I'd Like to Speeak to the Manager of Patriarchy...

A (white, female) friend of mine recently posted something on social media about how it's strange there is such a backlash against white women "calling the manager" on BIPOC [Black & Indigenous People of Color] when most women are still unable to get fair/equal pay, benefit, medical treatment, etc...
Which naturally got me thinking about overlapping systems of oppression and the role white women play in the patriarchy. 
But before we get started you need to get on board with a basic concept that might sound radical at first; people really love to hate women.  Love it.  It's basically a national pass time.
Think about the vitriol female politicians face.  Think about popular culture, the popularity of hate-watching real housewives shows (there is no male equivalent...).  I think, sometimes, about the unpopularity Anna Gunn faced while playing Walter White's wife Skyler on Breaking Bad.  People hated her for playing a wife who was mad at her husband for making meth and ruining their lives....crazy no?  Don't believe me?  Check this out.  Women are easy to hate because they often form stand-ins for the nagging, cranky, buzz-kill, frigid, rule-enforcing, angry women we hate in our own lives.  Which is a huge part of my whole theory regarding the electability of women and why women seem so cranky, angry, frigid... but that's an entirely different conversation.

For now, take me at my word that culturally, Americans and lost of people generally find it easier to hate women (Peg Bundy, Lorena Bobbitt, Carol Baskins, Skyler White, Hilary Clinton, Ann Coulter, Kim Kardashian) than men.  Seriously, how was Al Bundy *more* likeable??

Now consider the roles of race and gender in patriarchy and white supremacy.  Sex and gender have been used throughout history to create and maintain racial divides, from the practice of raping male slaves to "break them" ("buck breaking") during slave trade, to using white female sexual virtue as an excuse to lynch black men in the Jim Crow era, the the mythology of black hyper sexuality that persists largely today.  The intersections of male power over women, sexual power, physical power, political and financial power, and power and privilege white people enjoy of over people of color.  This means that where we all stand, in terms of privilege is complicated by the many dimensions of our selves and the way others perceive us.

So taking these ideas all together why is society so mad at white women, why are white women the current embodiment of white privilege and racial oppression. Yes, of course white women enjoy white privilege, and the women calling the cops on innocent black people are heinous and weaponizing their whiteness and, honestly, female victim hood to police the spaces black people occupy.   But if we are being honest with ourselves, white women are rarely the architects of the systemic racial oppression that makes it possible for those "Karen" phone calls to have any effect.  Rich, white, cisgendered and able-bodied  men, historically are the architects of the capitalist system of white supremacist patriarchy that pits marginalized people against each other.  And that feels like a part of what's happening here.  By targeting white women as the personification of the evil of systemic racism, we are missing the point, and aiming at a lesser target.  It's shooting at the messenger without dismantling the message. 
If we really want change, we need to not only stop these women from weaponizing systemic racism but also dismantle the white supremacist patriarchy that gives these woman the power to keep BIPOC out of traditionally white spaces.

All My Friends Are Metalheads

A friend of mine got married a few weeks ago.
Not a big deal, I know, but it feels like a big deal, because we were kids together.
Not 'kids' like we were young and grew up together.  I mean, we were young when we met, but 18 or 19.  Not that young.  We were kids together in the sense that we were emotionally stunted outcasts rejecting the normal trappings of growing up together.  We were weirdos together. 
And now so many of us are getting little bits and pieces of normal, and it warms my heart.  We are having children, and successful careers, emotional growth and meaningful relationships.  We are still ourselves, but there is something so optimistic and hopefully about seeing the people who were so weird with you, who saw you when you were your most outlandish and nonconforming, and went along with you for the ride, finally find their acceptable bits of whatever version of happiness and dream life suits them.

It makes it all seem possible, without immense compromise.  Like I can do it, too, with just a bit of maturity and patience.

The people about ten years younger than me are going through this strange phase, where everyone is getting married and having babies as they begin to exit their late twenties, and I really never experienced that.  I mean, there were a lot of weddings, I suppose in the years that bookended my thirtieth birthday, but nothing on the scale I am watching others experience.  I am sure part of it is grad school, but I also feel like the misfits I clung to and came up with needed a bit more time to settle down.  And now that they are doing it, it is coming in such interesting and exciting packages.

I'll be frank and say there are not many things that inspire optimism in my these days, especially in the realm of romance and love.  But this does.  This makes me feel like doodling hearts on note paper, makes me feel like there's still time for anyone willing to make an honest go of it.

Even me, maybe.