A Story About A Woman on International Women's Day

There’s been a lot in the news about gender inequality, general horrible occurrences involving women, and a steady undercurrent of misogyny in all corners of the internet. This coupled with my own realizations about internalized prejudice about womanhood finally came to a head when I was asked if I wanted to see Captain Marvel and my visceral reaction was no way. I chalked up my immediate knee-jerk decision to not knowing anything about the superhero themselves and being uninterested in learning. However, upon further examination of these troubling thoughts, I realized it was much more than not knowing who Captain Marvel was, but coming to the conclusion my indifference stemmed more from this character being a woman.

I know. I was upset with me too, and I’ve been spending these last few days trying to understand how I could have succumbed to the anti-women narrative surrounding this movie without reading or seeing a single piece about it. As I mentioned previously, I was coming to terms with my own feelings of inadequacy. This stemmed from an acknowledgement about a personality trait I’ve harbored most of my life as a result of, what I think, being a woman in this patriarchal society. I’m not saying my experience is reflective of every woman, because obviously we all have our own journeys that mold us into who we are, but I wanted to share mine.

My scary spiral started when it came to my attention I haven’t gotten a raise in a few years and I started researching my current role, finding I wasn’t being paid even close to market. In charge my friends- self-doubt, pity, and anger at myself- along with my homeslice, relentlessly-berating-myself wondering how I could’ve let this happen.

Generally, I’ve been described as “chill,“ which never bothered me before, but then started to associate that term with docile, weak, feeble, unworthy. My once coveted calm and collected demeanor became something I started to hate about myself and was upset I let that part of me leak into my work life. I don’t mind being described as even-tempered, but when it comes to fighting for myself and my worth, there was a piece of me that always told myself I knew how to do that. There was a piece of me that knew if I were taken advantage of I would instinctively know what to do and handle the situation accordingly. It never occured to me that being “chill” meant I was forgiving transgressions and not understanding my worth.

I started taking necessary steps to rectify the situation, but the damage was done. I blamed myself for not speaking up sooner and started re-examining the how I interacted on a daily basis. I read a number of articles about women in tech and women in the workforce and discovered I wasn’t the only one who felt undervalued. In so many aspects of our lives, women are told to stay in their place and not be too boisterous, and though this sentiment is certainly shifting, it’s still going to take some time to permeate and become the new normal.

I got angry at myself for not speaking up, then came internalizing that anger and becoming aggressively critical and embarrassingly jealous of the women around me who haven’t fallen into docility. It wasn’t fair and it was absolutely a mechanism to make myself feel better. All of this to get back to Captain Marvel- arguably the most powerful character in the entire Marvel universe. Her story should have given me excitement. The thought of her being this indelible force that cannot be contained is a powerful testament to womanhood, but being lost in my own dumb issues blinded me to this.

Luckily, I watched it anyway, because there was a part of me that knew I had to, and I’m so glad I did. I won’t include any spoilers here, but the friendships between the women in the movie, the message of being comfortable with who you are, questioning the establishment, and not letting anyone tell you who you are has resonated so deeply in me. I left that movie feeling so empowered and so grateful to have my perspective and so much more willing to forgive myself. Definitely, still going through the motions, but making an effort to read, watch, and listen to even more women. I am so much more powerful than I give myself credit for. We all are.

I’m forgiving myself and being more gentle. Acknowledging change is hard, but definitely worth it. I look forward to working through this and becoming a better woman and human.

It’s mf International Women’s Day and I embrace all of my ladies from all walks of life just fighting through the bullshit, powering through the patriarchy, douching out misogyny, and stomping on antediluvian notions of femininity.

Get ready world. This bitch bites.
Omg, that was so cheesy. Okay I’m done.

People vs. Animals

The president hasn’t demonstrated any desire in wanting to unite the country recently or any modicum of diplomacy, so when he shut down the government for over a month in response to not getting funding for his stupid wall, I must say, I wasn’t surprised. Was anyone?!

What I was surprised about was how little I knew about the effects of a government shutdown and the number of people it impacted. I was surprised by how many people were employed by the US GOV’T living paycheck to paycheck - I’ve certainly been there - and I was surprised by the unapologetic callousness of the Right. I know the latter shouldn’t have come as a surprise considering their profound disregard for humanity, but seeing how politicians really didn’t do anything to stop the shutdown, how disinterested they were in coming to an agreement, how persistently stubborn they were at the expense of people’s lives- it was alarming to witness. I just don’t understand how anyone can continue to support the Republican party as it is now. It’s representing less and less of the American people and they don’t seem to give one f-ck that their base is dwindling. Ah, their base is a whole other ball game. The people who blindly concede to leadership that has no plans to include solutions to their actual problems with any sort of viable policy. Instead, they use fear and white supremacy disguised as patriotism to brainwash people into believing the “preservation of whiteness” is going to solve all of their problems. News flash: IT’S NOT.

The sentiment that these rich, greedy politicians are going to somehow “save us” from economic plight is getting so old, and so exhausting to debunk. Minds that far gone can’t be changed. I still day dream of sending all of the bigots to an island where there’s nothing “foreign,” so there’s just dirt and grass, maybe some trees, and absolutely no amenities that people of color have had a hand in, so they can really “stay true” to their ways and live lives devoid of happiness , wonder, and spices.

Speaking of crazy ideas, I did want to touch on another sentiment I’ve seen being circulated around the internet and that’s- get this- the comparison of human life to animals.

Let me start this off by saying I love animals, though, I’m not a vegan, and I wholeheartedly believe in human rights and animal rights respectively. HOWEVER the strange, and honestly, downright maddening outrage for people who abuse animals versus the justification given to police who kill unarmed people has become beyond bothersome.

I will never forget that moment a few years ago when Cecil the lion was shot and Jimmy Kimmel cried on air. I think this is when I started thinking about the way WP react to animal cruelty vs. human cruelty. The amount of outrage I saw about the lion being shot wasn’t remotely comparable to the emotions from the white community to any of the police brutality at the time. I know there were white people who were and always have been outraged by police shootings but this isn’t about them. This is about a wave of people coming to the defense of this beautiful animal, with genuine sadness. An amazing consensus indeed. We were all stunned and disgusted by these imbeciles. But some of these same people virtually ignored this homicidal epidemic.

My question is, where was that unifying disgust and outrage when it came to police brutality? Instead what I see is the harsh judgment of lives and situations, not a universal upset about the disproportionate number of unarmed people of color being assaulted and killed. People feel it necessary to scrutinize the lives of innocent individuals dying at the hands of police instead of joining the outcry to surface these obviously racist confrontations. It’s not just police brutality that’s subjected to these comparisons, but the treatment of inmates as well. People who are taken into the system somehow lose their humanity in the minds of these disturbing people who are so self-righteous, they believe the life of someone who stole a box of cheerios and winds up in sing sing is no longer worth protecting. No, it was the victim of brutality or prisoner’s fault for “not adhering to simple laws” so they deserve death/mistreatment - I have literally seen someone comment this in response to the prisoners who were protesting not being given appropriate heat. The same commenter later said, animals were innocent so deserve to be treated better than “those criminals.”

And let me also clarify that it is mostly black lives that are under attack in these detrimental, misguided arguments. The fact that animals are brought up at all is a fundamental issue with this country and the thought process about police brutality/the prison system. Animals have rights, yes, and they should, but these rights should not be involved in conversations about the mistreatment of HUMANS. I will never stop saying how slavery’s effects persist today and they are alive and rampant in the prison/judicial system. No. In the fabric of our society, ever so carefully and completely woven in.

I do want to point out the Tiffany Haddish video about her wearing fur until police brutality stops to raise awareness and further show how f-cked up American society is, proving her point through the insane comments to the video. In this respect, it was necessary to raise awareness, and I personally though it was a powerful declaration. It certainly pissed a lot of people off, and I totally understand why, but I hope those people also reexamine their anger and empathize with what she’s ultimately saying. Seriously, go read these comments. So insane.

All in all, animals absolutely deserve to be protected, but SO DO HUMANS- especially unarmed, innocent ones and it’s not helpful or productive to continue bringing up animal rights when it comes to fucking humanity.

Fight me.