I’m reading Helen Merrick’s The Secret Feminist Cabal: A Cultural History of Science Fiction Feminisms[1]. This pullquote in it, from Clare Hemmings, struck me as being very relevant to the work we do on FWD/Forward and on our other blogs:
Feminist emotion … is central to the feminist stories we tell, and the way that we tell them … as a result, an account of ways of telling feminist stories needs to be attentive to the affective as well as technical ways in which our stories about the recent feminist past work. It hurts because it matters…
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[1] ObDisclosure: I have met Helen in meatspace, and call her “friend”; I bought the book retail and there are no inducements of any kind involved in me blogging about it.
Oh, that’s good. That is true, one of the ways people are erased by mainstream culture is by being told that their emotions–especially but not limited to anger–aren’t real or aren’t valid. While facts are crucial, the anti-oppression works that have been most life-changing for me have been the ones that allowed me to recognize the emotional toll of marginalization. They were works that spoke emotional truths as well as providing information, if you will.
YMMV, of course.
“It hurts because it matters…”
I really wish people would appreciate that.