“The way things are”: smash patriarchy, smash kyriarchy, smash EVERYTHING

One year ago, I started blogging to celebrate International Women’s Day by pointing out that we’re miles off of declaring a victory for feminism and we should fight the status quo.

And we still are. I wish I could say that in this year a switch was magically flicked and everything got better for women all over the world. But of course it didn’t.

Perhaps it got worse. Or perhaps my eyes opened wider, drinking in seemingly every hideous facet of the mesh of lies we inhabit. The way things are, the excuse they trot out every single time, that this is somehow normal: it’s all a big myth. Nothing is all right, and it doesn’t have to be this way.

On International Women’s Day, we must remember that we are all connected. To some extent or another, we are all crushed beneath a complex set of power structures. We vary immensely in how much weight is upon us. To some, the burden is reasonably light; for others, intolerably heavy, an existence perpetually on the verge of buckling completely.

Too many people consider shedding their own load and tossing it down onto those below. This is not the solution at all, for we can never truly be free of the power structure. Our own load just feels lighter. The answer is, of course, to destroy the whole thing.

We must transcend borders, transcend class, transcend race and biological essentialism, sickness or health, age and size and sexual orientation. Each of these struggles is intimately connected, and we must fight on all fronts. We must maintain consciousness that our loads may be lighter than others, and act as allies to one another.

To make a ripple, we must rise together, and the ruinous way things are will be no more.