y’all. i feel like i have spent almost every moment of the entire past 46 days resisting. i’ve marched. i’ve flown my flag. i’ve called my Senators and signed all the petitions. i’ve read and watched every bit of MSM and everyother news i can find. i’ve tried to be judicious in social media posting, only sharing the well researched and truly outrageous, while also calling out even the liberal posts that stretch the truth about what is going on in our government. it is honestly fucking exhausting. and, beyond some brief/tangential involvement in bolstering the Jon Osoff campaign, i admit am a complete slacktivist. this shit is utterly confusing, demoralizing and hard.
so that brings me to today. A Day Without A Woman. the next big opportunity to protest and show the current administration that women are a force to be reckoned with. don’t pass us over. don’t tell us what to do with our own bodies. don’t marginalize us by speaking over us. don’t devalue us by paying us less for the out-of-home work we do or assuming the work we do raising the nation’s children and providing a stable, positive home life is easy.
i would love to say that i am making a stand today, declining all work calls in favor of marching and avoiding laundry and dinner duties to drive home the point. on a couple perfectly logical and logistical levels, some of this is just not feasible. and i am a married, salaried, white lady.
not that it changed my plan too much, but Spy is out of town and i have a 6-year old at home with a 102° fever. so, you know. i’m pretty much not gonna just turn my back on the unpaid work involved in all that. how does a mom with 4 kids just not do the work of being a mother, even if she is lucky enough to have a partner to help out, even just for today?
i also am not boycotting paid work today. i am lucky to have a super-flexy salaried job at a small company. i am lucky enough to be able to take a vacation day. however, i happen to have a few calls today that could directly impact whether that small company gets additional business . . . which could directly impact whether i continue to have said super-flexy salaried job, which is the reason we do get to have nice things. . . . i cannot even imagine being a woman waiting tables for $2.13/hour + tips or a woman working retail for Georgia’s $5.15/hour minimum wage (!!), and telling my boss i won’t be in today because i have a point to prove. y’all, nobody should have to lose a day’s pay to exercise their Constitutional rights.
so on one hand, because (i get it) businesses can’t afford to pay people for work they don’t do, women like me — who, most days, can afford to both financially and culturally — protest and march to support the betterment of those women who can’t just walk out. we stick together and lift each other up, right? we, who can, do in order that the others may benefit.
on the other hand, that is so amazingly emblematic of the entire-fucking-issue, right? all of our voices should be allowed to be heard equally and show the impact of what we all contribute — without financial or social repercussions, especially for the most economically vulnerable of us all. especially for those of us who are not married, salaried, white ladies, who to a large degree, already receive the financial and cultural benefits of this privileged status whether we protest or not.
don’t get me wrong. i am so thankful for and proud of everyone who took a stand today. i’m just mad that being able to do so is such a luxury. and that any of this is even necessary in the first place. but until it’s not, i will persist, nevertheless, to resist — however i am able.