#thepersistence
I am mad today. And I’ve been vague-stagramming on my IG stories.
Because shitty men continue to be shitty.
Case in point:
Last week the Canadian magazine Maclean’s, published this front page cover.
AKA Canada’s mediocre white frontmen.
I mean, have you ever seen a more tone deaf and fucking WHITE AF cover? I think The Beaverton put it succinctly in their satirical post about it…
“ ...we are hoping that by appropriating a term currently used to describe disenfranchised communities trying to fight for their survival and instead applying that term to a bunch of powerful politicians who are doing their best to make the world burn, we can once again really show people how out of touch Maclean’s truly is.”
The internet dragged Maclean’s quite mercilessly over it, AS IT SHOULD HAVE, and you can read some of the best of the tweets and one-liners in this article from Vice. One particular response and reimagined cover photo from Janet Eremenko, the NDP candidate for Calgary-Elbow, was particularly inspired and oh, so, true.
True because while everyone was recoiling from calling a bunch of rich, powerful, white dudes The Resistance, this may in fact be the most honest thing said about them. Because they ARE resisting. Resisting the waves upon waves of PERSISTENCE (particularly that of women) that keeps coming and coming and coming. Relentless, unwavering, unstoppable, PERSISTENT. Nevertheless and always.
And I am not sorry to say this, (and you knew it was coming)…
{this kind of} RESISTANCE IS FUTILE.
I was so inspired that I made this. Me. The not-very-crafty one. (Truth - I made a ton of mistakes, had to redo the P and correct a typo, yes, A TYPO. But yeah, I MADE THIS!)
I wore my newly embellished sweater today and felt those waves of persistence building in me. And then I checked the internet and stumbled across this article in the Atlantic titled The Nancy Pelosi Problem and felt those waves getting even bigger and stronger. You’ll have to read the whole thing, but here’s just a taste of what the “problem” is:
“The more successful Pelosi is—the more she outmaneuvers and dominates her male adversaries—the more threatening she becomes. And the easier it becomes to tar the male Democratic candidates who would serve under her as emasculated yes-men. Which makes it harder for Democrats to retake the House.”
It is not that Nancy Pelosi is not qualified to do her job, if anything, she’s a bloody genius as a House Leader and Speaker. The “problem” is that she is a woman in control. A woman in control of men. A WOMAN WHO PERSISTS, while all around her, people keep trying to make her feel and seem less than she is. And she refuses to let them. Look, I don’t know everything about Pelosi and her politics and there may be many reasons to not like her, but her being a woman who has climbed to the top and realized her ambitions and worked her ass off, is not one of them.
Ladies, (yes, I am talking to only the women now, men, go scroll through The Chive or something) It’s not just the Nancy Pelosis and the Hilary Clintons and the Elizabeth Warrens and the Rachel Notleys of this world who have to fight this “resistance” of men who are threatened by the very same attributes they value the highest in themselves. It is you and me and all of us. Fighting the messages that we are “less than”, or “not enough”, and all the other garbage that we are fed a steady diet of from birth until death because of our gender. (And FYI, this goes double for anyone who identifies outside the binary of male/female, POC and LGBTQ2S folx).
I’m so done with this shit. I am done saying what I have to say while coddling the feelings of the men who may not like to hear the truth so plainly put. I’m tired of people making funny “feminist” jokes around me, because they know I’m the LOL Stay at Home Feminist. I’m tired of doing the all too familiar workaround of convincing men of a course of action by manipulating the conversation to make it look like it was their idea all along. And I am so very tired of stunting my emotional growth to accommodate anyone else’s schedule.
Oh, and you know what else I am tired of? Shitty men, being total harassing douchebags to women and thinking that in this day and age they are gonna get away with it. #TIMESUPMOTHERFUCKERS
THESE WAVES OF PERSISTENCE ARE GONNA CRASH HARD AND THEY WILL WASH THIS BEACH CLEAN! (I don’t know, it’s a metaphor, just go with it.)
Like I said.
I am mad.
I think this is my baseline from now on.
Deal with it.
Join #thepersistence.
We have cool sweaters.
N~
~
I’m taking part in National Blog Posting Month, which means I’m posting on this blog {almost} every day throughout November. You can follow along and see who else is posting this month by following these hashtags on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter: #NetPositiveBlog and #NaBloPoMo.