Activism vs. Self Care

This is going to sound a little weird because I took my German text, put it into Google translate and didn’t take the time to straighten out every detail. But it should make the content available for people who speak English. Here we go.

I have not blogged for ages and do not know how to do that – but I ‘m going to try it.
Today, I want to talk about the interaction or the contradictions between activist work and self-care. Activist work is not only to go out the door and to distribute flyers/ organize demos / to paint creatively on advertising, but also online discussions, to operate a blog (see what I did there?) or simply just to confront which prejudices you were fed.
I would now link to my clever self care post, if I had completed it. But I did not, so have a brief summary on self care. Self care can be done in many ways, but always contains taking care of oneself. Basic types of self care are to eat, drink and sleep enough. Above all, you should recognize when you have reached a limit and should postpone a task instead of doing it right now. The latter consideration is very important for activism.

Inside or outside

But before I’ll further address the issue that there may be conflicts between self care and activism, I would like to consider briefly whether this conflict is the same to all of us. You might have guessed it: No, it is not.
To make the decision whether you want to take care of activism or rather have a free weekend, this is only possible for a particular group of people. If my activism is to fight every day for the right to do the same things in public others who are not part of a minority do, there are only limited time periods off. If I do, however, mainly do activist work in my organization, but I can drop the issue when I go home – then I have completely different opportunities to rest. You can only really ask “activism or self care”, if you are sufficiently privileged. I write from a white and privileged enough perspective to actually ask me the question most of the time.

To Work, to rest or no choice?

I am writing this article because I feel this conflict regularly myself. All the things that I do ” at leisure ” on the Internet, are filled with activist themes. On Twitter, on Tumblr, in my feed reader – everywhere I follow people who deal with similar issues like me. Between cat pictures, there are posts about the deaths of refugees or new research on sexist violence.
When there is always something to do, it is difficult to answer where to make a cut. When will “I feel a little queasy” turn to ” if I do not close this page soon, I will be done with this week”? And most importantly: How can I close the page if the problem does not go away?
If you notice that our world is in a shitty place and you make the decision to do something about it, then you take over a responsibility. Not necessarily for a specific person but a responsibility to yourself. The question is, when do you take a break from your responsibility for a day or a week or even longer? When you get headaches? When the motivation to do anything disappears? When you have problems getting enough sleep and eating enough? When does activism become self harm?
As mentioned above “giving up the responsibility” does not look the same for everyone. Many, perhaps most, start activist work because they are personally affected – be it by racism and / or cissexism and / or ableism etc. Ie even if they decide not to fight at large scale, they are still not free from activist acts, but must continue to deal with the small bites and hostility society attacks them with. So how free are they really?

I have no answer to all this, of course . Resp. no answer that would work for many more people than myself. But I think it’s important that we pay attention to ourselves and each other. Where there is effort, there has to be rest, otherwise the power reserves go eventually empty.


24 Quote of the Week 10

I *HATE* this “smile!” thing, for all the reasons outlined so eloquently above. When I lived in the United States, especially during my early twenties, I got it on average once a week. I used to be extremely unassertive, and would give a sickly half-smile and hate myself for the rest of the day. But the day I went back to work after my mother died, some a**hat told me to “SMILE!” as I walked past him in the street, and, instead of my usual, I snapped. I whirled around, clenched my fists, froze my face in a frightening rictus, fixed him with a death glare, and snarled, “MAKE ME!” in a Darth Vader-esque voice (the voice just kind of came out–it wasn’t planned). He blanched and recoiled. This made me so happy that I not only smiled but laughed, and said “Thanks! It worked!” and went on my way. I snuck one last look at him over my shoulder and he was still standing there, bewildered, scratching his head.

I’m not going to pretend that this is a solution to this pervasive and disgusting problem, but it was SO satisfying that time.

[Ich *HASSE* diese “Lächel mal!”-Sache aus allen oben bereits sehr eloquent erläuterten Gründen. Als ich in den Vereinigten Staaten lebte, hörte ich das, vor allem in meinen frühen Zwanzigern, im Durchschnitt einmal pro Woche. Ich konnte mich damals sehr schlecht durchsetzen und zeigte üblicherweise ein kränkliches halbes Lächeln und hasste mich für den Rest des Tages. Aber an dem Tag, als ich das erste mal wieder zur Arbeit ging nachdem meine Mutter gestorben war, forderte irgendein Arschloch mich als ich an ihm vorbei ging auf zu “LÄCHELN!” und statt der üblichen Reaktion rastete ich aus. Ich wirbelte herum, ballte meine Fäuste, mein Gesicht fror in einer beängstigenden Grimasse ein, ich fixierte ihn mit einem Todesblick und knurrte “BRING MICH DAZU!” in einer Darth Vader ähnlichen Stimme (die Stimme kam einfach irgendwie heraus – es war nicht geplant). Er erbleichte und schreckte zurück. Das machte mich so glücklich, dass ich nicht nur lächelte, sondern lachte und sagte “Danke! Es hat funktioniert!” und meines Weges ging. Ich warf heimlich noch einen letzten Blick über meine Schulter und er stand immer noch da, verwundert, und kratzte sich am Kopf.

Ich werde nicht so tun als wäre das eine Lösung zu diesem weit verbreiteten und widerlichen Problem, aber dieses eine Mal war es SO befriedigend.]

Anka on The hathor legacy

Avatar – The last air bender (Fire)

On the left is a crossed out picture from avatar by James Cameron, on the right there is a poster from Avatar-the last airbender. The caption reads 'When I say avatar, I'm talking about avatar, the last airbender.'

So that we are clear…

I recently watched the three books of Avatar – The Last Airbender. No, I am neither talking about the movie on the left nor this fail.
Now, I would like to tell you why I do not like the book of fire. This is, by the way, unfortunate because I really enjoy these series; the episodes are funny, they are not as obviously western-centric as other productions and there are cool female characters (yes, that is outstanding), cute strange animals and sweet bending skills.

[Sorry, spoilers ahead. Unfortunately, it’s not possible to write a version without spoilers due to the nature of the post’s content.]

First of all, the third book is less funny. This is a crime in and of itself. During the book, the female protagonists lose more and more of their agency, culminating in a lot of disappointing passivity in the final battle.

Here comes what bothered me as well:

In one episode, the female characters (Toph and Katara) pick a fight, they generally do not act like friends but only get along. This episode appeared totally constructed because the group is usually good friends but, out of the blue, the girls could not stand each other. Due to the fact that there never was a tension before, I felt uncomfortably pushed in the direction of “women cannot get along, they always fight and hate on each other. There is no way women can support each other and discuss anything productively.” This myth further alienates girls and women and is really harmful to the audience of these series, who are (apart from people like me) children and teenagers who are maybe infected by this crap.
With this episode, the producers went from the “we have an awesome group of friends” terrain into “we just pick up on real-life tropes and do not care about our message” country (yeah, awkward metaphor). That is disappointing.

Next point: Who’s breasts grew? Kataras! And why? WHO KNOWS. It is true, the friends are slowly becoming adults and I heard that women’s breasts sometimes grow in puberty, but hers are unnecessarily big by now (she is a teenager – do they really have to sexualize a teenager in a series that could live off its humor instead of teh sexay ladiez? Which by the way shows the female audience that they still have to be dead-on sexy instead of themselves, the latter being encouraged before this book).
I really appreciated how everyone always wore pants, even under their skirts and women displayed rather sensible armor (see the fire princess in battle), but women’s bodies became more and more disproportionate and less sensibly shaped (for, you know, stuff like breathing and standing upright without braking their back).
Some people may still not see any sexualization but what about this pointless scene in the episode with Toph’s and Katara’s “conflict”, where, when Soka and Toph talk about Katara, she overhears them while taking a bath in a lake? Yes, except for her naked shoulders and head, everything is under the water surface and her braids were lying over her imaginary breasts and maybe, just maybe, she even wore this white swimsuit surrogate, but you couldn’t tell. And I don’t get why this scene was even necessary because you can overhear people in a lot of places. And apart from this example, they usually managed to depict people bathing without having to hint at their nakedness.

When we’re still at problematic depictions of women, lets stop shortly at princess Azula’s. What was this shit with her going crazy? These last scenes were so offensive to me. It’s really hard to describe exactly how offensive. Where to start…

  • The only woman who is interested in power goes crazy.
  • Craziness as a trope in general, especially connected to women.
  • Women in general don’t want power – no, only crazy and dangerous women want power.
  • Azula is evil because of her “fate”. I’ll get to why this is not logical in a second.
  • When she is caught by Katara and tied to these metal bars, she lashes out and stares and screams and growls. This was the most offensive scene of the whole series to me and an inhuman depiction of the main-stream opinion on craziness. I could have puked.

So, like I mentioned, Azula is evil “because of fate”. There are no good reasons for people being evil, no, it’s in their blood or something.
The explanation goes a little like this: Azula’s and Suko’s grandfather, the former Fire Lord, went all “I will conquer the whole world”.
But when, all of a sudden, Zukos decisions were explained by the identity of his ancestors, things became completely ridiculous. Prince Zuko’s struggle to do the right thing which prompted him to go to the Avatar was explained with the difference in/of his grandfathers: Avatar Roku on the one hand and the evil Fire Lord on the other. Now think about it: He changes between being good and bad because there is the fight between the “good” and the “bad” side of his heritage. Okay. And Azula is his sister – not a half-sister, his sister. She has exactly the same heritage. And do her decisions resemble her brother’s? No, they don’t.
So why didn’t they follow the story ark they started with the party in the Fire Nation? The royal kids attend a party and afterwards, at the beach, each of them explains why they are like they are. Azula mentions that her mother always thought she’s a monster. I think that’s a good reason to have some inner conflicts. And it is much more sensible that she would have a problem with this fact than the “It’s all fate and bloodlines and shit”.
That’s why I was kind of disappointed they decided to take the easy road with “fate” and “Fire Nation people just are evil” (which doesn’t make a lot of sense in many episodes because they also meet harmless and nice inhabitants) instead of explaining their actions with their past and their family. That is how people actually work (i.e. they are shaped by their life experiences) and story telling which would have been less lazy.

The last thing I want to talk about, which I didn’t like, is the scene when the Fire Lord is finally defeated and Toph, Aang, Sokka etc. make fun of him. I know these are series for children and they are supposed to be funny, but you still have the duty to depict defeat in a human way and not forget you are writing about people. Fictional people, but still people. Like with Azula, they did not manage to walk the thin line in this final scene.
There just are situations which you cannot use to crack a joke. And this was one of them.

So the third book had several flaws which took the innocence of the characters away – taking the innocence away could have been logical in the context of the story because the protagonists are slowly coming of age and fighting a damn war, but that’s not what happened here. What happened is that the producers didn’t grasp the fine nuance between showing defeat and robbing a person of their dignity – which is problematic even if the person is “just” an animated character: people are watching and they are learning about compassion … or not.

23 Quote(s) of the Week 7

[Trigger warning for the first quote because of mentioning torture and maiming as well as graphical descriptions of them and r**e, if you click on the link to the article at Tiger Beatdown]

American Psycho, written by Bret Easton Ellis, could only be purchased by people over 18 when it was published in Australia and more or less sold alongside the porn mags.

Then one of the newspapers reviewed it, and basically pointed out that quite frankly, if you were buying it for the porn and the torture and the maimings and the rest of it, well, sure, it was probably worth your twenty bucks. But if you were wanting something to actually read, leave it in the wrapper on the shelf and buy the top-shelf porn mag instead, because the written content was about equivalent (if that) and the porn mag is cheaper. I believe the word “boring” was used in there, along with “uninspiring” and “dull”. The general opinon of the reviewer seemed to be that Ellis had thrown in the torture and such as a gimmick because without it, the book wouldn’t have got past the slush pile.

[Dann verfasste eine der Zeitungen eine Rezension und wies darauf hin, dass es, um ehrlich zu sein, wenn du [das Buch] für die Pornografie und die Folter und die Verstümmelung und den Rest kaufst, wahrscheinlich deine zwanzig Mäuse wert war. Aber wenn du tatsächlich etwas zu lesen wolltest, lass es in der Verpackung auf dem Regal und kauf dir stattdessen das Pornomagazin aus dem obersten Regal, denn der geschriebene Inhalt sei etwa äquivalent (wenn überhaupt) und das Pornomagazin ist billiger. Ich glaube, das Wort “langweilig” wurde benutzt, neben “uninspirierend” und “öd”. Die generelle Meinung, der hän Rezensent*in zu sein schien, war, dass Ellis die Folter und so weiter als Gimmick hinzugefügt hatte, da das Buch ohne sie auf dem Haufen der ungefragt eingesandten Manuskripte gelandet wäre.]

Meg Thornton at Tiger Beatdown

I was a lit student until two months ago, and had to study American Psycho a little (syntactic analysis class, OH SO FUN). And for what it’s worth, I’ve never met a serious literary critic who rates it at all as literature. And it isn’t really satire, either, or at least not good satire, which requires a growing gap in perspective between reader and behaviour in the novel (as in Austen or Swift), in order to wrong-foot the reader. The even continuous distance from the reader in American Psycho does not develop and as such serves only to create a single imaginative leap. We learn nothing as a result, either about ourselves or about our interactions with our society (which of course is the point of satire).

[Ich habe bis vor zwei Monaten Literatur studiert und musste American Psycho ein wenig untersuchen (syntaktische Analyse, SO VIEL SPAß). Und wenn ihr mich fragt habe ich nie ein*e ernstzunehmende*n Literaturkritiker*in getroffen, ki [das Buch] überhaupt als Literatur bewertet. Und es handelt sich auch nicht wirklich um Satire, oder zumindest nicht gute Satire, die eine wachsende Kluft in der Perspektive zwischen Leser*in und Verhalten im Roman (siehe bei Austen oder Swift) voraussetzt, um hän Leser*in aus dem Konzept zu bringen. Die gleichbleibende Distanz zum*r Leser*in entwickelt sich in American Psycho nicht und dient daher nur dazu, einen einzigen kreativen Sprung zu erzeugen. Als Ergebnis lernen wir nichts, weder über uns selbst noch über unsere Interaktionen mit unserer Gesellschaft (was, natürlich, der Sinn von Satire ist).]

Scheherezade on Tiger Beatdown

Can you tell I found this book to be awfully boring? I found it awful and boring.

22 Quote of the Week 6

Re: “I know this is an unpopular opinion,” I feel like sometimes when people say that, what they mean is, “I’ve heard really compelling explanations for why what I’m about to say is wrong, and I can’t argue against them, but I can’t imagine that I’d be wrong so I’m just going to assume that I’m actually right and everyone else is just oppressing me.”

[Bezüglich “Ich weiß, dass das eine unpopuläre Meinung ist.” habe ich das Gefühl, manchmal wenn Menschen das sagen, ist was sie meinen: “Ich habe wirklich überzeugende Erklärungen gehört, warum das, was ich gleich sagen werde, falsch ist und ich kann nicht gegen sie argumentieren, aber ich kann mir nicht vorstellen, dass ich falsch liegen könnte, deswegen werde ich einfach annehmen, dass ich eigentlich Recht habe und alle anderen mich einfach unterdrücken.”]

Copcher on Captain Awkward

21 Quote of the Week 4

They are talking about Artie Abrams from Glee, who uses a wheelchair (played by able-bodied Kevin McHale).


[Aaron Fotheringham ist der behinderte Stunt-Künstler und er macht diesen tollen [Stunt]. Ich meine, die Ironie, einen behinderten Stunt-Künstler zu engagieren, um die Rolle eines physiotypischen Schauspielers zu übernehmen. Das tut weh. Das … tut einfach weh.]

Alice Sheppard (AS) transcribed at FWD/Forward

Links 13

“Dating” show hurts protagonist [German]


“Why I’m leaving feminism”

Men’s rights site offers bounty for personal information of Swedish feminists

The fear of the female body

Very good description and summary of gaslighting with comments worth reading


Disabled student of Technical University Dortmund faces discrimination [German]

Sexualized little girls take two