Letâs talk about venting and boundaries, especially in the context of social justice.
Thereâs a place for venting negative feelings about oppression. That venting doesnât have to be 100% correct. Itâs okay to be like âI hate straight/white/cis/male/etc peopleâ on occasion when frustration with oppression is getting you down without specifying ânot ALL x majority groupâ. Venting is going to be messy sometimes. Thatâs okay.
But if there are no boundaries or limits to your venting, THAT will be harmful to yourself, others, and any social movement you try to represent. Not every single place, time, and context is going to be an appropriate space for venting.
If you are running a social justice or minority focused space of any kind, you need to have clear guidelines around venting and when it is/isnât appropriate with your space or your space will likely turn toxic and unhealthy. People can use supposed âventingâ as a weapon to harm and silence others.
If a trans man is talking about his experience with oppression and someone responds with how he sucks because heâs a man and men suck? Thatâs not okay. Thatâs using the excuse of venting to silence a marginalized person discussing their oppression. The same is true for black, Asian, disabled, gay, mixed race, bi, ANY marginalized men. I use this as an example because women are numerically the largest oppressed group globally so it can often come up, but thereâs many other examples. Venting about white people can even be used to silence women and LGBTQ+ people depending on the specific context (like complaining about âwhite girlsâ or âwhite gaysâ doing stereotypically feminine things that are entirely harmless).
Venting about âstraightâ or âhetâ people can be used to silence and exclude aro, ace, trans, intersex, and even bisexual people depending on context. It can also be used to dismiss and silence non-white people and discussions around interracial relationships. Venting about âcisâ people can be used to silence and exclude intersex people. The diversity of the LBGTQ+ community can make this tactic all too common.
Even if youâre not trying to hurt someone, if you donât have separate spaces or clear boundaries on your venting, then you will likely hurt someone. If a straight intersex person constantly hears about how straight people suck in LGBTQ+ spaces, theyâre going to feel hurt and excluded even if that wasnât the intent. If you expect queer men to be totally fine with having to randomly, arbitrarily hear how much they suck for being men in queer spaces, then youâre making queer spaces unsafe for queer men.
There can be vent spaces, vent blogs, personal spaces, etc that are there for venting about majority groups. Itâs healthy for outlets for anger to exist. But if a social justice space expects some members to always be ready and willing to become an outlet for venting and anger with no boundaries or limits because those members have some kind of privileged identity, then thatâs not healthy or reasonable. Itâs not okay, and it often ignores intersectionality and the fact that people can embody marginalized and privileged identities at the same time.
TL;DR:
Itâs time to get more nuanced about venting in social justice spaces. Yes, oppressed people need and deserve space for venting. No, it is not always reasonable, healthy, or okay to vent in every single context.
I know that thereâs a lot of complexity to talk about here, but I think we need to talk about it. Because âventingâ has become a tool for dismantling intersectionality, lateral oppression, and even plain old regular oppression in too many progressive spaces.
