Thread by @monaeltahawy

I wrote this last year to mark this time of year which is very difficult for me. I hope it brings solace to you if you need some right now
feministgiant.com/p/essay-fallin…

I think twice before I share moments of vulnerability on social media. When you’re a feminist accustomed to having the dogs of patriarchy let loose on you, you become more comfortable with vowing to bring pain to your enemies than to admitting to your own.

But I have learned to do both: be on the lookout for the dogs of patriarchy, ready to kick their teeth in, and also keep my pain soft. Unfailingly, and surprisingly when I do share my pain, it is held with such care and love by my community of total strangers and comrades online

When I do share my pain, it is held with such care and love by my community of total strangers and comrades online that I have to remind myself that softness drives the revolution as much as rage. feministgiant.com/p/essay-fallin…

I’m learning to sit with the fear and chaos, submit to the change from which there is no going back, prepare to emerge, and applying them to a global upheaval that I have very little control over but after which there will be “no going back to normal.” There is no going back.

We must emerge, not regress.

I refuse to emerge as if unscathed.

I insist that we all be scathed, that we refuse to be the people we were at the start of the pandemic.