Author’s note: The following reflection on discomfort stems from the alumni discussion the Women’s Center hosted as an introduction to Critical Social Justice keynote speaker Deanna Zandt. Throughout the day, Deanna, Yoo-jin, Susie, and I often discussed the need to contemplate feelings of discomfort that stem from uncertainty. Thank you for that inspiring and necessary conversation, friends. Let’s continue that momentum.

Over this semester, one of my mantras has been “sit with discomfort.” This has meant sitting without clear or particularly good answers for very desperate, hurt people turning to me for help and support. It’s meant holding space for tense and harmful conversations that I really don’t want to have with students. It has meant feeling inconsolably angry with a best friend. And it’s meant not having a dryer for two months. Nope, none of those things feel good, but being able to slow down and contemplate a state of anxiety has allowed me to reach new levels of knowledge, awareness, and perspective.

Privilege and modern amenities (oft-begotten through privilege) enable us to reap the reward of instant gratification and it acculturates us to diminish all discomfort at its onset. Think about when you text your crush. You send something to this cutie asking them about their astrological sign or if they’ve seen that one Vine (RIP 6 seconds of perfection), and then you wait. You wait and you wait and you wait for their response. Sometimes you get that awful read receipt and no response or you get that blinking ellipsis and nothing. So you check your phone for any twitch or tiny breath of a ding obsessively for the next hour. That feeling? That right there is discomfort and we want that to be alleviated desperately, because–oh my god–what if she’s ALSO a pisces and we’re just going to cry a lot together in the future?

We want to alleviate discomfort at its onset and this whole feeling has been altogether alleviated by modern privileges like Amazon’s instant delivery service, Netflix’s extensive library, and the ability to get on the internet from any phone ever.

But–and hear me out–what if we didn’t always get what we wanted? What if your crush never texts back? Or what if they do text back, but in the moments where you feel discomfort you’re also being reflective about what’s going on for you?

Perhaps, in the case of your crush, you need to ask yourself why their reply is so important. Will it add value to yourself? Will it validate the feelings you have? Does it mean anything besides that fact that they were also born arbitrarily under the symbol of two fish?

Now I’m not saying all of this with the purpose of requesting that you deprive yourself of the simple pleasures of life like watching every single episode of We Bare Bears. Do that. If it makes you happy, do that. And totally feel the anxiety related to sending texts to your crush (you’re fine, a good person, you’re great, there are plenty of fish in the sea, yadda, yadda, yadda).

Rather, what I’m saying is that discomfort is a signal that I think we can pay more attention to because it designates a path for learning, catharsis, and/or growth. Not every moment of discomfort, but there are many discomforting moments, especially as we navigate a world that is not always made for us. Given that, discomfort is and can be a great teacher.

Discomfort as integral to social justice work

There are certain pieces of social justice work that just require sitting with discomfort and having the patience to slow down and not leap for the nearest possible resolution.

The root feeling of discomfort is fear. And fear is what drives prejudice. Ipso facto oppression thrives on fear-induced snap judgments. In order to unlearn the fear that we are programmed to associate with difference, we must recognize discomfort, identify the root of it, and address it. When we slow down fear and face it, yeah, it feels bad, but we are then able to start the process of changing our minds.

The following are some social justice practices and tenets that are, among many other things, predicated on uncomfortable situations.

Sarah’s Scribbles already had this GIF made so you know I’m legit.

Restorative practices

The focus of restorative practices (also “restorative justice”) is on repairing harm in a community-centered way. This looks like big circles that bring together perpetrators, victims, community advocates, and allies in a dialogue, where everyone is treated equitably. The process of doing so is, as you might imagine, riddled with discomfort materializing through very awkward and vulnerable conversations. Fundamentally, those deep and often hard questions allow us to reach for the context in the story that can help us come to empathy, generosity, and creating dynamic resolutions.

We might get into stories that involve shame or ignorance. We might be forcing a person who has done something bad to talk about that something bad to the victim. If that’s not terribly awkward, I don’t know what is; however, the cool thing about this bringing folks into an awkward feely circle is that this really works to create community-centered solutions. It works to repair harm in a way that also teaches skills to ensure that harm will not continue, and it’s a great alternative to punitive measures that often perpetuate a cycle of harm.

Cultural humility

Cultural humility is a paradigm that offers an alternative to its more popular (but less realistic) cousin, cultural competency. See, cultural competency is a means to an end founded on this idea that if we just put our minds to it and go to enough trainings, maybe we’ll understand what it is to experience racism, xenophobia, transphobia, heterosexism, anti-semitism, sexism, etc. Cultural humility, however, is predicated on process and the idea that people who are different from one another should ask more questions and be willing to admit their lack of knowledge or experience.

It’s kind of like rather than aiming to get an A in a class, you commit to lifelong learning in the subject, because you already know that there’s only so much 3 credits can train you for.

Just so, cultural humility asks us to get into situations feeling confident in the fact that we probably won’t feel confident, that we won’t always know how to move forward, and that that discomfort we’re feeling is okay. That discomfort is a key part of the process of cultural humility.

Self-care

We love to talk about self-care in the Women’s Center, but we’re also afraid that it’s become more of a buzzword and less of the radical act that Audre Lorde professes it to be. As much as we want folks, especially those who experience marginalization, to take care of themselves in the name of social justice and sustainability, we also want people to challenge themselves. It’s only through the difficult dialogues and challenging moments of life–which hit us all too often–that we are able to create paths of growth.

So maybe a conversation gets into a rough territory for you and you feel those problematic hackles starting to rise. Before you abandon ship for a very well-deserved bubble bath, maybe try to see it through? Maybe you’ll be able to see someone through a teachable moment or maybe you’ll totally fail. Either way, there’s an opportunity to learn there, and giving ourselves those moments is also a way to take care of ourselves.

Acknowledging and learning from privilege

Critical to any social justice praxis (or literally just being a good human being) is our understanding of our own privileges. Whether you’re new to this and just understanding the pervasive nature of sexism or this is old hat and you’ve been active in anti-racist work for years, this is a NEVER ENDING JOURNEY.

In order to be allies, we have to sit with the harm our privilege deals toward others. It is NEVER comfortable, and it should never be particularly cozy. We should always be asking those questions of: how much space am I taking up? Am I entitled to this? How will this action impact other people around me? Often the answers aren’t clear or flattering, but self-reflection and insight are critical to being a responsible and respectful ally.

Relationship-building and critical generosity

Relationship-building across difference is antithetical to oppression. Yeah, I said it. I’ll say it louder: RELATIONSHIP-BUILDING ACROSS DIFFERENCE IS ANTITHETICAL TO OPPRESSION. Did you say it louder?

And how do you think you grow closer to a person? CONFLICT THAT YOU SURVIVE.

Let’s go back. Remember way back at the beginning of this blogpost when I referred to being inconsolably angry with my best friend. The reason why I held onto that anger is because I knew that I needed to feel it before I could really clarify the problem that I was having with them. Once I was able to process, it made talking through this issue with my friend just a little bit easier (I definitely still cried, but hey, I’m a pisces).

I don’t condone ignoring your gut about the toxic people who definitely need to be yeet-ed up and out of your life. What I’m trying to get to is that I hope we can stick with the folks who make mistakes but who demonstrate that they’re willing to stick with us even when we respond with anger, sadness, disappointment.

Critical generosity is that step where we take a beat and open ourselves up to the realization that not everyone is as infallible as we want them to be. We withhold judgment about a person’s character and we continue to search for the humanity and the story that they’ve lived that has gotten them to the conclusion that they’ve gotten to. Some people might be beyond our time and energy, but there are many others who just need that room to fail or make an error and to be taken in with grace nonetheless.

And finally, discomfort is natural

Finally, nothing is black and white. We exist in the gray matter of the world. When we find conflict or tension or challenges, the reality is that there is no perfect answer in how to resolve that. There are complexities to each solution we try to make. We’re all trying really hard to get through and make those solutions work, but we don’t often get to anything resembling perfect. That’s why the discomfort is so important to listen to.

Discomfort is a part of slowing down and becoming more present. If we acknowledge it and pay attention to it, it means that we’re allowing energy to do what it does naturally which is conflict.

So next time someone inevitably does something that irks you, hurts your feelings, leaves you waiting on a text, and all you want is to crawl back in your shell and just drink hot cocoa and avoid avoid avoid, maybe just take a couple of breaths. Maybe they do indeed understand your “fr e sh a voca do” meme and they don’t think you’re weird. Or they do. Is that really awful?

Resolve to listen to yourself and honor the discomfort your feeling, and think about how maybe  it is pointing you toward a new friend, journey, opportunity.

Further reading:

Fearology Pt. 1 with Mary Poffenroth from Alie Ward’s Ologies podcast

From Safe Spaces to Brave Spaces by Brian Arao and Kristi Clemens

Life hacks of the poor and aimless by Laurie Penny

Reflections on cultural humility by Amanda Waters and Lisa Asbill

Restorative Practices at UMBC

Alexia Petasis is an INDS intern on the Women’s Center student staff team. Alexia studies social justice and dance. In the following blog post, she runs through a list of crucial self-care survival strategies for activists. 

Every week, the Women’s Center asks a “question of the week” available for anyone to respond to. One week our question was, “what do you do for self-care?” This question was one I have heard many times, but this time it led me to ponder all the ways I have, or have not, practiced self-care as well as what tips I can offer everyone else. I’ve seen many people around campus this semester look drained, fatigued and overwhelmed by our campus climate. For some, this exhaustion was due to the various articles and subsequent student rallies that came about after allegations that UMBC mishandled sexual assault claims.

I’ve gathered some self care tips from my own experiences, the advice my friends find helpful, and others I’ve found online while on a quest to live my best social justice activist life, while not drowning carelessly into the pit of despair that social justice work sometimes feels like. As we head into Thanksgiving, let’s use the next few days off to reflect on ways we can practice self-care….

Take the Time to be Mad:

Over the past semester, many of our campus community members have experienced feelings of  anger. Anger at our institution and anger at the fact that this issue was more than an isolated incident. Being mad allows us to feel what we rightfully should feel and allows us to push ourselves to see what we can do about it. If we weren’t mad or bothered about issues like these, then there would be no driving force to pursue change. On that note, I’ve noticed it is equally important to be aware of how much “bad news” you consume.

During the semester, while UMBC was exploding with its own bad news about the alleged mistreatment of survivors of sexual assault, the news was overwhelmingly reminiscent of how the roots of injustice are so deeply ingrained in our society. Survivors of sexual assault nationwide have had to revisit their past trauma with the news pertaining to Supreme Court Judge nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, who was accused of sexual assault. An article published on CNN states, “the day Ford testified in front of senators and the whole country, the sex assault hotline saw a 201% increase in calls compared with a typical day”. It was almost like our school and the federal government were in a parallel universe and the influx of bad news was overwhelming.

So, be mad, but also be careful to balance out time to also think about the good things. As hard as it is, try not to allow yourself to stay so up-to-date with everything that you bombard your mind with all the bad in the world. This can cause opposite results and paralyze your abilities as an activist since it feels as though nothing is getting better. This leads me to my next point.

Surround Yourself with Other Activists:

This one is IMPORTANT! I didn’t realize just how draining it was to be around those who truly don’t give a sh*t about the injustices many face in our world. Therefore, I would first say, have conversations and meet individuals whose views align with yours and who want to help the world become a better place too. At the Women’s Center, I have seen so many bonds created in the lounge area of the Women’s Center and have been part of many conversations empowering us to speak our truths. We Believe You, a student organization on campus, holds weekly discussion group and general body meetings for survivors of sexuals assualt and allies. In the wake of campus conversations around sexual violence, it can sometimes feel good to be with people who are doing the work and also feel similar frustrations.

But, along with meeting activists in person, there are many podcasts out there that can make us feel hopeful of all the other activists we have doing amazing work and raising our consciousness about issues that are all around us.

One of my favorites is called “Transforming Together” by two staff members at HopeWorks, a domestic violence shelter in Howard County. Brittany Eltringham and Heidi Griswold shed light on issues happening in our country with an intersectional feminist perspective. They describe their podcasts as, “a blend of pop culture and social justice, the show is hosted by two queer folks who are committed to healing, laughing, and loving their way to a world free from exploitation, oppression, and violence.” Another resource called Know Your IX mentions various tips for self care on their website as well.

Express Gratitude:

Express gratitude when it’s easy, but more importantly, make the conscious decision and effort to express gratitude when the world feels as if it’s a dumpster fire. Even if it is as simple as I woke up on time today, I made an extra good cup of coffee this morning, or I had a good conversation with someone. Try to start each day or end each night writing five things that you are grateful for that day. Every little bit of positivity you offer to yourself trains your mind to escape this bubble of pessimism towards the world (which frankly I do often too, but I am working on it).

Another cool way to bring in more optimism among all the dreariness that comes with social justice activism is to sign up for The Good Trade email notifications. The Good Trade describes their daily newsletter as, “Everyday Inspiration For The Informed Woman: A 30 second read of good things to listen, follow, visit, browse and read—delivered to your inbox each morning. Curated by and for women.” Their mission statement at the bottom of the newsletter states that the inspiration of the day leaves you “informed + inspired about the good things that rise above the clutter”. To say the least, waking up and reading the good work that others are doing around the world can help to ground us and recenter our views of the world.

Embody Self Preservation:

Finally, the infamous quote by Audre Lorde, “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.” Viewing self-care as an inherent part of any activism effort and a duty you owe yourself is crucial to taking good care of yourself while you are busy trying to take care of everyone else. As we head into finals and holidays and reasons for activism always continue to exist what will you do to practice self-care? Feel free to share your ideas or comments with us on the Women’s Center social media pages!

Center for Social Science Scholarship/CAHSS Summer Faculty Research Fellowship

The application for the 2019 Center for Social Science Scholarship/CAHSS Summer Faculty Research Fellowship with expanded eligibility criteria is now available.

To download the application, visit our website.

Deadline: Friday, February 15, 2019. 

A drop-in info session will be held Monday, December 17, 
from Noon-2pm in the Public Policy Building, room 451.

We are now accepting applications for the Center for Social Science Scholarship/CAHSS Summer Faculty Research Fellowship (SFRF). The purpose of this fellowship is to support significant social science research in CAHSS, resulting in a submittable product by December 2019.

Applications are welcome from any tenured or tenure-track faculty doing social science research in any CAHSS department. Fellows will receive a $6,000 stipend during the summer of 2019.

By December 2019, each Fellow is expected to complete an external grant or fellowship proposal OR an article, policy paper, book, or book chapter. Fellows who are preparing an external grant or fellowship proposal agree to work with MIPAR for pre-award and post-grant management assistance.

Funds for this fellowship are provided by the Center for Social Science Scholarship, the UMBC College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (CAHSS) and the Vice President for Research.

Shrijana Khanal is a Student Staff member at the Women’s Center. She is an Economics major with minors in Computer Science and International Relations. Shrijana is a co-facilitator of Pop Culture Pop-Ups at the Women’s Center. 

As my fingers traced the glazed, gold-plated title of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows for the seventh time, I felt the same rush of euphoria, nostalgia, and bittersweetness that I did when I read the books for the first time as an eager seven-year-old girl. The Harry Potter series became my refuge during the dark times in my life: an escape from reality and sad thoughts. At the quick turn of a page, I would be transported into another world: a place filled with adventure, love, and friendship. One of my favorite parts of reading the series was my quick attachment to  the characters. The character that stuck with me the most was Hermione, the fearless, smart, and empathetic female member of the golden trio. She became my fictional shero at a young age, and remained this way as I grew up. Hermione taught me that girls can be studious, warriors, and social activists all at once.

How many times did Hermione save Harry and Ron’s lives? Without her, they would have been slaughtered in the first book. There would be no story to tell about the Boy Who Lived without Hermione. I always admired her for her bravery and wit, whether in the classroom or the battlefield. She was not afraid to be herself. Despite being labeled a “bookworm,” “bossy,” and a “nightmare,” Hermione never abandoned her true qualities. She fought for herself and others along with what she believed in. As a young girl trying to maneuver through a harsh world, Hermione gave me the power to stay true to my values. She taught me that reading books and being the highest-achieving student in your class is cool, and something to be proud of. Hermione gave me the courage to take a stand for issues that were dear to me. She showed me that having emotions is not a bad thing. Most importantly, in a world that is always trying to tear you down, deter you from following your goals, or even presumptuously label you, being an unapologetic girl was the most positive, life-changing thing that could happen to me. For me, Hermione was the best friend and role model I needed.

I saw myself in her; she gave me the confidence to be who I am, a young outspoken, nerdy, and caring woman. Unknown to me at the time, she also gave me the confidence to be a feminist.

Being a woman of color, Harry Potter made it difficult for me to connect with the characters based on race alone, since the series only contained the bare minimum of diversity. However, I did not need race to feel a connection with Hermione. I felt connected with her through her qualities of being studious, kind, and brave. I could easily identify with Hermione because she was not perfect to begin with: she had to go through awkward transitions and transformative setbacks to fully grow. Her development from an “insufferable know-it-all” to a brilliant heroine made her an authentic character.

However, others may have not have felt this connection with Hermione as I did. Rowling shared that she made the character racially ambiguous on purpose after people were angry that a black actress was cast as Hermione in a London stage production of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Rowling supported her claim by referencing Hermione’s frizzy hair and ambiguous skin color. The concept of a minority playing Hermione is something that makes me immensely happy, but why did it take so long for Rowling to highlight this fact, and for others to accept it? Is the concept of a female lead being played by a woman of color too absurd to digest? For me, this is not feminism. A white girl is not the only person with the power to possess the positive characteristics I saw in Hermione. It is important to see color, because not seeing race devalues what women of color have to offer.

Although the series was published 10 years ago, it is still relevant to my life and the lives of others (even with its sometimes problematic stances). Personally, I still revisit the books whenever I go through a tough change in my life, as a coping mechanism. Discussing the issues of the series forces me to grow from the innocence I had in my childhood while reading it for the first time. But through everything, Hogwarts will always be there not only to teach you to see the magical and real world differently, but to welcome you home each time.

Click on the links below to learn more about the topics discussed in this blog!

Importance of intersectional feminism

https://everydayfeminism.com/2015/01/why-our-feminism-must-be-intersectional/

How many times Hermione saved Harry and Ron’s lives

http://booksandchardonnay.com/19-times-hermione-granger-saved-the-day-so-harry-potter-could-prevail-in-the-end/

JK Rowling Loves Black Hermione Casting In ‘Harry Potter And The Cursed Child’

https://bust.com/books/15328-jk-rowling-loves-black-hermione-in-harry-potter-and-the-cursed-child.html