PISSED OFF WOMEN

OpEds | Diane Gee
“Capitalism REQUIRES an accepted underclass (sex, race or both) to function.  People no one will object to having less, because in their minds it’s a given…”

I am a firm believer in the idea that no true revolution happens until they piss off the women. Women by nature don’t want to send their men, be it husbands or sons off to die in a war. Call me a bad feminist, but, seriously.  We are nurturers and peacemakers and more geared to the survival of the species than men seem to be.  I mean, we have lived under Patriarchy in Western societies for a long damned time.  Be it nurture or nature, we lack the need to one-up, prove our kahunas, or measure body parts. Let alone come to violence to prove our womanhood.

Less Patriarchal Societies of the Native peoples in the Americas knew this, and the Iroquois Confederacy of 6 Nations (Mohawk, Onondaga, Oneida, Cayuga, Seneca, and Tuscarora) had to bring before the Women’s Council any plan of war.  They could approve or veto it and it was final. If they approved, the reason had to be pretty damned convincing.

Russia’s February, then October Revolution (1917) came about because the organization of women. The Spanish Civil War’s female lead was far more then the iconic lead of Dolores Ibárurri in 1936, female militias were at the forefront fighting against fascism. Marcos was toppled by pissed off women, in fact much of the pink tide in South and Central America did not happen until the women had enough.  Sometimes, it started smaller, the right to vote, equal pay, property rights… or for a sick and tired Rosa Parks, the right to sit the fuck down after a long day at work.  But about the time we say enough?  Our wicks for bullshit get immeasurably shorter.  We tend to start with a detail, and then tear down the system that created it.  Given support, that is.  In each case of real revolution our male counterparts had our back.

We have a President who thinks it’s just fine to “grab a woman by the pussy” and brags that if you are rich, powerful, a celebrity, “they won’t do anything about it.”

We have a country that voted for that man, despite the fact they have or are mothers, sisters, daughters or friends of females that could be assaulted by the President, and they think that’s fine.

Less Patriarchal Societies of the Native peoples in the Americas knew this, and the Iroquois Confederacy of 6 Nations (Mohawk, Onondaga, Oneida, Cayuga, Seneca, and Tuscarora) had to bring before the Women’s Council any plan of war.  They could approve or veto it and it was final. If they approved, the reason had to be pretty damned convincing.

I totally get the outrage.

I am a rape survivor. More than once, attempted.

What I do not get, and will not endorse is the damning and ridiculing of women who have finally gotten to the place of “enough.”  It is an awakening.

One of the first charges is that it was not good feminism.

I have listened to tirades on YouTube of women slamming them for putting “vaginas on their fool heads” that obviously never googled one picture of a protest.  The hats were almost exclusively knitted caps with square corners that look like cat ears, only pink.  Tasteful. Pointed. Sarcastic, but making a damned point.

Women debating war and peace.

I have read how admitting we have vaginas reduces us to a body part.  Oh, really?  The fact we have vaginas has reduced us in this Patriarchal society to being both expected to be some unreasonable expectation of marketable sexuality, while being called whores for being desirable.  The entire Western philosophy of sexuality has been reduced to a sick and twisted Madonna/Whore complex that makes men feel entitled to, and cheated if they don’t get sex on demand, and women shamed for desiring sex, and expecting to be more than a object.  We are not cum-buckets.  Nor are we sexless homemakers that wait quietly for our cheating men to come home.

Our vaginas make us under-paid, under-rated, treated like children that need societal approval for our medical decisions and most of all – in danger walking alone.

His speech enabled the very rape-culture we live in, endorsed it. It woke women to every resentment they have of living in this culture of second-class citizenry.

And though most of them don’t realize it?  Capitalism REQUIRES an accepted underclass (sex, race or both) to function.  People no one will object to having less, because in their minds it’s a given.

So to the next charge?  It was mostly white women?  I posted that myself, and was quickly, and rightfully, bitch-slapped by my friends all over the country of color. Women of color told me that in Oakland, in Atlanta, and many cities all over they live in, the march was not just integrated, it was lead by them.  I was told Black and Hispanic women proudly lead, and spoke.  Not everywhere, and certainly not where the cameras were pointed.  (The revolution will not be televised, Gil Scott Heron comes to mind)  I was told there was unity, power and LOTS of discussion on those streets.  And for once, they felt their power.

The last charge, from the Left?

Nothing short of anti-capitalist, anti-war, burn this fucker to the ground is pure enough.  Would it be sexist to answer that with “Eat me?”  In Nigeria, a woman started a revolution over being told to count her fucking sheep for taxes – and other women stood with her, eventually it turned into a movement that threw out the British altogether.

Revolution is not born an adult.  Revolution starts as whispers in the fields, then a blossoming feeling of empowerment when you realize other people feel the same way. Revolution is shaped by people who have long seen the problem, gently guiding and awakening others to the common cause. Sure, some of these first-time activists may have been Hilary supporters – and they do have a point, no woman has been President, or likely will in the US, in contrast to much of the world. We have to hear them, and teach them that a woman that is entrenched in preserving Patriarchy and Class War is not breaking ground, she is legitimizing the deadly crop we live under.

There has not been a mass protest of this nature in a long time. I saw older women shocked the young came out.  I saw young women worried about their daughters and sons.  I heard all of them talk about a man who has become a symbol of the rich doing whatever the fuck they want in Trump.  A symbol we can use.  A symbol of all that is wrong with the system.

I don’t care who jumped on the bandwagon and spoke – celebs getting their 15 minutes of fame. I care more about what the woman said to me in the grocery store – another faceless woman like me.

I know, my fellow Revolutionary Leftist – that want freedom and equality for all in a system not rigged for the rich, it is frustrating to see that many bodies not doing what we need them to, what they need to do for themselves.  But no one ever made a movement by ignoring one segment of the disenfranchised, because they hadn’t the whole picture yet.   We have to LISTEN to the women, the people of color, the workers and the immigrant to unite with them.  Hear them, their complaints with empathy and love.  Then we offer them solutions.

I am every pink pussy marcher.  I am every McDonald’s striker.  I am a BLM mother. I am undocumented and terrified.  I am a water protector in Standing Rock.  I am a widow about to eat cat food.  I am a witness in Oakland when they shot my unarmed son. I am the mother of a PTSD soldier who can’t get help.  I am standing under drone-whining, wondering if it will hit mine this time. I am a Nun in a habit, and a Muslim on a Burqa, and an atheist full of wonder at life.

I am everyone, and I am no one.

But I whisper, and I listen, and I whisper some more, kindly and with love and urgency, and the pissed off nature of a Mother trying to protect her cubs.

I am a Woman, and I am pissed off.  I will never slam my sisters, I will get them to join me.

DIANE GEE, Special Contributing Editor at Large
The first thing that anyone needs to know about Diane Gee is that she is well nigh unclassifiable: part-time radio host, full-time iconoclast, encyclopedic in knowledge, with interests spanning many subjects, and with a long career as an independent radical blogger (The Wild Wild Left), she can be counted to always speak her mind. To the furtherance of reason and social justice. 

MAIN IMAGE: Iroquois councilwomen. The traditions endure, but who’s paying attention? The system’s media noise, its phony cultural memes, must be confronted and utterly destroyed for humanity to find its ancestral voice.