I haven’t felt like a feminist for most of my life. The truth is, that word has always created an image in my head of a bunch of pretty, relatively privileged well dressed white girls sitting around a table and lamenting the fact that they aren’t allowed to cheat on their husbands or be the “bad bitches” they long to be. I think about this exhausting argument I got into with a popular girl in high school about The Awakening, a book that in my opinion disenfranchises women and relegates them to a class of spoiled people who feel like their only identity lies in a man, and when that is gone, nothing else is left but to go drown oneself in the ocean.

But that’s a digression. Anyway, that’s just where my mind goes when one starts talking about feminism.

Structurally, in the U.S. females hold a relative sum of power. They largely participate in heteronormative relationships and marriages and thus either have earned or are benefitting from class privilege, they have the right to vote, our government isn’t trying to target ALL women and put them in jail because they are women, they aren’t redlined and redistricted to the ghettos, etc. etc. That’s mostly cause many men are somehow tied to us, even (and perhaps especially) evil ones, who, in the end, need us to satisfy their fuck hunger.

But in interpersonal relationships and interactions, I’ve seen my whole life women become marginalized in most social settings. 

I just came back from an occupy baltimore satellite event feeling pretty marginalized because of who I am. And while everyone in the room wanted to tackle all these issues of racism, sexism, and homophobia, the conversation seemed to be dominated by males in a way that made it hard for me to communicate at all. When I did talk, if what I said was received, it was often talked down to, especially with the facilitator of the meeting. This was frustrating and just made me feel reclusive and angry enough to stay up past my bed time and write this thing out.

This whole occupy thing is pretty inspiring, at least intellectually. I am relieved that the people of the United States have surpassed my expecations of their ability to mobilize around political issues, and everyone in town that I know of has been to at least one occupy event.

Everyone I know. Should be pretty inspiring, huh?

Except that everyone I know includes someone who sexually assaulted me last summer. It also includes my ex boyfriend who was in so many ways fucked up to me, with our last interaction stemming from his accusations of witchcraft on my part and his expressed desire that I don’t try to be his friend or ever contact him again.

And these are the nice boys in the movement. The ones that let me talk and from what I’ve seen, have left their egos back somewhere else. At least for these meetings. It makes me really dislike and fear the men that can’t control themselves. Because if they feel the need to dominate in even an orginizational situation such as these meetings, how many women have they been fucked up to and in what kind of horrible ways?

Maybe that’s making too many assumptions. I’ve also realized that I have my own shit to deal with in relating and confronting these men that have intimately violated me. If anyone on the internet has any insight please let me know.

These are some questions going through my head:

- Can I (and should I) separate my view of these people’s characters and their respective actions towards me in this type of setting?

- How do I go about interacting with people who I felt have violated me in the past? How do I trust them in an organizing setting in order to help the movement go forward?

- My initial reaction has been to avoid them by avoiding participation in any of this. But, is seceding from the movement because of them self-censorship?

- How do I relate to others in a room when there is someone there who triggers feelings of disempowerment?

- How much, if any, of accountability should I assign to those that have hurt me in intimate ways and how much of it should I take on as my own burden?

- If it is just my own burden and my own shit to deal with, what can I do about it?

Another thing to note, my sexual assaulter has apologized to me. Perhaps that’s all I should expect. I don’t know what to do with that, though. I can forgive him, but it doesn’t make me feel safe or comfortable around him.

My ex boyfriend has made a few attempts to reconnect, though nothing has been explicitly said about feeling any remorse, having second thoughts about his ideas about witchcraft or whatever, or particularly wanting to accept my very old invitation of being friends. But maybe that’ll all take time and the right context.

And that’s the other issue. These occupy spaces never feel like the right time or place to confront these issues. But for me, they have been weighing heavy on me each time I am in these spaces with these people. I know I need to act, even if it’s just talking to someone about it or writing it down in this way, which is why I wrote it down. I don’t know what to do about it though. For the time being I’m going to continue to go about my life in relative reclusion from the movement.