#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.
As you watch the glory and power of the feminist revolution against theocrats in Iran, ask yourself where the fuck is your feminist revolution against theocrats in the U.S. feministgiant.com/p/essay-dear-w…
FEMINIST GIANT Global Roundup curated by Samiha Hossain:
-Women & Girls in Mali
-LGBTQ+ Nigerians Demand Justice
-Remembering Tina Fontaine
-Queer Black South African Art
-Britain Muslim Women Self-Defense feministgiant.com/p/global-round…
FEMINIST GIANT contributor Samiha Hossain curates twice weekly roundups of feminist resistance to global patriarchal fuckery.
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Friday’s Global Roundup curated by Samiha Hossain:
-Bulgaria LGBTQ+ Rights
-Sudanese Women Activists
-Muslim Women in Britain
-Philly Queer Birding Group
-China Women’s Secret Language feministgiant.com/p/global-round…
“…they were not playing at all, they knew exactly what they were doing…They knew the weak points of the boat, and they knew how to sink it,”
Orcas smashed a $128k yacht into pieces in the Mediterranean in a 2hr attack h/t @Cosmic_Surfer @rerutled thedailybeast.com/killer-whales-…
My love letter to Gladis Blanca, the killer whale that scientists believe began the yacht ramming along with her mother, two sisters and two daughters. It has spread since to other Orcas
"Some scientists who have studied the yacht-strike pattern believe that it is a form of play: the whales are all juveniles from the same pod, and may simply enjoy slamming sailboat rudders to watch the boats spin around."
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-…
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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: