#ThisIs54: It's not my birthday. It's my latest addition to Woman in Her 50s album. For too long, I'd been told I “didn’t look” whatever age that I was. It was said to me as if it were a compliment. It was not. It was the loathing of aging that we are socialized into. 📷@rerutled
#ThisIs54: Not for all the money in the world would I go back to being younger. My 20s and at least half of my 30s were miserable because I felt I had no power. And now here I am, with more power,being told I“didn’t look”this age I feel I’ve finally earned feministgiant.com/p/essay-my-des…
I post #ThisIs54 to say “Here is a middle aged woman. Look,” at a time when it seems that every time I look away, my body has changed.
Much of that celebration is expressed via my hair.
When lockdown began, it was long and bright red. I shaved it all off because I could not bear to emerge from lockdown as if I’d been on vacation. It’s a global pandemic. 📷 @rerutled#ThisIs54
#ThisIs54: I am also emerging from #Perimenopause. There is “no going back to normal.” 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. My hair celebrates that. 📷@rerutled
We cannot reverse. We will emerge, our hearts unhealed and scarred but awesome.
#perimenopause sometimes feels like trying to drive a car with the handbrake on.
Sometimes, when the light is just right, you can see the lines in my forehead, around my eyes and mouth. Each is a story in my life. We are lucky to collect those stories. #ThisIs54 📷 @rerutled
Once while spending time with one of my nieces, she took my hand in hers and felt the veins and bumps and said to me “Tante Mona, you’re old.”
And I replied “Yes, I am, habibti.”
Please don’t reply with “But you’re not old, Mona! You don’t look 54! You’re young in spirit etc”
We age. If we are lucky, we age.
I have earned each and every year that went into making those old Tante Mona hands.
Alice Munro chose her husband over the daughter he sexually abused.
The reason that you're seeing any defense or attempt to "understand" or deny that horror is because it's a reminder of how easily women become footsoldiers of the patriarchy.
Fame and wealth notwithstanding.
Alice Munro had both and still sold her daughter out in favour of the patriarchy.
And she reminds too many other women of how easily they footsoldier for the patriarchy too.
I have perhaps just one short story by Munro.
Her "legacy" means nothing to me.
And it should mean nothing to anyone now learning of her complicity in the sexual abuse of her daughter.
Yes, we're all "complicated" people but there's nothing complicated about enabling abuse. It's wrong.
In 1977, two years before the Soviet invasion, revolutionary women’s rights activist Meena founded RAWA (Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan) to fight patriarchy at every level in her country. feministgiant.com/p/fist-in-the-…
Shaima, an early member of RAWA, has explained that women in Afghanistan had to be mushti dar dahan, a term in Dari that means "a fist in the mouth," towards the men in their families, and also to society and government–i.e. State, Street, and Home. feministgiant.com/p/fist-in-the-…
All my essays are free to read and share.
Subscribe and get them delivered to your inbox. It's free--no paywall or ads.
White & Christian are considered norm and not dangerous in the U.S. 👇🏽
"GOP Sen Anthony Kern & his prayer team of anti-abortion extremists praying in tongues (that’s not an audio issue) that an 1864 law banning nearly all abortion becomes law again."
It's easy to see the fascists and theocrats when they don't look like you. When they're white and Christian, their danger has not registered enough:
So successful has white supremacist patriarchy been at convincing white women that they’re lucky to live in the U.S. and not Saudi Arabia:Iran, that so many white women didn’t pay enough attention to theocracy that white supremacy was building at home theguardian.com/us-news/2024/m…
It was being built by white men who look like their fathers, brothers, husbands, and sons, not the scary brown men with beards, right?
The same arrogance and naiveté that made so many white Americans think Trump would never become president is same arrogance & naiveté that made so many think "it would never happen here” whether it was destruction of abortion rights:anti-divorce laws feministgiant.com/p/essay-the-ha…
Two months into its genocide in Gaza, the more Israel displays its savagery against Palestinians, the more obvious its moral and philosophical defeat.
Militarily, Israel is armed to the teeth and propped up by the U.S., the world’s most powerful country.
And Israel is losing
The unconscionable vote against ceasefire at the UN yesterday by U.S. & abstention by the UK are reminders that while some western political powers might still be propping up Israel’s crimes,around the world more & more people vehemently oppose the genocide.
Israel is losing
Israel’s crimes are repeatedly being equated w/some of worst genocidal crimes: from ethnic cleansing and genocide in Srebrenica to the cultural genocide of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge.
It has come at a staggeringly high Palestinian death toll—at least 20,000.