I continue to become, confront my gendered contradictions and tensions, cast doubts about social change and my role in that change, reenergize my feminist identity and question it at the same time through conversation with others. Consciousness raising is dialogic – it is something that happens in the “between-ness” of conversation – as Bakhtin would say, “A word is a bridge thrown between myself and another. If one end of the bridge depends on me, then the other depends on my addressee (Bakhtin and Volosinov 1986, p. 95). I come to understand my feminist sensibilities through the conversations – imagined and real – that occurred before I entered the actual conversation and in the responses of those I’m engaged with in discussion.
In a way my feminism started in a mediated context. I sometimes point out that my feminist roots began with a book my mother bought me when I was just five years old. A purchase that was the result of an injustice – an inequity – she saw in my kindergarten class. The book was entitled “Girls Can Be Anything” by Norma Klein. That book, and my mother’s belief that I could be anything opened the door for conversations with her and other women for years to come that continue to shape how I view feminism and myself as feminist. I still have this book. It is part of a long chain of coming to a conversational consciousness.
As those conversations move more and more to online spaces, I feel a simultaneous comfort and dis-ease with online forums for consciousness raising. On the one hand, I feel like a viewer of others worlds, ideas and experiences – able to keep a safe distance from confronting my own world of experience. Yet on the contrary, they provide a place for me to pause, collect my thoughts and reflect upon my experiences and positions where I am not confined by the ticking clock on the wall when it’s my turn to speak. When it works – I mean really works – people are writing their way into an understanding feminism together. They are sharing their stories – one story invokes another, a question leads to more questioning. Perhaps what’s lost are the simple nonverbal affirmations that one receives in a face-to-face conversation – the quick “I agree” or “like” is not quite as satisfying to me. Yet, the possibility of more substantive affirmations remain.
Thanks for getting into the time’s connection to sharing stories and experiences. Your post made me think that this is a bigger deal to me than I thought. So much happens in that brief silence when someone is being heard, listened to, and validated all from nonverbal sharing of space and time. Your post makes me think a lot about the time I take when I’m online–processing ideas, considering what someone’s story means–time that I would not have in face-to-face interactions. I want both! The time we get in online consciousness raising forums AND the instantaneous assurance from face-to-face!
I love the way you invite us to think about our own process of becoming. I’m reminded of my own conversations with my mom and the ways that she subtly instilled in me a fundamental belief that I could “have it all.” Now, as an adult, it is often the tension between my vision of having it all and getting through my daily life that bring me closer to my feminist identity. For me much of my current and evolving feminist thought emerges in connection with others–but more often in the digital space. As I reflect, it’s no surprise that I am more comfortable writing my way into dialogue. Much of my life I’ve kept a journal as a way to sort through my thoughts and I’ve always found it challenging to verbally express my ideas on the spot. I often feel backed into a corner by something I’ve said or by another person’s immediate reaction to me. Engaging in dialogue in the virtual space gives me time to develop and revise my ideas, my voice. It also gives me time to reflect and process responses which helps me react with more empathy than defense– and that I “like.”