The more I come into contact with these spheres of legitimacy or
respectability, the more I feel a disjunction between how I identify and
the contexts that I exist in.
[...]
I guess I do have a confidence or a level of trust in myself and in
my writing that enables me to write in a way that sounds self-assured
even when I feel like I'm overwhelmed by self-doubt. I don't acknowledge
the validity of anything I do and constantly cut myself down and beat
myself up and feel unfree. I should be freer. I think that I have an
unconscious willfulness.
Self-doubt is usually the point of departure for a lot of my work. I
always have to write through that doubt. Sometimes I sit down with an
idea for an essay, and I'm so paralyzed by self-doubt and that I have to
incorporate the doubt into whatever I'm working on in some way, or else
I can’t move beyond it. I resent that I have to do this, but I also
question the motivations for bracketing that experience because the
excision of self-doubt is political (in that it’s gendered and
racialized). And a lot of women are plagued by self-doubt and
specifically anxiety around writing or asserting any kind of authority
in their writing. Owning that doubt can be a political gesture.
[...]
Oh my gosh. It's totally crazy-making, the world, the writing world,
especially as a woman. I feel like the only way to not let it corrode
you psychically is to not be embattled with these patriarchs and
gatekeepers, to not seek recognition from the white male literary
establishment. That's a lot easier said than done. There's an erotic
dimension to this power dynamic, and the women who are embattled with
these patriarchs sometimes have intimate relationships with the men who
are in positions of power. The closer you get to that power, the easier
it is to be taken advantage of. Proximity can destroy you. It’s easier
for me to maintain distance because I'm not very interested in men
romantically.
I don't really put my hopes in the literary world. I'm never
surprised when it comes out that there's all this sexism in it. I have
one foot in the literary world and one foot in another world, the
political world maybe. I've never really felt that the forms of life
that I am looking for or that I'm trying to create will emerge out of
the literary world. Oftentimes I feel like it's full of people who only
care about social capital. There's nastiness in any world or subculture but I never really felt that the people in the literary world are my people
even though I probably spend more time in a literary context than
anywhere else. Maybe my disidentification with the literary
establishment enables me to maintain healthy distance.
What has enabled me to maintain my sanity over the years is being
part of a strong feminist friend group, especially since living in
Baltimore. I really don't know where I would be without that grounding
in my life. If it weren’t for my feminist crew there would be no way
for me to confirm that what I think and experience is valid or real. It
must be really hard for people who don't have that because the psychic
isolation can drive you insane, make you feel that you don't exist and
that none of your problems are real.
Jackie Wang - Interview
also, cf. the glosswatch: 'It’s no justification for telling the rest of us to keep ourselves under wraps. It’s hard enough finding a way to speak to begin with.'