Intersectional Feminist – …on the B.L.

Worth A Read Yes
Length 192
Quick Review Gloria Steinem has been one of the most identifiable women’s rights advocates for over sixty years. She has gathered some of her favorite quotes into this fun and powerful book.

20200428_151116 — My brand of feminism includes not wearing pants whenever possible.

20200428_151025 — Spending quarantine reading The Truth Will Set You Free, But First It Will Piss You Off by Gloria Steinem.

I love quotes. I have a hard time remembering them, but I love them. I think they’re fascinating insights into just about anything, and when they’re really good quotes, they’re insights into everything. Gloria Steinem is quoted often. As a writer, activist, journalist, and all-around bad-ass, she has a lot of great quotes. She took some of her favorites from her career – and a few of her friends’ quotes too – and compiled them into The Truth Will Set You Free, But First It Will Piss You Off, which is one of her most famous quotes.

The majority of the book is a collection of quotes. The prologue – like the beginning of every chapter – Steinem talks about moments and experiences in her life, which inspired or informed her work. She also breaks down the statistics, history, political, social, economics behind topics she tackles. The prologue takes the time to explain the title because it’s a quote she wrote many decades ago after being inspired by Vietnam protest signs. The quote went unnoticed for quite awhile until it became a slogan for feminists and others, “In a way, passing on a quote is like putting a note in a bottle and sending it out to sea.”

Throughout the book some quotes are singled out and decorated with illustrations. The blue lettering used in these illustrations is a fun pop of color.

The book is centered around women’s rights, but within the feminist realm she speaks to politics, aging, work, family, laughter, power, activism, racism, and more.

Some might call it arrogant to make a book almost entirely out of your own quotes, but that’s only because she’s a woman. If a man did it, it would be called his greatest hits. I love that she had the lady-balls to say, ‘I like all of these things I’ve written. I like them so much, I want to remind everyone else about these awesome sentences and thoughts.’

A book of quotes is amazing, but it’s kind of hard to review. I highly enjoyed The Truth Will Set You Free, But First It Will Piss You Off. So I copied down my favoritest quotes, and it was hard to narrow them down because they were all good. It’s a great little book to keep on your coffee table or bookshelf. It’s filled with funny moments, serious topics, and a whole lot of feminism.

Memorable Quotes
“So many of us are living out the unlived lives of our mothers.”
“A great thing about aging is that all those brain cells that were once devoted to sex are now available for anything else.”
“Democracy begins with owning our bodies. By that measure, women have rarely lived in a democracy.”
“Women can’t have it all if that means doing it all.”
“I hope you find encouragement and company in this lifetime connection of quotes from my speeches, articles, and books, plus some from my friends.”
“The Golden Rule was written by a smart guy for guys, but women need to reverse it: Treat ourselves as well as we treat others.”
“Talent is really enjoying something long enough to get good at it.” Nell Painter

bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna

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Title: The Truth Will Set You Free, But First It Will Piss You Off
Author: Gloria Steinem
Publisher: Random House
Copyright: 2019
ISBN: 9780593132685

In My Own Words, Lifestyle

Black History Month 2020

February 1, 2020February 1, 2020 RaeAnna

Happy Black History Month!

Holy crap. I can’t believe it’s February already. I feel like I haven’t done anything productive this year. Oh well, there are still 336 days left to turn this shit around.

Back on topic:
There are so many amazing heritage months during the year. Every year, I try and focus on one or two because I can’t focus on them all. Damnit! The very first year, I spent February celebrating black women for Black History Month. (Last year, I focused on Asian American Pacific Heritage Month and LGBTQIA+ Pride Month.) It was wonderful. On Instagram, I talked about a different amazing black woman every day, focusing on lesser known movers and shakers throughout history. I only read books penned by black women. These women are/were incredible. They have been the backbone of this country for centuries. Well, not just this country, but that’s a much longer story. They deserve far more recognition than they have ever gotten. For as much as I knew before that month, I learned so much more. It started amazing conversations, which I would have never had otherwise. I expanded my mind and my heart. I love being a nerdy blogger because my focus is on educating myself and pushing others to do the same. I read books about a variety of things from memoirs by comediennes to novels to nonfiction. You can’t know something until you know it, and there was so much I didn’t know. There is so much I don’t know. It’s why I keep reading: to educate myself, to be better, to do good in the world.

I push a very intersectional feminist agenda. I didn’t have a huge following back then, but I knew from the beginning I wanted to use whatever my platform was to showcase incredible humans of diverse backgrounds and voices. Not to speak for them, but be a channel for which their voices could be heard or realized or found. It’s hard to know something you don’t know, which is why I try to showcase the divergent world in which we exist. It’s so easy to be caught in our own bubble, but outside our bubbles, a world seethes with an indescribable amount of individuality and intersection. We are all humans. Our existence is uniquely our own, but it also overlaps in so many fascinating ways. We are more alike than we are different. But it’s impossible to experience the unique overlapping of humanity trapped in our own spheres of being.

That first year blogging and Instagramming was enlightening. Racism exists. It’s rampant. It’s horrible. It’s everywhere from our grandparents to the media to our own internal bias. For as much love and support as I received, I also encountered a great deal of dickweasels. I lost over 500 followers because I was highlighting black women. I heard “There are incredible white women too,” or “What about black men?” I wasn’t saying black women were better than anyone else. I was saying we, as humans, are all beautiful and fascinating, but let’s bear witness to an overlooked and left behind and oppressed group of people because they need and deserve love and acceptance and have the right to be seen. I may have lost 500 followers, who I didn’t want anyways if I’m being honest, but I gained over 1,000 new followers. I heard so many comments of support and awe. It’s not about the followers; it’s about what those numbers represent. Hatred exists in the world, but I have found kindness and compassion weighs heavier. People want a better world. People want to do better. People want to grow. People want to give and receive kindness.

This year for Black History Month, I’m not just focusing on women. I’m reading books by black authors. I won’t be highlighting a person every day because honestly, it was a lot of work and research, and my job has been keeping me very busy lately, and I don’t have the time. I truly wish I did. I hope to expand my mind and those of everyone who cares enough to follow along on this journey. I’m still completely baffled people care what I have to say, but if you’re listening – in this case, reading – I will be using my voice to raise awareness and advocate for change, peace, kindness, love, acceptance, tolerance, and a beautifully colorful world. Although, I try and do this all the time, so Black History Month really isn’t all that different than any other month. It’s just a more one directionally focused month.

So far there are only seven books on the list, but I might try and sneak an eighth in there since there are eight book review days in February. If you haven’t noticed, I post every Tuesday and Thursday. Send me your recommendations if you have any!!! What I’m reading this month:

The Black Book
Dapper Dan by Daniel R. Day
How to be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Becoming by Michelle Obama
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
Charged by Emily Bazelon (It’s not by a black woman, but it does talk about an issue that affects the black community at much higher rates than white people.)

bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna

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In My Own Words, Lifestyle

I Am A Servivor

October 12, 2019 RaeAnna

“Just another career-obsessed, nail-biting, manophobic, hell-bent feminist she-devil.”

I hate the title survivor.

I’m not a victim. Not anymore. I was a victim when it was happening. But after…

There isn’t a word I’ve found to resonate with my broken pieces. And I’m a words-person. Silence. Nothing. Guilt. Solitude. Shame. Numb. Lost. Broken. They’re not titles I can put on a shirt or a sign to identify myself as one of many in a march. They are feelings. The feelings that have never left me from the moment his hands first touched me with violence in their intent.

I never say, “I’m a survivor,” or “I survived.” I can’t. It feels like a lie. It would be a lie. I didn’t. I did not stand up as the same girl he held down. I didn’t survive. Rape is murder. He murdered who I was. Every time killed a part of me.

The closest I’ve ever come to finding a way to describe myself is “raped,” but people don’t like that. If people have to face humanity’s ability for violence and destruction, they want to see someone strong and owning it or broken and hiding it. Survivor. How happy. How uplifting. What a positive spin on a tragic epidemic. It’s ignoring the actions that were survived. Focusing on the survivor having survived. Past tense. It happened. It’s done. Let it go. Move on.

Survivor. It’s a bow to wrap up a present we don’t want to open. We know the gist of what happened. Some hazy sort of violence. No specifics needed; that one word says it all. It tears down the facade we’ve so diligently constructed, letting people in just enough for them to know there’s a dark past but not enough they actually know a damn thing. Survivor: say the word. People get a sad look in their eyes, “I’m so sorry.” But stop there. It’s a bow to wrap up the story people don’t want to hear.

Ignoring the story, the nitty gritty of it, is its own kind of violence.

Putting people at ease, letting them remain in their comfort zone is easy, kind. It does not facilitate change. If people are comfortable, they’re complacent. Change comes from agitation rooted in pain and suffering. I don’t write about this because it’s fun to dwell in the dark pain of someone’s choices to destroy my mind and undermine my identity. I write because I was raped. I was raped for years. I was beaten. I was abused. I was shared. I was torn. I was hurt. I write because too many people can say the same. Some say it. Many do not. Silence is a virtue. I don’t have that virtue. I had no voice for so long, but I have one now. I tell my story to make people uncomfortable. I tell my story because it is time for change. I tell my story because it has helped people, opened minds, changed minds, softened minds, and made people angry. I tell my story because I can. Many are not able to because of pain or circumstance or they’re no longer alive to tell theirs. I am still here. A broken, tired, angry, hurt version of who I used to be. I did not survive, but I am still here.

I have been writing and blogging and processing in various ways for almost a decade. In college, I wrote under a pseudonym about being a stripper to pay for school and food and a roof not because I was ashamed but because I didn’t know what my future was uncertain. After college, I started a blog to talk about my life and how I struggle to pick up the pieces of my soul. A few years ago, I started …on the B.L., and it quickly grew into something real with a following. I haven’t kept my past or advocacy separate from this, but I haven’t focused on it either. It’s been present by quiet. But no more. This is the driving force behind everything I do. Creating change. My story, as painful as it is, keeps me going.

I hate the word survivor. I don’t feel like I survived. I feel like I just didn’t die; though, there were years I wished I had. I like the word servivor. I’m using my story to serve others by creating change in whatever way I can.

I am a servivor.