Photo credit: Zachary Ayotte
By jaye simpson
I had the utmost pleasure of sitting down with Vivek Shraya to to talk about her book I Am Afraid of Men (2018, Penguin Press) which has garnered widespread attention, some of which has led to greater conversations and education on how toxic masculinity, and some of which has struck deep fear in men and masculine folks.
I Am Afraid of Men is an important read that addresses toxic masculinity in today’s shifting culture of accountability and in a growing climate of call out culture. Shraya fuses rage and tenderness together to bring a gift of education and the vulnerability of personal narrative. I Am Afraid of Men is a necessary read that disrupts the literary world by taking into account the precarious state of today’s society and dives into the process of self accountability and breaking the taboo of talking about the fear so many of us have.
jaye simpson: I would like to acknowledge what an honour this is. I Am Afraid of Men was such an exceptional and poignant read. It was so important, as a trans woman, I had never seen myself represented in literature in that way before and you named so many important things. What was the naming process like for you? And what was it like to unpack everything that comes with it?
Vivek Shraya: I mean, first off, I want to acknowledge that it means so much to be seen by you and to have this conversation with you and have a trans woman connect to the book. That’s the ultimate co-sign. So thank you so so much for your close reading of the book. Anytime I write a project, I am always worried about how I’m going to misrepresent or hurt my community. So it just feels really nice to hear.
In terms of the naming, I think for me, when I am working with personal narrative it is always about staying close to my own story as opposed to talking on behalf of a group of people. I really tried to really stick to the specificity of my story.
One of the questions I’ve been getting a lot is “Did it feel cathartic?” and one of the things I really want to challenge with this book is I think that is so often a question that we ask around personal narrative. I don’t know what the motivations are behind that question. Lately I’ve decided that it is a way for the reader to feel like somehow the transaction of getting so much from a particular work is reciprocal, because [they] have benefitted too by [the author’s] catharsis. It wasn’t cathartic to write, it was painful to write. I think the work of personal narrative isn’t always tied to catharsis.
js: One thing that really stuck out to me was that literally a week before I read your book, I was talking with my friends about “good men.”
VS: Oh!
js: That was something that I hadn’t even addressed myself. It was when I read your book that I reflected and realized, “I removed this man’s agency and his humanity by putting him on a pedestal of doing the bare minimum.”
VS: Totally!
js: How does that make you feel when people in our community, specifically trans women, are realizing ways that we have been upholding this masculinity?
VS: I mean we uphold it because that’s what we’ve been trained to do. It’s all conditioning, it’s all the patriarchy. So for me, the book was a way to try and be a bit of a wake up call and to talk about the ways that patriarchy also hurts men. That yes, we’ve been conditioned by men to put them up on a pedestal, but that pedestal also hurts us and also hurts them. That’s honestly something I hoped men would take away from reading this book as well, that if there’s no pedestal, it’s actually better for all of us.
js: You speak a lot about fear, and addressing and dismantling fear. Has there been any new fear that’s come up since the release of this book?
VS: [Laughs] Well, when I’m in rooms of older people and older white men, yes! It’s terrifying. It’s interesting, there is something so private about writing. I just met an extrovert writer, Dina Del Bucchia, she talks about how she’s an extrovert writer and about how she needs to go socialize with people for her to work. I’m not an extrovert writer, but then you put something out in the world and I have the privilege of being able to present it, which I feel fortunate about.
It’s not an easy book to tour, it’s not an easy book to read from, especially when you’re reading in rooms with men, and the eye contact just sort of diminishes and they start getting fidgety. I’ve had men pick up their phones and start texting. You’re then internalizing this “Oh my god, they’re uncomfortable!” I’ve been afraid of how men might publicly react, during readings and after readings. At my book launch in Toronto there were apparently 500 people, I was like “Who are these people?” for weeks. I was convinced that it was a group of incels. Which thankfully it wasn’t.
This is what is so interesting to me, so many men have retitled the book as I Hate All Men. To me, it’s so interesting that anytime you talk about the oppressor, even if you’re talking about fear, it becomes an accusation or it’s seen as man-bashing or white people bashing. The thing is, I could’ve written that book, I could’ve written I Hate All Men, a lot of us can. That’s not the story I want to tell. For me, the tension of the book is the fact that I am afraid of men and I desire men. For a lot of women and men, that’s a reality.
To answer your question, those have been some of my new fears: response to the book, especially from men.
js: I Am Afraid of Men is a gift of feedback on societal norms, of not just men, but how we interact with the patriarchy. I feel like the folks who call it the I Hate All Men book haven’t even read the back cover. They haven’t even read the fact that you also write, “I am afraid of women. And they are afraid of me.” If they had just read the book, which is less than 100 pages!
VS: Let’s face it, with a title like I’m Afraid of Men it is very provocative. In some ways it is a conversation starter or a conversation ender. Those are the titles I am drawn to, Even This Page Is White (2017), I want to kill myself (2017) a lot of my work tends to have that literal quality to it. I always wish folks would engage with the art before they comment, but unfortunately we don’t live in that climate. A lot of times people make their minds up about work without even engaging. Not Surprising.
js: In the realm of #CanLit and also larger society, which is deeply entrenched in toxic masculinity and men, how have you taken care of yourself throughout this process and tour?
VS: I am very fortunate to have a close group of friends who I lean on a lot, who check on me a lot. Even yesterday I was doing a launch at Emma Talks, and my friend Leah Horlick every so often would come in and check in.
I am surrounded by really good people who check in and understand that it isn’t just glamour, especially with I’m Afraid of Men. I’m not promoting a book about carnations. There is a labour that is involved with this book and that’s not to deny the privilege I have to have a book and to tour it.
In terms of other self care, I wanted paneer pakoras so I had some and peanut butter ice cream. Turning to food for self care.
js: What’s next for your journey?
VS: Last year, I began to get a series of hate mail. It was very vivid and included Indian dialect. The individual would say things about my mother, and this intersection of the vividness of the letter and the conjuring of familial background and the conjuring of Indian dialogue that I knew in a religious context felt very very personal. I was very haunted by these letters, and simultaneously for the past two years I’ve also been really getting into comic books and graphic novels because there is something about that medium where you can just do anything.
[In the spring of 2019], Arsenal Pulp Press is putting out my first comic book, Death Threat. It’s going to be illustrated by Ness Lee who is a fantastic artist who illustrated my album Part-Time Woman last year. The comic book is going to be a very meta exploration of these letters. The letters are going to be illustrated, but also my response to them and other folks’ responses to them. To really use humor as a way to reclaim my power and shift the narrative. This is to highlight the ways that a lot of us are forced to be visible online in a number of different jobs, not just artists. Which makes us very accessible but simultaneously, even though there’s those expectations of visibility, there is no real protections for us either, so anyone can just email anyone and just say, “Die!”
js: Who are some of the writers in the community you are excited to see work come from, because I Am Afraid of Men is paving the way for other authors and breaking down ideas about who can write and who gets to take up space?
VS: I am so excited about the future of trans literature. I am curious about how the book will inspire and create more space for trans writers, trans feminine writers, trans women and nonbinary writers. I am very excited about Arielle Twist’s poetry collection Disintegrate/Dissociate , which is coming out next year.
The trans community sometimes feels so divided. I look at what some people are calling the Indigenous Renaissance, and I am so moved by the way Indigenous writers and musicians are so publicly supportive of each other’s works. Especially with everything happening with Billy-Ray Belcourt, Joshua Whitehead, Alicia Elliott, and even yourself. I am very excited about Indigenous writing being centered more and more and largely by young voices, some of you are what? 21, 22? That’s incredible!
When you think of what #CanLit is, and whose voices have been centered,t is not just that it’s been white people, it’s not just that it’s been men—it’s been largely older people who’ve had that space. I am thrilled about so much emphasis on young emerging voices.
js: It is the second year of your Arsenal Pulp Press Imprint, VS Books, how is that going?
VS: It is very exciting, the first book is coming out in Spring 2020. My new book Death Threat and Téa Mutonji’s book Shut Up, You’re Pretty will be out at the same time. The plan is to tour together and bring more visibility to her as an emerging writer and her book.
The 2018 year, we had twice as many submissions, which is great. Last year I was worried because we announced in June and the deadline was in September. I was hoping that this year that people would be working on something and that they would re-submit or submit. I haven’t really dug in yet but I am hoping to shortly. I am really excited to do whatever I can to support young writers through this imprint.
js: That is so amazing! It always gives me warm tenders when artists and authors are established and still creating content are reaching down and lifting up other voices. I think that is so important.
VS: It is absolutely important. While I didn’t have any formal mentorship or formal support, I am very lucky to have had Amber Dawn and Farzana Doctor who have been very supportive of me. Despite seeming changes in CanLit there is still so much work to and there is still so many barriers. I do feel a responsibility to do whatever I can to shift or break those barriers.
Vivek Shraya is an artist whose body of work crosses the boundaries of music, literature, visual art, and film. Her album with Queer Songbook Orchestra, Part-Time Woman, was included in CBC’s list of Best Canadian Albums of 2017, and her first book of poetry, even this page is white, won a 2017 Publisher Triangle Award. Her best-selling new book, I’m Afraid of Men, was heralded by Vanity Fair as “cultural rocket fuel.” She is one half of the music duo Too Attached and the founder of the publishing imprint VS. Books.
A Polaris Music Prize nominee and four-time Lambda Literary Award finalist, Shraya was a 2016 Pride Toronto Grand Marshal, and has received honours from The Writers’ Trust of Canada and CBC’s Canada Reads. She is currently a director on the board of the Tegan and Sara Foundation and an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Calgary.
jaye simpson is an Oji-Cree non-binary queer multi-disciplinary artist, advocate and artist. They have been published in Poetry Is Dead, THIS Magazine, Prism International, SAD Magazine, GUTS Magazine, and upcoming in Room Magazine. They have competed and toured nationally for poetry, prose and are a recognized National Finalist for spoken word poetry. jaye is a displaced indigenous person resisting, ruminating and residing on xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), səl̓ilwətaɁɬ (Tsleil-waututh), and sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) First Nations territories.