Well, 2016 has been ....a year.
The popular consensus seems to have been that 2016 was a particularly bad year, for a host of reasons. I was on the fence about whether I agreed with that. I've had some personal ups and downs as well, but after all, aren't all years a mix of bad and good? Shouldn't we give poor 2016 a fair chance?
The events of November 8th firmed up my opinion on this matter: 2016 was a bad year.
2017 marks my 10th(!) year of blogging, having started during the Bush years. Time flies when you're having fun, ranting, observing political things, getting into fights, and posting fan vids, so I thought I'd take some time to reflect. (Are there any readers left from the good ol' days? Reveal yourselves! ....*crickets*).
1) Twitter
Earlier in the year, I decided to re-active my Twitter account. I had opened one circa 2009 but didn't really connect with the user experience (aka - I didn't really understand how to use it). It's thus far been a mixed bag. Being a wordy writer, I'm not sure I'll ever be comfortable with the 140 character take, but I appreciate using Twitter to follow fast-moving developments and my latest celebrity crushes. Ahem.
Connect with me if you want: @fanniesroom
2) Pop Culture/Femslash Fridays
On the blogging front, it's been mostly good getting back into blogging more regularly. The last year I wrote more than 100 posts was 2013, but in 2016 I wrote 185. Much of this uptick was due to the 2016 presidential election, but also the integration of pop culture posts and femslash fridays.
I hope people have liked these posts and am open to suggestions - maybe a new show to recap once I'm done with Supergirl? (I may not necessarily be able to heed suggestions)
3) Where Are The Feminist Blogs?
In 10 years, I've seen a lot of feminist blogs come and go and just recently realized my daily feminist blog-reading list has dwindled. I haven't looked at data on this, but it also seems like the blogosphere is changing, with more people moving to micro-blogging on Twitter and/or writing at sites like Medium and Patreon.
I'm still satisfied with the Blogger platform and will stay here for the foreseeable future (while also guest posting at Shakesville). But, what other feminist blogs are people reading? I'd love to put new ones in my Feedly! Self-promote away, as well!
4) Donald Trump Reading List
After Trump won on November 8, I began pulling some of my feminist classics from the shelves: Margaret Atwood, Angela Davis, Catherine MacKinnon, and Michelle Tea, as well as political texts that seem particularly relevant right now: Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed and Eric Wolf's Ideologies of Dominance and Crisis.
Like many, I've felt compelled to arm myself with knowledge of both how to recognize, and resist, features of oppressive regimes, because we know many mainstream media voices will not do this for us.
For escapism and enjoyment, I'm set to read various memoirs (mostly of women) and some Jacqueline Carey and NK Jemisin books I haven't yet read.
Share any and all recommendations!
And, thanks for reading - here's to 2017 being.... another year.
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