioning women to expect and accept male violence keeps these systems alive. Gaslighting techniques are common necrophallic techniques, especially in long term domestic abuse. 

He blames you for the impact of his behavior.
He becomes upset and accusatory when his partner exhibits the predictable effects of chronic mistreatment, and then he adds insult to injury by ridiculing her for feeling hurt by him. If his verbal assaults cause her to lose interest in sex with him, he says, “you must be getting it somewhere else.” (p. 126) (via Is it really ABUSE?)

Interacting systems normalize male violence, allowing males to describe their own violence as invisible, dismissing their cruelty as inherent and finding resistance a notable aberrant. Remember this beautiful Lierre Keith quote - "Masculinity sexualizes acts of oppression." It is because of this that we can create parallels between all systems of male violence: they rely on the same operating system of metaphors. That legal systems would exacerbate the invisibility of male violence while also displaying and sexualizing the victims becomes obvious.

In contrast, men overestimate their victimization and underestimate their own violence (Dobash et al. 1998). Men are more likely to exaggerate a women’s provocation or violence to make excuses for initiating violence and, where retaliation has occurred, in an attempt to make it appear understandable and reasonable.

Again, men are perpetuating a system in which male violence may be used to "correct" and dissuade female resistance. Refusal to conform to femininity and be available to men is considered provocation for male violence. Even if the woman is a girl; even if the man is a stranger.

Earlier this week a man in a car pulled up next to a 14-year old girl on a street in Florida and offered to pay her $200 to have sex with him. [...] The girl said no. So what does this guy do? He reaches out, drags her, by her hair, into his car, chokes her until she blacks out, tosses her out of the car and then, not done yet, he runs her over several times.  Bystanders watched the entire episode in shock. [...] This was an incident of street harassment taken to extremes. (via huff post)

I relate this example because it demonstrates the entitlement that all men feel they have to all women at any moment. The intersection of the pornification and male entitlement is the extreme violence of this case. Note, also that bystanders did not interfere - men support this violent punishment for refusal; women fear being caught in the extreme correctional violence. Women to are witness to what happens when you attempt to boycott men. Normalized male violence is a form of political control. 

Paul Keene, used the defence of provocation for his killing of Gaby Miron Buchacra. His defence claimed that he was belittled by her intellectual superiority and that he lost control after rowing with her by text over a twelve hour period. That a jury accepted his defence is a further example of how men’s violence is minimized and excused. Not only by men and the women they assault, but by the legal system.

Again, these forms of gas lighting transverse male systems of power in order to make women doubt their own perceptions of male violence. Purposefully, men blind women to the hollowness and cruelty behind the facade of normalcy. They do so with well documented attacks on women's personhood and sense of self.

• He denies what he did.
  A non-abusive partner might argue with you about how you interpret something he did; an abuser denies his actions altogether (p. 128).
• He justifies his hurtful actions or says you “made him do it.”
  Here the abuser is using your behavior as an excuse for his own....He says he’ll stop some form of abuse if you give up something that bothers him, which is usually something you have every right to do (p. 128). (via Is it really ABUSE?)

The right to claim abuse as a mitigating factor in domestic violence homicide cases was vitally important for women like Kiranjit Aluwahlia, Emma Humphreys and Sara Thornton, all of whom had suffered years of violence and abuse at the hands of the men they killed. That such a defence could be used in Paul Keene’s case only illustrates how differently women and men who use violence are treated.

Note again, the difficulties these women are going up against.

• The abuse they faced is erased by the legal system
• The abuse they faced is erased by their abuser
• Their abuser utilizes gas lighting to prevent the movement to self defense
• Women's self defense is seen as abnormal and excessive
• Women's self defense faces higher penalties than the initial abuse
• The gas lighting technique is amplified by male systems of power

A radical feminist perspective, based on an understanding of socially constructed gender roles and differences within the framework of patriarchal society does not mean that all men are violent to women, or that men are genetically pre-disposed to violence. It means the opposite. It means that women and men are socialized and that – within the limits of choice permitted by the social environment – we can choose to be different.

What's Owed - NOTHING

Every time women take time to care for themselves, to foster sisterhood, we are assaulted by pleas for our attention.

Feminists have for years created safe spaces for women, expanded the rights of women, and decried male violence. Women stand forefront to expand the protection for victims of male violence. In improving the lives of women, women allow each other to give more to our communities. Men may even gain some periphery benefits; destroying the toxicity of gender hierarchy would cure many ills for male and female victims of male violence. But our women's work, energy, is our own and hard won at that. 

Consider for example male violence in terms of rape: Women created our definitions of marital rape, statutory rape, date rape, and expand definitions to include more forms of non consensual sex as rape. Women continue to expand these definitions in order to offer protection to victims of male violence. Feminists do this to protect each other from male violence as the threat of rape is a prevalent form of political terror men use over women; women incidentally created a protection for male victims of male rapists.

“There is nothing inherently wrong with trying to improve the conditions in which battered women live,” Meyer argues, “but when putative efforts to just 'make it better' become the end goal, the political vision and motivation to address the real exegesis of male violence becomes sublimated... The political disappears and domestic violence becomes a naturalized part of what appears to be an unchanging or unchangeable social landscape.” (Meyer 2001, p. 23). (via disloyal)

Feminist action is political action; the personal is political. Preventing and penalizing male rapists is part of a coherent political strategy taken on with women's time and energy. Men continue to rape despite women's work. 

When women speak out regarding men raping women, we are told to care about male victims. Of course we already do and provide significant resources to male victims. Biophilic, we give support to all life by existing, by combating the necrophallic, by creating networks of life and growth. We created legal protections, crisis lines, shelters, and support for those battered and abused by men. It is because of our women's work that they have any claim to legal protections and do not face assault for 'buggery/sodomy' - yes, male victims coming forward have been convicted with buggery. And yes, feminists are doing the work of undermining this homophobic violence perpetuated by men and the male justice-penal system.

What this does is conflate rape with consensual relations and conflate the sexual abuse of a child with sex between adults. Ultimately it sends the message that it is the homosexual nature of the act that is offensive/egregious/illegal rather than the rape of a child. (via Feminist Conversation)

Women are already taking on so much to fight against male violence, putting ourselves at risk to protect ourselves. The energy we already give to male victims is never enough. Our critics tell us that feminists must fix the problem of male rapists, that we are not focusing enough on male victims.

This argument/critique relies on a few premises:

• Women must fix the problem of men raping men
• Women must engage with men
• Women have power to engage with and change male systems of violence
• Women, having limited resources, must give those resources to men
• Women must limit the resources we give to women in order to attend to men
• Men are not being called on to act or change their behavior
• Men are currently neutral in regard to male rapists

Laying out these premises, I hope that to a feminist the flaws are obvious. Women are systemically disenfranchised from systems of patriarchal power; women's energy is sapped and the labor-value produced devalued and stolen by men; men are responsible for their own violence. Men value male rapists; masculinity values violence and dominance especially over women; rape culture is pervasive and encouraged in male-only spheres.  It becomes obvious that our critics are seeking to undermine our political power by diverting our energy back to men. Women in no way required to attend to men, clean male messes, or even speak to men. We do not owe them our polite smiles or our spiraling energy. 

When we look closer at our critics we find that male victims reap privileges of their maleness even as they face homophobia. (Remember: lesbians are the victims of sexist homophobia; men are still men.) Really, go read this whole article for the take down on the lies told about male victims. Being the victim of rape is terrible and deserving of sympathy and support. No feminist doubts this. So. Why do critics feel the need to exaggerate and outright lie about male victims?

‘It’s harder for men to report, there’s much more of a taboo for men’
Exactly the opposite:

• men are more – not less – likely to call the police
• men are more likely – not less – to press charges
• men are less likely – not more – to drop charges (Kimmel 2002)

Another way to get round the issue of unrepresentative reporting is to look at who gets killed, dead people don’t get the choice of whether or not to inform the police. UK Homicide records between 2001/2 and 2011/12 (11 years) show that on average 5.7% (296 total) of male homicide victims and 44.2%(1066) of female homicide victims are killed by a partner or ex-partner. Expressed as an average of those killed by a partner or former partner over 11 years, 22% were men, 78% were women.
Note, the domestic homicide figures do not tell us the sex of the perpetrator, nor is the sex of the perpetrator revealed for all other types of homicide. Men are overwhelmingly killed by other men – regardless of the relationship between victim and perpetrator. Women are overwhelmingly killed by men – regardless of the relationship between victim and perpetrator (via feminist current)

I would take this moment to point out another example: the theft of black women's energy in both the civil rights movement for the black vote and the female vote. I hope to write a more extensive post on this to give it the due attention deserved. Black women, and women of color, do not owe men or white women our energy. 

Remember freedom before femininity. Imagine our Amazonian future. Enjoy your vision, visage, victories. Know that loving yourself as a woman - connecting with our history - exploring our witches' strength and creativity - know that this like all women's work is real. You don't have to justify your work or yourself. You have value inherit, not because what you give or give up. That worth is not tied to men.

Anything less than everything from women will never be enough for men. Give them nothing. 

What's Owed - NOTHING

Every time women take time to care for themselves, to foster sisterhood, we are assaulted by pleas for our attention.

Feminists have for years created safe spaces for women, expanded the rights of women, and decried male violence. Women stand forefront to expand the protection for victims of male violence. In improving the lives of women, women allow each other to give more to our communities. Men may even gain some periphery benefits; destroying the toxicity of gender hierarchy would cure many ills for male and female victims of male violence. But our women's work, energy, is our own and hard won at that. 

Consider for example male violence in terms of rape: Women created our definitions of marital rape, statutory rape, date rape, and expand definitions to include more forms of non consensual sex as rape. Women continue to expand these definitions in order to offer protection to victims of male violence. Feminists do this to protect each other from male violence as the threat of rape is a prevalent form of political terror men use over women; women incidentally created a protection for male victims of male rapists.

“There is nothing inherently wrong with trying to improve the conditions in which battered women live,” Meyer argues, “but when putative efforts to just 'make it better' become the end goal, the political vision and motivation to address the real exegesis of male violence becomes sublimated... The political disappears and domestic violence becomes a naturalized part of what appears to be an unchanging or unchangeable social landscape.” (Meyer 2001, p. 23). (via disloyal)

Feminist action is political action; the personal is political. Preventing and penalizing male rapists is part of a coherent political strategy taken on with women's time and energy. Men continue to rape despite women's work. 

When women speak out regarding men raping women, we are told to care about male victims. Of course we already do and provide significant resources to male victims. Biophilic, we give support to all life by existing, by combating the necrophallic, by creating networks of life and growth. We created legal protections, crisis lines, shelters, and support for those battered and abused by men. It is because of our women's work that they have any claim to legal protections and do not face assault for 'buggery/sodomy' - yes, male victims coming forward have been convicted with buggery. And yes, feminists are doing the work of undermining this homophobic violence perpetuated by men and the male justice-penal system.

What this does is conflate rape with consensual relations and conflate the sexual abuse of a child with sex between adults. Ultimately it sends the message that it is the homosexual nature of the act that is offensive/egregious/illegal rather than the rape of a child. (via Feminist Conversation)

Women are already taking on so much to fight against male violence, putting ourselves at risk to protect ourselves. The energy we already give to male victims is never enough. Our critics tell us that feminists must fix the problem of male rapists, that we are not focusing enough on male victims.

This argument/critique relies on a few premises:

• Women must fix the problem of men raping men


• Women must engage with men


• Women have power to engage with and change male systems of violence


• Women, having limited resources, must give those resources to men


• Women must limit the resources we give to women in order to attend to men


• Men are not being called on to act or change their behavior


• Men are currently neutral in regard to male rapists

Laying out these premises, I hope that to a feminist the flaws are obvious. Women are systemically disenfranchised from systems of patriarchal power; women's energy is sapped and the labor-value produced devalued and stolen by men; men are responsible for their own violence. Men value male rapists; masculinity values violence and dominance especially over women; rape culture is pervasive and encouraged in male-only spheres.  It becomes obvious that our critics are seeking to undermine our political power by diverting our energy back to men. Women in no way required to attend to men, clean male messes, or even speak to men. We do not owe them our polite smiles or our spiraling energy. 

When we look closer at our critics we find that male victims reap privileges of their maleness even as they face homophobia. (Remember: lesbians are the victims of sexist homophobia; men are still men.) Really, go read this whole article for the take down on the lies told about male victims. Being the victim of rape is terrible and deserving of sympathy and support. No feminist doubts this. So. Why do critics feel the need to exaggerate and outright lie about male victims?

‘It’s harder for men to report, there’s much more of a taboo for men’

Exactly the opposite:

• men are more – not less – likely to call the police


• men are more likely – not less – to press charges


• men are less likely – not more – to drop charges (Kimmel 2002)

Another way to get round the issue of unrepresentative reporting is to look at who gets killed, dead people don’t get the choice of whether or not to inform the police. UK Homicide records between 2001/2 and 2011/12 (11 years) show that on average 5.7% (296 total) of male homicide victims and 44.2%(1066) of female homicide victims are killed by a partner or ex-partner. Expressed as an average of those killed by a partner or former partner over 11 years, 22% were men, 78% were women.

Note, the domestic homicide figures do not tell us the sex of the perpetrator, nor is the sex of the perpetrator revealed for all other types of homicide. Men are overwhelmingly killed by other men – regardless of the relationship between victim and perpetrator. Women are overwhelmingly killed by men – regardless of the relationship between victim and perpetrator (via feminist current)

I would take this moment to point out another example: the theft of black women's energy in both the civil rights movement for the black vote and the female vote. I hope to write a more extensive post on this to give it the due attention deserved. Black women, and women of color, do not owe men or white women our energy. 

Remember freedom before femininity. Imagine our Amazonian future. Enjoy your vision, visage, victories. Know that loving yourself as a woman - connecting with our history - exploring our witches' strength and creativity - know that this like all women's work is real. You don't have to justify your work or yourself. You have value inherit, not because what you give or give up. That worth is not tied to men.

Anything less than everything from women will never be enough for men. Give them nothing. 

Unpacking, Unwrapping - Expanded

I wrote last about unpacking internalized issues of discrimination. I will give an expanded explanation for why I put this work as primary.

First, I find that it is important to have a coherent theory and logical framework before taking action. It seems to me that you must understand yourself, the system and also your place in the system in order to take effective action. If you don't carefully read about and question the way things are, you won't know the first step to efficiently changing our current system-society.

Now, when I talk about a resistance, I am talking about an organized political resistance. I'm not just talking about something that comes and something that goes. I'm not talking about a feeling. I'm not talking about having in your heart the way things should be and going through a regular day having good, decent, wonderful ideas in your heart. I'm talking about when you put your body and your mind on the line and commit yourself to years of struggle in order to change the society in which you live. -Andrea Dworkin (via DGR)

Second I do recognize the barriers to the "appropriate" or "real" types of activism. It is necessary to understand these barriers and create streams of action that are accessible to all women. As a scholarship recipient, I am aware of the risk involved in protest that leads to arrest in a way that other students -literally- can afford to be blind to. It's well know that black and other minority protesters face higher degrees of violence, penalization, and judgement in their activist work. I was truly touched by the comment that poor women of color write poetry as activism rather than academic novels not due to a lack of talent but a lack of resources. Therefore I do not feel comfortable relying on or valuing these forms of activist work over others that are more accessible. I refuse to reinforces these hierarchies of work value and accreditation. 

Over the last few years, writing a novel on tight finances, I came to appreciate the enormous differences in the material demands between poetry and prose. As we reclaim our literature, poetry has been the major voice of poor, working class and colored women.  A room of one's own may be a necessity for writing prose, but so are reams of paper, a typewriter, and plenty of time. The actual requirements to produce the visual arts also help to determine, along class lines, whose art is whose. In this day of inflated prices for material, who are our sculptors, our painters, our photographers? When we speak of a broadly based women's culture, we need to be aware of the effect of class and economic differences on the supplies available for producing art. (Audre Lorde, 1981, 116)

Third, these hierarchies are rife with the same value judgments I hope to dismantle. Again, returning to the example of poetry writing: refusal to write academic papers may be about focusing on the narrative and emotional, keeping our theory open to all women. Providing space and comfort to women is valuable in and of itself. It does not need to be valued in the wage-hour or productivity; we do not produce for an overseer or for blind pursuit of individual profit. Internal emotional work is not less valuable because it is associated with the feminine. A focus on the gynocratic women's community is not to be devalued because it refuses to mix with the patriarchal private/corporate political.  

Finally, I emphasize this personal unpacking because it has fundamentally changed me. It is valuable in itself. Women deserve the time and respect to make peace with themselves. WE do not owe anyone our time, energy, loyalty, blood. We may open for ourselves, weaving out truths of our hearts. Penelope need not weave for her husband nor unwind for her suitors. Arachne may weave for her herself, in resistance and self love. She need not justify herself to patriarch Zeus or handmaiden Athena.

Unpacking, Unwrapping - Expanded

I wrote last about unpacking internalized issues of discrimination. I will give an expanded explanation for why I put this work as primary.

First, I find that it is important to have a coherent theory and logical framework before taking action. It seems to me that you must understand yourself, the system and also your place in the system in order to take effective action. If you don't carefully read about and question the way things are, you won't know the first step to efficiently changing our current system-society.

Now, when I talk about a resistance, I am talking about an organized political resistance. I'm not just talking about something that comes and something that goes. I'm not talking about a feeling. I'm not talking about having in your heart the way things should be and going through a regular day having good, decent, wonderful ideas in your heart. I'm talking about when you put your body and your mind on the line and commit yourself to years of struggle in order to change the society in which you live. -Andrea Dworkin (via DGR)

Second I do recognize the barriers to the "appropriate" or "real" types of activism. It is necessary to understand these barriers and create streams of action that are accessible to all women. As a scholarship recipient, I am aware of the risk involved in protest that leads to arrest in a way that other students -literally- can afford to be blind to. It's well know that black and other minority protesters face higher degrees of violence, penalization, and judgement in their activist work. I was truly touched by the comment that poor women of color write poetry as activism rather than academic novels not due to a lack of talent but a lack of resources. Therefore I do not feel comfortable relying on or valuing these forms of activist work over others that are more accessible. I refuse to reinforces these hierarchies of work value and accreditation. 

Over the last few years, writing a novel on tight finances, I came to appreciate the enormous differences in the material demands between poetry and prose. As we reclaim our literature, poetry has been the major voice of poor, working class and colored women.  A room of one's own may be a necessity for writing prose, but so are reams of paper, a typewriter, and plenty of time. The actual requirements to produce the visual arts also help to determine, along class lines, whose art is whose. In this day of inflated prices for material, who are our sculptors, our painters, our photographers? When we speak of a broadly based women's culture, we need to be aware of the effect of class and economic differences on the supplies available for producing art. (Audre Lorde, 1981, 116)

Third, these hierarchies are rife with the same value judgments I hope to dismantle. Again, returning to the example of poetry writing: refusal to write academic papers may be about focusing on the narrative and emotional, keeping our theory open to all women. Providing space and comfort to women is valuable in and of itself. It does not need to be valued in the wage-hour or productivity; we do not produce for an overseer or for blind pursuit of individual profit. Internal emotional work is not less valuable because it is associated with the feminine. A focus on the gynocratic women's community is not to be devalued because it refuses to mix with the patriarchal private/corporate political.  

Finally, I emphasize this personal unpacking because it has fundamentally changed me. It is valuable in itself. Women deserve the time and respect to make peace with themselves. WE do not owe anyone our time, energy, loyalty, blood. We may open for ourselves, weaving out truths of our hearts. Penelope need not weave for her husband nor unwind for her suitors. Arachne may weave for her herself, in resistance and self love. She need not justify herself to patriarch Zeus or handmaiden Athena.

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Little Plant Problems

So I really like to have plants. I wanted to give you (and myself a little break from all the feminism writing. It's not that I find feminism to be bad or difficult to talk about, simply that I insist on keeping space to recognize moments of love and growth. As much attention given to male violence, twice as much should be given to female growth and creativity. For me, a big part of that life giving in my daily home routine is taking care of my plants. 

[caption id="attachment_188" align="alignleft" width="300"] Plants in the window of my dorm room.[/caption]

Since being in the dorm, I've always had an assortment of plants growing around my room, usually right in front of a sun lit window. It was great to see little seedlings grow up to be big plants. I'm always amazed how quickly things can take root and start giving off tendrils of life. At the end of each school year, I would leave my just-grown plants in the care of a friend who would at some point over the summer manage to kill my plants. I did feel a little bad, but I couldn't take them home with me either so I figured they had a good if short life.

[caption id="attachment_423" align="alignright" width="224"] My cat posing with the a few of the plants I had.[/caption]

Once I got my cat, I was chagrined to find that I needed to give up by beloved hydrangeas and a few other plants that I liked to grow or have cuttings of.  But still I persisted and grew cat safe plants. My cat didn't seem to mind them much; I on the other hand adored my plants. In my apartment now, Prilla will sit in confusion and watch me as I groom, prune, and water my plants occasionally swatting at an offending snake plant tendril. I adored seeing the plants grow and prosper along with the little routines of pruning dead leaves and dusting the slowly growing african violet.

When I moved out of the dorms, my flat mate and I both inquired about having plants in the little alcoves in front of our windows. We grew a few herbs right in our kitchen window for eating, but one plant from Whole Foods introduced aphids to the whole lot of them. We shuttled our plants outside and left them to the elements. Since Cambridge has warm plant-supportive summers, our plants did quite well. And the outdoor plants had no pet-safe restrictions so I could have any old type of plant I wanted.

[caption id="attachment_422" align="alignleft" width="300"] A mix of housemate and my plants.[/caption]

When I was moving out, things were totally crazy rushed. Possibly on poor advice, I left most of my plants in the window alcove and didn't bring them to my new apartment. The only plants to make the trip were the herbs and my african violet.

[caption id="attachment_424" align="alignright" width="217"] The plants in my new apartment[/caption]

In my new apartment I have a new set of plants, mainly basil, rosemary, a long time african violet and a spider plant that has given me many many more baby spider plants. Like really, I am growing so very many baby spider plants. I got a little brass spritzer (which I can also use for art projects). A fair number of my containers are just re-used plastic containers. But the plants don't mind and neither do me nor the cat, so I think it's just fine.

I also have grown wheat grass for my cat since I got her. She really likes the wheat grass, but doesn't pay attention to any of the other plants. I read that spider plants can have an effect like cat nip on cats, but she wasn't interested in my spider plant. As far as my plant eating habits, I have been taking trimmings of the rosemary and the basil. They're very cost efficient. And taste delicious!

Where is the little plant problem? Well, I have gotten fungus gnats. I don't know where they came from! I did have my window open but I am up very high. Maybe one of the new plants had them? Apparently I've been overwatering my plants and have gotten these irritating little gnats at a noticeable level. I've been reading up on them and there are conflicting words about them. Some say they simply eat the fungus and dead plant material while others warn that they can mess with the plants root system. Either way, I want them gone! My cat has done her bit to help, carefully tracking their movements and attempting to catch one or two in her mouth. However, her efforts are mainly futile. I don't think I've seen her ever actually catch one of the bugs.

My current plan is

• water the plants less often to dry out the evil bugs


• water the plants with water and dish soap solution to kill the bugs


• monitor to see if there are fewer bugs


• once few bugs, repot the plants in clean containers

So today I gave them a healthy dose of water with dish soap solution and sprinkled some cinnamon on the soil to control fungus. Once the supplies arrive, I will carefully repot the plants. Some of them I will put in shallower containers to there is not as much water sitting below.

To be fair, I probably need to repot the one's I've had for a long time anyway. I never really properly potted my plants.  I just ordered a bunch of things since I finally took the time to read about how you're supposed to pot them. Especially now that I want to disperse my plants around the apartment, I realize I need to take good care of their health and presentation.