Andrew & the turd.

By: Shannon Hope Gendron

rage:

I know the anger that lies inside of me like I know the beat of my heart, and the taste of my spit.

Last night a friend told me, "the biggest problem with feminists is that you're always pissed off".
My response was, "we have alot to be legitimately 'pissed off' about".

The mythos of the merciless 'raging, man-hating, bra-burning radical feminist' infiltrates popular imagination. Our 'anger' has been co-opted and bastardized by this image in order to dismiss the seriousness our struggles.

The more "radical" and "outraged" the world can construct feminists to be, the easier it is for others to demonize who we are, rather than listen to our cries. When people render feminists to be mere angsty monsters it's easier for them to avoid having to look at how their own lives are implicated by and contribute to the oppression of those around us.

Their resistance to our rage, is a defense mechanism because they are threatened by what true liberation would mean.

Women are not allowed to be angry. We're taught it's a destructive and useless emotion that ought to be regulated, suppressed and "dealt away with" quietly. We're told to be afraid. To silence ourselves.
When a woman is angry for a just reason, she's simply "pms-ing", or "bitchy". When a man's angry at injustice, however, he's allowed to be deemed "passionate" or "charismatic".

I am angry.
and i will not be dismissed this easily.

I refuse to apologize for my rage. I refuse to suppress, to silence, to fear, and to deny this anger. I refuse to be dismissed because i give a shit.

How else do you respond to systems of racism. sexism. classism. heterosexism. How can you honestly look at the lives of those who suffer from the vices of this oppression, and NOT feel angry. how do you look at the raw oppression in your own life, and not respond with anger.

I am mad. Mad that somewhere in Canada a woman is battered every 15 seconds. I am mad that there have been 500 aboriginal women who have gone MISSING or have been murdered along the high way of tears in BC-- i am angry that this violence is largely invisible and ignored. That some bodies are considered more important than others. that some bodies are disposable and deserving of rape. i am pissed that there are laws in canada that criminalize sex workers and create dangerous working conditions. i am pissed that every 2 minutes in canada a woman is sexually assaulted. i am pissed that you think our bodies are something that can be conquered, owned and used. im pissed that she had to endure this pain. im pissed that it broke her spirit. I am angry that Harris' 22% welfare cut means that single-mothers can no longer support their families. that the system dehumanizes us all. im angry that we think its ok that so many people in our own country are living in the shackles of grinding soul crushing poverty. im angry that its still not safe to be a dyke. its still not safe to not fit into the strict binary of "male" or "female". bodies are still mocked, ridiculed, beaten and spit on for being "trans". hundreds of queer murders go unreported. unfound. im pissed that vaginas are still a swear word. that grown women blush at saying. im pissed that women aren't having nearly as many orgasms as they should be, simply because men's sexuality is laregley privileged over ours. im sick of the assumptions that men can be sexual because their "naturally" horny due to their alleged "hormones". im angry about exclusion. unquestioned privilege. distortions and epitaphs like "slut", "homo", "bum", "nigger" im angry about the misnaming. im angry that i find myself in a classroom of women every tuesday morning, that "don't see a need for feminism anymore" because they are afforded the luxury of being blinded by their own white class privilege. angry that because "they can get good jobs and vote" that they think, obviously "the role of feminism is dead and oppression musn't exist anymore". im angry that the cult of masculinity still dictates and informs how "men" should live and feel. im angry that the cultural myth of 'femininity' is often used to regulate us. im pissed we can't just love who we want to love. I am ANGRY that you are hurting and i cant stop your pain.

yes. i am angry. i have alot to be angry about. these things are NOT alright with me, nor should they be alright with you.

i cannot hide my anger to spare you guilt, nor hurt feelings; for to do so insults and trivializes all our efforts

I think anger can be a good thing. an important thing. a powerful beautiful thing. Anger gives us insight, into realms of our spirit that otherwise may go undiscovered. it reveals to us longings for change. it pushes us to resist. to act. to speak out against the injustices we experience and see. anger can be empowering- for when we listen to its rhythms, rather than deny them, anger can be transformed into solidarity, action and passion.

the question shouldn't be how do we "work through" or "avoid" our rage, but rather how can we use this rage to make something beautiful happen.

* * * * * * *

My anger is a molten pond at the core of me, my most fiercely guarded secret. It is an electric thread woven into every emotional tapestry upon which I set the essentials of my life—a boiling hot spring likely to erupt at any point, leaping out of my consciousness like a fire on the landscape. How to train that anger with accuracy rather than deny it has been one of the major tasks of my life. -- Audre Lorde.

nostril met a friend

SsssHHHHHhhhh....

Don't tell my mom. :)

(it's a surprise for her birthday...haha)

veg.

last Week was my Six-Year vegetarian-anniversary.

i found this in an old email Andrew sent me, before we started dating.

ramblin', gambilin' man: a confession of sorts

last year at this time a little black star came into the world. on a lonely ivory wrist, little star made its home and met its companion. ink, met needle, met skin and a life-long light was born.



yesterday, in honor of little star's one year anniversary les and i hit the slots. not being regular patrons, we were rather inexperienced in the realm of appropriate casino etiquette. "the man" took our money, but we got free drinks, and some prime people-watching out of it.






It's fun to experience new places. It's fun to play 2 cent machines. and drinking cups of free creamer. i like the lights and the noises. i can totally understand how easy it is to get hooked though. im glad i only had 10bucks. im noticing more and more that i have a really addictive personality. sometimes i really really lack self-control, simply because i have a creepy amount of defiance and superstition. (if i close my left eye, and sing two lines of "here comes the sun" in my head, and count to six, then obviously i'll win.... if i give the cop a finger while wearing mittens, it doesn't count as not "loving my enemies", if i eat grapes after smoking a cigar, then it won't hurt me... if i mutter about the ills of capitalism when i walk by "urban outfitters", i won't be tempted to covet $60 sweaters that i could find at value village for $4). At the end of the day I loose. I hate. I smell. and i am left still wanting.




Someday I'd like to play Roulette with smarties instead of cash.

but luckily, thanks to les, i no longer want to play "Russian Roulette"...
* *


you cant judge
love or pain.

that wall just told me to "F off".

graffiti on stall doors in public bathrooms, fascinate me. even if it's just a penciled scribble that says "fuck you". i love it. I get genuinely excited when i discover new additions to my regular stall. sometimes i find myself just hanging out on the toilette, in the library, studying walls instead of my school work. i like that each word has its own story. its own history. i m fascinated by people's hand-writing. i love that it feels like im reading something i shouldn't be. i like that the words, no matter how lame they are, feel like secrets. like ive stumbled upon somone's diary. i love feeling mildly offended by a bathroom wall. i love when strangers respond in different coloured ink. i love imagining who the author was, when walking down the halls. i love the anonymity. i love to wonder what it was that drove people to write what they did in the first place.if i had creepy magic powers, i would secretly be an omnipresent spirit in women's washrooms. i would watch the scribblers, the doodlers, the profanity-writers, in delight.

I've developed a strange bathroom superstition. i've come to know which stalls at queens have my favorite words to look at, and i will go out of my way, even if it means an extra two flight of stairs at staufer, to get the stall that will most amuse me. Even if its being used and others are available, I'll make up some lame excuse to wait for it, like washing my hands for a long time, until its free.

Someday I would very much like to travel the world, taking pictures of various bathroom scribbles from every place i go. and then compile them into a book. (the book cover would look like a bathroom door).

The only thing I ever "vandalized" was a study cubicle at Algoma University. Amid the collage of "your gay"s, "screw yous", and "Amanda loves Daniel"s, i scribbled in black ink "I know nothing, but of my own ignorance". it's a quote by Socrates. i was convinced it was the most profound words ever spoken. Despite my fascination with amateur bathroom graffiti, I haven't yet worked up the courage myself to contribute to the stall walls. theres something seemingly more sacred about the women's washroom. Im still waiting for the perfect thing to write. or draw.

Any suggestions?

Until i figure it out, I suppose I'll just keep indulging in my shameful bathroom art voyeurism.

but first, i'd like to thank all the sneaky bathroom scribblers out there, for making my pee excursions so delightful. If ever you've written your initials, a curse word, poems, or the answers to your algebra test on stall doors/ walls, thank you. sincerely.

please don't stop.

kingdom on earth

if i had to choose only one day to remember of my twenty-somethings, it would have been today.