My being AMAB and fem has meant that my participation in "women's" activities has been a mixed bag. I have groups of women friends I turn to as confidantes and with whom I get drinks and gossip, but it was only recently that I felt more "one of the girls, sort of," rather than "gay best friend." Also recently, I have come to learn the value and commonness of whisper networks.
The institution from which I will receive a PhD is, as I write, infamous for its constant, callous mishandling of sexual violence. This is a fact that haunts me, and a fact that had me considering leaving my PhD program. At some point I made peace with how close I am to finishing my degree and began to align myself with those in the MSU community who have chosen to stay and fight the status quo. I hope that doing what I can with what I have - in my case, reading and writing about sexual violence – can be helpful to victim/survivors and our communities. What I have not known exactly how to write about – or if I should write about – are the words and stories of sexual harassment, of abuses of power, of relationship violence that spread through informal networks. These are the whisper networks, a vehicle for knowledge that women and fems rely on when it is potentially dangerous to name abusers outright. Since a senior graduate student sexually harassed me a few years ago, and I decided to talk about it, I learned about that person's predilection for being, shall we say, pushy with other GBQ novice grad students and undergrads. When a beloved professor in my field was pushed out of his position, I learned through ladies' nights and behind-closed-door chats the beloved professor's abuses almost certainly stretched beyond what was covered in press. Behind-closed-door conversations also illuminated for me the violence of MSU faculty – including William Strampel, who women had been complaining about for years – as well as other faculty who continue to be on the university's payroll. It is apparently dangerous to speak publicly about these faculty (as it was probably dangerous to speak ill of Strampel or Larry Nassar before their names became dirt), but whisper networks afford women and fems some solace in speaking and living our truths without risking our careers and well-being. Knowing and sharing names of unrepentant harassers and abusers with one another binds us and creates space where our truth is real and affirmed. I recently had the pleasure of reading Andrea Long Chu's account of Avital Ronnell, a New York University professor who sexually harassed a graduate student who studied under her. So much of the article resonated with me; it is worth reading if you haven't yet. A line that especially stood out to me was this: "It is simply no secret to anyone within a mile of the German or comp-lit departments at NYU that Avital is abusive. This is boring and socially agreed upon, like the weather." Knowing something like this comes from personal knowledge distributed via whisper networks but naming it would have been dangerous. (How do I know naming Ronnell's abuse is dangerous? I direct you to the case of Nimrod Reitman, the graduate student who spoke up against her and has since faced harsh backlash, including a letter signed by several powerful scholars denouncing Reitman and questioning his credibility. I also would point you to so, so many other cases where people, especially women, have named their abusers and been criticized and threatened as a result.) It speaks volumes to me that there were already whisper networks functioning that warned people of Ronnell. One may argue that whisper networks function to keep dangerous people in power. After all, they are made up of whispers, not legal actions. However, Ronnell has now faced consequences (even if those consequences may have been tempered by the letter written by her powerful friends). So have William Strampel and Larry Nassar here at MSU. Where consequences have been minimal (as Roxane Gay argued they have been in the case of Louis C.K.), we can speak out for serious attention to justice and accountability. The "we" I indicate are those of us who are connected via networks they we have used to survive. These whisper networks that allow us to exercise a modicum of agency, to try to protect our friends and name our truths, are also our own way of organizing. Perhaps this is part of why #MeToo is so powerful and constant; we've been whispering it for years.
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AuthorI am a higher education professional and sporadic blogger. I have opinions and tell puns. Archives
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