Write those stories! May 9, 2007
Posted by Jam in General.trackback
Why is it that so many of us approach writing with fear? Is it because our most intimate truths may be exposed? That we may be criticised? That we may fail?
As writers we have our own special set of fears. First we are afraid to send out our writing so we polish until we get to the point we are changing things which have been changed several times. We aren’t making things better, we are just picking nits. Putting off the next step.
Jean – WOW! Blog
I read this and thought about the number of women I’ve asked to complete a story for Urban Chick who have not, as yet, submitted. I wondered if our fears are heightened by the fact that we’re women.
Cynthia Leitich Smith thinks that this has to do with early gender socialization. She explores the idea that perhaps we’re too keen to be people pleasing nice girls.
Maybe we try anyway, and the result is a bland mush of a story. It might even sell well, but will it ever really sing?
Cynsations blog
But there are other factors at play here too, one of which is our fear of sexual discrimination.
Recently, an unpleasant internet troll posted about a local female blogger’s site. Her appearance was attacked, as was her personal life. If it was a man being criticised, would he have been judged using the same criteria? Is this an example of ongoing worldwide gender discrimination? Such sexist attacks do appear to be an emerging online trend.
A female freelance writer who blogged about the pornography industry was threatened with rape. A single mother who blogged about “the daily ins and outs of being a mom” was threatened by a cyber-stalker who claimed that she beat her son and that he had her under surveillance. Kathy Sierra, who won a large following by blogging about designing software that makes people happy, became a target of anonymous online attacks that included photos of her with a noose around her neck and a muzzle over her mouth.
The Washington Post
The reasons behind these attacks don’t seem important – what is important is that this harrassment is bullying, intimidating and even violent, clearly with the aim of belittling and silencing these women.
Local blogger Champagne Heathen expands on a possible outcome:
We might be intimidated to the point of leaving this medium altogether. Or we perhaps could start “women-only blogging networks”. But then we are forced to cut out an element we find very necessary and often lovely – the many individual voices of men. Women might soon feel a need to create a “sexually-biased” space because all of us, of both genders, have allowed the bullying by a type of man who is unable to maturely handle the free reign offered by the lawless internet.
This kind of muzzling is not new or isolated to an online environment.
In 1978, the late Tillie Olsen published Silences, a blistering documentation of the exclusion and silencing of women writers throughout history. She talked about the many things that have kept women from writing — their roles as wives and mothers, the need for money, lack of workspace, being characterized as mentally unstable and many other reasons.
Olsen painstakingly catalogued the results. In a chapter entitled simply “One Out of Twelve”, she detailed the woefully small percentages of women in every measure of literature and writing. The discrimination that Olsen found more than 30 years ago is still alive and well today with women being grossly underrepresented in Op Ed pages, books published and every other measure.
Unminds Must Fear blog
Urban Chick is there to give women voices, to assist in growing local female writing talent and to break this pattern. I believe it’s possible. Internet trolls aside, blogging has still enabled local women to speak less conventionally and more openly about their experiences. It is these voices that Urban Chick seeks to portray in a printed format. We have a right to discuss our sex lives, our relationships, our difficulties with work and the world, without fear that we’ll be censored into oblivion.
As women, we should continue writing about our lives candidly in order for us to break the shackles of silence and to become truly liberated.
Submissions are still rolling in, but we’d like as many as possible. Pick up your pen, write these stories and let the world know that we won’t tolerate mysogyny any longer. You don’t have to be a nice girl, you don’t have to worry about chasing away readers – use your voice as you’ve never used it before!
Hey Jammie.
Good point, although, upon further analysis, my fear is less about being judged by the world at large, and more about being judged by you guys!
true story!
I feel honestly like expectations are high.
Also, the story is forming in my mind, and I am so unsure how it will fit toegther.
have yet to find a quiet time (and place) to site and write the damn thing…
As a man I’m always astonished at the level of extra bs (for want of a *much* stronger) word that women have to confront in simply living their lives in ways that I take for granted (like not being sexually threatened no matter what I blog about). If I reject a woman on a dating site I don’t suffer verbal recriminations of being called a “bitch” or a “slut” either – and this seems to be so pervasive, according to the many woman I know, that I’m forced into thinking along the lines that most men are utter pigs (and moronic ones at that). This does not gel with my personal experience of my own male friends, so either we disguise this behaviour from each other, or I have the good fortune to have outstandingly rare decent human beings as male friends.
Anyway, I wanted to say all of that because (besides wanting to get it off my chest) my actual comment is that while I accept that this kind of gender-based intimidation that is being raised as a reason for the low response levels, there’s probably also something more banal going on – that the internet is far less used and far less important in people’s lives than it is in our own. And of course more so in SA than in other web enabled countries (I say that loosely, given the Telkom/Vodacom stranglehold!).
I think we can also add to that another of our favourite pastimes, both as human beings, and particularly as South Africans – apathy!
Nonetheless, the struggle has to continue – and well done for putting energy into this initiative
HPF
Expectations are that you right what you feel, and that in writing that, the authenticity will sell what you’re trying to say. So relax and write away!
Marc
Apathy is a problem. But we should also think about why we become apathetic – is it not perhaps fear that immobilises us on occassion?
Hi Jam
I am one of those people who fear crossing the divide into writerhood. I have worked as an English teacher, and especially enjoyed teaching creative writing as it’s been a life-long dream of mine to see my name on the cover of a book. With post-grad studies in languages and a penchant for penning my life experiences in a private and personal journal, I can’t seem to move past the excuses: I can’t seem to find the time to work on this/ What if it’s not good enough/ blah-blah-blah. I’m my worst critic!
We need to be positive: deep down there’s a writer in ALL of us!