Politics and Millennials: Never Known Different

Last night I started reading Barack Obama’s The Audacity of Hope. I don’t have a whole lot to say about the book yet, but one thing that stuck out to me was that as Obama was talking about the polarization of politics, he mentioned Bush v Gore as one of the starting points of that polarization. When referring to his early days as a senator, he mentioned that the older senators felt that things were getting less and less productive, and that the aisle was getting wider and wider, starting at around 2000.

The first election that I remember is Bush v Gore. I was about 10 at the time, and we had a mock election in my 4th grade classroom. I decided to vote for Gore because he liked The Beatles. Afterwards, I went home and talked to my parents and they explained some of the issues that the election was about. I started to have an inkling that I was probably a Democrat. Even in that classroom there was heated passion about which candidate should win, and some anger towards people who disagreed.

My first memories of politics and the electoral system are remembered by older people as the time when politics started going to shit. The only politics I have ever known is a politics that is sharply divided, one in which there is no middle ground, one in which Republicans and Democrats have become more and more radical in their opinions. My whole generation has grown up in the midst of politics that looks like this. Is this unlike any other generation? What will that mean for us as we grow up? Have we all become cynical and tired? I don’t have hard and fast answers to these questions, but as a Millennial myself, I can speak to some of my own feelings about politics, and make some predictions about how my generation may change what’s happening right now.

I do think that to some extent Millennials are cynical of the political system, and that’s because they’ve never seen it functioning. They don’t trust it to function because it never has. When we hear people talking about how bad politics is now, and how it used to be so much better, it sounds like misty-eyed nostalgia to us. There’s no evidence in our minds that there ever was a good time or that now is worse than it used to be. This is all we have known and it appears to be the norm. Because of that, I doubt many of us will see a long term use for the traditional methods of politics. We are willing to vote, we’re willing to be activists, we’re willing to work on campaigns, but few of us think it will actually do much. I see many millennials who want to take things into their own hands. I see many, many young people who are blogging and writing their own opinions about politics, signing petitions, getting in touch with their congresspeople, engaging in civic hacking, volunteering, and generally finding other ways to improve their communities that aren’t through the traditional means.

One of the things that I see among a lot of my friends and peers is that we’re sick of arguing. We want to make the world better, yes. But we want people to stop being jerks on our facebook pages, we want a little peace and quiet. We’d rather go volunteer at that Humane Society down the street than have people bitch at us and bitch right back, because that’s all that ever happens on the internet. We don’t see that as progress. We do however see education as intensely important, particularly the more liberal-minded among us. We feel like we need to explain ourselves and our opinions to others, but we don’t want to piss people off anymore. Of course there are always more or less argumentative people among us, but I see lots of friends who view politics as something that just gets in the way and makes everyone sad.

Oddly enough, one of the consequences of this kind of radio silence is that we all seem to be a little more certain that we’re Very Right and that people who disagree are The Enemy. That’s because we rarely allow ourselves to hear opposing arguments unless we absolutely can’t avoid it, and when we can’t avoid it it’s often said by the craziest version of that opinion (e.g. Rush Limbaugh). If the only people talking are the ones who don’t care about offending others, we get a fairly skewed view of our opposition. I know that I rarely hear logical, calm, and intelligent presentations of the conservative viewpoints. This makes it incredibly easy for us to straw-man those who disagree with us and assume that they’re horrible individuals.

An additional element of this is that because we have so many possible sources of information, we can pick and choose what we hear so as to create an echo chamber. Then we assume everyone thinks like us because those are the only people we hear. I see many people who are completely set in their ways, but who are not interested in talking to others about their opinions. It’s an odd combination, and is not a good situation for positive movement. We are distant from people who think differently from ourselves. We don’t understand them, and many of us don’t want to because it sounds terrifying.

And so we’re angry. We’re angry that things aren’t working out, that our country appears to be falling apart, that our systems are ineffective, that we don’t have jobs, that we don’t have healthcare, that people like to say shitty things about us all the time. But we’re also hopeless. We don’t know how to talk to each other, we don’t know how to fix the system, we can barely even support ourselves and we wonder how people think we should have the time to fix the country.

It seems to me that Millennials are ready for a complete overhaul. We see congress as bull. We don’t give a fuck about the pres, cause the pres never gets shit done. Supreme court who? We’re not uninformed. We know about these things, we just don’t see them as worth our time. We don’t know what we want government to look like, but particularly with how connected things are today, it seems to us that there are better ways of making decisions than electing people to go to Congress for us when we have seen that all that does is corrupt them. We don’t know what this looks like. We just know the government as it is is not functional and we don’t like it. We’re disengaging from it. We’re moving into the nonprofit and private sectors. Is it any surprise when all we remember is disappointment from the government?

Most people who are paying attention already know this, but they seem flabbergasted as to why young people might be so cynical about the government. It’s simple. Look at the history we’ve lived through. This is what we know: the government doesn’t work.

Living Divided

Last night I started reading Barack Obama’s The Audacity of Hope. I don’t have a whole lot to say about the book yet, but one thing that stuck out to me was that as Obama was talking about the polarization of politics, he mentioned Bush v Gore as one of the starting points of that polarization. When referring to his early days as a senator, he mentioned that the older senators felt that things were getting less and less productive, and that the aisle was getting wider and wider, starting at around 2000.

The first election that I remember is Bush v Gore. I was about 10 at the time, and we had a mock election in my 4th grade classroom. I decided to vote for Gore because he liked The Beatles. Afterwards, I went home and talked to my parents and they explained some of the issues that the election was about. I started to have an inkling that I was probably a Democrat. Even in that classroom there was heated passion about which candidate should win, and some anger towards people who disagreed.

My first memories of politics and the electoral system are remembered by older people as the time when politics started going to shit. The only politics I have ever known is a politics that is sharply divided, one in which there is no middle ground, one in which Republicans and Democrats have become more and more radical in their opinions. My whole generation has grown up in the midst of politics that looks like this. Is this unlike any other generation? What will that mean for us as we grow up? Have we all become cynical and tired? I don’t have hard and fast answers to these questions, but as a Millennial myself, I can speak to some of my own feelings about politics, and make some predictions about how my generation may change what’s happening right now.

I do think that to some extent Millennials are cynical of the political system, and that’s because they’ve never seen it functioning. They don’t trust it to function because it never has. When we hear people talking about how bad politics is now, and how it used to be so much better, it sounds like misty-eyed nostalgia to us. There’s no evidence in our minds that there ever was a good time or that now is worse than it used to be. This is all we have known and it appears to be the norm. Because of that, I doubt many of us will see a long term use for the traditional methods of politics. We are willing to vote, we’re willing to be activists, we’re willing to work on campaigns, but few of us think it will actually do much. I see many millennials who want to take things into their own hands. I see many, many young people who are blogging and writing their own opinions about politics, signing petitions, getting in touch with their congresspeople, engaging in civic hacking, volunteering, and generally finding other ways to improve their communities that aren’t through the traditional means.

One of the things that I see among a lot of my friends and peers is that we’re sick of arguing. We want to make the world better, yes. But we want people to stop being jerks on our facebook pages, we want a little peace and quiet. We’d rather go volunteer at that Humane Society down the street than have people bitch at us and bitch right back, because that’s all that ever happens on the internet. We don’t see that as progress. We do however see education as intensely important, particularly the more liberal-minded among us. We feel like we need to explain ourselves and our opinions to others, but we don’t want to piss people off anymore. Of course there are always more or less argumentative people among us, but I see lots of friends who view politics as something that just gets in the way and makes everyone sad.

Oddly enough, one of the consequences of this kind of radio silence is that we all seem to be a little more certain that we’re Very Right and that people who disagree are The Enemy. That’s because we rarely allow ourselves to hear opposing arguments unless we absolutely can’t avoid it, and when we can’t avoid it it’s often said by the craziest version of that opinion (e.g. Rush Limbaugh). If the only people talking are the ones who don’t care about offending others, we get a fairly skewed view of our opposition. I know that I rarely hear logical, calm, and intelligent presentations of the conservative viewpoints. This makes it incredibly easy for us to straw-man those who disagree with us and assume that they’re horrible individuals.

An additional element of this is that because we have so many possible sources of information, we can pick and choose what we hear so as to create an echo chamber. Then we assume everyone thinks like us because those are the only people we hear. I see many people who are completely set in their ways, but who are not interested in talking to others about their opinions. It’s an odd combination, and is not a good situation for positive movement. We are distant from people who think differently from ourselves. We don’t understand them, and many of us don’t want to because it sounds terrifying.

And so we’re angry. We’re angry that things aren’t working out, that our country appears to be falling apart, that our systems are ineffective, that we don’t have jobs, that we don’t have healthcare, that people like to say shitty things about us all the time. But we’re also hopeless. We don’t know how to talk to each other, we don’t know how to fix the system, we can barely even support ourselves and we wonder how people think we should have the time to fix the country.

The place that I see many Millennials is a place in which we want a complete overhaul. We want to give up on Congress (would you keep putting your faith in a group that can’t do their basic job description for two weeks straight?), and we want a new system that is not motivated by money, but is motivated by our needs. We don’t give a fuck about the pres, cause the pres never gets shit done. Supreme court who? We’re not uninformed. We know about these things, we just don’t see them as worth our time.We just have no idea how to make it because we’ve never seen something that functions.

So when you see Millennials who are frustrated, cynical, and hopeless, remember that they aren’t being whiny and petulant: they’ve never seen a political system that works better than this one. They’ve never had the system function. They’ve been told over and over that things are supposed to be ok, but they’re just not. Wouldn’t you be pissed too?

The Future of Feminism

I had a job interview today that was both exciting and terrifying, and one of the questions that I was asked was “How do you see the state of feminism today?” Well I was a bit overwhelmed in the moment of answering that question and got out something about being in flux, but the thought and the question have been hanging out in my brain ever since. I think it’s a very interesting question, but I’m almost more interested in where feminism should go. As it stands, there is a lot of splintering in feminism. We have everything from evangelical feminists to radical feminists, to intersectional feminists, and each of those groups has very different aims and beliefs.

Now overall I think most feminists are struggling with how to overcome some of the slanders that have been leveled at them from the likes of Rush Limbaugh and remind people that feminism isn’t a dirty word, as well as remind people why feminism is necessary. There’s a lot of education about the struggles that women still face, and particularly education about structural sexism as opposed to individual sexism. The focus has moved from overt beliefs that individuals might hold about women being inferior to men to the structural ways in which women are still oppressed. These are what hold feminism together today, as well as the desire to keep feminism relevant through new media forms.

 

There’s a lot of conflict in feminism though: how do women of color feature, how do women of non-Christian religions feature, what about intersectionality, are transwomen women (answer: yes). In addition, there’s a lot of conflict about what issues to focus on: abortion, healthcare access, equal pay, media representation, street harassment, rape culture…oof. There’s a lot going on, a lot of people doing different things, and a lot of styles of feminism. One of the things that I think characterizes feminism’s current state is its sheer diversity.

 

But if I were to characterize where I think feminism SHOULD go, it would be a very different matter. So without further ado, here is Olivia’s List Of What Feminist’s Should Do (If I Ran The World).

 

1.Recognize intersectionality. Holy shit have feminists been bad at this in the past. Particularly white feminists. Particularly upper class feminists. We CANNOT fight for women’s issues without recognizing the diversity of women’s issues and the way they intersect with and inform other issues. We need to draw on the diversity we have and embrace it, rather than trying to say “well my oppression is more important than your oppression, so stop talking about your issue”.

 

2.Take responsibility for past failures. This means listening to black women in particular.

 

3.Take a more global approach. Feminism as it exists in the U.S. does not recognize that its version of feminism may not be appropriate for all locations. It also doesn’t recognize cultural contexts, and that what it views as oppression may not be oppression for everyone involved. A good example of this is feminists who try to save Muslim women from the hijab. Islam has its own feminists. If you want to talk to them and work with them and discuss how feminism can become a more global movement, that’s great. If you want to walk in and tell everyone else how to be feminist, shut up.

 

4.Focus on choice. Many feminists are already doing this, but I think this message needs to get out there more. Any time you allow women more choices and more freedom, you are helping to reduce their oppression. While we all need to be aware of the context of our choices (for example stay at home moms need to be aware of the history of working in and outside of the home and understand the pressures that might have led them to their choice), we should never tell anyone that their desires and choices are wrong.

 

5.EDUCATE EDUCATE EDUCATE. Get out the information about why rape jokes are not ok, about why street harassment is harmful, about how attitudes in workplaces are discriminatory, about how we can make more opportunities available for women. Use evidence, research, and anecdotes. Give examples. Make it personal and make it universal. Many people don’t understand how harmful their actions are: she deserved it, it’s just a joke, it’s just a compliment, that’s just how things are, she could ignore it if she wanted to. Make it clear why these are BAD excuses.

 

6.Spend more time with the GLBT movement focusing on breaking down the gender binary. While we are still focused on “women’s rights” (and I realize I’ve used that language throughout this post because of convenience but it’s not the best language to use) we are promoting the idea of women and men, when perhaps the best way to allow freedom for all individuals is to allow for all gender presentations and identities. Not perhaps. Definitely. Read some Judith Butler.

 

So if I were queen of the world, that’s how things would go. Does anyone have suggestions for how they’d like to see feminism go? Leave em in the comments!

 

Written by Olivia James

Why do I write?

So now that I’ve established myself as an awesomesauce blogger after 2 whole weeks (or less? I don’t remember) of writing on this blog, I feel that I’m fully qualified to tackle a metapost about writing. Because I’m a Serious Writer who knows all about Writing. (sarcasm. all the sarcasm). But I do like to write about things that I care about, and oddly enough writing is something I care about. So I’m going to give you all a bit of a run down on ME (because I like to talk about me and I’m a little loopy right now so you get a slightly loopy blog post). (I’m doing a lot of passive aggressive apologizing for my topic. Sorry about that guys. This is what I want to write about! It’s my blog! I’m owning that now!)

Ok. So now that I’ve got all of that out of the way and have properly decided to tackle this topic, I think it’s important for writers to be open about their motivations, especially when they’re writing regularly and not for money and for a cause. I write for LOTS of reasons. I write because my brain is an insane blabbermouth that shuts up about as often as Rush Limbaugh. I can’t keep it all in, and I can’t organize it as easily inside the head as outside the head. That’s why I started writing. I’ve always loved it, I’ve always loved the creativity of it, I’ve always loved letting my brain run wild and letting words come out. I started writing for this reason more and more as I started struggling with mental health, and that’s when I started doing poetry and journals and personal blogs.

I’ve also started to write because I have things to say. There are a lot of things I care about. I mean a LOT. I have opinions and passionate feelings about almost EVERYTHING. I think my opinions are important (because hey, they’re my opinions, so of course I think I”m right). I also think that I bring a somewhat unique perspective to a lot of these issues in that I’m an atheist who is very pro-science but doesn’t DO science, has a religion degree, went to a Catholic school, and far prefers philosophy and the humanities as well as social justice causes. I think that I’m more temperate on a lot of things than most atheists and a lot more firebrandy on a lot of things than everyone else. I think the things I care about affect others and so I think they should be discussed. I think the more people read and write and explore the healthier a society will be, and I want to contribute to that healthiness. This type of writing primarily started for me in college with teenskepchick and some for College Feminists Connect. It has fueled a LOT of my blogging and been my main focus in blogging for the last few years. It’s been a big part of how I’ve developed my voice: I like to have a point or an argument to what I’m writing.

At skeptech this last weekend, JT Eberhard said that you shouldn’t be writing to get pageviews, and that if you are, you should just stop now. Well I have a horrible confession to make: I write for pageviews. I check my stats almost every day. I eagerly await the statistics from teenskepchick. And you know why? Because I HAVE places where I write for myself. I have MANY places where I write for myself. I have other blogs that I don’t share nearly as often. I have my journal. I have the beginnings of a book that I’m working on. I check these blogs because these blogs are not just about me, they are about a movement and a message. I CARE about how many people read what I’m saying because a.I want to know if I can get any feedback and if I’m talking about important things in a good way and b.because I think what I have to say is important. PLUS I want some recognition for all the hard work I put in here. Wanting some attention and recognition is a completely human and normal and good thing. I don’t often get to display the way my mind works for others, and I want some recognition that it’s ok and good.

I also write in a similar way to how I use crafts (which I talked about in a post yesterday). It is to create a self-identity and to assert myself into the world. Writing in my mind is one of the freest activities we can undertake. It allows us to express ourselves, to put ourselves forward, to ask for attention and to give ourselves attention. It allows us to shape and create ideas, one of the most powerful things we can do in this world. And it allows us to potentially influence others with our ideas and thoughts. It allows us to have some control over our world because we get to figure out how to understand it, how to shape it, how to work to influence it.  Words are one of the few things we can create entirely through our own power. That’s so cool to me.

So in many ways, I write to check my sanity, to see if what I’m thinking and feeling seems reasonable to others. I write to start those kinds of discussions. I write to explore elements of what I’m passionate about to see what others are thinking or feeling about those same things.

And finally, and most vainly, I write because I actually think I’m fairly good at it. This is big for me. I don’t have a whole helluva lot of self-confidence. In fact I think I suck at most things. But I’m finally beginning to become convinced that I might have some talent at writing. It might be where I’m at home, where I can be myself and still contribute something. It might be a place where I’d feel I have some authority and knowledge, where I don’t feel I have to bow to other’s opinions and feelings. This might be where I can stand up and assert myself, where I LET myself have opinions and express those opinions (something I often don’t do in my personal life). I write sometimes so that people will tell me I’m good at writing. And ya know what? There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. Because I need some positive reinforcement in my life right now. Doing something I’m good at and being recognized for it is taking care of my mental health. So fuck the haters who say you can’t write to get appreciation. Of COURSE I write for myself, but part of that is writing for others.

So this blog is an amalgamation of all of those bits. It’s a little bit of passion, a little bit of hobby, a little bit of social justice, a little bit of my brain sorting itself out, and a little bit of vanity. What about you all? Why are you here? Why do you read my blog? What do you want to see more of? Would you be interested in reading my creative writing (oof it’s been a while since I’ve done that, I could use some practice)? Do you buy the idea that writing has power even when no one else necessarily read its?

PS-the featured picture is not me, in case you were curious. It is however approximately how I look while I’m writing.