Masha Tupitsyn on being a feminist killjoy

Also appropriate to how I’m feeling right now, as someone who is sometimes seen by certain readers, certain coworkers, certain friends, as difficult, negative, a person who rocks the boat (which I was born to do), who says the unpleasant things, who makes an unnecessary fuss of things, are these two posts by Masha Tupitsyn, from July 14 and July 17, 2012, respectively.

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Rant (July 14, 2012)

I used to be so good at wearing my sadness on my sleeve. At being true to my anger. At not hiding anything. Not compromising. Saying exactly what I think. But how many times can you lose everything. Everyone. As a woman, in America, in the 21st century (and I can really only talk about my own time and place), the risk of alienation and disapproval is near-constant. Because the line between being liked and accepted and being shunned and hated is so thin and precarious. It literally depends upon how fake and placating and “positive” you are required and willing to be. Because apparently having any kind of critical mind these days (and not just on paper, although on paper isn’t exactly encouraged either), and expressing yourself, has somehow become synonomous with being a bad or difficult person. The front is so much more important than who you actually are. So you can be an asshole as long as you smile and have a good time while being an asshole. But you can’t say what you think and feel and still be thought of as a good person. You are forced to choose between popularity and honesty. Integrity and approval. You aren’t allowed to have both. To be both.

In this country, if you have anything to say, if you step out of line, if you complain or criticize or disagree with anything or anyone, you are immediately written off as difficult, a bitch, a drama queen, a threat. If you speak out against things, or even for them—passionately—it doesn’t matter if you’re a decent person. It doesn’t matter what your other good qualities are. It only matters if you smile and get along, even if getting along is not real getting along. Most especially if getting along is not real getting along. Is not love, is not honesty, is not vulnerability, is not truth, is not understanding, is not open, is not close, is not risk, is not work, is not change. There is no space for an incident-specific reaction. In an interview bell hooks once said that if your mind is decolonized in a colonized world then it becomes very difficult to live in the world. 

Sara Ahmed, “Feminist Killjoys (and other willful subjects)”: 

“We can consider the relationship between the negativity of the figure of the feminist killjoy and how certain bodies are ‘encountered’ as being negative. Marilyn Frye argues that oppression involves the requirement that you show signs of being happy with the situation in which you find yourself. As she puts it, “it is often a requirement upon oppressed people that we smile and be cheerful. If we comply, we signify our docility and our acquiescence in our situation.” To be oppressed requires that you show signs of happiness, as signs of being or having been adjusted. For Frye ‘anything but the sunniest countenance exposes us to being perceived as mean, bitter, angry or dangerous.” 

Romans, 7:15: 

“I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.”

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The Joy Is Already Killed (July 17, 2012)

If love is also a politics of resistance, then certain kinds of anger go together with love. Today, in an email, L. writes about being a feminist kill joy, which is what I’ve been feeling like all the time lately, and writing about, too. But I am also angry with myself for how quickly I let go of the feeling that I am loved. I need a love so deep and lasting that I can’t forget. A love that lets me live with and bear my anger. 

L: 

“Gotta get mad to make that shit stop. Gotta be a killjoy. 

but… also gotta love somebody.” 

Me: 

“So true. And story of my life. 

Getting/being mad 

And wanting/needing to love somebody.”