Unsuccessful IRL…

Keyboard warriors… people with nothing better to do… SJWs, unsuccessful IRL… not helping in the REAL world…

I quit one of my volunteer roles last week and cried hard about it. I will miss the people I work with, the fun we have, and the identity I held as a volunteer for that organisation. But one of the strangest reasons my volunteer work is important to me, is that as a feminist online the above phrases are used to undermine my comments. I am particularly sensitive to the idea of “simply bickering online” rather than getting out there and “really making a difference”. Frankly, it gets to me.

This is bizarre, because during the day I literally save lives, and since I was 16, I have always had a volunteer job as well as my paid role. I have no reason to feel vulnerable to any accusation of lack of action, and yet it gets to me.  Congrats Jerks.

In the future I may not always be well enough to do a paid job, let alone additional work on top of that. My wellness may deteriorate and I may be stuck at home, “just” online.

And to that I say THAT IS GOOD ENOUGH.

In fact, it’s not only good enough, the communication of equality, equity, fairness, and justice to your community is PIVOTAL. Without good marketing, the best brands fail, and we need a good comms team for the decency of humanity. The other side may not have particularly good communication, but they make up for it in the sheer amount of filth they spew onto the net each day.

When we look at the Violence pyramid above, far fewer people are actually assaulting and physical hurting people than there are making horrible jokes, degrading other people and using problematic language to perpetuate issues. So for every person out there literally saving lives, we need 100 at home explaining to Uncle Jack that his emails are gross and offensive and no one wants them. 50 people need to be online showing their friends that they CAN speak up to racist FB posts. 20 people should be on twitter, expecting more of allies, and speaking up for people being harassed and abused. 5 need to be brave enough at work to ask a colleague to explain how that offensive joke was funny.

The people working at the public face of activism are pivotal, they are important, and even if that IS all they do, it is of value.

To expect more of anyone is rude. It is ableist and objectionable. Most people have lives, families, jobs and health to take care of. The fact any of us have time for this, which we can do from bed, is an unpaid miracle and yes, we have things we would rather be doing!

So next time someone uses “they have nothing else in their lives” or “not really helping” as a critique –think twice about supporting them.

Not bad for a bunch of internet perverts.

A little over 2 years ago my mum looked concerned at the idea I was meeting a few women for brunch who I had met on the internet. It wasn’t a date; it was just likeminded people, meeting for coffee, because we had got along really well on twitter.
Mum’s train of thought was that only perverts talk to strangers on the internet, how do you know they are really nice ladies, and not creepy dudes? And also, don’t you have REAL friends?
Mum is an accountant. Say no more. < note to self: insert smiley here in case mum reads this>

My train of thought was; these people are AMAZING, and we are so similar. I’ve spent most of my life feeling like the “odd one out”*, why would I walk away from the chance to find like-minded people?

So I went to coffee. I went to brunches. I went to tweet ups, to movies, and music in parks. I helped start an Auckland Feminist meet-up, We started a pub quiz group. I met the most amazing people. People, who don’t like bars, people who don’t like crowds. People I wouldn’t have met any other way, than through friends, or online.

These people were My People. They were Good People. They were broken, and ill and strong and opinionated. They were different ages, and stages of their journey. We didn’t all immediately click, and there were admittedly a few, who once I met them, I realised we weren’t so well matched after all. But mostly, this weird space on the internet that my mother was convinced was full of perverts was a gold mine.

These were my kind of “perverts”.

These perverts had the same kinks as me. It was like being on a platonic dating site full of witty, smart people who cared about the world they inhabited. Who took action for change. These perverts were willing to do a lot of weird stuff with me (like helping the community).

Most recently, one of my favourite internet perverts – Jackie Clark, started calling some of us the #twitteraunties. It seemed at first glance that it was a bunch of friends who enjoyed meddling in each other’s lives and being shoulders for each other. Then things stepped up to another level and the #auntymafia was born. These were Good People who might not even live in the same place, but were willing to come together to make a difference.
Last night some of the Aunty Mafia came together to coordinate, wrap and deliver food, presents, packages, technology collected for Te Whare Marama o Mangare women’s refuge. This wasn’t a spur of the moment thing. We had been meeting to discuss how to help, and the job seemed almost do-able by us on a small scale. We came up with a small plan, and Jackie took it to twitter and started asking for help. For some reason this captured people. They loved it, and wanted to help. Donations and food and gifts flooded in, people involved their corporations that they had links to, and networked among community groups. With enough strong backs, and loving helpers, we were able to harness all the resources available. It wasn’t small scale at all. What Jackie had started was small. What she had grown was HUGE.

I found last night overwhelming for a bunch of reasons. Partly because it felt like an honour, that at what could be one of the roughest times in someone’s life, we were able to make a difference. Partly because for every enthusiastic smile there, ten more people had contributed to the gifts and food we were wrapping. This was bigger than anything I’ve been so closely involved in, and although part of me was overwhelmed, a small voice was proudly chirping up in the back of my head…

“Not bad for a bunch of perverts off the internet”.

Thank you. Thank you all.

Further reading:

Jackie has a lovely thank you at her blog, acknowledging the sheer number of people involved, and saying thanks better than I have words for.

And the Divine R and R have info on their blog on the next project moving forward.

 

* My old friends are amazing, but we are united by love of each other and lives together, not similarities.

 

Topp Twins in Toronto

This summer I had the opportunity to see the Top Twins live at Womad.
Their music set was fabulous and had me and all the rest of the crowd laughing, singing along and kicking up our heels to the great music.
But what I really enjoyed was ‘Ken and Ken’,
They did an hour long show on the food stage and their fabulous warm hearted characterization of the typical kiwi bloke was so neat to see live.
My partner had heard me rant about their political awareness work for nuclear-free New Zealand, the bastion point protests, and gay rights. I had tried to explain how most kiwis knew these twins who were gay, and they felt like family.
In essence, anyone with a TV could be educated out of fear of the “otherness” of gay people, by the sheer goodwill and approachability of these women.
I think I told him; “If you don’t love them, there is something missing in your chest cavity.”

He loved them.

After their food show I hovered by the stage hoping just to say hello and get a pic with either Jools or Linda. I was pleasantly surprised that when I approached Linda and she took the time to step away and grab Jules so they could both be in the picture.
I’ve met Zach Braff, Mandy More, Jon Cryer and a bunch of other celebrities and I’ve never felt out of depth.
With the twins I only just managed to stutter out an awkward blushing “I love you both – you are AMAZING” before they saved me from idiocy by making inane chit chat and posing for the photo.
I will treasure that photo forever.
While waiting to say hello, I saw a young woman throw herself at them and gush that they gave her courage to come out, and a heavily pierced woman break down in tears, unable to express exactly why they meant so much to her.
They have impacted an entire country.

I was pleased to see this write up on the Women’s media centre website by Emily Wilson.
An international audience is starting to sit up and take notice of the pair, now that their film “Untouchable Girls” won the audience award at the Toronto film festival.
It’s a shame they aren’t getting tvnz show spots for their shows, because the two of them are both still very keen to work, and it is simply a lack of interest from NZ broadcasters that stands between the NZ audience and them.

I will be very embarrassed if they get better recognition from an international audience than their own home, where they work so hard for their communities.