The Slow Build to & the Life-Saving Payoff of Asking for Attention
In 1985, Annette Lu (Lu Hsiu-lien/呂秀蓮), a pro-Taiwan activist, was released from prison after 1,933 days, or more than five years, of incarceration.
Her release was not a conciliatory effort on the part of the military-controlled, KMT government.
If it were up to them, she would have stayed in prison, like her counterparts, until 1987 when martial law was finally lifted after 38 years.
The only reason her sentence was cut short was because of the massive amount of attention she had garnered before her imprisonment and the relentless attention her network gave to her case while she was in prison.
Amnesty International, prominent journalists, along with influential professor, Jerome Cohen, petitioned, sent hundreds of letters, and leveraged political influence to secure her release, arguably saving her life given her health complications.
Thanks to their tireless efforts and her own ability to speak out boldly, she was free.
She did not let the imprisonment sideline her efforts for Taiwanese independence.
With uncompromising determination, she evaded KMT spies and ran for national legislature, founded the Clean Election Coalition, directly advocated for Taiwanese independence to high-ranking Chinese officials, and began a campaign for Taiwan to reenter the UN.
Then, in 2004, after an assassination attempt, she won the position of Vice President of Taiwan — the first woman and the first pro-Taiwan independence candidate, to ever receive it.
Annette Lu knew that asking for and receiving attention equated to more power, more influence, and more opportunities for self-determination for the country she loved so much.
In The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls, Mona Eltahawy* says, “Attention is a reward, a burden, a taunt, a taint, an accusation. Attention is a bone that patriarchy dangles in front of women: if we want it too much, we’re whores; if we don’t want attention when it determines we should have it, it stalks and beats us with it. We can’t win.”
Like Lu, Eltahawy found herself in a similar position of being at the mercy of an oppressive government regime and also leveraged the attention her work had received to survive.
She goes on to say, “…the most subversive thing a woman can do is to talk about her life as if it really matters, because it does. It is in the name of that subversion, for the sake of defying the patriarchy, that we must declare, “I deserve attention,” “I demand attention,” and “My life is important, my views are important, and they deserve attention.” We must understand the importance and power of being “attention whores.”
Stories like Lu’s and Eltahawy’s are numerous and heart-wrenching. They are a reminder that seizing attention is an inevitable skill that we must build if we want to move the needle in the direction of the vision we have in our hearts.
The best part is that we don’t have to do anything as large-scale as petitioning for our country to reenter the UN to start.
We can start in the same way that Lu and Eltahawy did – by reading, writing, having important conversations with people who know more than we do, teaching classes, and starting organizations.
We can call attention to the work we’re doing by pitching ourselves, meeting people adjacent to and outside of our inner circles, and making bold, subversive comments to call truth to what we’re seeing and experiencing.
And we can give attention to liberatory work by donating our time and money, sharing our platforms, and asking “How can I support you?”
The work to ask for, receive, give, and share attention starts in the tiniest of ways.
With steadfastness and support, it can become something that we can all rally behind.
*shout out to Toi Smith for recommending this book to me after she read that I was focusing on asking for attention as a political and liberatory act. I loved it. My favorite phrase to hear from people is, “Have you read…?” So please always feel free to send me recommendations!
HEADS UP: Early-bird bonuses for my new offering, PITCHING PRESENCE, end this Friday. It’s for you if you’ve been struggling to feel good about pitching yourself or asking for others to put the spotlight on your work. (And, I promise, it can feel so, so good to ask others to pay attention to your work.) Solidarity pricing is available (without proof of income). Learn more, and apply here.