Do you feel like you need to be asked to join the conversation? Do you feel like you need (or want) to appear meek to be accepted in it? What parts of the conversation read as vital to to you and are there subjects and threads that strike you as irrelevant BS?What great questions!
There are a lot of dynamics behind the answers to these questions. A lot of my responses to online and face-to-face conversations are feelings and perceptions based on layers of internal and external dynamics. I can't express them coherently and objectively. I can only relate general impressions. So, please take what I say in that vein as I answer these questions.
Do you feel like you need to be asked to join the conversation?
The short answer: Yes.
Part of this is my being an introvert (in the Meyers-Briggs sense), and strongly so. Go here for more information about introversion to get a better idea of what it is.
The other part may bear explaining.
A lot of the guys (and they're overwhelmingly male) on the theater blogosphere are frankly brilliant. They have Very Big Thoughts about Very Important Things, and I often don't. Often, the theater blogosphere seems like a private conversation taking place in public. I generally don't get the impression that they think I have something to add to the conversation.
Also, the popular theater bloggers have rigorous intellects, and they express themselves clearly and forcefully. They often hone their ideas through debate. For me, debate is an emotional boxing match because I rarely talk at length about things that don't mean anything to me. (That's why I don't play Devil's Advocate, especially when dealing with substantial issues as opposed to passing fancies. To me, it's disrespectful to treat people's beliefs and experiences like toys.) Often I get the sense that these guys only respond to a challenge of some kind. I'm not knocking it. It's just how they usually make connections with ideas and each other. It's not that I don't have thoughts. I just don't think anyone would care, so why waste space to say something that no one will respond to?
Furthermore, I communicate in a very water-like way. My natural way of perceiving the world, understanding my experiences and expressing myself incorporates precision, depth, and subtlety. The English language is a cumbersome tool to do that. We don't have words like yugen that express an ethereal, complex idea in a concise way. So, it's often a struggle for me to express a question or idea in the way I conceived it.
Do you feel like you need (or want) to appear meek to be accepted in it?
Yes. But it's society in general, not theater blogosphere in particular, that does this. I don't compartmentalize my life, so a lot of that baggage goes from one public space into another.
I often feel like I have to accentuate being non-threatening. I'm not an aggressive person. I don't go out of my way to make people feel self-conscious. But let's be real. I'm a big, bald, Black woman. I'm threatening even if I'm sitting in a corner reading a book. People often assume I'm stupid and violent until I "prove" otherwise. The only way I can "prove" that to their satisfaction is to be as acquiescent as possible. So, if I give the tiniest criticism, if I feel less than eternally perky, if I set the smallest boundary, I'm no longer treated like person with her own preferences and experiences, but the Angry Black Bitch. Either these people have not met any genuinely nasty people, or they're only noticing "attitude problem" because I'm Black, and we all know that Black women have attitude problems. Nothing that anybody says or does has any effect on how we respond. No, Siree.
Excuse my while I roll my eyes and suck my teeth.
One of the things that is most exasperating for me to deal with is when people talk down to me when they clearly don't understand or haven't listened to what I'm saying. I have yet to master the art of hiding my irritation at this, so that means I'm "unfriendly."
What parts of the conversation read as vital to you and are there subjects and threads that strike you as irrelevant BS?
It's not the subject but the approach that can turn me on or off. I think my response to the first question applies here too.
I so totally get it. Very often, after I post something in my own blog, I feel this wave of remorse, like I've gone too far in asserting my own opinion, and who the heck do I think I am to spout my mouth off like that?
ReplyDeleteAnd I feel like I have to be politically correct and meek enough to be palatable, too... not coming from the position of the "big, bald, Black woman" but the naive-looking young blonde comes with its own set of cultural assumptions, and stepping too far outside of them makes people go, "Oh, now that's unattractive."
Girl power!
I so totally get it. Very often, after I post something in my own blog, I feel this wave of remorse, like I've gone too far in asserting my own opinion, and who the heck do I think I am to spout my mouth off like that?
ReplyDeleteHave you had experiences where people have said (or done) something to that effect to you?
And I feel like I have to be politically correct and meek enough to be palatable, too...the naive-looking young blonde comes with its own set of cultural assumptions, and stepping too far outside of them makes people go, "Oh, now that's unattractive."
This is probably fodder for another post, but do you feel that you're judged as a person more on your attractiveness to men than your character or your ideas? Do you experience men not knowing how to "handle" you if you don't present yourself as a sexual object?
I responded in my blog. :)
ReplyDeletesorry for the crickets.... i've been off teaching all afternoon and getting roundly and deservedly thumped for asserting one of my opinions too strongly.
ReplyDeleteeven as a white male I strongly identify with this need to be cautious. the bluster for me is an affectation to have my ideas heard, and unfortunately it works. equally unfortunately, bluster changes the core idea and willfully pokes holes in otherwise strong arguments.
I think what we're missing in the discussion is the other half of brilliant theatre... we have the cutting wit, but blogging is not kind to emotional intelligence. but without that emotional processing of ideas, the ideas never get traction. that's one of the reasons i've been craving writers like you and laura... you contextualize the ideas in ways that your readers can process into their daily artistic lives. it's human scale here.
I guess, I hope without patronizing in any way, that the trick will be to invite yourself into conversations when you feel a call to do so... even if no invitation comes. conversations and arguments are usually built to maximize our own intellectual dexterity... by repurposing the discussion to fit your experience and connecting it with your life, you'll be making yourself and your identity vital to that particular discussion. and I dare say you should be... this art form and this way of life also belongs to you.
glad you liked the questions...
Interesting post, but kinda depressing. Not because of you, but because of how so little changes. You're talking racism as well as sexism: I've only experienced the latter, and that's bad enough (albeit an extreme example, and not very common, but still the kind of thing I can provoke by being outspoken). I suspect that it's not so bad where I am (Australia) - I was shocked by the militarised machismo of some things I heard and saw in the brief month I spent in the States - but it's still everywhere. (Maybe just harder to talk about these days). You have to develop a thick skin, and ignore all those subtle chains that keep your mouth shut, and remember that it's important for lots of reasons, not least to other women, that woman talk where they can be heard.
ReplyDeleteI never became a writer because I couldn't quite muster the hubris required to feel like people needed to read what I had to say in print. But I talk all the time. Blogging is sort of an ephemeral intermediary, and I still often wonder if I'm talking down a hole when I post. Andrew Taylor at Artful Manager provided me with my two favorite reasons for bothering: writing helps me sort out my thinking, and writing in a public forum keeps me honest.
ReplyDeleteRVCBard, Laura and Alison Croggon I discovered your blog as I've read Don Hall, Mission Paradox and Scott Peterson for awhile now. All three of these guys have different styles but I read them because of the intellectual rigor displayed which generally I find in short supply and unappreciated.
ReplyDeleteI have found that debate, attention to details, long world views, consideration for future impact of current decision making are not valued in many spheres (talking corporate marketing, world events coverage, community activism, within the States). Maybe its dread of the first and future waves of the economic doom here in the States; self interestedness; self preservation; memory production for test taking vs full immersion understanding of the fundamentals educational systems here; etc at play.
Whatever.
The majority don't engage in intellectual rigor and try to stamp it out by calling it disruptive; undiplomatic; intolerant; trafficking in the past and holding up future progress; sticking your nose where it doesn't belong (all I have witnessed and been told).
I appreciate it in all it forms and think the greater use of it especially in everyday life events makes us fully realized humans capable of making meaningful progress to tackle some of challenges natural to any existence.
But it's hard work. And you have to develop thick skin, be persistent, shoulder on, re-energize with likeminded folk, and continue to develop your ideas and intellect through debate, revisiting and research.
Lela, I touch on this in another post.
ReplyDelete