Picking Our Battles: To Call-Out, Call-In, Or Let It Go

For the month of January, Bonded is reading and discussing Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay. We’ll be posting response articles throughout the month and ending the month (Jan. 31st) with a video discussion of some of our favorite essays or passages. Please join us in the comments section that day, but until then, enjoy some preliminary thoughts we’re having as we work through the book right alongside you.

The idea of being a bad feminist is a notion so utterly relatable it was, ultimately, what drew me to this book. Each day is a high wire act where I cautiously walk the line of activist and ally with the ever present knowledge of my shortcomings, failings, and privilege that leave me dangerously exposed to the potential of being labeled a bad feminist. But I am also a good feminist, right? I hope. At the start of each week, I step cautiously out into the open with no safety net to catch me; following my heart’s desire to fight for justice, to stand in opposition to the oppressors, and create space for the marginalized.

But come midweek, I am mentally and emotionally exhausted, turning up my favorite rap music -- so rife with slurs, misogyny, and bigotry it is impossible to miss the irony in my escape. When I am done, I flip to Bravo and disappear into the mindless stereotype-enforcing female drama of the Housewives. So caught up in the comfort of distraction I am able to temporarily push down the gnawing voice in the back of my head screaming at me. This is hurtful to women! The luxury I have to ignore this voice, even briefly, is not lost on me.

Unable to live up to the impossibility of purity politics, I check myself, forgive myself, and try to get back out there the next day.

This theme, being a bad feminist, plays out in a variety of ways throughout the book. None are more striking to me than the notion of responsibility and speaking up, and out. We see it in Gay’s critique of entertainment and literature, and her discussions of activism and what roles we must take on. What are our responsibilities? When must we speak? What must we say?

In, A Tale of Three Coming Out Stories, Gay challenges us to take the reins of responsibility onto ourselves and lift much of the burden we have flung to the shoulders of celebrities. A call to action both great and small. She writes:

Perhaps we expect gay public figures and other prominent queer people to come out, to stand and be counted, so they can do the work we’re unwilling to do to change the world, to carry the burdens we are unwilling to shoulder, to take the stands we are unwilling to make. As individuals, we may not be able to do much, but when we’re silent when someone uses the word “gay” as an insult, we are falling short. When we don’t vote to support equal marriage rights for all, we are falling short. When we support musicians like Tyler, the Creator, we are falling short. We are failing our communities. We are failing civil rights. There are injustices great and small, and even if we can only fight the small ones, at least we are fighting. (Gay 168)

At first reading, I grabbed my pom-poms! Yes, yes, yes! So much yes! I am no exception when it comes to enjoying an inspiring oversimplification of reality.

It brought me back to high school, a time when my activism was far less informed and sophisticated, but equally passionate. I was the “gay” police. No, not in the way you might imagine. I was on high alert. If the ever-adolescent slur was slung, I would hear it, and I would stop it. My tactic, as rudimentary as it was: if I could not change people's minds as to why insulting someone with the word used to describe someone else's sexual orientation was a bad thing, I would simple annoy them enough they wouldn’t want to deal with me, so they would stop using it. Largely, within my circle of friends, it worked. It was no great victory, but at least I was fighting.

It has been years since I have heard someone use gay as an insult -- joking or not -- and even longer since I have been in the physical presence of someone hurling the f***** word. Not that I am under the impression this no longer happens, it just doesn’t in the world I operate in. I live in a big city. My friends are all highly educated and mostly progressive, mostly liberal.

Then, just a few weeks ago, I sat on the floor of my apartment, drinking wine with a bunch of friends. We had no less than four different conversations happening all at once. Blah blah blah. Blah blah blah. Blah blah ugh they are being so gay. WHAT!? My ears were stinging. I was in shock. Confused. Also, a little drunk. Did I just hear someone say that? So absurd I almost laughed (that unbelievable, inappropriate type of laugh). By the time it fully registered in my wine soaked brain, the conversation had moved on.

I hesitated, and said nothing.

I went back to playing with my cat and sipping my rosé. But as I read Gay’s words just a few days later, the incident came back to me, this time in a far more sober focus. I felt the pang of uncomfortable self-reflection. I listen to “bad” music, I watch “bad” TV, I sat there in silence when my own friend casually used the word gay to jab at her husband and his friends.

In, Some Jokes Are Funnier Than Others, a well deserved skewering of Daniel Tosh, and critical examination of rape jokes and what we allow under the guise of comedy, Gay writes:

All too often, when we see injustices, both great and small, we think, That’s terrible, but we do nothing. We say nothing. We let other people fight their own battles. We remain silent because silence is easier. Qui tacet consentire videtur is Latin for “Silence gives consent.” When we say nothing, when we do nothing, we are consenting to these trespasses against us. (Gay 181)

I was still chewing on the situation, which had it been a piece of gum, would have been flavorless and hard as rock by now -- most certainly time to spit it out. What should I have done? Should I have embarrassed my friend? Should I have called her out from across the room a solid few minutes after the fact on wine delay?

Gay’s words resonate with me and challenge me. I appreciate her carefully crafted nudge toward self diagnostic deliberation. I know there are times when I should raise my voice to speak out and I fail. There are also times when I don’t fail; when my voice sings loud and clear and true. But when it comes to those closest to us the answers are often far more complicated. Whether it is our propensity to make excuses for the ones we love, or simply because we have more context with which to understand their blunders, it is harder to write them off in a single stroke.

It could be the lawyer in me, but so often I find the answer stationed somewhere between black and white, somewhere in the gray.

Call-out culture in the activist communities can be a seductive path down which to travel. The idea that you are good or you are bad -- no room for mistakes, no account for the pitfalls of our humanity. If you say or do something wrong, you must pay a swift and sudden price. You must be called out and put on blast. It allows us to easily pick a side and insulate ourselves from inadvertent association with the miscreant. Perhaps, when it comes to public figures, or movement leaders we cannot afford to make concessions, too much is at stake. I am not completely sure I believe that without exception, but I am willing to concede I see the potential merit in the argument. But most of us are not professional activists, we are not public figures, we are not speaking on a stage of national importance.

We are everyday people navigating a lifetime of learned prejudices with varying degrees of dexterity and enlightenment. But our own growth is vital to moving the dial forward and creating lasting change in our country. So, how do we do it?

I believe to be truly effective we need more than one tool in our box. Acting on steadfast rules of reactionary behavior to stop injustice in it’s tracks is as short sighted as my high school approach to eradicating “gay” from our everyday vernacular. It could help in the moment, it might not. An approach lacking in nuance is unlikely to have the stamina to withstand the long battle we have ahead of us. Maisha Johnson from Everyday Feminism explained, “there’s a common fear that passing up opportunities to hold each other accountable would mean coddling people who are causing harm and silencing marginalized people who are harmed. . . But acts of oppression are not all the same, and each unique situation has a different set of strategies that would be most effective.” We must choose our battles. Speak out when required. Stand unwavering and resolute in times of need. But also find ways to call people in. Meet people where they are and then find ways to lead them toward progress. It is slow, it is frustrating, and requires more patience than I am always capable of. But, it is necessary.

In hindsight, if it had just been her and I that night, I would likely have been able to say something to her that did more than shame her into silence. In the moment, had I been swift on my feet, maybe a timely retort of, “wow, haven’t heard anyone use that word in a million years” would have sufficed to check my otherwise good-hearted and well meaning friend. But, I failed on this one.

I am a bad feminist. I don’t always get it right. Most of us don't. But I will not stop trying, stop learning, or stop growing.

As we prepare to take on what will, undoubtedly, be a very challenging future under the new administration, we must choose our battles carefully. Balancing our priorities and expending energy where it will do the most good. We can’t be worrying about the broken dishwasher when the house is on fire; that doesn’t mean we won’t get to that dishwasher, it just might take a minute. In the meantime, I am going to keep trying to figure out my role and my responsibilities, and how to most effectively use my voice, my knowledge, and my privilege to move our country forward.