At some point, you have to stop being polite.
The rejection rhetoric of our Women’s March on Washington is
being led by women. Yep.
Let’s be perfectly clear: When a woman takes power, she isn’t
taking it from other women.
My Black Lives Matter sisters and my No Muslim Registry
sisters, my Immigrants Get the Job Done sisters and my Pussy Grabs Back sisters
are not fighting over the same piece of the pie.
They’re fighting because our
piece isn’t big enough.
There are about 520,000 elected offices in this country.
Less than 20% of those are held by women. Despite making up 50.4% of the
population, we hold less than 20% of elected offices.
Why aren’t women better represented in government? Because
they’re too busy working and caring for their families – including the husbands
who are running for office.
Our Single Mother sisters and Job Plus Night School sisters,
our Prison Inmate Sisters and Struggling With Addiction sisters, they’re all
depending on us to even the odds.
Privilege is thinking something isn’t a problem because that
something doesn’t affect you.
But worse than that, is thinking something that does affect you isn’t a problem because
you don’t understand it.
Why does it matter that we are disproportionately
represented in government? Because every day that government is deciding where
to put turn lanes to improve traffic flow around schools, whether or not
teachers should be allowed to carry firearms, and whether the clinic in your
neighborhood will be allowed to talk to a teenaged girl about contraception.
Every day decisions are being made that affect our lives and
there is no one who represents us making them.
Not all women have the same values and beliefs and so not
all women who are elected into office will represent other women. Some female
elected officials are so ardently patriarchal it’s fucking scary. But the odds
are still better that a woman in government will express empathy for mothers
and teens. It’s not a biological distinction, it’s a cultural one. Women are not
only expected to be more compassionate and empathetic, they’re allowed to be understanding and patient.
When the rhetoric against the Women’s March comes from other
women, I’m infuriated. You don’t have to agree with the Planned Parenthood
platform, you can be afraid of Black Lives Matter, you can even worry that one
of the Islamic organizers wants to establish Shari’a Law (except she doesn’t so
stop with that bull shit). You even have the right to tell all of those women
who are marching that they’re wrong. Disgusting, is the way one woman in my
Facebook feed put it. But you're on the wrong side of history.
History shows us
that when we consent to government that limits our freedoms, those limits
increase, not decrease.
History shows us that when the oppressed speak out against
their oppressors, when they have the courage to fight, when they stand up and
say, “Not anymore,” they can enact change.
So change is coming, whether you’re marching for it or not,
and when it does, you better hope the revolutionaries forget that you stood
with the oppressors. You better hope we forget you helped those who try to shut
us up by shaming us.
#work
