We Are Women Recap

By: Liberate Zealot

So after some issues (damn metro!) the roommate and I made it to the We Are Woman Rally right around noon.

Check out our Facebook Album for more imagines!

We missed several speakers and one performer. Mara Keisling, who spoke at the Unite Against the War on Women Rally, was back, but sadly I didn't see her speech.  However, all the speeches are up on-line if you care to check them out yourself.  And the bands, sounds system, and over all organization of the Rally was the best I've seen yet.

My favorite speakers were Rev. Charles McKenzie of the Rainbow Push Coalition in Florida and Soraya Chemaly of the Huffington Post, fem2pt0, Btchflcks, and more.  They were both eloquent and impassioned speakers who, in my opinion, out shone the other speakers, in their ability and skill and the resonance of what they were saying.  Both spoke about current political and social issues, discussed individual acts, and connected them to the larger mentality and methods of the Kyriarchy.  Soraya Chemaly spoke about internalized misogyny and how the social and political issues are related to that and society's failure to see women as fully human.  This tied very nicely into discussion about the ERA which was the focus of most of the speakers. (along with plenty of disparaging comments about Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan).

As a reminder the ERA (Equal Rights Amendment) which would result in Constitutional recognition of women's humanity and personhood, has never passed.

However, I have to admit to a sense of disappointment with the We Are Woman Rally. Maybe it was the heat, or the length of the rally (10:30-4:00), but it just wasn't as good as other ones.  The speakers became repetitive after a while, and while they were all knowledgeable and "accredited feminists" many of them just weren't stirring speakers.  Most disappointing was the diversity of the speakers.  The vast majority were late middle aged white women. Few of them self disclosed as queer or from the "lower" class.  It was too homogeneous to feel representative of all US women.  And if I noticed this I can only imagine how alienating it might have felt to women of color, or those who've grown up without class privilege.

I can't help but compare it to last week's #sheparty which was led by Flyover Feminism and about the diversity within the feminist movement. To go from a discussion about needing better representation and the feminists in power, the privileged feminists, needing to be the ones to open their conferences, to reach out and gain the trust of our less privileged sisters, to a rally full of "official" feminists, dominated by white women.  Well, it was upsetting, and it made me angry.  We're supposed to be getting better in truth, not just paying lip service to diversity and intersectionality.

Freedom is an Absolute, and We Absolutely Aren't Free

By: Liberate Zealot

Today, July 4th, is the day my country, the US, celebrates its existence, it's independence.  July 4th is Independence Day, but for all, as my name implies, I love freedom and independence, I cannot celebrate this day. 

This country, supposedly founded on freedom, has never been free for the majority of people.  The founders didn't include women, the poor, the differently abled, queer, or people of color as deserving freedom.  And to this day these groups of people (some of them my groups) are not free.  Now one could say that things have gotten better or that since there are no slaves and "everyone can vote".  But such people must be ignorant of the voter suppression initiatives or the rules about convicts and ex-cons, which relate to thousands upon thousands of people (primarily people of color) being unable to vote.  And they must be willfully unaware of all queer people who often don't have to right to civilly marry who they love, where they can't adopt, where they aren't protected from discrimination in schools or jobs.  Likewise they must not see the increase in the laws that take away women's body autonomy.  Because these things are my reality, and the reality of millions of Americans, and we are not free.

To say that we are more free than we were 236 years ago is laughable. One cannot be more free, or less free.  Either I am free, or I am not.  Either we are free, or we are not.  Freedom is an absolute.  And the majority of people in the U.S. are absolutely not free. 

So freedom, real and pervasive freedom does not exist in this country.  And the United States was not founded on freedom.  It was founded on genocide.  Biological warfare (small pox blankets), stealing land, and forced "relocation" make this land "available" for European settlers. And these same settlers, and thus the country, flourished off the kidnapping of people.  The United States grew in power because of slavery, off the ownership and dehumanizing off millions of people.  After the end of legal slavery the US continued to profit off of the underpaid work of people of color, of immigrants, who they continued to treat as less than human.

This oppression is what out country was founded on.  This oppression is what the country grew on.  And it continues to this day.
Often I am glad to live in this country.  Sometimes I am even proud, though generally I am angry, ashamed, disgusted, scared, and betrayed.

I don't expect perfection, but I expect improvement.  And I expect awareness of the failings of the past, and the work that still needs doing.  And until I see this recognition on the part of the US, and it truly is an Independence Day for all of the people of the US, I cannot join in on the celebrations of the Fourth.

International Women's Day

Happy International Women's Day! 

International Women's Day was first observed in 1911 as International Working Women's Day.  In 1977 the United Nations declared March 8th as UN Day for Women's Rights and International Peace.  Today is the day for celebrating women, for looking at all we have achieved, and for all that must be achieved for gender equality to be a reality.

Search for International Women's Day events near you!