The Femme Continuum: The "Highs" and "Lows" of Visibility

[ScandalAndy]

Originally Posted by Chancie

It's really bothering me that you used the expression 'freaking out'.

It may be that it's personal narrative style on your part, but

It's very dismissive.

It seems like an awkward choice when communicating your feelings and ideas about femme invisibility.

I'm sorry you feel my word choice is dismissive. That happens to be the way that I talk, and I would also call myself out on "having a freak out" if I said something along the lines of "I'm sick to death of this group of people who are not me that don't realize this thing they find oppressive isn't half as bad as what I go through". I thought the entire photo was dismissive of an entire group of people, and it pissed me off so I said what I had to say.

Apparently I upset both you and Snow, and for that I am sorry.



This just reinforces to me why I never post or participate in BFP forums anymore. No matter what I say, or how carefully I word it, there are always people who will read insult in it. I hope that the conversation can continue, I think it's a valuable one, I'm just tired of having to defend myself constantly in this place where I thought I would feel safe.

[imperfect_cupcake]

Tis the thing about north american boards. One is talking to a public of a type of verbal interaction where you do have to be careful about insult. Which is why I dont post much anymore. My tone is too rough and my sense of humour too pisstaking and ironic/sarcastic. I know that what I've written above can be taken verify offensively. Oh well, I know what I mean, I think its OK with my friends who can challenge me back on the same level and then we can laugh, tease and discuss - which is my preffered style of debate. But people don't know me, so I try to keep my yap shut more often.
My face book is easier to have discussions as everyone k hows who I am and what I'm like.
It is so.etching of a skill to be mindful that no one knows me from a hole in the ground and my tone is likely make conveyed.

[The_Lady_Snow]

Originally Posted by ScandalAndy

I'm sorry you feel my word choice is dismissive. That happens to be the way that I talk, and I would also call myself out on "having a freak out" if I said something along the lines of "I'm sick to death of this group of people who are not me that don't realize this thing they find oppressive isn't half as bad as what I go through". I thought the entire photo was dismissive of an entire group of people, and it pissed me off so I said what I had to say.

Apparently I upset both you and Snow, and for that I am sorry.



This just reinforces to me why I never post or participate in BFP forums anymore. No matter what I say, or how carefully I word it, there are always people who will read insult in it. I hope that the conversation can continue, I think it's a valuable one, I'm just tired of having to defend myself constantly in this place where I thought I would feel safe.

It's funny (not in a ha ha way but in the ironic way) that we both have this feeling of unsafety when posting. I know for me it comes from how I deliver things, they are never soft and pretty enough.

*I* did not make this space unsafe for you Andy, I spoke about the wording because as a WOC my experience is that when you do say something that white folk do not like to hear then we are painted as

LOUD

ANGRY

FLIPPING OUT

FREAKING OUT

SCREAMING

CONFRONTATIONAL

AGGRESSIVE


That's where I was coming from when I posted, it wasn't meant to imply anything ugly or cruel about Scandal Andy. I, personally at the time when I read it I was like..

"here we go"

Why?

Because it happens, it's happened and it will always happen that when a WOC uses art, media, music, or anything to express herself that unless it's prettied up then we are being *angry*


I don't get that from the collage, then again I get it somewhat....

[julieisafemme]

I asked this before and Katzchen answered but did not answer the question. What specifically is disturbing about this picture? I don't find it disturbing. It looks like some very groovy club people who live and circulate in a world that I am not cool or young enough to inhabit. One woman is a woman of color and the other is white. At least that is what it looks like to me. They seem to have very flat chests. That is about it. Am I a nutball? I know that often times I do not get things. I'm ok with that. That is why I ask. So what are others seeing and interpreting in the picture?

Also the caption strikes me. "Own it and let's work from there". That sounds to me like an invitation to dialogue and not a shut up. It might not be a easy conversation but it does feel to me that there is a genuine desire to talk about it.

[Kätzchen]

Originally Posted by julieisafemme

I asked this before and Katzchen answered but did not answer the question. What specifically is disturbing about this picture? I don't find it disturbing. It looks like some very groovy club people who live and circulate in a world that I am not cool or young enough to inhabit. One woman is a woman of color and the other is white. At least that is what it looks like to me. They seem to have very flat chests. That is about it. Am I a nutball? I know that often times I do not get things. I'm ok with that. That is why I ask. So what are others seeing and interpreting in the picture?

Also the caption strikes me. "Own it and let's work from there". That sounds to me like an invitation to dialogue and not a shut up. It might not be a easy conversation but it does feel to me that there is a genuine desire to talk about it.

Hi again, Julie.


I enlarged (via font) your question, in the above post, so it is clear to you that this is the question I will focus on, this time. This is the best answer I can give you at this time, even though I've spoken openly about the racial composition of my own family and social trials-by-fire we've endured:


First: The picture, in and of itself, does not upset me. It does not disturb me that an Afro-Latina Femme Dyke vocalises her contempt for a social system that rewards and provides safety for people who are *NOT* of color. I get where she's coming from in her life experience.


Second: My heart hurts for her.


Third: Why do I feel pain and why does my heart hurt??? It's not simple to explain, since I am technically not a woman of color, by modern day interpretation of law governing particular indiginous tribes (the matrilineal side of my family is Cherokee). My physical appearance is anything but indiginous; although the physical appearance of my mother and her mother and all other mothers before them, are not free of the color of their skin or ethnic markers. Even to this day, my mother is ashamed of her culture and indiginous markers because in her generation of time, they were treated very poorly by a social system that prevails to this day: White Privilege (which to me, encompasses four other "P's" - Power, Privilege, Pride & Prejudice). My mother's side of the family, to this day, will do anything to assimilate into White Culture so the sting of prejudicial treatment is not felt so strongly. However, the stigma of not being White is still very much a part of my mother's life.


Fourth: Much to my mother's distress, I would not give either of my son's up for adoption, nor have an abortion. I may have been brutalized and left for dead twice on both ocassions, but that's not a good reason to not care for two human beings who needed all the love I could give and provide for them. I've never regetted that the choice to keep my sons (who are Black).

However, our lives have never been easy, nor comfortable, nor has White Privilege been much of a benefit to us at all. Can you imagine the daily barrage of questions, such as: Why do you look white and your sons are black? I won't mention other extremely intrusive and offensive states we've endured, because like I said in my other post, I find it that it taxes every single last nerve I have to have to keep stating my life experience as proof to how I know how it feels to be excluded, to be told that I am nothing, that I don't matter, that there is no justice for someone like me or my sons. I used to think I could help by sharing my story, so that others might see and learn how it is that White Privilege is the worst socially upheld 'sin' and how it hurts emotionally, economically and socially, to the core, for those of us who are not white.

But I totally get the original authors contempt for and frustration with and lack of validation for who she is or is not seen by others. The very real existence of social inequality she is left to endure, with no help by a larger misguided social system which upholds White Privilege and the tenets that anchor this socially egregious way of feeling powerful or privileged or safe or protected or any other number of things one might believe to be a larger part of the problem that people of color face, is very real.

eta: I agree wholeheartedly with The_Lady_Snow's post - the reality She experiences in life and elsewhere as a Woman of Color. Thank You for Your post, Lady_Snow.