We're So Tired: Why International Women's Day Matters

Here’s a strange challenge: write about women for International Women’s Day, to a predominantly male-skewed audience, and don’t make it so much about women that it’s unrelatable. It’s sort of ridiculous and it’s also completely indicative of the modern (whatever word you’d choose to describe the here and now and ever present everything we are embroiled in on the daily) status women inhabit in this scope of literally just being. Be this way, don’t be too much this other way, assert yourself, don’t over think, you’re over thinking, calm down, get angry, don’t think like other women, think like other women—what are we even hearing anymore? Yes, we have one day to think about all the plights and perils of women and yes, that is dumb. But not having that day also means the people who don’t consider this type of shit every other day of the year might get it in their heads that “We did it!”

Welcome to the living conundrum of your active womanhood.

Being forced to define, redefine, and then explain your definitions so consistently gives you all the real feelings of an acute identity crisis. It sucks, but holler if you hear me. This is the almost never-ending arbitrary process of existing in a world where, if you are not busy explaining yourself to someone, then someone is usually explaining something back to you. And I’ll save us all some trouble and cut to the chase, mainly who I mean as far as the people explaining things to you are men. If we aren’t being infantilized by being told our own decisions are invalid then we are being told we aren’t even reliable witnesses to our own lives.

Rape denial. Complaints about over-reacting to harassment. Being told to fucking smile on the street. These are all very prominently used tools in provoking our own deception to ourselves and our legitimate reactions. That’s the thing about reaction, it’s a spectrum. There are different ends and while something may seem completely overblown to one person, it might be the most natural, sensible reaction to another. It is the continual patrolling of these reactions by an oppressive force that deems them either too much or too little but in any case deems them somehow “wrong.”

Unless you are a complete shithead, there is spectrum of politeness you have to navigate depending on what any given situation calls for. You are willing to do this. You aren’t a total asshole. So why then is it acceptable to be a total asshole when you dip your tender toe into how instantaneously murky the waters seem get when you add the word “feminism,” or better yet “justifying your shitty reaction when being called out by a woman?”

So many men do one of two things. They instantly clam up out of some dumb guilt when a woman tells them they’ve done something to offend her or are questioned about a thing they’ve said/done. They get insolent and pouty and the woman in question feels the need to either undercut her own reaction with an apology or some olive branch of a joke to cut the tension. Alternately, they get defensive and reactionary in a way they would not under “normal” circumstances (stupid, dumb, so dumb, to have to use the word “normal” there) and again, the situation is turned back on the woman who chose to react in the first place. Both of these reactions inherently question the validity of what was said and prove to reinforce this notion that whatever was said just can’t be right and here are all the reasons why. Look dude, that’s shitty. Think of all the other times you didn’t really understand something but didn’t react like a total fucking toddler and tiara and were able to negotiate an understanding that left both parties feeling good and probably you feeling very proud of your own powers of communication.

But I digress, I didn’t get into this to try and explain back to men what it feels like to always be explained to. What I am actually saying is it is important to reserve a day for women. Let’s always be talking about this. It serves to create some god damn breathing room and a space where we are encouraged to finally be witness to our own lives. And all the shitty things happening in the lives of other women around the world. To be present and accountable and unified in a voice that can’t be ignored because… get out of our faces! Do you see what day it is? Have you ever been up in the VIP before? Why not just think about it like that. We want to inhabit this space all the time, you do already so you know how good it feels. There’s room in there for all of us, it’s a roomy fucking space, so take your funky waxed-cotton baggage off the seat next to you and your head out of your ass that is occupying more than it’s fair share and just please, shut up for a minute. Why does that freak you out so much?

Do us a favour—better yet, how about a surprise!—and don’t balk at this notion. It is not some blank cheque to go around cashing by behaving like Cher in her incredible video for ‘Hell On Wheels’, just leaning into every dude on the street to check their fucking privilege (though you should). What it is is a platform to unhindered, bear witness to our own lives and recognize with resolute power, our hands on the wheel, clutching the reins, whatever “driver’s seat” analogy resonates best with you, that we don’t want to explain ourselves to you and would like to better focus our energies on processing and taking stock of the progress we’ve made this year and every other year before this and exhaustedly continue to do so for all the years to come forever amen. We’re so tired. Follow Katie on Twitter: @wtevs

Previously:

International Women's Piñata