As previously stated on many, many an occasion, these are my beefs:
- colonisation
- misogyny
- sexual assault, particularly of children
- racism
I rant these topics regularly.
I follow these topics.
I respond to these topics.
I also live these topics.
I am also trying to resolve these topics on the daily.
They’re not a passing fad.
They’re not an ‘in thing’ for the moment.
They’ve been and will continue to be a lifetime of outworking, responding, resistance and resolving.
I have to.
I am brown.
I am a biological woman.
There aint no other choice.
My resistance of these topics has taken variations, particularly over the last couple of years. By responding verbally, I have been able to clarify and resolve them in part.
I have started to become more aware however, of a peculiar type of fuckery involved with misogyny, that has probably been there for way longer than I’ve been noticing it; but thusly noticed, I am beholden to respond.
With colonisation, theres a peeling back of the layers to find the crux of the issue. For Me, this has been a decade or so of said peelage and the crux usually turns out to be another layer to peel away.
At the core however, colonisation holds it strength in a persons/cultures mindset. Sure there are the systemic layers that we fight against; that we can work to change legislation on; that we can unpack and reframe. But at the end of the day, the war is left to play out, within our minds.
What do I mean?
Take for example, the changing of educational legislation. We can restore our native language; we can start our own schools; we can work to have bilingual units within the mainstream; we can argue to have our (accurate history) taught within the curriculum.
But can we abolish all Crown education?
No.
Not without starting a riot or 10.
And for Me, this is the crux.
They layer bullshit over bullshit; feed us crumbs and let us ‘have’ slight changes. But at the centre of all of this, we are fighting for a system that was thrust, quite violently, upon Us. It’s not something we asked for, or petitioned for, or voted for or discussed and agreed too.
So what are we really fighting for?
To be heard within a system that is inherently, not ours? Why? It’s not ours!
And the same layered bullshit is repeated with everything “Crown”. The justice system, the health system, the economic system … they were all thrust violently upon us.
Is the answer not in, extracting ourselves from all of it? Is that even practical? Or maybe the answer is finding a way to live within it without it muddying up our waters?
What is Not cool though, is those that believe we should ‘get over’ the past and ‘move on’. But that moving on isn’t ‘ours’; its what is ‘prescribed’ For Us.
Now if this looks familiar when placed over the misogyny concept, that’s because it is. It’s the same fuckery.
Over the centuries women have had male theories of what and who we are and should be, violently thrust upon us. As we have peeled back those layers to get to the truth and to undo the damage, we have been prescribed another male concept of how and who we should be.
Yes, you can vote. Yes, you can be gay. Yes, you can work outside the home. Yes, you can be a prostitute, legally. Yes, you can marry another woman. Yes, you can have mammograms and smears. Yes, you can have your babies in a hospital.
But why are we asking permission for something we can do anyway and asking to do something that was not changed at our behest and was rehashed, Not as our choice in the first place?
Over the centuries we have been ladened with roles and reversals. We’ve been told we have No rights / are property. We’ve been burnt, raped, beaten, stripped, re-assigned, removed, silenced and murdered. Why? Because misogyny says it can treat us like that? Similar to the slave owner mentality, it is believed that women are nothing more than chattels.
The fuckery however, lies in Us believing this bullshit. Being so worn down, that we believe their bullshit; re-live their bullshit; teach their bullshit … and take anything that looks slightly positive, as making ‘strides in the right direction’.
“But it’s changed – women are listened too now … they have options …”
Really?
Take this for example then:
Your average thriller movie scene. A woman. A prostitute. Being picked up by a customer who looks like he hasn’t showered in a decade or 2 … The scene focuses on what she has to offer: which is of course – tits and ass. It focuses on what she’s selling – sexuality. It focuses on what she was unable to do when she’s attacked because he believes he’s to good to pay for a whore. It focuses on the ‘whore-ness’ and what she did to bring this attack on: thats right – tits and ass and sexuality. Theres no winning here. She’s fucked if she does, and fucked if she doesn’t.
My point?
Our society Still feeds the ‘women are commodities’ theory and the ‘mother theresa versus slut’ theory. We sell it. We buy into it. We believe it. Men and women alike.
So while we have ‘advanced’ as such, we are still fighting the age old fight of being heard. But who silenced Us? Why did they silence Us? Why do they insist on telling Us what to do and what to be? Are they threatened? Who let them prescribe what we should be like? How we should respond? And how we should resolve it?
Don’t believe this mentality is still being perpetuated on the daily?
The other day I heard a parent say the following to their 3 year old daughter:
“Close your legs darling … we don’t want to see your underwear”
I cringed. I mean, I cringed hard!
Everything in Me screamed … “Why? Why the fuck should this little person close their legs? So an adult doesn’t see their underwear? Whats wrong with underwear? Why are you worried about underwear? Is there something underlying that your Not stating?”
And I can hear the rhetoric now!
And I had this conversation with my partner, just to gauge the ‘temperature’ of that rhetoric. Apparently … men are just trying to ‘protect our virtue’ … still. But who asked them to protect our virtue? What the fuck is virtue anyways? And who are you protecting our virtue from? Other women?
No. Your protecting your chattel from other men.
And this mentality has been deeply embedded within us. And comments like the above one, not only teach us that theres something wrong with us having our legs open; our underwear; having fun; being a child … but it teaches us to Care what other people think of Us. It teaches Us that we are property; that we need protection from an unseen threat; that we should be afraid; that we should be modest and ladylike …. that we should fit a certain ‘role’.
Do you feel Me?
We are being told, advertently and inadvertently, what and who we should be; how and where we should act. And within those parameters we are fighting; we are responding; we are trying to gain leverage; trying to ‘make it’; trying … trying all the time.
This is what I call the colonisation of the mind … with misogyny.
We’ve become what they wanted. We respond as they want. We defend as they want. We Teach as they want.
The fuckery again:
Now, We, not them, are teaching our children this assimilative bullshit.
Mamas are telling their daughters they need to be modest. Why? Because we bought into the ‘virtue’ bullshit? Yep, and we bought into the gender role bullshit and we’re teaching that shit. ‘We’ are teaching gender and roles.
Why?
Why can’t we find our own prescribed method of being? Why can’t we teach our babies to Be … Be themselves! Why are we teaching them to fit a gender role or a sexuality type or a job type or a face to wear in public? Whats wrong with teaching them to be strong, to explore, to resolve, to think, to laugh, to love, to care, to use their initiative, to develop … these aren’t gender specific or role specific qualities. They’re growing decent human being qualities.
[Side note: this is how our indigenous ancestors lived.]
I’m not sure that I’ve completely unfolded what this all means for Me or my mokos … but I’m sure as shit not having them believe they are only good for certain things based on some white archaic view of gender. And when I say mokos, I don’t just mean my biological female grand babies … I mean all of them. I don’t want our biological males believing they have the right to dominate based on their penis. I also don’t want them to believe that they have to be some stereotypical patriarchal, ‘thou shalt not cry … harden up or go home’ ‘male’ either. I just want them to Be, and to Not be assholes.
Be themselves … Be decent humans.
kpm ©
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