#ADWAW is a point of privilege. I feel its necessary to go ahead and plop that out right up front.
While its intentions are good and wholesome and very kumbaya, it is a point of privilege nonetheless. The woman. The woman who already works more only to be paid less, who uses sick days and vacation days to care of all but themselves. The woman who works … with NO paid time off. The woman who cannot afford to take a day off but is now forced to do so because schools are closed.
I salute each woman who has the mind to participate in #ADWAW. But I remain puzzled about its benefits; its beneficiaries. What good does our absence do when, tomorrow, we will have to work even harder to make up for today?
Absence, like quitting, is easy. The real work of the movement is in presence. The real work is in inviting women into your space who do not look like you, who do not worship like you, who do not live like you do and certainly not where you do. It is our presence that builds, that grows, that lifts. We are beyond the point of ABSENCE.
Resistance cannot only be about what we’re “not gonna do”. Resistance is and always has been about breaking barriers. INSISTING that your child’s school celebrates women’s history; INSISTING that Black history is everyone’s history; INSISTING that a girl’s/woman’s body is her own to control; INSISTING absolutely and on every available platform that Black Lives Matter; INSISTING that your coworker not be unfairly treated simply because her skin has been forever kissed by the sun.
Now is the time to be PRESENT
Now is the time to STAND
Now is the time to SPEAK
Now is the time to FIGHT
Now is the time to ACT
It is wonderful to have a national platform to showcase “solidarity” but the truth, for many/most of you is that the real platform – the place where the real work needs to be done, is WITHIN.
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