I am a woman.
I was a girl.
And yes, I have been abused too.
He convinced me to take off the top of my dress.
He was an Art student, and I hadn’t finished high school.
He told me he wanted to do a portrait of me.
He saw me; he caressed me.
At that time, I didn’t understand what it was like to even give my consent.
I felt guilty for a while.
BUT HE WAS WRONG, NOT ME.
Fatphobia is defined as a pathological fear of fatness. “A hatred of big bodies.” Pointing them “as lazy, and unintelligent, or disgusting,” says Mary Himmelstein, Ph.D., an assistant professor at Kent State University who studies how weight stigma affects people’s health.1
Why do we believe we have the right to judge the bodies of others?
“What makes us attractive, successful, and healthy?”2
Why do I need a gap between my legs or a flat belly to feel enough?
Like many other ways of discrimination, Fatphobia goes unnoticed because it is structural and systemic. Comments such as or are as violent as or and can be heard in different contexts, from children’s schools, to work and academic environments. And each day most common in Social media.
Mesa Mixta is a project created by the Colombian Artist YourDough (Edison Jimenez) in 2020. The project arises from the artist’s interest in the psychosocial implications of fatphobia, namely in Latinamerica. It was born to promote dialogues about fatness and build support networks for people who have suffered this kind of discrimination. Each version of the project has a Latin American women illustrator to promote their work and reaffirm a queer position, which I will discuss later.
I witnessed how Edison conducted the whole conversation by listening to people’s experiences during a couple of meetings I had the opportunity to attend. Now I cannot stop thinking about him as the Feminist Ear proposed by Sarah Ahmed in her book Complaint! He created a safe space for people to complain about being harassed and bullied because of their weight. At those sessions, I heard many difficult and painful stories. They used to be related to sexual violence in childhood or adolescence. Others came from toxic family relationships. My account was more related to trying to fit in those beauty ideas imposed for other girls in the school. These stories gave rise to physical and mental health problems connected to understanding one’s body and feeding, reaching in many cases to social anxiety, depression, and eating disorders.
Sarah Ahmed said, “Words carry a charge; you can end up being made to feel that you are the problem, that the problem is you.”3 and people who attended Mesa Mixta sessions agreed with that. They were aware that most of the problems related to their bodies started when someone called them pejorative expressions associated with the size of their bodies.
The real problem with Fatphobia is that it is deeply rooted in the collective unconscious. I would say this has not always been like this. Being fat was considered healthy and prosperous in the past. Now is the opposite because the market mediates bodies. Capitalism has changed human consumption habits. Nowadays, rich people can consume “fit” and “healthy” food meanwhile “the most accessible and affordable options [which] are calorie-dense and processed”4 are relegated to the lower classes.
In that way, fatphobia is connected with the Intersectional feminism concept coined by “Kimberlé Crenshaw, an American law professor who explained it as “a prism for seeing the way in which various forms of inequality often operate together and exacerbate each other.”5 Consequently, people of color, as well as women and other marginalized individuals with large bodies “face dual stigmatization“6 (Virgie Tovar) and become more accessible and vulnerable targets of discrimination.
Defined by himself as fat and queer Latin American, Edi proposes Mesa Mixta within the context of intersectional feminism as a place to attack fatphobia and another kind of bias.
In beginning to explore Sara Ahmed’s book, »Complaint!« I decided to take a practical attempt: I interviewed two friends about their experiences with complaints and the feelings and thoughts associated with them. Although I did not know how the conversation would turn out, as I intentionally left the questions open, I saw it as an interesting approach to use the “feminist ear” as a research method, as Ahmed did in the development process of »Complaint!« (cf. Ahmed 2021: 8). The following conversation took place in a cozy surrounding on a sunny afternoon between three friends.
J: Did you ever complain about something?
T: Yeah. In private life or to some organization or agency?
J: Everything is included in this question – whatever you complained about. What did you do? Why did you complain? And where did you complain?
T: I regularly complain about stuff that I don’t like. But before I complain, I do a long analysis in my head. Why does it bother me? Does it bother only me or bother other people as well? And then when I come to the conclusion that it’s generally not accepted – such a behavior is not accepted – I’m saying it to the person. But not directly, I start giving hints: “Maybe there, if we do this way, this way or another way…” I’m complaining not directly but indirectly.
J: In such situations, what were you complaining about, for example?
T: Recently, I’ve been complaining about, for example, where we put the shopping bags, if we do the dishes right after we cooked, or if we tidy up the bed after we wake up, or if the table is full of stuff like I complain that it’s not how it’s supposed to be. There is no structure and no organization.
J: Besides your personal life, have you ever complained to an organization?
T: Recently, I didn’t complain about an organization related topic I think – at least in the last few months.
J: Okay. And before?
T: And before….I need one minute to think about it.
J: Yes, no worries.
T: I am gonna check my emails – maybe.
J: So R, in the meantime, maybe you could tell me a little bit about your complaint history.
R: Actually, when T was giving her answers I was thinking like, I seem to complain a lot about things. But that’s because I’m really opinionated. I would say, not so much in my private life, but a few examples came to my mind. I think when I was 15, or 16, or something, I complained to a
radio station because they were always playing the song, “Can you blow my whistle, baby?”. It was the first time I understood the lyrics, and I was like: “Why do you play this all the time? Little kids are listening to this!” And now I’m like: “Yeah, but there is also sexual freedom.” Recently I complained to my employer about gendering in German. I read an article that you should do it with a star and not with a colon, because that’s easier to read for people who use text to speech programs, as it’s easier to process for such programs. So blind people can better understand gendered language, if it’s written in a certain way. And so I asked: “Where can I complain about this to our company, so we can change it in the policy of our community and outside communication?” And then, like in my private life, I like to complain as like “pretend complaining”. If I feel a certain way, it’s good to just complain about stuff a little bit. Let a little bit of grumpiness out. And just be like: “I hate that I have to go there”. Even if you like to go there – maybe you made an appointment with a friend or something – and then you’re like: “Why do I have to go? I don’t even want to go anymore.” You’ve complained and after you’ve complained you’re like: “Okay, now I can go, because now it’s fine somehow.”
J: So, to some extent complaining has the function to just get pressure out of your system in this case?
R: Yes.
J: Okay. Let’s take a step back to the case you mentioned before, the complaint about the gendering at your workplace. What was the reaction to your complaint?
R: At first it was kind of a question actually that I asked in our pride network. I got a lot of answers in the intranet that were positive and reactions like “Yeah, let’s do that, it’s good”. And I had also asked for official marketing contacts from the headquarter – so people gave me names. But after that, after I came out of that bubble of people who understood and went into the corporate organisation, the reactions were more like: “Oh, you have to talk to this person, because we’re not responsible for that”. And it was kind of like, getting pushed to the next person and to the next person, because everybody said they’re not responsible and that their department is not where the decision is made. So it hasn’t really ended anywhere. I haven’t really found the person to talk to. It seems like they try to avoid it or try to avoid make a definite decision.
J: How does this make you feel?
R: Cynical, I guess, because it’s kind of what I thought would happen, but I thought I’m just gonna do it anyway. Because? Yeah, I don’t know. I already thought it wasn’t gonna go far, but I also thought, if nobody says anything, they won’t know that people are looking out for that or that this subject is important.
J: Okay, I think I understand.
J: T, did you find something in your email account?
T: No, I didn’t find anything and I tried to remember the last year. But it seems like I didn’t complain to any organizations or something. Unfortunately – maybe.
R: I know that you did complain to an organisation. You complained to your internet provider, because it didn’t work or something? Or didn’t you?
T: Oh, yeah. Yes, it was V. The internet didn’t work and then I had to call them. I explained that we had no internet the last two weeks. Sometimes we had internet, sometimes we didn’t have internet for many hours, and it cannot work this way. And then they said: “Yes, but we cannot do anything.” And then I asked: “Okay, then can you please give me free data, like 50 gigabytes of data, so that I can work”. And then the person said: “No, I cannot do it. It’s not working this way.” And I said: “Yes, but I have a contract with you and now it’s not working. Please let me talk to your boss.” And the person said: “No, I cannot do it. I’m so sorry.” And then at some point, I got mad. And I just said: “Okay, thank you”, and then I hung up, because it didn’t lead anywhere. And I just felt mad.
J: In the end, you didn’t have a solution for your problem?
T: Yeah, I didn’t have a solution. But luckily, it just worked the next day – somehow. J: In general, what does complaining mean to you?
T: Lately it is like, to take out your uncomfortable feeling from the inside out, and then just let the spirit feel free. Yes. And also sometimes, complaining doesn’t have any meaning to me, if after I let it out, I don’t feel better. I know I will feel better, if there will be people who listen to me and then develop a solution, or help me to find a solution by myself. Then, it’s a useful complaint. Yes – there are two types of complaint: Useful complaint and useless complaint. Useless complaining is just letting your complaint out loud and you just bother the people in front of you. You are not helping them and you’re not helping yourself as well.
J: And what about you, R?
R: I think it also depends on the type of complaint I’m doing. If I’m doing it playfully, or like to let off steam, it can sometimes mean kind of a connection. I have a work best friend and we like to complain about work. We send memes back and forth like “Work sucks” and “I’m so tired”. And like, you know, the Friday memes and the Monday memes and the Wednesday memes. So complaining can also be like a friendship activity, I guess. If a group of people complain about the same things, it’s also kind of unifying sometimes. That can be in a fun way unifying or also in a serious way unifying. Because activism is kind of complaining about something, but with more people and like a demonstration is also complaining, I guess. For me that means community sometimes, but it also means vulnerability. Because if you complain about something that is important to you, and you complain about it, then you’re giving away something of yourself, and you kind of give it to other people, you’re being vulnerable. And then there’s always the risk that by complaining, you kind of make it worse for yourself or that they know that that’s a sore point for you and you kind of have to trust someone to be good with that, to treat it well, and to not use it for something.
J: As a last question: How does talking about complaints make you feel? How is it to talk about your history of complaints and about complaining in general?
R: I feel good about it. But if I think about activism, right now, for me, it’s exhausting to complain, sometimes. Because it’s always like a fight. You have to put some resources into it to have a stance on something and then defend that. If you complain, then you have to sit behind the complaint and defend it against other arguments, for example. Although, talking about what I’ve done in the past, I feel good, because I feel like it’s always kind of an expression of your
boundaries, and it feels good to set them. Even if they are not always respected, at least you did something for yourself. So that’s good.
T: I personally don’t like the feeling of complaining: I mean, when I complain, I don’t like how I feel. But then I feel good when I talk about the times when I was complaining, because obviously it brought me some improvements and results. So talking about the times when I complained is good, but I don’t like the process of complaining itself. I try not to do it so much. But I also realized that sometimes it helps. So I’m just having my inner fights all the time, but it’s fine. That’s me.
J: Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and stories with me.
Reflecting on my friends’ thoughts, I realized that complaining as a practice is intuitively not always related to problems and discrimination within organizations or structures of power. As R explained, complaining as a communication tool can be playful and helps to investigate personal boundaries and let off steam.
The picture of letting off steam reminds me of Ahmeds’ illustration of the “liquid that spills out from a container” (Ahmed 2021: 18), which is a much more intense and painful description. For me this shows how making a complaint that is personally important to the complainant is connected to vulnerability and making something extremely personal visible in an unprotected space.
I was saddened when T and R explained that before they filed a complaint with an institution and thus left the protected space, they already assumed that their complaint would not lead anywhere or bring systemic change. Both have experienced not being heard or even being put off and sent from one person to another.
As Ahmed states “hearing complaints can also be how you learn how complaints are not heard” (Ahmed 2021: 6). That was perhaps the most present thought in my mind, after the conversation. Using a “feminist ear” made me realize how people in my nearest surrounding are being put off and not heard when complaining about personally important problems and discrimination.
Questions that stick in my head are: What are people’s motives for ignoring complainants’ voices? And how are those related to or built upon institutional mechanisms? Was, for example, T turned down for policy reasons by her internet provider? And why did nobody from the corporate team help R with her attempt to advocate for greater accessibility?
References:
Ahmed, Sara. Complaint!, New York, USA: Duke University Press, 2021.
When all my pores fill in with the overwhelming present, I must commit suicide. Sensational suicide is existing as a metaphor, and therefore, it is fully justified. It helps to create, connect, kill, resemble, dissolve, renew, build, and comprehend the Self within the Other. My writings always juxtapose the facts and fiction, sometimes corresponding to reality, other times deviating from it.
There is a war. There has always been one, less or more physical. Some are silently perceived by this egocentric continent, while others are loud, more disturbing, close, extreme. My kids are the same during the war, everywhere – sobbing, trying to accept, escape and understand why is somebody taking away their toys suddenly. The same that I asked for 23 years ago. NATO bombarded Belgrade when I was at the age of 3.
My war experience smells like basement’s strawberry jam, mixed with moldy concrete and the unfamiliar crowd of people that happen to be in the same shelter as us. It pictures a lot of Roma kids occupying one metal bed with a flower pattern. It sounds like the siren that burns the ears while alarming the state of emergency. At that time very young uncle was on the field, ready to protect the county. My other parents, the grand ones, decided to stay in their house and expose instead of hiding from the potential bombing. They were feeding me, my mama, and a big Roma family in the basement with the tones of jam and fresh-baked wheat bread. My jelly fingers could not understand where the toys are and why is grandma’s face pale most of the time. Still, I was pretty calm in my mama’s lap imitating the siren as if it is the jingle from the film we are all having a role in.
Today I was bitten by the rat with the name Pandora. Impressed by her gentle, so human-like hands and the way she eats her rat food, I indeliberately attacked her privacy and she showed me my place. This afternoon is sitting alone in front of a Czech Catholic church breathing the air of the second country with the biggest number of non-believers. Tonight I am in a small underground bar almost 50m beyond the surface, surrounded by a language that sounds like my mother tongue without a chance to understand it. I am slowly and deliberately disappearing in these people’s faces and my own beer glass. I can transform into anything I want to.
Initials N.K., the jar persona, multiple identities, the empty-faced person seeing for the context to apply to her unformed reality. Seeking for nothing, anything and nobody. N.K., the traveler, the one that never belongs, just passes through, grabs, and loves, insanely and intensely living the life that is happening at the moment. N.K. the future, memories, thoughts, and occasionally actions.
Today is the war again. The war I can not do anything about. The one far away physically, moreover far beyond mine or any individual’s power. Today I am going away from the known, my everyday life due to the overwhelming pile that attacked my heart, my brain, and my soul and escaping in my manner, to myself. In my suitcase, there is a big rounded rye bread called Doppelmisch, packed together with the jar of plum jam I aimed to give to the person who will land me the couch in Prague for a couple of nights. The person I never met in my life. Born in Delhi, living in the Czech Republic. The escape has to be official, glamorous, thought throughout. It can not require already known. Therefore, the gift has to be current fact – Serbian jam and German bread. Moreover, in case of an emergency, I am fully prepared.
Once back in the past, the Czech Republic experienced the same terror from the Russian army as Ukraine does now. Tanks entered the city of Prague aiming to liberate the people that did not need and wanted to be liberated. A student burned his body as a statement. 15 more students repeated the same.
My body like this bread can be cut so easily, with one simple stab in the stomach or directly to the heart. It is so easy to die. So easy to disappear. Like a worm, somebody just steps on your body and decides that you are not part of this film anymore. You become a stain. A stain of jam, belonging to the society that won’t bother scooping you up. In case of the war, you are not asked. In case of emergency, try to survive. To exist, one must multiply.
Ústi nad Labem hl. n., the border
back & forth
März 2022
Last month, three graduate students in Harvard University’s Anthropology department- Margaret G. Czerwienski, Lilia M. Kilburn, and Amulya Mandava – filed a 65-page lawsuit against the university over the way it has handled sexual misconduct complaints involving anthropologist John Comaroff. According to the lawsuit, Camaroff “kissed and groped stu-dents without their consent, made unwelcome sexual advances, and threatened to sabotage students’ careers if they complained. When students reported him to Harvard and sought to warn their peers about him, Harvard watched as he retaliated by foreclosing career paths and ensuring that those students would have ‘trouble getting jobs.’”1
At the centerpiece of the lawsuit are the comments Comaroff made as Ms. Kilburn met him in his office to discuss her planned fieldwork in Africa. Ms. Kilbun recalls how Comaroff graphcally described she “’ would be raped’ or killed in certain parts of Africa” if she chose to do her work field there since she is in a lesbian relationship. Comaroff also reminded Ms. Kilburn of “the power he now wielded over her career,” 2 and as she tried to change adviser to avoid Comaroff, he cut her off from other professors.3
The lawsuit, New York Times writes, is “the latest strike in more than a year of allegations being parried back and forth in the case against Dr. Comaroff”, many of which are documented in The Harvard Crimson, the student newspaper, and The Chronicle of Higher Education. Among them are anonymous allegations dating back to before Comaroff started working at Harvard in 2012.4 According to the lawsuit, during the process of hiring Comaroff, the Chair of Harvard’s Department of African and African American studies was warned by Comaroff’s former students at the University of Chicago, where he was considered a “predator” and a “groomer“. They “could have influenced the hiring decision, supervised Comaroff, or implemented safeguards – and protected Harvard’s students.” Yet they welcomed and “empowered Professor Comaroff,”5 the lawsuit says.
New York Times reports that Comaroff was placed on unpaid leave after the school’s investigations found that he violated sexual harassment and professional conduct policies, “but he was not found responsible for unwanted sexual contact.”6
The lawsuit surfaced many unsettling issues, among them the allegation that Harvard accessed Ms. Kilburn’s private therapy records without her consent and revealed them to Comaroff, who then used them to discredit Ms. Kilburn’s accusation. 7 I will link the lawsuit and a few well-rounded articles about the allegations and how they were handled at the end of this post. Following the case feels like reading an almost real-time case study in Complaint!, and especially has reminded me of the section COMPLAINTS AND COLLEGIALI-TY in the book:
The department was warned about Comaroff’s previous misconduct at the University of Chicago and him being “surrounded by “pervasive allegations of sexual misconduct”. Harvard hired him anyway. 8 “Sometimes you hire people whom you like, or who are like those who are already there. “ 9 Ahmed writes. She notes that a broad instructional problem of harassing and bullying often indicate “an informal or casual culture around hiring”, recalling a lecturer who had told her that people often talk about candidates as “he’s the guy you’d want to have a pint with.”10
“When you make a complaint, you often learn about how power is wielded.”11 before the lawsuit, 38 Harvard faculty members signed an open letter supposedly questioning the process that sanctioned Comaroff. The letter is, however, also a love letter to their “excellent colleague.”
We the undersigned know John Comaroff to be an excellent colleague, advisor and commit-ted university citizen who has for five decades trained and advised hundreds of Ph.D. students of diverse backgrounds, who have subsequently become leaders in universities across the world.12
They also addressed the rape comments, adding that they would be “ethically compelled to offer the same advice” if they were to advise Ms. Kilburn regarding studies in Africa.13 Harvard Law Professor Janet Halley issued a statement calling the comments “legitimate office-hours advice.” Professor Jean Comaroff – yes, Comaroff’s wife – criticized the complaints in her statement as an “attack on academic freedom.”14
“When some colleagues are friends, they are who end up being defended.”15 Ahmed writes. The faculty members jumped to defend their excellent colleague without being informed about the details of the complaints. That’s not my assumption – but their words. Shortly after the lawsuit went public, all but three professors said they wish to retract their names from the letter.16
What has happened? I am making assumptions here – but what if their change of heart and retraction from supporting their predator college was less because they suddenly noticed their lack of information and the impact of their word on the students17, and more about their reputation being on the line? The lawsuit did receive attention, much more than the scattered complaints filed in the previous year. All of a sudden, the discussion was not taking place behind closed doors and between colleagues. People were talking about it on the internet, it was receiving media attention. Harvard is a big name, and the cat is out of the bag. (and has slid through the closing door, smart cat)
According to the lawsuit, Comaroff once compared himself to Harvey Weinstein at a dinner with faculty and graduate students, saying “They’re coming for me next!”18 This is telling of how untouchable he felt. But also, ironically true as in the way his colleagues were quick enough to distance themselves from him when it got clear that the issue is getting out of hand. Such was the case with the disgraced Hollywood mogul.19
His wife, Jean Comaroff, who was also present at the dinner event, later belittled the sexual harassment complaints commenting “Whatever happened to rolling with the punches?” 20
Just roll with the punches. Just loosen up. Feminists: so sex-negative. So uptight. Don’t over-react, don’t be so divisive. 21
Back to the rape comments. The way Comaroff pals and colleague tried to downplay them reminded me of a section in Complaint!, where physical violence towards a student who was trying to “flee” from the office of the head of the department was apparently “on par with a handshake.”22 Comaroff thinking loudly about how his student is going to get raped is described as “legitimate officehour advice”23 As Ahmed writes, “violence can be removed from an action by how an action is described.”24
The lawsuit further criticizes Harvard’s Title IX office, pointing out that the office did not act on complaints regarding Comaroff and has time and again discouraged students going down the formal complaint route: Ms. Czerwienski was told in October 2017 that filing a formal report would be “futile”25 Ms. Kilburn states that her complaints on May 2019 were “was met with predictable indifference”26 , even though the officer knew who Ms. Kilburn wanted to talk about. At a recent demonstration in the Yard Kilburn said “The Title IX system was supposed to be the solution, Instead, it’s become part of the problem.”27
I was listening to the sound of machinery: the clunk, clunk that was telling me that inefficiency is not just the failure of things to work properly but is also how things are working.28
Harvard enabled and protected the predator for years, and that in a field as small as anthropology, where a downvote from a professor as influential as Comaroff could be the end of the academic career.29 only to take action when the students decided to go public.30
As of February 21, several of Harvard’s tenured Anthropology faculty asked. Comaroff to resign, stating that they have “lost confidence” in him as a professor.31
Is this a good ending? I genuinely do not know. One (possibly) destroyed academic career after years and years of predatory and abusive behavior, harassment, ruining careers and lives. What if it was a smaller university? Would the story still have been covered by New York Times or the Guardian? Would “going public” have made a difference?
I end this short report with Czerwienski’s final words at the recent campus demonstration:
We need to keep insisting as loudly as we can, as often as we can, in as many places and to as many people in power as we can, that this system must change.… The University wants us to throw our little rally and go away. But it’s our job to make sure they’ve got another thing coming.32
The Harvard Magazine writes: “A few minutes later, the demonstrators dispersed, amid chants of, ‘We’ll be back, we’ll be back!’”33
Amen.
Recommended Readings:
The complete lawsuit
https://www.thecrimson.com/PDF/2022/2/9/Czerwienski-et-al-v-harvard-filing/
New York Times: A Lawsuit Accuses Harvard of Ignoring Sexual Harassment by a Professor
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/08/us/harvard-sexual-harassment-lawsuit.html
New York Times: After Sexual Harassment Lawsuit, Critics Attack Harvard’s Release of Therapy Records
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/15/us/harvard-kilburn-therapy-records.html
The Cut: All the Alarming Allegations in Harvard’s Sexual-Harassment Suit
https://www.thecut.com/2022/02/harvard-sued-for-institutional-indifference-to-harassment.html
For many, to complain is to become more visible and thus more vulnerable. To be under scrutiny can feel like those around you, who surround you, are waiting for you to trip up. And maybe it feels like that because it is that…..To stand out, to be seen, is to live under “the sign of trouble.” Given that complaining can make you stand out even more, complaining can heighten your sense of being targeted at the very moment you try to stop yourself from being targeted.
“Blank noise” is a non-profit organization and a community project, run solely by volunteers aiming to raise awareness about sexual and gender-based violence and encouraging people to take agency against it. The project has its roots in Bangalore where it was initiated by Jasmeen Patheja in the framework of a student project. The community around “Blank noise” has grown substantially within the last years and its initiatives have also reached other cities in India1.
The project has risen out of the struggle of not being heard: It has developed out of the issue of sexual harassment in India that was, as the name of the project implies, merely a noise from the background, hence something that was likely to be overheard. “Blank noise” wanted to change this and give a voice to the people that have suffered under gender based violence. Developed in 2003 it has been one of the first initiatives to bring attention to sexual and street harassment. At that time this issue did not even have a word to name it and was called “eve teasing” which was misleadingly implying a harmlessness to it. If as a victim of gender-based violence, you cannot even name what is happening to you, it will be very challenging for you to fight against it. “Blank noise” is about naming it, voicing it, showing it and hence fighting it.
1 Wikipedia: Blank Noise. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blank_Noise. Accessed Feb. 2022.
The work of “Blank Noise” includes performative actions and interventions in public space that draw attention to street harassment. Furthermore, it consists of building testimonials for those affected by it as well as creating a community that supports them. Herewith they don’t only raise awareness about the problem of “eve teasing” and animate people to tackle the issue but also build a safe space for victims of such incidents, by for example providing legal counselling for them. Through campaigns, workshops, discussions and the use of mainstream media their message is communicated, and people are involved. Hence a community of Action Sheroes/ Theyroes/ Heroes was established that fights for a life without fear:
“Blank Noise ignites the idea that every person has the ability and potential to eradicate sexual and gender based violence.”2
One of the biggest concerns of the initiative lies within ending victim blaming, to shift the responsibility of the act of sexual violence from the affected to the perpetrators and with it recognizing collective responsibility for this issue. One of their most known works is the “I Never Ask For It” project that has been going on since 2004. Victims of sexual and gender based violence are asked the question: “Do you remember the clothes you wore when you experienced the violence?” and are invited to share these garments with the project. The aim is to by 2023 have collected 10000 garment testimonials that will be installed collectively at sites of public significance. “Blank noise” uses the clothes symbolically to break with the assumption that the victim in some way by its appearance, behavior or by being too attractive, has provoked or requested the assault. Through different methods such as workshops, campaigns, public interventions, exhibitions or collaborative research, these testimonials are brought to the people. The performative actions consist of carrying the clothes through the streets and confronting the public with the truth. In addition to this they carry boards where affected people can give testimonial about the sexual violence they have experienced and what they now want to ask for. These walks of testimonials stand as an act of giving witness and showing solidarity with those assaulted: a walk towards a process of healing.
“To end sexual violence we need to end victim blame”3
Another project that caught my interest was the “Meet to sleep” project. Connecting to the idea of the right to live a life without fear, “Blank noise” motivated women to sleep anywhere in public. They want to fight for the possibility that even in this very intimate and vulnerable position of sleeping you would not have a reason to be worried to be attacked. It’s a step moving “Towards the right to live defenceless.”4 The initiative invites women to connect with each other and to gather to sleep together in the parc (or anywhere else) and to talk about their experience. You can either join an existing “Meet to sleep”-action or initiate one by yourself or you can even just decide to sleep anywhere. This activity, the moment of overcoming your fear, enables the participants to create a new narrative, detached from fear. Sometimes an activity as simple as the act of sleeping can become an act of resistance and of change for a life in which you can feel safe no matter your gender:
“I feel safe when I am heard.
I feel safe when I am not judged.
I feel safe when I don’t have to justify myself, over and over and over again.
I, Action Shero, am your safe space,
as you are mine.
I never ask for it.”5
2Blank Noise: About, Herstory. https://www.blanknoise.org/about/herstory. Accessed Feb. 2022.
3Blank Noise
4Blank Noise: Meet To Sleep, About Meet To Sleep. https://www.blanknoise.org/aboutmeettosleep. Accessed Feb. 2022.
5Blank Noise: Home. https://www.blanknoise.org/home. Accessed Feb. 2022.
Feeling safe means being heard, feeling safe means feeling believed – Connections to the book “Complaint!” by Sarah Ahmed
In both the book “Complaint!” (2021) as well as through the work of the “Blank noise”-collective the connection between feeling safe and being heard and believed is emphasized. In a lot of the narratives in the book of those who shared their experience with engaging in a process of complaining, the burden of having the impression of talking to a wall but also of not being believed strongly emerges. “Blank noise” attaches great importance to precisely this aspect, helping women to speak up, to be heard and fighting for being believed in order to live without fear.
In the book “Complaint!” Sarah Ahmed deepens her idea of the “feminist ear” which she has first introduced in her book “A Feminist Life”. To hear with a feminist ear does not only mean “to hear who is not heard” but also “how we are not heard”6 and it can also mean to hear silence: “what is not being said, what is not being done, what is not being dealt with”7. “Blank noise” has emerged out of hearing the silence of sexual harassment that was not being addressed, and the initiative has turned this silence into noise. Through the collective a lot of women found the courage to express what they have experienced. This provokes those with no feminist ear to sill hear and to hopefully become more sensitive to their own and someone else’s actions regarding sexual assault.
“Blank Noise and its #INeverAskForIt mission are committed and invested in building our collective capacity to be listeners.
It isn’t enough to ask or ‘encourage’ survivors of violence to speak, when the capacity to listen has not been taught.”8
While the book focusses most of its attention to the barriers you face while complaining within the institutional context, the work of “Blank noise” is not about formally filing a complaint and it reaches out to many areas outside institutions, such as the private life. Nevertheless, a part of their work lies withing supporting women as they engage in official processes of reporting the sexual violence they have experienced.
Both initiatives9 base their intention on working with testimonies. The process of sharing personal testimonies can be experienced as very difficult because “to speak about a past trauma can be to make that trauma present”10. However this might be an important step into finding peace with what has happened as “Blank Noise” states: “We want the building of this mission to be a process of healing; where survivors of violence feel heard and believed.”11
Unfortunately, it is not self-evident that one is believed when one speaks up about the fact that one’s own boundaries have been severely crossed. Reading the book “Complaint!” might at times be a bit disillusioning; hearing about all the complaints that don’t go through, all the people that are ignored and all the institutional barriers that manifest themselves as soon as you want to criticize anything. A lot of testimonies in the book are about how the complainers struggled with not knowing if it was justified for them to complain. They either nearly did not speak up at all because they did not fully have the trust that they would have the right to do so or if they did, they would be told that they had misunderstood the situation that has caused them to complain. If you are not believed to have experienced sexual violence or harassment or are even blamed as the victim for the sexual assault, then the one that has caused the violence is not taking any responsibility. It’s the victim’s fault, either for having “caused” the incident (“she asked for it”) or for having misjudged the situation (“it was nothing”). „The opposite of feeling blamed is being believed.“12 Ending victim blaming, recognizing the individual boundaries and sensibilities of each person is the step we need to take to achieve a society where everyone takes responsibility for their actions.
However discouraging failed complaints might be, one essential message of the book “Complaint!” is how as a collective you can get further. “Collectivity was a way to share the cost of complaint. Rather than each of us being on her own, we would stand together.”13 “Blank noise” is providing this collective power for the women who stood alone. If you are not alone you can be heard and if testimonies add one to another change is possible. Until we have reached that change, we have to scream loud enough.
“To complain is to give support to life: you plant something in saying no, by saying no, the twists and turns of new growth.”14
6Ahmed, S. (2021): Complaint!. Durham: Duke University Press, p.4
7ebd., p.7
8Blank Noise: Home. https://www.blanknoise.org/home. Accessed Feb. 2022.
9I decided to speak of the book “Complaint!” as an initiative as I recognize Sarah Ahmed’s work of collecting testimonies as more than just documentation.
10Ahmed, S.: Complaint!. p.14.
11Blank Noise: I Never Ask For It, Vision / Origin. https://www.blanknoise.org/ineveraskforit/vision. Accessed Feb. 2022.
12Visible: Award 2019 – Shortlisted Blank Noise – Jasmeen Patheja. https://www.visibleproject.org/blog/project/blank-noise/. Accessed Jan. 2022.
13Ahmed, S.: Complaint!. p.266.
14ebd., p.309.
note: to simplify the formatting I have just simply put all the sources at the end of the text. For the detailed citation check out the file on Moodle or leave a comment.
“With my will, I have to be optimistic. If not, I would just kill myself.” says the Chilean-born and New York based architect, photographer, and filmmaker Alfredo Jaar during an interview with the Guardian, smiling playfully. It made me laugh out loud, not with joy, but relief. I joke about killing myself all the time – well, not all the time. But enough to make my friends uncomfortable – and I always have to explain that I won’t do it, I’m not planning to end my life. Not only because – Jaar quotes the Romanian philosopher Emil Cioran in that interview – “It is not worth the bother of killing yourself, since you always kill yourself too late.” but also because I, too, have this will of going on. A blessing and a curse.
Jaar thinks of himself as “an architect who makes art”, and rightly so, given that he graduated from his architecture with a poem. He aims to raise awareness and to create empathy, to make us look at what we do not want to see, don’t have the heart for it, maybe – but not at the cost of trivializing suffering or humiliating the victims, without relying on cheap thrills and easy provocations.
An example of this would be the project Lights in the City (1999) – a project designed to draw attention to the burgeoning issue of homelessness in Montreal.
The artist installed red light on the Copula of the Marche Bonsecours, a landmark monument in the center of Montreal. The lights were connected to homeless shelters located 500 yards from the building. When a homeless person entered one of the shelters, they could press the button that would make the top of the building glow red.
The historic landmark had burnt around five times before this project came to fruition. The glowing red light could therefore be interpreted as yet another fire, Jaar says. But the main message was far more important. Jaar wanted the building to become a “permanent monument of shame” We come to ignore photos and video reportages, at some point, eventually. As we are surrounded by too many of them. Too much suffering you’d become numb, and distracted by the next photo advertising the dream vacation.. He does not want to be a part of that.
You see an image of poverty here, you see another tragedy there. You see a couple of headlines and then see you see advertisements for a vacation for Hawaii. And so these images of pain, of suffering, are drowning in a sea of consumption.
For this reason, and also because he did not want to expose the homeless people through photography, the route was taken to make a historical building in one of the richest cities of the world the very symbol of the issue of homelessness. One might become indifferent to the images of pain, of suffering, it is, however, much harder to ignore that each time the building lights up with that bright, intimidating red, a homeless person has pressed the button. It was Jaar’s way to move the city by the sheer number of the people who did not have a place to call home – without humiliating and dehumanizing them.
The project was canceled six weeks later by the mayor. “With these projects you change so little” says Jaar. Speaking one of my dark thoughts every time I find myself admiring an installation, a performance, an artistic idea aiming to bring about positive change – They change so little.
Yet Jaar, as mentioned in the beginning, has to be optimistic. A message conveyed with his public artwork at Edinburgh art festival 2019, I Can’t Go On, I Go On. Taken from the ending words of Samuel Beckett’s The Unnameable. During the festival performers would wear sandwich boards with I Can’t Go On on their chests, I’ll Go On on their backs.
“It’s about our incapacity to change this reality, even though I keep going, I keep trying. Because this is the only thing I know,” Jaar says. His optimism also manifests itself in his decision to dedicate a third of his time to teaching. He believes in the younger generation. “Perhaps someone who sees his Edinburgh piece this week will be inspired to make their own work. Perhaps they will offer us a new vision that can help us navigate the darkness.”
A Complaint, Ahmed writes, “raises the blind.”, which parallels with how Jaar uses his art to draw the attention of the public to the matters left undiscussed or ignored. The homeless shelter next to the Capula in Montreal was “invisible, just like the homeless were invisible… They were overlooked, as a garbage can or a lamppost is ignored” The Lights in the City project gave them back the humanity, made people recognize their existence, even through a smile. The issue was also raised in the press. “We gave them a brief, hopeful moment when they regained their humanity,” says Jaar, adding to the statement that he and his team wanted the Capula to become a permanent monument of shame. “Other shelters wanted to join us and get connected” implying that originally, there was a long term plan. Each night, the historic building was to burn red, burning again and again and again, reminding the city how it has failed to protect its most vulnerable. The homeless were the living, breathing proof of this failure and their invisibility the result of the most simple coping mechanism known to man: Avoidance.
Violence is often dealt with by not being faced. It is then as if the complaint brings the violence into existence, forcing it to be faced. Perhaps this is why complaints are often heard as forceful. For those who received the complaint, who heard the sounds she made, it was the complaint that alerted them to violence. A complaint is how violence is revealed; a complaint raises the blind.
The mayor, I assume, dealt with the problem by dealing with what was raising the problem. “When you expose a problem you pose a problem.” The homeless went back to their state of invisibility, ignored as a garbage can or a lamppost, and people went back to ignoring them, living their day-to-day life, the burden of guilt upon seeing the Capula burning bright off their shoulders. I do not blame the people, of course. Dealing with the issue of homelessness is a problem beyond individual responsibility. Yet with the attention of the public and the press being withdrawn, there was so little left to impose a degree of moral pressure on the authorities. “I fail all the time.” Jaar told the Guardian. “You change so little.”
Having jaar’s intention in mind, one might argue that the project “failed” in ways more than one: he recalls running into some drunken men one night, wandering in the streets and cheering with joy as the red lights in the capula brightened. It’s hard to imagine someone reading Complaint! or listening to one of Ahmend’s speeches and missing her point, yet conveying a message through art always runs the risk of misinterpretation. Jaar’s Lights in the City was no expectation. “You cannot predict what will happen when your work is in the public space.” says Jaar.
Demonstrating a horrible truth through art might leave you with something that is, in the eye of the beholder, solely something beautiful to look at. However, I’d dare say that more people would be willing to visit a “cool performance art”, than reading a text book on sexual assault. But only one of them in guaranteed to convey the message the creator is intending to.
“Many of the stories I have collected in this book seem to be stories of working very hard not to get very far.” Ahmed admits this vague hopelessness near the end of the book Complaint! This cold fear that would turn your stomach. We’re changing so little. But she proceeds to add: “a complaint is a way of not being crushed” and not necessarily, going somewhere.
This way of thinking is reflected in how Jaar approaches art, and life, perfectly captured in Edinburgh’s art festival piece. This notion of going on – regardless of how you feel, not getting crushed.
Ahmed reminds us furthermore of all the things complaining could mean without getting through, without reaching justice. Without hoping to reach justice since you know well that the system is broken. Yet, “Complaints can stir things up. Complaints can stir up other complaints” Ahmed avoids using the verb “fail”. the complainer never fails. Whenever they give up, wherever they stop, wherever they are stopped, frustrated by scratching the surface, they have left something behind. Even leaving is a statement by itself. “An empty space is still a thing, even if it’s defined by absence.” *
You can’t fail when you are not seeking to win. Complaining could be about paving a path. Going on because “The more a path is used, the more a path is used.” Ahmed said in a lecture on Complaint as Diversity Work. Paving a path, gathering resources, creating a record, forming a collective, filling a cabinet, witnessing a burial. Watching complaints get buried, a piece of you, a part of your history, being buried. Ahmed mentions a student using the sinister metaphor of a complaint graveyard. A burial could be the end of it. Ahmed does come back to this metaphor as she closes the last chapter, this time, however, she reassures, something will rise from those graves.
The complaints that disappeared behind the doors, the ones that became a burden on our backs, the ones that were never made, they all might make it to the graveyard, make it less lonely. Make the ghosts less lonely. Make the graveyard much harder to manage. That’s the goal of forming a complaint collective, becoming harder to manage. And if, when, the ghosts come back to haunt the institutions, they won’t be stopped by doors and walls. Ahmed writes: “I think of little ghosts and I hear little birds, ‘little birds scratching away at something.’”
I Can’t Go On. I’ll Go On.
Alfredo Jaar, “Art provocateur Alfredo Jaar: ‘I want to change the world. I fail all the time’,” interview by Dominic Rushe, Guardian, August 1, 2019, accessed January 25, 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2019/aug/01/alfredo-jaar-artist-interview-change-the-world-pinochet-chile-edinburgh.
Alfredo Jaar, “Photo realism – an interview with Alfredo Jaar,” interview by Robert Barry, Apollo, July 26, 2020, accessed January 25, 2022, https://www.apollo-magazine.com/photo-realism-an-interview-with-alfredo-jaar.
Alfredo Jaar, “Alfredo Jaar – interview: ‘You can talk about violence without humiliating the victim’,” interview by Joe Lloyd, Studio International, December 19 2019, accessed January 25, 2022, https://www.studiointernational.com/index.php/alfredo-jaar-you-can-talk-about-violence-without-humiliating-the-victim.
“Book Review – Art & Activism in the Age of Globalization,” We Make Money Not Art, December 27, 2011, accessed January 25, 2022, https://we-make-money-not-art.com/art_activism_in_the_age_of_glo.
Alfredo Jaar, “THE AESTHETICS OF WITNESSING: A CONVERSATION WITH ALFREDO JAAR’,” interview by Patricia C Philips, Public Art, Fall 2015, accessed January 25, 2022, https://publicart.ie/en/main/thinking/writing/writing/view//a42117773b66aedacec0bba127955203/?tx_pawritings_uid=43.
Sara Ahmed, Complaint! (Durham: Duke University Press, 2021)
Sara Ahmed, “Complaint as Diversity Work,” uploaded March 2016, video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQ_1kFwkfVE&ab_channel=CRASSHCambridge.
* This one might feel like an out of place source to cite. The indie game developer Scott Benson worte the said line in a article about the video game Kentucky Route Zero. KR0 deals with matters such as capitalism, debt, loss, and death. Benson wrote in another section: “Kentucky Route Zero has, among other things, always been about what happens after disaster. Those who are gone aren’t restored, not bodily anyway. But they’re here.” Reading complaint! made me imagine a video game, with the protagonist running through an infinite collider with endless doors. I think it’s the presence of the topic of survival that makes me keep coming back to a video game idea when reading the book, and to connect the concept with video games. “Scott Benson’s Top 10 Games of 2020” Giant Bomb News, Giant Bomb, January 21, 2021, accessed January 25, 2022, https://www.giantbomb.com/articles/scott-bensons-top-10-games-of-2020/1100-6094.
KR0 is a beautiful text-heavy game, like playing rhrough a novel. Highly recommended.
When we started this seminar we were asked to write the expectations we had about it. I wrote I wanted to know what a complaint is. More than four months after this moment I think I still do not know what that is. In this post I share the path I have gone through to approach the definition of complain.
Going full cliché I check the definition online, it is a way to start:
So complain is the act and the state.
This is big and ambiguous and I like ambiguous things. On the other hand, I spent the time I read the book wanting to know the definition Sara had for us. There was not such a thing like a moment where a ultimate definition of complaint was presented and I did not like that, somehow.
We (“we” as referring to “me” but feeling less lonely in this journey) passed the barrier of only considering complaining the formal filling forms format. For a really long part of the reading process I thought that was the case and that got me annoyed. Even if the explanations never closed the definition almost in any way, I was bitter with the writer. I could not believe this. Even though I know in page four (page four!) it clearly explains “a complaint can be an expression of grief, pain, or dissatisfaction, something that is a cause of a protest or outcry, a bodily ailment, or a formal allegation”. This was not enough for me. I just could not stop thinking about the -other- types of complaining that involve maybe unorthodox/impulsive/childish/and-so-on kind of behavior.
Then at some point I realized the writing style she has, repeating some structures or emphasizing by rerunning the sentences maybe adding a little bit more at a time or making minor changes. This is the moment I had the idea of collecting sentences from the book that might clear up my hesitations about the definition presented. I am really thankful about the “searching” tool in texts available in digital books. I take this moment to appreciate the Ctrl + F.
So as we all know, we can get the words and sentences we want from a text, in this case a whole book. For your information, you can find the word “complain” 251 times and “complaint” a total of 1686 times.
I searched for combos like “to make a complaint is”, “to complain is” or the longest one by far “complaint can”. I think the most useful one was this one:
With this collection I satisfied a little bit my needs of definition, still as an ambiguous and big pool.
By the end of the book I finally was dazzled by what it seemed to be a strong statement who says:
(And it comes from a previous book from Sara in 2012: “On Being Included: Racism and Diversity in Institutional.”)
“If complaint can be understood as a phenomenology of the institution, complaint is a practical phenomenology“
While reading I also made many notes about what the institution/structure means to me and how I experience it. I might have been caressing the position of wanting to scape the structure but (sadly?) it is not that realistic. Complain ties us up with the institution. My initial aim was to avoid formal ways of complaining as I thought complaining the formal way would only show that I support the institution/structure. Why would I like to support such thing?
Complaining in non-formal ways ALSO knots us with structures. I wonder, could it be because structures are usually the thing to blame? So as we usually blame structures in formal and non-formal types of complaints that could be the link. Even if, for example, you are complaining about your grandpa having an old-fashioned way of thinking and him being intransigent, there is the structure of power+sexism to blame. Huh, how easy is this? If everything is a structure there is always a structure to blame.
I consider <<blame>> a really critical ingredient of complaining. I might talk about this in the future and how we can blame things that are bigger than us/our control.
So, yes, again in this ambiguous map I enjoy. The complaint is together with the institution/structure. But I was still thirsty for limits. I thought if I might not find the big limits of it, I could at least work with the content we know it is inside of it. Thats when I though of classifying the inside of complaint. The first approach was to make a diagram, a Venn one:
Obviously we have the big big circle that captures everything, called complaint, and inside of it the are two main types of complaint.
The most attractive part I find is the protest, and how it can be both at the same time (the joy of ambiguity strikes back!?). I would like to go deep about it in other post.
In future posts I will suggest as well a way of classifying complaints regarding their traits.
So yes, anyway, what is still the definition of complaint..?
One possible option: could everything be a complaint?
Is it like the definition of art by Dickie? He said something like “a work of art is an artifact upon which some person(s) acting on behalf of the artworld has conferred the status of candidate for appreciation“
yuhuuu then: “a complaint is an artifact upon which some person(s) acting on behalf of the complaintworld has conferred the status of candidate for appreciation”
Lets appreciate coomplaints in the complaintworld then!?
In this post I want to share my notes on the book Complaint!.
Here I attach the scans of the pages. My aim was to gather all the information that clicked with me and have it in a small format collection I could carry and look up easily. It is divided in the parts and chapters the book offers.
The information from the book is in black and my personal thoughts, additions and comments are on blue (sometimes pencil and pink). There are some small parts written in Spanish. There are also misspellings, mistakes and probably things I do not think anymore.
I hope it can help to have an overview of the content, even if it is my own objective one.
Feel free to rescue, comment and use the ideas I mark here. I have the feeling I have a considerable collection of headlines that can lead to good texts if they are cared, squeezed and loved.
The name of this post references an option in social media platforms, such as YouTube or Facebook. Usually is only a selection of comments that is shown beforehand and there is a button to click that says “show all comments”. When clicking this option, the comments can be read in chronological order (as I am showing here).