Now is not the time for silence.
The clock just struck 8:00 am in California. I’ve been up for two hours — making beds, making biscuits. But before I do anything else today, I’m stopping to make a statement: I will not participate in today's social media blackout.
If you haven’t seen it going around, here is the image that’s being dropped in Facebook messages around the world.
"It’s [you forgot your apostrophe] a movement to show what the world might be like without women."
The "movement" calls for women to leave social media for the day and replace their profile images with a black square to signify their absence. To show what the world would be like without women? On social media? Come on. They've been trying to erase us since we demanded to be seen. Something like 170 years now? A lifetime? Since the dawn of time?
No, I'm not leaving voluntarily.
While I generally find any attempt at a “movement” inspirational, this one falls flat for me. Not that I don’t think domestic abuse awareness doesn’t deserve its day in the spotlight, of course it does, just that first, this is not the time for it, and second, our absence will never teach anyone a lesson.
In fact, I’d argue, that this is the worst time for strategic silence.
In light of the events of the last week — Cosby, Kavanaugh, our terrible president, the world generally being garbage — now is the time for anything but silence. Rather, it’s more accurately the time we should be as loud as we can.
Silence is complacency, and I am not here for complacency.
To put it frankly, I’m here for setting fire to it. Where “it” is our lousy culture of patriarchal bullshit and “setting fire” is the metaphorical action of tearing it to the ground.
I’m here for defeating it and then handing it to my daughters to rule it how it’s meant to be ruled — with equal parts fairness and fury.
I am tired of being afraid to walk alone. I am tired of watching men call the women that they abused liars. I am tired of watching 40% of the nation excuse the petulant, perverse behavior of a man who is neither qualified nor fit to be president. I am tired of living in a culture where women matter so little.
I am sick and tired of it.
I will not be silent today. I will not be silent tomorrow. I will not be silent the next day or next week or month or year. I will not be silent until everyone is listening. And I hope you won't either.
