Anita Sarkeesian : What I Couldn’t Say - Feminist Fiction
▻http://feministfiction.com/2015/03/20/anita-sarkeesian-what-i-couldnt-say
▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhgEuY64ECw
I rarely feel comfortable speaking spontaneously in public spaces, I’m intentional and careful about the media interviews I do, I decline most invitations to be on podcasts or webshows, I carefully consider the wording of every tweet to make sure it is clear and can’t be misconstrued. Over the last several years, I’ve become hypervigilant. My life, my words and my actions are placed under a magnifying glass. Every day I see my words scrutinized, twisted and distorted by thousands of men hell-bent on destroying and silencing me.
What I couldn’t say is, ‘I’m a human being.’ I don’t get to publicly express sadness or rage or exhaustion or anxiety or depression. I can’t say that sometimes the harassment really gets to me, or that conversely the harassment has become so normal that sometimes I don’t feel anything at all. The death threats come through on my social media, and it’s just become a routine. Screencap, forward to the FBI, block and move on. I don’t get to express feelings of fear or how tiring it is to be constantly vigilant of my physical and digital surroundings. How I don’t go to certain events because I don’t feel safe. Or how I sit in the more secluded areas of coffee shops and restaurants so the least amount of people can recognize me. I don’t show how embarrassment I am when I have to ask the person who recognized me in my local grocery store to please not mention the location where they met me.