The Great Twitter Earthquake of 2011: Natural Disasters Are All About Context

The reaction to the earthquake on the East Coast of the US today went by pretty quickly on Twitter.  First, we all ran from doorways to our computers to scream “holy shit, earthquake!”  Then everyone tweeted to make sure everyone else was all right as the magnitude of the disaster became evident from our streams.  Then the jokes began and the West Coasters started making fun of the East Coasters. On my stream, @enterblisstonia pointed out that everyone experiences disasters differently, and laughing about it? Not that funny.

I’ve been through a lot of disasters and weather events—blizzards, hurricanes, a 500-year flood, -49 degree F windchill, tornadoes, two earthquakes, heat waves, record highs, and record lows.  I’ve also seen how people react in seemingly ridiculous ways to tiny weather events, from a few inches of snow to a tropical storm to a few days of 90 degree heat.  But what always strikes me in these situations is how, as those who’ve been through a particular event make fun of those who haven’t, they seem to be missing the context.

Some weather-related actions, like the inexplicable bread-and-milk buying thing us Southerners do, aren’t very rational.  But most of the time, when people “overreact” to a weather event, it’s not about lack of knowledge or understanding.  It’s about lack of resources.

When a disaster occurs in a place like Haiti, it’s not just the disaster that’s a problem, it’s the extreme poverty.  On a smaller scale, that’s true of disasters in the US.  The levees in New Orleans were an obvious example.  Others abound—a Northerner living in the South may be perfectly prepared to go out in a blizzard, but you’re not going to get very far without snowplows.  A lot of us who’ve experienced an earthquake before were naturally concerned today because we have questions about how well DC or New York buildings are constructed to withstand the earth moving.  The same was true when a hurricane hit Maryland when I was in college—I’ve lived through plenty of hurricanes, but my concern was the dormitory walls only built to withstand 100 mph winds.

Fortunately, it looks like the damage today was minimal, so we can laugh at the “disaster” photos of upended lawn chairs and fallen books.  But West Coasters who mocked East Coast reactions to the earthquake, next time you get a foot of snow, you might want to remember today and stay away from Twitter.

Progressive Women’s Voices

Just a note to let you know that I’ll be out and about for the weekend with the Progressive Women’s Voices program through the Women’s Media Center in New York.  This year’s class is a phenomenal bunch of activists, performers, and opinionmakers, and I’m happy to be a part of it.  I’ll be Tweeting when I can @queerscholar, but otherwise offline.  Have a great weekend!

Social Media Update

One of my resolutions this year is to improve the integration of my blogging experience with social media (see under: where all the cool kids are at).  In the spirit of that, I want to remind everyone who isn’t aware that you can “like” the Radically Queer Facebook Page to get regular links I found interesting that might be of interest to readers, or follow the Radically Queer Twitter Feed to get my quick thoughts on various subjects relevant to this blog.  Happy 2011, everyone, and may your activist flag fly proudly this year!

 

Scary Thoughts of Actual Success

Everyone who’s ever done Artist’s Way knows that when you start to get creative, good things will come to you, and it’s important to be open and accept them.

Well, I’ve been having thoughts about a career shift, about possibly trying to develop my online presence in a way that could lead to a career as a writer/speaker/freelancer. There are so many doubts about this: it’s not a steady stream of income, which is terrifying; I’m already 25 and I feel like I’ve wasted that stage where you do things and people say indulgently “wow, you’re so young, okay, we’ll take a look at your book proposal.” My friends on Facebook who went to high school with me are now heads of departments and I’m an administrative assistant.

But I want to nurture my little seed, because maybe it will grow, and I like writing. I like free speech. I like being able to say whatever I want, and not the message of the organization.

RIP Howard Zinn

I don’t normally do memorial posts, but I have to type a brief note on Howard Zinn due to the impact he had on my life and my academic path. I was never a big fan of history, see. I kind of hated it, which now is hard to believe, but the history you learn in grade school is pretty narrow. In 11th grade, though, we read a chapter of A People’s History of the United States and it blew my mind. This guy was for real. Since then, I went on to get a degree in history, and I think the exposure to Zinn was a big part of the turning of the tide. So hats off to you, Sir, for daring to tell a fuller version of the story. And if you haven’t read A People’s History, pick up your copy today.

Thoughts on Gender from a Telemarketer

At the moment, I’m working in the subscriptions office of a major symphony orchestra, and I’ve found some trends emerging in the past four months or so when it comes to the spin callers and patrons place on gender (and sexuality).  This is just a list, maybe intelligent thoughts will follow:

• Husband: “You’ll have to talk to my wife.  She’s my secretary/social secretary/the family secretary.”
• Callers assuming that the wife might be home during the day but the husband will only be home at night.
• Callers saying “is your wife home?” or “is your husband home?” without any evidence that the relationship between the male and female member of a household is indeed husband/wife.
• Callers assuming that “partner” means opposite sex.
• Callers suggesting that a patron bring a date to the symphony, as opposed to a friend or family member.
• Wife: “My husband’s in charge/has all the control/etc.”
• Husband: “No, she doesn’t want that” or “Honey, you don’t want that.”

Announcing the F-Wave Blog!

Now that we have a few posts under our belt, I want to officially announce the bit of “blogging news” I hinted at while liveblogging from the Women + Power conference.  Myself and six other amazing young women who met and clicked at the conference decided to create a blog called the F-Wave.  The F-Wave is a place for a diverse bunch of young women from the US & Canada to discuss things that are relevant to our lives, both individually and in a group “roundtable” each week.  I hope you’ll follow that blog as well as this one, and comment if you have something to say!

How the Internets Shape My Day-to-Day Life (as a Feminist)

One thing that was really interesting for me about the Women + Power Conference was all the discussion about blogging and other Internet technology and how it shapes our activism, our news-reading habits, etc.  From the stage, there were some really interesting stories about, for example, how a woman in rural Africa was able to connect to other women in a way she never would have been able to pre-Internet through the site Pulse Wire.  In our intergenerational lunch conversation, we talked more about how the Internet affects us generally, in terms of relating and developing friendships, both positive and negative.

When I got home, I started thinking about just how I do use the Internet both for information gathering and for community building.  Of course, I’m very conscious of things that the Internet helps me with in terms of getting information about the weather, restaurant menus, contact info, all that stuff that I find myself without when I’m away from the computer.  But what I don’t pay as much attention to is the social element.  I also wonder how my Internet use differs from others my generation and a little bit older, or a little bit younger.  So I’ll describe a typical day of Internet usage for me, and I’d be interested to hear how this differs from your experience in the comments.  Also, coincidentally I came across a blog post today that discusses relationships and Facebook.  Though Facebook isn’t a big social medium for me, I thought you might be interested to check out what this blogger has to say.

A Day in the Online Life of Me

Keep in mind, of course, that I’m not working right now, so I can spend a lot more time online.

Right after waking up:  Read through Twitter Feed and Tweet once.  Check e-mail.  Read my Google Reader (a few traditional newspapers, feminist websites and blogs, queer blogs, sexuality blogs, law and other academic blogs, foodblogs, Daily Beast, friends’ blogs, NPR, the New Yorker).

During the day: Watch a few TV shows online (Rachel Maddow Show, Daily Show, Colbert Report).  Post to one or two of my blogs.  Spend a good 4-6 hours intermittently chatting with friends online.  I met many of my closest friends online initially, and some I have never met in person, which was a particular surprise to the older women at the intergenerational lunch.

Night: Settle into a chat room with a group of my friends.  Chat till around 11 pm – 1 am until my eyes absolutely won’t stay open.  Rinse and repeat.

Some observations: One thing I don’t use a lot is Facebook, though it’s a great tool for invitations and organizing contact information.  I don’t read Twitter more than once a day, which means that I miss a lot.  I was surprised to hear presenters this weekend talk about meeting people on Twitter.  Meet?  But it’s 140 characters!  I met most of my friends through blog and online journal comments, communities specific to a particular interest, or OKCupid, an online dating site that I use to meet other queer friends and sometimes make dates.  After making a connection, our primary contact is through IM.  I also don’t use Skype or videochat, so my contacts are almost all textual.  Sometimes when I do meet someone in person I’m surprised by how their personality is different, how they look, how they interact.  I don’t know if it’s good or bad – just different.

An interesting model for womanhood

I’ve been thinking a lot about “masculine” and “feminine” since the Women + Power conference, and about “aggressive” versus “emotional.” I’m just reading Vanessa Veselka’s essay, “The Collapsible Woman,” and she offers an interesting alternative to the strong/weak dichotomy in discussing what society expects of rape survivors. “We need to articulate a new vision that equates feminine strength not with repression and bravado, but with compassion and grit.”

Compassion and grit.

I love that. I think it’s a good workaround for my own insecurities about just how “emotional” I want to be, and what it might represent. I want a way to be a generous and loving friend, someone who cares about people, sometimes has a lover or two, can act as a mentor, sometimes needs to cry, likes doing “girly” stuff from time to time, but at the same time is proudly queer, child-free, and entirely career-oriented. I’m someone who thrives on relationships with friends and lovers, but doesn’t want a life revolving around “family,” with the implicit meaning of husband or wife + brood of children. I am happy to lead a life directed by ambition, but sometimes suffer from depression when I use that purpose to isolate myself or make being alone my cry of pride. Oh, the little white lies we tell ourselves. But I’m not prepared to say that what I truly need is the opposite of what I’ve been preaching, to “confess,” because it isn’t. I do need to be alone. I need to pursue projects, and I need to forge my path through life independently. At the same time, I need the support and love of others, holding my hands but not holding me up.

Compassion and grit. Amen, sister.

Academic Slacking

I had hoped that in this transition period between school and employment, I could be fabulously productive, academically speaking, and apply to all sorts of conferences and submit lots of things for publication.  In reality, lying flat on my back after moving is a lot of fun.  I’m bummed that I can’t submit an essay to the New Directions in Feminism and Human Rights issue of the International Journal of Feminist Politics (I think that’s the journal name, don’t quote me) but it’s due Saturday and I’m going to be in NC.  I thought I could manage 8000 words on human rights approaches to homosexuality in the developing world but alas, no cigar.  If you have an idea you can crank out by this weekend, or something 8000 words or less already written, you should submit!  They’re looking for a really broad range of perspectives and I think it’ll be an amazing issue.  Also coming up, deadline for Emory’s gender violence conference (proposals due, not full papers).