Feminism

The Artist’s Way

Published on by Lisa

Some weeks ago (my memory is really bad since pregnancy), my dear friend and much respected writer, BFP, wrote something along the lines of saying that she was less interested in “activism” and more interested in the lives and journeys of artists.

That struck me. For numerous reasons.

The first thing that struck me is thinking about my blogging life. When I first began blogging four years ago (yikes! has it been that long?), I remember wanting my “writing” to FIT into the feminist blogosphere. I read many blogs then, wanting to understand what was important to the “Feminist Community,” and, truthfully, always struggled in that genre.

I struggled because writing is, essentially, an extension of one’s self. What interests me is what I will write most intimately about, what I love is what will illuminate the page (or screen) with my words. Making my writing fit is like trimming my own self, trying to make ME fit.

What I was always interested in were topics like God. Addressing sexual and gender violence in our everyday relationships through deconstruction and critical questions of gender norming. Family. Humor. And love. Always love. These were my interests.

I didn’t know it then, but my writing came and continues to flow from a very deep, supremely sensitive place where I process my memory, my life experiences. Of course, current events and news are always interesting, but the writing I connect with is the writing that comes from LIFE, my life. And I’m always interested in how others live or lived their lives.

How did Gloria Anzaldua live with diabetes? How did my mother live through immigrating to this country on her own? How did my cousins live through the passing of both their parents? How did my 8th grade science teacher feel when she decided to get teeth braces at the age of 48? What is it like for young women of color writers in the US?

These were my questions, they weren’t “feminist,” I suppose, but they came from a very real place that questioned the systematic punishment and guardrails around women.

Feminism exists for all of us to live richer, deeper, more fulfilling lives. Feminism exists for us to question what we want to question and to live as we want to live. The lives of artists, the lives of those who create are lives that are often imbued with resistance; they live counter-culturally. Artists, the souls who create something out of nothing, those who build from ill-fitting pieces possess a strength that reveals itself in their life choices.

I no longer worry about whether I or my writing fits. Rather, I focus on whether or not I am truthful, committed to creation and relationship, and love. Always love.

4am Lessons

Published on by Lisa

Before I had a son, I wrote about feminism as a subject. It was a noun, sometimes even a verb. Feminism existed as a THING to be written out, explained, debated.

As the past seven weeks of my life have unfolded, I’ve either woken up to a new form or writing, or I’ve undergone some sort of lobotomy where I have no recollection about that kind of writing. You know, the kind of writing where I blatantly write FEMINISM IS THIS, IS NOT THAT, IS MORE LIKE THIS, IS DEFINITELY NOT THAT…

I breastfeed Isaiah and this painful learning process about the wonder of the body and the miracle of nurturing has captivated my writing in new subtleties. His eyes are dark and I stare into them. I don’t see anything but openness. His open pupils stare back into the dark storms of my eyelets and I wonder what he sees in me. And I think about the world and what it will tell him about being a boy, a growing man. The window alone reveals a half-snowed road and the neighbor’s holiday lights still hanging red and white, yet I see a colder world than the winter temperatures. And I worry.

I don’t believe teaching “Feminism” is going to do anything for my son. I don’t know if attending gender and women’s studies courses are going to save him from a hypermasculine society and sexually-distorted media driven world. Maternity leave has let me soak up the world without paid work and I am listening to the sounds of the news. The conversations around me. The behaviors of strangers in stores. The fragments of life are there for me to observe and I’m not convinced Isaiah will learn how to survive that world with “Feminism.”

There’s no bargaining in raising a child. The world, as I see it from Cleveland, does not bargain with mothers. It doesn’t exchange or make deals. Isaiah, with his soft cooing and heart-melting pouts, will be taught messages about his soul, his worth, his identity…and I’m praying I know how to raise him how to reject most of it.

Counter-cultural child-rearing is going to be a monstrous feat in my future. It already is…And the “Feminism” I knew – the kind that had me chasing conferences, journalists, and blog wars – has quieted itself, perhaps even buried itself. A new ecdysis is shedding, rapidly. In its place are questions of health care and education, public breastfeeding, family consumerism, and equal parenting.

To be of use, for Feminism to be of use to mothers, it must come complete with relevance to women’s lives. Ordinary lives and extraordinary responsibility. There is no room, in my son’s life, for classes or blogs, podcasts, or lectures.

All he has is me. All he knows is me his mother. His father, my partner. WE are all he will know for a window’s crack of time before the rest of the community begins to warm his world with ideas. The doubt and insecurity of my own ability to teach him weighs heavily in my heart.

And so I write. I write him letters. I whisper things into his ear at 4am when it feels like no one else in the world is awake. Just us, mother and son. I whisper things, things far too complicated for his tiny brain to comprehend, but I believe the introduction of my voice as a whisper will allow me into his psyche as a voice of reason. A guiding force of love.

I continue to write him letters and whisper into the night. And pray, that for now, it is enough.

How Intimate and Functional is Your Feminism?

Published on by Lisa

I’m presenting at a conference in a little over a week. I was given 20 minutes to talk about feminism, new media, and identity. Twenty minutes.

I remember when I was in college and thinking that writing long papers was one of the biggest challenges. “What am I supposed to write about?” I always looked for fillers to make my number pages increase, as if writing MORE signified more meaning.

Eight years after college, I learned that it’s short papers, abbreviated periods of time that holds true challenge. How do I only have 20 minutes to create this presentation when I have so much to say?

In preparing for this conference, I’ve been writing primers on feminism, my feminism. My perspective. My truth. I have been reviewing the definition of feminism and its futility in the common, everyday world in which we live in. How feminism affects the relationships we claim mean so much to us. How feminism affects our communication patterns in workplaces built on hierarchy and authority. How feminism challenges and/or enhances our expectations of the men in my life (and especially the women in my life!).

How does feminism, YOUR feminism affect you? How personal, how intimate do you allow your feminism to become?

If personal transformation is key, or a precursor to societal transformation, intimacy with feminism cannot be sidestepped. It takes a monstrous force to allow oneself to be vulnerable enough to change, vulnerable enough to change our relationships and beliefs that influence our daily behaviors. That is the function of my feminism — using it as a ladder to climb for a better view, reaching higher [deeper] levels of clarity. It is not navel gazing if we actually USE feminism for self-transformation, instead of using it as a lens to think or muse on our own experiences. Once we’re done musing, it’s time to enact change. Put our lessons into practice.

For me, action and change are found in small-sounding shifts. For example…

I stopped lying.

I stopped lying to people when they ask how I am feeling. I stopped saying that I feel great and have enough energy to be pregnant, go out, cook, take care of myself, work a full time job.

I stopped lying and began saying what is really happening: I’m tired. I’m tired by 2pm everyday and need to sleep. Saying this means I’ve asked for help. Admitting this means allowing others to see that I’m changing and I’m affected by that change. It means acknowledging that I am not as energetic as I once was. It means allowing myself to be seen in my own skin. It means not pretending and letting whatever expectations of me that others held to fall to the ground and stay there.

I stopped lying because the energy in creating a lie – however slight the alteration of the truth it is – distracts and subtracts from the energy bank I DO have.

The result is I am able to see myself as I am: a very pregnant woman, very much in love with this experience, and needing time to Be exactly as I am.

It wasn’t the hugest lie to tell. Perhaps the liberation I feel has more to do with the fact that I am being more FULLY myself, allowing more of the truth in, instead of filtering it out.

It’s meant closing my door to sleep. It’s meant reaching for more water. It’s meant coming to grips with the darker parts of pregnancy that are creeping closer and closer in my insecurity. It’s meant more doctor’s appointments and less bravado.

It means being real.

Feminism, the kind I am presenting, has to do with that kind of liberation. It begins with small lies we tell ourselves to get through the day, it begins with taking down ridiculous facades we don’t even need to begin with, and frees up our identity to pay attention to who we really are, what we are really about, and refocus that energy in what truly matters.

It is my hope, or plan, that beginning in those seeds of truth will allow us to grow into truth-filled bodies where we can recognize the people and places that truly need more energy and hope.

I serve no other person well if I begin from an unstable foundation.

The Last Ungendered Day

Published on by Lisa

I started using the self-descriptive term “feminist” about five years ago and although my life’s work to create a better world extends much longer than those five years, the lens of feminism – my feminisms, to be precise – has positively enhanced the way I experience and percieve the mystery of socialization and gender.

Tomorrow, I have my 20 week ultrasound. Before pregnancy, I didn’t know that 20 weeks is a milestone. Usually with prenatal care, an “anatomical” ultrasound is done, which means Adonis and I get to see the baby growing in my uterus. We see the face, ears, feet, hands…everything…including its genitalia.

Many things have surprised me about pregnancy, but none moreso than the impact of hormones in my body. My memory has been underwater, my moods sometimes swingy, but my emotions have been fairly calm. I’ve felt peaceful. One of the few pieces of anxiety I’ve been experiencing relates to gender and finding out the sex of the baby.

I’ve been pretty open about my feelings concerning my pregnancy through my letters to Veronica, my unborn daughter, which I started a long time ago…well before I was pregnant. And one of my fears is not just having a child, it’s about having a son. I think that my fear dwells in my uncertainty if I can teach a child and have a larger impact than the rest of the world. All the lessons this child will learn will have to be undone at some level. It begins tomorrow. It begins the moment the ultrasound technician will say “boy” or “girl.”

And the barrage of texts, emails, FB messages, and comments wanting to know will begin. Along with the pink and blue bull that I don’t believe in.

Facing the reality that I am carrying life within me has meant coming to the reality that I am deeply responsible for the wonder and destruction this child shall bear on the world once it enters this life and takes its first breath.

I am faced with the reality that the men who rape women once had mothers too and I wonder what they learned (or didn’t) about loving and treating women, both in personal relationships and strangers. I think about the way teenage boys careen by the waterfountain at school and mock the budding bodies of womanhood and adolescence out of their own insecurity. I am, essentially, afraid of what boys because, after working with violated women and children, I know what they are capable of.

I don’t want to raise a son contributing to another woman’s disempowerment.

But feminism has also taught me that not only are men capable, and actually prefer, to be loving, active, energetic leaders for goodness and wholeness, it’s also taught me that women are not grouped together in their fight for equality. The bullying, the cut throat competition, the hidden jealousy, the betrayal…raising a daughter now terrifies me just as much as raising a son. After I’ve work with violated women and children, I’m afraid I’ll raise a daughter who doesn’t care about her worth and values her sexuality only at the price set by society and media.

Whether son or daughter, I’m afraid she’ll give up on herself.
I’m afraid, quite simply, they won’t care about the world they way I do and I won’t be able to stand their selfishness.
I’m afraid that when they ask me questions about what I’ve done to make the world better, I’ll look in the mirror and only see a half-worn human and full blown coward.

Somehow, in the years I’ve contemplated and studied gender and advocated that all persons are equal, I’m petrified I’ll find that I’ve only kidding myself because I know the world can and will knock me on my butt with its cruel, streamlined, flick of the wrist power to teach domination, selfishness, individualism, and greed.

Knowing this child’s gender makes it all real, too real, because once I know “boy” or “girl,” I’ll inherit an entire set of specific strategies the world has planned to brainwash my kid. I don’t have anything except what I *think* I know, a lot of guessing, intuition, and a loving partner.

I hope those seeds are enough.

Will they know how to love, truly love themselves and another human being?
Do they know the world is not fragmented and we, all of us, are inexplicably connected?
Does having this much fear dictate what kind of mother I will be?
Who will be there to save me when I’m the one in trouble?

In some funny way, I want this child to forever remain as it is right now – perfect, growing, dependant on nothing but amniotic fluid, oxygen, and my voice. Not only do I fear about this child hurting, but I’m afraid of the harm the child will be capable of doing as well.

Tomorrow I will know if I am having a son or daughter.

No Country for Men and Fathers?

Published on by Lisa

I’ve been thinking about fatherhood. For as much as I think about motherhood, I think about the absence of fatherhood.

That wasn’t MY story, per se.

My father, still the same funny, hard-working, and insanely generous person, has been with me for 30 years.

Still, I am thinking about fatherhood.

In pop and mainstream culture, US feminism is branded and re-branded with the same ingredients, westernized notions, and colonial/racial/able-isms that have plagued it in the past. Let’s get real, here. While I emphatically believe that multiple forms of feminism exist, most folks still think of mainstream feminism as the only Feminism alive.

How wrong, and how unfortunate, that is…especially for men.

It was just Father’s Day on Sunday, two days ago, and nowhere, other than fleeting greetings did I find any substantial feminist-centered articles or op-eds about fathers, their place, significance, impact on their lives. In general, there rarely are any feminist bloggers who write about their fathers. There are countless reflections, dedications, and ruminations about motherhood, but it seems the feminist=women only/women-centered ideology has become so fascist, that men and fathers are not even recognized. Not even on Father’s Day.

The way feminism came to me was through activism and identity politics. Feminist language and thought has equipped me to centralize my own experiences to organize my thoughts of the world and more clearly under the systematic kyriarchy that hold womyn under siege. Through the lens of gender, I am more apt to dissecting the critical role of women AND men in the vision of radical justice and equality.

Including, inviting, teaching, loving, needing, welcoming men and fathers into feminisms is not the same as centralizing them. Men do not threaten feminism, false ideologies of gender, power, and “natural” order do. Most people confuse the oppression tactics with the men who exercise it. I’m not advocating these men – or any persons who abuse positions of power – are innocent or anything, but I think it’s good to remember, using the adage of 80s and 90s feminists, men aren’t the enemy. Far from it.

I think one of the saddest corners of many feminisms is ignoring men and fathers. It’s as if the concept of centralizing womyn, valuing womyn, and studying the global trends affecting womyn has isolated men from the concerns of feminists. And while, yes, women constitute the majority of the world, the close second half of the population needs to be equally considered as we fight for justice, advocate for freedom. What freedom looks like for women will not be the same for men, but that difference doesn’t automatically cause friction, or even conflict.

The world feminists need is not simply a reordering of numbers so women hold the same positions as men, so CEOs and business partners, and professionals all have equal footing. That might be nice and have good value in changing the landscape a bit, but I don’t think it’ll solve our problems which run much deeper than just a numbers game of equality. I’m not minimizing representation or the necessity to provide equal access for girls and women to hold the same opportunities as boys and men, but why is that representation so often becomes the measuring stick of progress for mainstream feminism? Why is that – “men can and therefore, I can too” mentality resonating in the same sphere as freedom?

What if the “men can” way is a path that leads to dissonance, destruction, violence, and brokenness? Restructuring the path, I believe, is just, if not more, important than filling that path with the feet of women.

For example, our military could one day be half and half, but if the philosophies of our military stayed the same, would that 50/50 really represent radical change? Wouldn’t it be more radical to hear that our military had taken a more serious stance toward sexism, the rapes occurring within, sexual violence used as a tool of torture and genocide?

* * *

So what does feminism look like with men and fathers with us? What does a Father’s Day sound like in the feminist blogosphere?

Silence.

What kind of lessons have we learned from our fathers, surrogate fathers, the men, transmen, male-identified individuals who changed our perspectives with love, bravery, vulnerability, and support?

Silence.

And what are our strategies for mobilizing men and fathers?

Silence.

And how do we get past the ridiculous notion that men and fathers are more than just “allies” in the movements for radical love and justice?

Silence.

* * *

My father raised me the only way he knew how – with love. That love might have been patriarchal, ageist, and sexist, but feminism taught me how to receive and give love, not shun, my father. Every father/daughter relationship is different. I’m not blanketing my experience of the only father I’ve known with yours or others. But, more often than not, feminists overlook the need for justice seeking men who know and practice radical love beyond boundaries.

The answer to unpacking my childhood was not lashing, ignoring, or not sharing my life with my father. The answer was looking into his past, understanding the context of his life and upbringing and then loving him more so I could show him the colors of my life.

There were cultural differences. There were disagreements. Miscommunication galore. And it was hard. Damn hard.

But for my father to know me and how important these issues are to me, to have my father send me articles and magazines he hopes I like that center women and justice solidifies my belief that the community of feminism will and must include our fathers, the men we claim to love, and the young boys we hope will help transform the world.

The Great Wall of Mainstream Feminism

Published on by Lisa

There are few things in the world I hate more than when the words “prominent,” “feminist,” “icon,” and “won” are jumbled together in a feminist context.

I don’t know why I do this to myself. I have long sworn off mainstream feminism and yet, like a moth to a flame where I know I shall burn myself to death, still, I am drawn to read articles that ponder whether Angelina Jolie is “the next feminist icon.”

According to “prominent feminist,” Naomi Wolf, Jolie “is hot” and “has it all.”

Let’s skip the whole song and Hollywood dance of her celebrity and take a closer look at what Naomi Wolf says of her,

“Against every Western convention, she has managed to draw together all of these kinds of female liberation and empowerment. And her gestures determinedly transgress social boundaries — boundaries of convention, race, class, and gender — giving many of us a vicarious thrill.”

Um, pardon me, but am I the only one that nearly puked up colonialism when I saw her adopt children all over the world, bringing more wind to the Oprah theory that we, those with money and in industrialized countries, should feel free to “save” these other children from the violence and poverty they would be otherwise subject to?

It’s not as if I expect Bazaar or Forbes to take that kind of approach to celebrity analysis. Far from it, I expect mainstream media to further confuse the notions of liberation with colonialist domination. But from writers, thinkers, and philosophers teaching from the walls of feminisms (yes, read it, again my friends – it’s plural) — in what orbit are you circling where you think Ange-freaking-lina Jolie is the “next feminist icon?” What kind of sound minded, socially-just conscience gets a “vicarious thrill” through ethnocentric, heteronormative practices and then sings ignorant praises and files it under Liberation, Best Practices?

From the same brand that said Sex and the City was a cultural phenomenon that further liberated US women, that also denounced Obama during the primaries because Hillary Clinton was the first women to potentially clinch the White House, which also says NOTHING in celebration of or in defense of Sotomayer — comes the newest installation of mainstream feminism: the (slightly) nuanced message that tells women that, YES, we CAN have it all. By golly, if a big boobed and heavy lipped white actress who makes millions off of her sex appeal can fly a plane, snag a handsome and doting beau, and have her pick of the world’s poorest children, well, shit! I CAN HAVE IT ALL TOO!

Ah, mainstream feminism…how many times must I say this? The demise of our efforts will not be neoconservative right-wing bats who look an awful like Dick Cheney. It won’t even be the machismo. I’ll even go as far to say the collapse won’t come from a thousand reincarnations of Ann Coulter.

The damning crack in the great wall of feminisms is caused by the mainstream feminists, the “prominent” writers and thinkers who jump and down on the wall, throwing praise to other White women who have money, small waists, and heterosexual sex. They continuously and knowingly break the backs of the women and daughters who need more advocacy than they need to hear about a wealthy, country-jetting actress. This wall will certainly cave from the Utah-sized egos that ignore race and colonial theories and teachings, who offer their souls to Hillary Clinton and nothing to Sonia Sotomayer. And when this wall crumbles, the dust will settle and reveal two things that mainstream feminism has caused: the majority of women are trapped under the wall and are dead while the women who walked the the top and caused the crack are still alive.

Quick Point for the Day

Published on by Lisa

Anytime a White identified woman asks how to be an ally to a womyn of color, or how to be a “real feminist” that includes full self-actualization, I am always in amazement that the first things said are about how “hard” things are, how “oppressive” the world is, how racism has depleted the hope, stamina, and good-nature of womyn of color.

Speaking at least for myself, yes, there is another side of life that womyn of color must deal with that often has to do with poverty, injustice, violence, and discrimination in waves that most US-White women do not understand.

However, what I think most people don’t understand is that with rough terrain often comes full souls, hearts that are readily open and laugh often, party much, and celebrate the matters of most importance.

Communities of differences beset by injustice are often the first to identify the good spots of life, the waters that most take for granted.

That side of womyn of color is often not understood.

I am not a meeting the world with a bitter head, I see it head on, face up, and have joy.

I have joy.

So, if you want to better understand the lives of womyn of color, it is imperative to not only understand the pain, but to watch the joy.

Written in My Plain Gendered Language

Published on by Lisa

Since my induction to the feminist blogosphere, I’ve put much time into narrowing my focus. Widespread blogging seems too general, unfocused, and leaves me with little direction. Mostly, I don’t feel I learn as much as I want when I blog across the spectrum.

About a year ago, I decided to move forward in specific issues relating to feminism – defining “radical,” exploring sexual violence, faith, media, and womyn of color.

Every once in a while though, I wonder if focusing on “feminism” somehow limits my exploration of “gender.”

How does that focus change me, my writing, when and if I write: I want to explore feminism vs. I want to explore gender.

Is it the same thing?

Before I would have emphatically stated yes.

Now, I would emphatically distinguish that mainstream feminism and academic courses absolutely ignore the entirety of gender as an issue. Often times, feminism is conflated with the upward political, class, and elitist advancement of White women. Somehow, in some contorted, quiet way, I’ve often thought that gender has gotten lost in feminism. Sure, it’s pointed out when women, particularly women of privilege are abused, oppressed, or violated, but, for the most part, feminism and gender, ironically, are often not paired together in headliners.

I’m thinking, specifically, of the transgendered lives and experiences that I, admittedly, know very little about.

I am not and do not identify transgender and have often felt like my understanding is extremely limited by my slow understanding and deconstruction of socialization when it comes to gender roles. For as much as I analyze the experience of womyn of color, I often fail at pushing myself to explore the experience of transgendered womyn of color. Semantically, it’s easy to ask, “What about the transgender folks?” But to truly be an individual open to learning the struggles and causes of the transgendered population, the questions must conquer the fear and confusion.

And so, as someone suggested to write about feminism as it relate[s] to transgender, here’s my honest reply:

I don’t know. You tell me.

And I write that with as much respect and honesty as a womyn of color who once asked how feminism relates to US-born Filipinas with immigrant parents. I write that as someone who asks how feminism relates to a late-birthed sexual awakening and an even delayed political consciousness. How does feminism relate to transgender lives?

If I do not live a transgendered life, do not know the full extent of the pain and violence and discrimination suffered by transgendered womyn, I will not know how feminism relates to them, or even IF it relates to them.

Despite what is being written in the history of mainstream feminists in the westernized, classist world of iconic femmies with self-serving agendas, the truth is that feminism has the power to transform consciousness and spirit. It has the ability to challenge our very definitions of humanity and rights. I believe, however, that it must arrive in the grain of relationship and a shitload of humility.

Feminism, the study of women’s lives, excludes no one…in theory. Yet, we don’t live theoretically, do we?

We live individually, often to own detriment. We live so individualistically that we fail to even understand gender within feminsm and we fail ourselves. We fail as writers, activists, listeners…we fail as people, I think, when we forego others. Feminism has long bypassed transgendered womyn. I write that as someone who only sees transgender issues written about when someone has been slain. I write that as someone whose blog only mentions transgender issues a handful of times.

Truthfully, my goal as a writer is to point out the holes. Most people mistake that for seeing the negative, or constantly bitching about what’s wrong. But there are enough fans of mainstream feminism and not enough compassionate critics who long to see it do better than what it is currently doing. And the “doing” isn’t by feminism itself, but by the students and practitioners who claim to be activists within a “Movement.” And if the students and practitioners are happy with feminism, we are in big trouble.

It isn’t just about transgendered folks being ignored or how the issues are only mentioned in the blogosphere by way of violence and brutality, it’s the complete disregard for any gritty issue of gender when it involves unfamiliar territory. This is true for feminism as it relates to the disability movement, transnational or international womyn, immigration, faith, Katrina…the list goes on.

Feminism does not make itself relevant to folks like you and me. We must make it so.

In other words, your voice, my voice is needed to explain why.

Feminism in Motion

Published on by Lisa


If you don’t know by now, let me remind you: make/shift magazine is a fresh, grassrooted, and truth-telling effort that is looking for events of any and all variety in all parts of the world that are capturing “feminism in motion.”

We (especially me) are looking for the awesome work that is being done that have few outlets of publicity.

Show us the colors, sizes, and fierce faces of feminisms.

Catch the plural?
We’re looking for the folks behind community justice, creativity, education, activism, and art.

Still unconvinced?
Visit the website or email me.

Please forward to all universes, planets, countries, nooks, corners, and tree houses you can! Just get it to me by May 25, 2009. Submit to me at: lisa@makeshiftmag.com

Muchas gracias,
Lisa

The Lure of Online Feminism: Relationship Building and the Internet

Published on by Lisa

I’ve received numerous emails and messages about my last post in which I shared the process of starting a new job and deciding to intentionally decrease my involvement in the feminist blogosphere. In my personal reflection, I offered a few insights about the process in which I realized that I was not fully engaging in human relationships because I was thinking about the online forms of feminism.

Three years ago, I was fully offline and not finding what I needed: community. I started blogging because of that void. The ache to be in deep, challenging, analytic conversation throbbed deeply in my bones. As a writer with no community of women of color or like-minded radical feminists, I found a wonderful resource in the online world. The mobility and accessibility, to me, was exactly what I had been needing. Through the feminist blogosphere, I found a connecting thread with others and in this space, my voice became stronger.

The function of the internet is complex and multipurpose. For those unable to be or engage in offline communities, for any reason, the internet can be a life-saving ticket of relationship, learning, and creativity. The function of the internet will be varied and in different degrees of significance. I would never say that what I did three years ago, or have e-built since then, doesn’t count or is less meaningful. Quite the contrary. The online work and relationships I made were some of the most meaningful and enriching experiences of my life.

What needs to be clarified is my point: I am not saying that all online interactions is less significant or valuable as offline. My finding the RWOC and feminist blogosphere is a testament to that. Those connections got me through transition, job hardship, moving, confronting inner demons, and gave me back my sanity on countless occasions.

That counts. That counts beyond numbers, words, or reason.

I recognized a conflict last week when I realized I was paying more attention to blog topics and subheadings than the womyn a foot away from me asking me to get her walker so she can exercise her leg muscles for ten minutes. Wondering what any blogger is writing about is nowhere near as important in the moment I am trying to assist a womyn take medication after a seizure. In that moment, the work I am doing is not more important than any person blogging about their insights. I’m saying that the work I am doing is more urgent, more necessary than letting my thoughts float into the blogosphere when I am nowhere near a computer.

The crossroads lie like this: be present to the client or think about what Nadia is going to post about the AMC. Talk to a staff member about her internship and getting her associate’s degree that she’s worked on for several years or give my mental energy to wondering how BFP and Jess’ walks are going. That’s not a judgment call on the significance of that work, but it’s a judgment call on the function of the internet for me in that moment. It is not a message to the disabled community nor is it an attempt to throw a blanket on all bloggers and readers of feminism to get offline and do “real work.” That’s a judgment call on where my own head is and what where my priorities lie in that moment when I have a decision to make.

To be human is to need relationship. To be in relationship, we must be present. However relationships come to us – offline or online – we need to be fully engaged to their the offerings and misgivings. One of the misgivings of the internet, for me, is that it lures me with its instant gratification and constant change. I began to grow comfortable in the mode and preferred that work over the offline womyn in my very hands. Examining an unexplained bruise on a womyn’s breast is more important than reading my blog roll. Because of that fork in the road, because of that choice that is at my feet, I must make a judgment call on what is more important, what deserves my undivided attention.

That offline work that I am currently doing is not more important than the relationship building I did/do with the online RWOC. It all counts. It’s all valuable. But when you start to sacrifice relationship for online activity – activity that is not consciousness raising, relationship building, or serving a greater purpose of need – then, yes, I believe it’s time to get off the computer.

Saying that I need to be fully present to an individual human is not a message to the disabled community that their methods of communication are less valuable or “don’t count,” nor do I tell the person I was three years ago that her online outreach work weighs less than what I do now. It’s when I begin choosing nameless and safe avenues of communication that serve more as a distraction AND deny the opportunity to be in full relationship with a human person breathing in front to me…THAT’s when a problem occurs.