azhure | If you are a monster, stand up… (Reply)

One of the recent events that will always resonate with me was watching Catherynne M Valente speak at Strowlercon are share her Monstrous Manifesto.

I make no pretence at having anything but love and gratitude that someone like Cat exists in this world, and that she shares her words and worlds with us.

And she’s done it again with her guest of honor speech at Mythcon (full speech at Cat’s livejournal), but I had to share this:

Let me tell you, I am a mouthy, aggressive, ambitious woman. I have been a known monster for quite some time. And to be a woman is to be monstrous, to be queer is to be monstrous, to have a body that is not white, that is sick or broken, that is even the littlest bit out of compliance with an increasingly unreal eidolon is monstrous. To be poor, to be other than Christian, to be old–we’re the ones who live in the frightening forest, waiting to prey on everyone else. It’s not really a metaphor–culture treats all of us as though our souls are catching, as though we must be contained and punished and shown to be wicked, made to dance in iron shoes, so that no further good folk will step out of line. After all, a gay teacher will make his students gay. A single mother will ruin her sons. A career woman will steal treasure from noble knights. As social powerlessness grows, scapegoats must be found. Strong, pale men with might on their side must be dispatched to triumph. Dragon bad; sword pretty.

Mirrored from Stephanie Gunn.