The freedom of closed spaces
The importance of convening in closed spaces for revolutionary work, and my unintentional March lesbian reading spree.
From ages 10-18, I attended two all-girls schools. It was an important part of my feminist upbringing. While far from being perfect, being surrounded by mostly girls and women during the day allowed me to delay my exposure to the male gaze to after school hours.
It was a pretty illuminating period for me. My schoolmates were brilliant, mischievous and brazen. Within the 8-hour school timeframe, we were allowed to truly be ourselves. We didn’t have to impress any silly boys. We didn’t have to fear parental rebuke. We were fierce, smart, competitive, boisterous and ravenous. We wanted to sit at the table and eat the whole damn cake.
I am aware that my experience is personal, and many students have suffered within the confines of this strict, colonial era education system. However, I am convinced that getting an education in a girls-only space made me a feminist before I was even aware of the existence of the F word.
“Yes; without community there is certainly no liberation, no future, only the most vulnerable and temporary armistice between me and my oppression.”
(P. 5) The Cancer Journals by Audre Lorde
Being part of a group or collective of people with whom you who share political identities and life experiences, especially for women of colour and gender minorities, is an act of self-love, self-determination and empowerment. I truly believe that. When we find ourselves reflected in others, we learn how to love the parts of us that we were made to dim and trim during the course of our lives.
This is my definition of a closed, safe space. It is a place of renewal, of understanding how to collectively process aggressions, both micro and bigger than life ones, that punctuate experiences specific to our condition(s). It is a tool to power through the racist, sexist, classist, homophobic and transphobic clamour of everyday life. As Barbara Smith from the Combahee River Collective, a Black American feminist lesbian socialist organisation from the 70s, rightly says:
“The major source of the difficulty in our political work is that we are not just trying to fight oppression on one front or even two, but instead to address a whole range of oppressions.”
(P. 27) How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective, edited by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
It is therefore important, if not necessary, to give oneself the space to address these oppressions with people who understand, experience and validate the multitude ways in which these shackles rattle our foundations.
That’s why I can’t wrap my head around the French government’s hissy fit last week when Mélanie Luce, the president of the biggest French student union, mentioned that some of their internal meetings were safe spaces for students of colour only. Senators doubled down this morning with by voting an amendment that seeks to dismantle associations that create safe spaces meetings for people of colour.
PSA: Some conversations aren’t meant for everyone and that’s OKAY.
Some people are oppressors by virtue of their presence, their gender, their sexual orientation, their political identities and their skin colour. Alcoholic Anonymous meetings are meant only for people afflicted with alcohol addiction - I don’t see anybody dying to barge in, demanding the right to be part of those meetings. Ask yourself - why did MeToo, as a movement, take so much time to gain its current momentum? Important conversations around consent and sexual violence were not happening because the oppressors are omnipresent in all spaces (media, cinema, arts, politics, board meetings).
No safe spaces, no conversations, no reckoning, no processing. No justice.
My feminist lesbian reading spree
While I am obviously an advocate of closed and safe spaces, I was reminded of its importance thanks to my unintentional lesbian reading spree in March. I picked up the Combahee River Collective (CRC) manifest, a book that has been gathering dust on my TBR list for a while now. It was a tactical, razor sharp guide on how organising, strategising and building strength within closed spaces allow for better coalition building with other groups and allies.
I had not been aware up until this point that most members (if not all) of the CRC were Black lesbians. Is there anyone more revolutionary than a Black lesbian? Honestly, I don’t think so. I started reading the CRC manifest right after Angela Davis’ autobiography (and it was not unintentional). While Davis does not address or acknowledge her homosexuality in the book (which spans the first thirty years of her life), reading it with that knowledge gives another colour to her criticism of Black liberation movements in the 60s and 70s that failed to consider the interlocking between race and gender and class.
Another riveting March Lesbian read was Audre Lorde’s The Cancer Journals, which recounts the “Black lesbian feminist mother lover poet's” struggle with breast cancer, her mastectomy and her arresting condemnation of the silence surrounding women-specific illnesses. In her diary entries, Lorde says:
“Where were the dykes who have had mastectomies? I wanted to talk to a lesbian, to sit down and start from a common language (…)” (P. 42).
And therein lies the crux of the importance of closed spaces. Common stories, common spaces, common language. Community. The oppressor is riled up against the idea of safe spaces; they are convinced that we use our safe space time to solely plot their downfall. Why? Because that’s exactly what they do, and have been doing, behind gilded, embossed, corporate board doors. So let’s keep convening, creating, communing. Let’s think and act like a Black feminist lesbian, and learn how to create revolutionary communities.
My March Lesbian reading list:
How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective, edited by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
Keep safe, keep questioning and stay alert.
Love,
S.