A Letter of Support to Women Who Happen Also To Be Mothers

I appear to be well-known as someone who is not a huge fan of being a mother.

This isn't much of a surprise to me; my skepticism regarding motherhood is something I have been quite outspoken about, although less so now than a few years ago.

I used to believe that motherhood was primarily a trap, a bottomless void of obligation from which there is no escape. This is in part fuelled by my own mother's ambivalence towards motherhood, and the… questionable ways in which she dealt with me. As more and more women I know became mothers, my position on motherhood has softened and become much more nuanced.

In spite of my well-known aversion to becoming a mother myself (and I will admit, my aversion wavers from time to time, but that's for a whole other piece), motherhood, and by extension, parenthood, are ways of being that I'm curious about and have taken steps to be more informed about it. My attitudes towards motherhood are not so much anti-children as they are pro-women; although I recognize this can be difficult to distinguish at times. For the record, if I love you or care about you, this gets automatically extended to your children.

Sometimes people are surprised to find out I am a doula. I chose to participate in doula training initially because a friend asked me to be her birth coach; but I do not actively solicit clients to provide birthing services. (It's something meant for people who really love the work, because the market rate for doula work is terrible.) I've enjoyed all the births I've attended, but I know it is in part because I had pre-existing personal relationships with the birthing moms. In doula training, there was a discussion about being "child-centred" or "woman-centred"; I am definitely far in the realm of the latter. I care about the child, sure, but I see my role as focused on optimizing the woman's experience, especially since I've seen how child-centred the birthing experience can be.

Anyways, enough about me. I had to share the above because I think what I've described here are in part why many women I know have said things about being a mother to me that they may not say to someone else, because our culture seems to frown on being anything less than a perfect mother who wants to be with their child 24/7 and be 100% devoted constantly. I believe this ideal is impossible, and often, attempting to be this ideal is unhealthy.

I want women in my life who also happen to be mothers to know that it is okay to not enjoy being a mom all the time. It's even okay to hate it. You can love your children without wanting to be with them 24/7. Being at home with a baby can be incredibly boring/annoying/soul-sucking. What our society at times promote as "good" ideals for mothering can come with a huge cost to your sense-of-self.

I know this because mothers have told me these things; often in tears and almost always with great difficulty. None of it has ever been surprising for me to hear, but yet many of the women who've shared these thoughts with me say so as though they are confessing horrible thoughts and intentions that no one else who had ever existed had ever felt and therefore they must be terrible people.

My reaction has always been along the lines of "that sounds perfectly sane and normal to me."How could it not be? First, there's the dramatic changes to one's body via pregnancy (assuming there was one, although I vaguely recall that even if one does not carry a baby themselves there can still be hormonal changes and etc.), followed by dramatic changes to one's lifestyle. For most women I know, birth marks a sudden transition from being a working woman to staying at home. You go from being around adults all day to being around a baby who is entirely unable to recognize that you have needs and wants; in fact, I would argue that newborns cannot even recognize that you are a person (that is not to say that there isn't lots of bonding and other wonderful things going on, but let's not pretend that babies are not, by their very nature, 100% self-centred). It is an incredibly unbalanced relationship. No one I know would ever put up with that kind of dependency from another adult, yet somehow as a mother not only are you supposed to put up with it, you're supposed to not even resent it a little. This is completely non-sensical to me.

Of course, this is why the entire human race is hardwired (save some extraordinary and terrifying examples) to fall in love with babies. We've evolved this way, because otherwise our species wouldn't have survived. No self-respecting person I know would put up with a partner treating them the ways babies do; yet society often frowns on mothers expressing anything but pure joy and devotion towards their incredibly needy offspring.

Well, I for one, want the women in my life to know that there is nothing more human and honest to me than someone feeling ambivalent about being a mother. It is not the same as being ambivalent about loving your children. Expressing your frustration about what you've had to sacrifice is an act of self-care; I am happy to be a sympathetic ear. Everyone in my life knows how much I love dogs, but I still get annoyed at them and resent their neediness from time to time. When I tell a story about how my dog got into the garbage and I was resentful that I had to clean it up doesn't mean I love them less, so why would anyone think that being resentful about changing 3+ years of diapers full of human waste be seen as bad mothering?

I can't change our culture's unrealistic expectations about what motherhood should look like, but I can offer the following:

1. I am your friend before I am your child's friend. So if you want to tell me your baby/toddler/child/teenager/grown children are being assholes, I am not going to make excuses for them. I will agree with you. "Yeah! Can't believe he threw the spaghetti on the floor! Such an asshole". (I do believe even babies and young children can be assholes, at least through adult eyes, even if they don't INTEND to be assholes.)

2. I can sympathize with the frustrations of domestic life. Look at my house. I don't have kids. It's a mess. I can't even imagine what it would be like to insert a kid into the mix. Honestly, if I had kids, I would see it as completely justifiable that we live in a wasteland.

3. I may not have to put up with social expectations of being a perfect mother, but I have often had to deal with accusations that I am selfish for not wanting to BE a mother. I DON'T EVEN HAVE KIDS AND PEOPLE TRY TO GUILT-TRIP ME ABOUT BEING A BAD MOTHER TO CHILDREN THAT DO NOT EXIST. So even though the guilt probably comes from a different place for you, I get it. I get that you can feel utter relief when ditching your kids at your parents or at the in-laws or with a babysitter, yet also feel guilty for feeling that relief or joy or whatever.

4. If you're having a bad mothering day/week/month/year, and others are expressing disapproval, know that I am generally quite impressed your kids are alive. Most days I'm impressed with myself for keeping ME alive, let alone someone else who isn't capable of getting in the car and obtaining sustenance at the drive-thru and using a damn toilet.

5. I have had significant training in crisis counselling. You can talk to me in this capacity about parenting, if you want to. From my eyes, parenting appears to be an endless string of crises after another anyway. I may be completely useless when it comes to practical advice, but I am pretty good at listening.

6. (This relates directly back to number 3, so I have no idea why I inserted two more list items in between, but whatever.) I believe being a mother will include feeling horrible about what you have to do (I refer back to managing human waste for years), so I will try to talk you out of also feeling guilty for feeling like shit about it sometimes. Feeling like shit about it is already something I wish I could help prevent; there really is no point in feeling guilty about feeling like shit about something.

I get that it is possible that maybe, just maybe, some of the women I know can be that ideal mother society lauds as what we should strive to be. And if you are, good for you. But I suspect that it's much more probable that all the mothers I know feel ambivalent at least on occasion, and I want you to know that I'm here for you. Just because I've chosen to be childless doesn't mean I am heartless.

So, to be clear: I may not be a big fan of the idea of ME being a mother, but that doesn't mean I am not a big fan of women who ARE mothers. I've rambled on long enough, and if you've stuck with me all the way to the end of this post, know that if I am supportive of you in general, my support doesn't end when it comes to your experiences as a mother, even if I am not one myself.

In solidarity,

Lily

Single mom receipt: STFU already!

I woke up this morning to find the internet in a bit of an uproar over the “single mom receipt” (I’m not going to link the image, for a multitude of reasons, some of which are listed below.But let me google it for you.). Basically, it’s a Visa receipt that shows a bill for $138.35 and on the tip line, “single mom sorry” is written in, and at the bottom of the receipt it says “thank you it was great”.

When I first saw it, I thought, “ouch!” Followed by, “gosh that’s pretty rude... sucks to have been the server”.

Then I started reading the comments on social media.

There seems to be several immediately apparent categories of responses:

“If she couldn’t afford it, she shouldn’t have splurged. <insert follow-up statements about single mom’s being irresponsible, on welfare, think they’re entitled to whatever, blah blah blah>.” We know nothing about this situation. If the receipt is authentic (which I have significant doubts about), then sure, it’s rude, but people do assholy things all the time. (Like park in 4 parking spots, pick out all the shrimp from the seafood medley in the buffet, leave dog shit on the sidewalk, etc.) The amount of judgment being thrown around in this particular case seems over-the-top. Although, not really that surprising because single moms represent everything the purity myth is against in our society: "Women are out of control and have too much sex! Welfare queens! ZOMG! They need to get back in the kitchen and make me some pie!"

“I’m a single mom, and I’d never do that.” It makes me sad that this response is so common, because it’s obvious that single mom’s realize that society sees them not only negatively, but also that they’re all the same somehow. Of course, given all the nasty statements being made about this single mom in particular, and single moms in general, if I was a single mom, I’d feel pretty defensive too. I know plenty of single parents, and they are a diverse group of people; yet broad sweeping statements are being made about a significant population of women. This is no different than broad sweeping statements made about ethnic groups or sexual minorities or democrats and republicans. It’s prejudicial. 

“I can’t believe someone would do that to a server. Some of them only make like $2 an hour and depend on their tips to survive!” I find these type of statements the most interesting. I understand that in the U.S., minimum wage for wait staff is sometimes calculated with tips included, so that servers really are dependent on tipping in order to survive. What I don’t understand is, why are people so outraged over a single incident of an alleged single mother not tipping, but not outraged at the ridiculously low wages people are being paid in the service industry?

There is something deeply disturbing to me about the collective response to this meme. Whether this receipt is authentic or not, it seems to have unleashed a torrent of judgments and attacks on single mothers that extend far beyond this particular individual. 

We live in a world where men still make more money than women doing the same jobs; where gendered violence continue to affect the lives of a great number of girls and women; and where we continue to have to fight for basic human rights for all. Yet it seems to me that people are much more willing to be outraged by a receipt, which may or may not be real, and may or may not have been left by an actual single mom.  

Can we just shut the fuck up about this already, and start giving a shit about real issues?

Who's responsible for your social media? YOU. JUST YOU.

I've seen some insensitive/distasteful/whatever bullshit on Twitter before, but today, social media idiocy left me nauseous to a whole new level.

What. The. Hell.

(In case you don't know, the #Aurora tag was trending because of the Colorado movie theatre shootings that have so far left 12 dead and dozens injured.)

It would appear that they've since deleted the tweet (it doesn't appear on their feed, but because so many people responded in disgust to it, it's visible when you look at the replies).

They claim that it was an honest mistake, via the following (I've rewritten it as one paragraph as it was tweeted in chunks):

"We are incredibly sorry for our tweet about Aurora - Our PR is NOT US based and had not checked the reason for the trend, at that time our social media was totally UNAWARE of the situation and simply thought it was another trending topic - we have removed the very insensitive tweet and will of course take more care in future to look into what we say in our tweets. Again we do apologize for any offence caused this was not intentional & will not occur again. Our most sincere apologies for both the tweet and the situation. - CB"

So now what?

As a communications professional, I found this incredibly frustrating, as it illustrates the problem with how many organizations manage social media content. Obviously, this online retailer wanted to have a Twitter presence; yet, whomever they hired to manage their PR couldn't even be bothered to check the context within which #Aurora was trending. THERE IS NO REASONABLE EXCUSE FOR THIS. The apology implies that the problem is that the PR firm is not US-based, but uh, it's not like it wasn't immediately obvious to me (in Canada) from one glance at the content that had the #Aurora hashtag was about something a retailer should not be piggybacking on to sell a fucking dress.

We are responsible for what we say; and if we decide to hire someone to do it for us, WE ARE STILL RESPONSIBLE. Yes, this was a "mistake", but it was an AVOIDABLE mistake, because any communications professional who dares call themselves that should have done their due diligence and taken the 10 seconds it would have took to check what #Aurora was referring to.

Should the company be forgiven? It's obviously not the type of retailer I would shop from, but if I did, I would stop. Apology or no, what happened tells me that they only want to engage on social media to sell shit, and couldn't even be bothered to do so in a genuine way. The company and their chosen representatives got caught (in the most offensive of ways) trying to SELL SHIT IN THE AFTERMATH OF A MASS KILLING. May their (I hope) quick demise teach companies, organizations, and individuals that there are real consequences for callous and inexcusable negligence.

/end rant

"50 Shades" Trilogy: A Symptom of How Fucked Up Our Culture Is About Relationships

(Warning: language may offend some, and there is an extended fecal analogy. If you love the 50 Shades books, this will likely make you uncomfortable. I ask that you read this piece anyways, in the hopes that it will get you to think about why you've embraced the story. I get that people may get pissed at me; however, I'm willing to risk it to provoke some critical thinking.)

So many people seem so excited about these books. “It’s so hot! I can’t put it down!” was the general sentiment. Given that I really like smut, I thought I’d give it a try, wanting some good old escapist fiction, preferably with a lot of fucking. I will confess, I’ve read romance and erotica novels before, but just for the sex scenes, which I find by skimming for euphemisms for penis. 

The first book was... tolerable. At least, it was when I started it. But by the time I was halfway through the third book, it had retroactively become awful. Sort of like how the memory of a mediocre appetizer gets tainted because you find a zombie cockroach fellating a dead rat in your dessert. 

What. The. Fuck.

I am grossly embarrassed for straight women and AS a straight woman, because we’re obviously the target demographic. I am also heartbroken, because the success of this book tells me how absolutely starved for sensual material we are that there would be enough of us to make this pathetic turd of a trilogy a commercial success.

The writing sucks. I’ve marked first-year undergraduate introductory psychology papers that I suspect may have been written while drunk and high that had a better grasp of the English language. I am pretty sure I have sent and received texts written on the toilet that stank significantly less in terms of mastery of language. While we’re on that analogy, I’d say I’ve shit out turds that stank less than these books. In fact, I think it is actually possible that I have shit out turds that could write better prose. Anyways, I could go on (forever) about how bad the writing is, but plenty of other people have done this already. Just google “horrible writing” and “50 shades” if you want to read more on that.

As I mentioned before, I am not beyond able to enjoy the occasional romance or chick lit novel. Campy sex scenes can be both hilarious and titillating (and really, who doesn’t like laughing and being wet in the crotch at the same time)? Unfortunately, the sex scenes (and there are plenty of them, since the two main characters repress all of their relationship problems by fucking instead of having actual conversations to resolve their issues) are incredibly cliched (even for erotica standards). Again, others have stated in better words than I possess the problem here; my favorite is an Amazon.ca review with the heading “How can this much sex be so boring?” by user: readthebook. Instead of spending most of my attention on the sex scenes, by middle of book two I started skipping them, because they were all the same anyways. Poorly written rape/coercion/reluctance fantasies are not my thing. (For the record, I am certainly not a prude about these things, and spent a year in graduate school interviewing women about their rape fantasies and what their narratives tell us about our culture.)

The plot was ridiculous, even for the genre. I get the sense that I’m right in the middle of the demographic for the intended target audience (straight, middle-class, early 30’s), but if someone told me that even 10% of what happened in this book happened to them I’d call emergency mental health services and see if I could have them placed on a 72 hour hold. What happens to the main character is about as likely to happen to any reader as they are likely to become the Captain of the Starship Enterprise and have a three way with Spock and Bones. I laughed out loud so many times my partner probably thought about calling emergency mental health services himself. 

Then there’s the barrage of bullshit that rained down on my feminist self. Repeatedly the protagonist is manipulated by her “lover” when it comes to birth control. If a man told me to get on the pill or start getting the shot because he doesn’t like the feel of condoms, I’d take one and pull it over his head and dump his controlling ass. It gets even more offensive at the end of the third book when he says something along the lines of “next time, we’re having a scheduled elective C-section” because he was “so stressed out” by the birth of their first child. As a Doula and a feminist and a human being who recognizes where I end and where my partner begins, THIS IS NOT OKAY. Holy shit. 

At this point in my rant, as my friend pointed out the other day, I’m usually breaking out in my Hulk-angry-sweat. The sad part is, I’m not done yet.

This is not a love story. This is a biography of an abusive relationship, complete with emotional, physical, reproductive, and sexual abuse. The fact that it can be successfully sold as a love story breaks my heart. I know that for a lot of people, the definitions of what constitutes abuse is fuzzy; we’re inundated with stereotypes about who abusers are and there is huge amounts of blame placed on victims. This book reinforces society’s acceptance of abuse as excusable; that if there is love abuse is not possible, that only through and through “bad guys” perpetuate abuse on other people. THIS IS NOT HOW THE WORLD WORKS. How many times have we read in the paper or seen on the news the neighbour or coworker say, “he seemed so nice, I didn’t think he was capable of it” after something horrific has happened? I’ve been involved in the field of violence against women long enough to know that this is nearly almost ALWAYS the case. One of the reasons there is so much relationship violence is precisely because we never think it’s the guy next door who’s beating up his partner. The fact is, they are almost always next door to someone who doesn’t think they’re “capable”. The reality is that most relationship abuse goes unreported; the person being abused has been systematically desensitized to the violence they experience; and many end up in a place where they believe to stay is what it means to love and that whatever happens to them is what they deserve. Those of us who dream of a world without violence perpetuated by people who are supposed to care about our wellbeing are constantly battling against the media’s portrayal of unhealthy relationships as romantic and desirable; this trilogy is a weapon for abusers because it tells a story of violence and sells it as a story of love. 

I hesitated when writing this because I know a lot of people who have apparently read and enjoyed the books. But then I realized that this is no different than when I call someone out on their use of racist or homophobic language; it just seems more difficult because 50 Shades is so popular. Well, it wasn’t okay for people to call each other “faggot” even when lots of people did it; so I will not shy away from calling out the misogyny that permeates these books even if it means some of my friends will take offense. There was a time when I would have bought into the “romance” of relationship abuse, but as a writer, a feminist, as a woman who worries for future generations and the status of women today, I cannot in good conscience not say SOMETHING. So here it is.  

Rank Ordering of Hate in Hockey: Racism > Homophobia > Sexism

I thought it was awesome that the Boston Bruins organization issued a statement condemning the racist tweets by Boston fans directed towards Joel Ward of the Washington Capitals.

I was just saying to someone the other day how I thought one way to reduce the homophobic tweeting by ignorant hockey fans would be for an NHL superstar (or two or three, or perhaps a whole frickin' team) to step up and say, "Hey fans! We love that you're enthusiastic about our team, and sure, trash talking and chirping can be a lot of fun... but lay off the homophobic language. That's hateful and there's no place for that in hockey." I ranted about those tweets in a prior post, along with mentions of racism and misogyny. I wasn't surprised though, that nobody made an official statement about it.

Why are some forms of hate worthy of speaking out against by the NHL, and others not?

It's because we rank-order the seriousness of hate.

Racism is not okay. There seems to be significant consensus about this. In a LOT of places, if you throw out a racial slur in public, chances are good that people will speak up against it. Or at least send you enough dirty looks to make you think twice about doing it again.

But homophobia? "That's so gay." I hear this all the time. When I used to teach high school kids about sexual harassment and bullying, this was one of the toughest lessons. Labeling that phrase as homophobic gets many kids, and sometimes a few teachers, getting defensive and say things like, "but I don't mean it THAT way. I have gay friends/family/whatever!"

I always countered this with "If someone thought something was bad, and instead of saying 'that's so gay', they said 'that's so Chinese', would that be racist?" (I chose this particular example because I am Chinese-Canadian). Unanimously, the group would respond, "yes". Then I would ask, "so how is this different than saying 'that's so gay'?" Nobody really has a counter argument to that.

That example works because we have less tolerance for racism than for homophobia. This gets even worse with sexism, especially the more subtle kind.

I absolutely despise the whole "Sedin Sisters" thing. Some people argue that it's harmless, but you know what I hear when people speak derogatorily of the Sedins by calling them sister? It implies that sisters are somehow less desirable than brothers. It's an insult to my whole gender.

I can never decide, when an organization speaks out about one kind of hate but not another, whether I should be happy that they are speaking out at all, or if I should be annoyed that they aren't speaking out about the other forms. One could argue that, in the case of Joel Ward, there was a specific person that was being targeted; and that it was the right thing for organizations to speak up about it. Yet, given the statistics, it is impossible that there are no gay players at the NHL level.

There's a lot of discussion about when and if someone currently playing in the NHL will ever come out. Who can blame them for not doing so, given that so much homophobic attacks continue unchecked?

As for sexist bullshit, I fear that the likelihood of someone speaking out against that to be even lower, since there are no women in the NHL. I feel for the many girls and young women I know involved with hockey, to know that not only are there many logistical barriers that limit their participation, but so many social barriers as well; social barriers that nobody is doing anything about.

I feel as though I've been obsessed with the sociopolitical side of hockey recently, but for me, these situations are not separable from the actual game. Don't get me wrong, I'm all riled up for playoff hockey (and my team isn't even in it!), but I know it'd be more enjoyable if it wasn't tainted by all of this hate. Yes, I realize the futility of my optimism, but given the positive response of NHL players to the You Can Play Project, I still continue to hope that those involved with hockey, whether they are fans, players, teams, or the entire league, can speak up and DO SOMETHING about this. I am nobody, and I don't expect to instigate change; but there are many in positions of power, who by speaking a few words, whether in an interview, on Twitter, or on Facebook, can ask more from others and perhaps reduce the hateful behaviour. Hockey isn't the world, but wouldn't it be a great example if the hockey world came together to do something about this? Perhaps it would be something the rest of the world could learn from.

Hockey Fan Hate on Twitter Drinking Game!

I can't cope anymore. It just never ends. The shit people say on Twitter during, after, and in-between hockey games (I guess that means ALL THE TIME) is terrible. I wrote about the homophobia thing in a relatively thoughtful and lengthy blog post earlier this month, but I'm just so incredibly jaded by the ongoing abuse online. It's time to resort to alcoholism. So I wrote this drinking game to help us all cope with the hate.


All players pick a team (or for the epic version, just drink for every category): homophobia, misogyny, and racism.


Now open up Twitter, use whatever relevant hashtag is appropriate to access the latest Twitter conversation about a particular hockey game or series, and follow the instructions below:


For those on the homophobia team, take a drink for every tweet containing:

• "fag" or "faggot"
• "homo" when not referring to whole milk in Canada
• references to one player fucking another or being fucked in the ass
• accusations of "gayness" ("You're so gay", "that's fucking gay", etc etc.)
• any other homophobic bullshit

For those on the misogyny team, take a drink for every tweet containing:

• the use of "pussy" when not referring to a cat
• insulting references to somebody's mom: ("motherfucker" or "mofo", etc etc.)
• references implying women are weaker than men ("XX plays like a girl", "The Sedin Sisters", etc etc.)
• references to rape ("I'm going to bend XX's wife over a table...", "XX is going to fuck XX's wife", etc etc.)

For those on the racism team: take a drink for every tweet containing:

• a racial slur
• statements about foreign players and insults to their native country
• references to "your people" or "those people"

Regardless of team, drink for every tweet containing:

• a death threat
• a threat to personal safety
• a threat to destroying another city/country

Seriously, if I had started doing this at the beginning of the playoffs, I'd be dead by now from alcohol poisoning. Yes, this "drinking game" is meant to be funny; but the fact is, the language people use is exceptionally hateful and each and every tweet spouting hate makes the world we live in that much more toxic. Again, I love trash talking with other hockey fans: but there is absolutely no reason it has to include language like this. Intelligent people can chirp without resorting to hate. 

How One Misogynist Tweet Restored My Faith In Humanity

"Fleury sucks, right? Fuck your mothers."


I saw this from one of my new Twitter connections; one that was made during the traffic from my last post on homophobic tweets by hockey fans. So I was a little startled. It didn't make sense; someone that bothered to make a connection after reading my piece about homophobia threw out an obviously misogynist hockey tweet? Huh?


I waffled for a few minutes as to whether I should say something. I decided to respond. (More about this shortly.)


"Dude... isn't a comment like that rather misogynist?"


I braced myself for defensiveness, possibly with a side of name-calling. Or maybe the classic "don't you have anything better to worry about?"


Instead, I got an admission that he was aware he fucked up, and a thank you for calling him out on it.


This made me insanely happy. I was bordering on giddy. 


Sounds strange, right? I mean, I shouldn't be happy that this happened at all.


Let's go back to my waffling. It seems strange (even to me) that a few days ago I could go on a long rant about homophobic comments on Twitter (which ~1,700 people read), and then hesitate to call out one person on one comment. But the thing is, this felt more threatening. As soon as I responded, I psychologically braced myself for a reply that was abusive and/or threatening. 


I don't think I'm alone in feeling like it is dangerous, if not physically, then at least emotionally and psychologically, to call people out on bad behaviour. Partly because it happens so darn much, and I think a lot of us have been socialized to focus on the negative feedback we get from people, and give it much more weight than the positive. The feedback I've received from the blog about homophobic tweets have been overwhelmingly positive; yet its the few negative responses I've received that I've spent a disproportional amount of time being bothered by. (When I think about it rationally, those criticisms don't make a lot of sense, and indicate that the readers missed the whole damn point anyways... so why should I care? Yet I do.)


There gets to a point when one's engagement with social justice makes it impossible to turn another part of yourself off. There was a time when I could stand up against a homophobic comment but still stay silent when a sexist one was thrown out there. Or fight for gender equality while at the same time using fatphobic language. But when you engage with these issues, eventually you figure out that they're all interrelated; that to participate in one form of hate holds you back from fighting against another. It's like the red pill of social activism kicks in, and you can never go back to living in ignorance. 


The problem is, there's no way to tell who's there already. So when I called this person out, I was bracing for the worst: that even though he was someone who'd take a stand against homophobia, he could still buy into many other forms of hate.


The best part about this story though: is he didn't. He got it. He didn't even need for me to tell him he fucked up. He knew before I responded; he admitted it out loud (er, out Twitter?), and in public (uh, Twitter public). 


And as a result, I feel safer to call out bad behaviour in the future. Certainly, there will be those who respond abusively; but this set a precedence that gives me hope. Sometimes, when you call someone out on something, it can actually show you that there's hope for change. 


Ironically, I'm pretty sure that even as I type these words, he's beating himself up over his comment. Before he signed off for the night, he said that he hated how this one horrible thing he said defined him tonight. 


Dude. That's not true. Yes, there was that one nasty tweet. But then there were the dozen that followed where you owned up to it, tried to make sense of what happened (without making excuses), and demonstrated, by example, to everyone who follows you on Twitter that even nice people say nasty shit, but the difference between the good and the bad is that you admitted you should have known better, and accepted full responsibility. To me, it was the follow-up statements that defined who you were tonight.


So to you, and to all those in the Twitterverse who shared my blog, thank you. You've restored my faith that my words have power; that it is worth it to put my thoughts out there, and that there are other similarly-minded people. That speaking out, while sometimes may result in shit and abuse, can also result in connecting with a community of people who share my frustration about the state of the world, and that makes me feel less alone. 


May we all be more forgiving of ourselves when we fuck up.


And may we all feel safer to speak up against all that's wrong in the world.


Good night. It's time to eat ice cream. :)