As a woman in this world I have grown accustomed to misogyny. The earliest memory I have of sexism is being told in elementary gym class I could do “girl push-ups.” I was just as restless then as I am today and always did the full version of every exercise. How was I going to get strong if I never challenged myself? Why were girls not encouraged to be strong? Throughout primary school boys would try to flirt with me by offering to hold my stuff or carry heavy things for me. Towards the end of primary school I learned what sexual harassment was, although I didn’t know it by name then. Boys tried to touch me, tickle me, and chase me at recess while I screamed at them to stop. They did not. By sixth grade every boy in my classroom would use sexual innuendos with me against my wishes. I wanted to avoid boys at all costs. I just wanted to be with my friends and escape the endless sexual attention from boys, but I quickly learned that was the only kind of attention I would get from the heterosexual boys. In middle school, it meant I adapted to this behavior and sought out male attention. It was validation. My body grew more curvy and I loved to wear tight-fitting clothing, but I was told many times by teachers and school administration that my outfits were inappropriate. I was told to wear my winter coat over a dress. I was told to find pants in the lost and found and change out of my shorts on the last day of ninth grade. I was made to believe my body was inherently sexual. I couldn’t show my shoulders or my legs because it was too sexual, and it would distract the heterosexual boys. I didn’t understand why my body was sexual and thus had to be hidden but boys in my school could wear tank tops and shorts without anyone making a big deal out of it. I learned about double standards, and I learned I had to accept them because it wasn’t going to change. I was socialized in the culture of this country that believes that women are to be silent, only speaking up when asked to, and sexual, only pleasing men when asked to. My body wasn’t for me, my voice wasn’t for me. I was to bow to others and serve. Of course, because I am a “natural born mother”, I must be a caretaker to everyone who needs care. I must be a people-pleaser to everyone who asks anything of me. This became me. I was the “yes” person all the way through college. The few times I did speak up and express my viewpoint I was called a bitch, a rude person, disrespectful. I was told to just be silent. Go with the flow. But I was a leader. I am a natural born leader and everyone knows leaders don’t lead by being silent and unmoved. Most leaders are men and men can get away with anything, so it was never a surprise that a woman doing so would be interpreted so negatively.
I constantly struggled with managing people’s expectations of me. How should a woman in charge act? I have always been very serious about my morals and ethics. I have integrity because I don’t make exceptions for my morals, and I freely share this information with others. I know very few people who are as committed as I am to doing what’s right. I do everything in my power to not negatively impact any living being or process in the universe. I stand for justice and I am fiercely political because I am fiercely invested in the well-being of everyone. We live in an extremely unequal society that is sickened by capitalism, and I want to do everything in my power to resist this. Most people are apathetic to what’s going on around them. I try to shake and wake those people up so they can take their part in the movement towards a better society. I realize as a woman I am perceived as extreme and radical for doing this. The first major life change I took was going vegan for the animals in 2015. A year later I watched The True Cost and swore off fast fashion. I have not bought anything but thrifted clothes or clothes from sweatshop free and eco-friendly companies since then. Then I delved into reducing my personal waste, recycling, reusing anything I could, swearing off certain wasteful products for good. I committed to many issues at once. I am always reading about how I can do better, be better, hence why I have a podcast called Do Better Podcast. I think the only thing that matters in life is our ethics- the impact we have on the world with our actions. I always want to stand on the right side of history. I am always willing to change a behavior of mine to be less harmful to the planet. I try to inspire others to be this engaged and connected to the universe. I was a very, very involved animal rights activist from the time I went vegan all throughout college, and I always combined my vegan activism with spreading awareness of other social justice issues, because I am well aware of the intersecting class, race, and ability issues with going vegan for some people. I try my hardest to not be a single issue activist, or to be colorblind (referring to racism that functions by denying the role of race in social injustices), or to ignore any issue at any time. We must simultaneously work on being our best selves and work on liberating our fellow humans so they too can be their best selves. Self-actualization is impossible if you don’t have your basic needs met.
So I think we can all always do better in some way, and I push and challenge those around me to do so. This has often not been well received by privileged folks who are in denial of how they contribute to social inequality. No one wants to admit they are part of the problem, and yet people continue to suffer gravely. Being a female leader has been challenging because I always feel my word is doubted, whether I am relaying factual information or using emotional appeals. I am also in the fitness industry and have been passionate about fitness for a long time, but I am constantly corrected by men on things I know are true. I try not to interact with many men because I have faced so much harassment, sexual and non-sexual, and I am terrified of being assaulted. The proportion of women who are assaulted by men is staggering (1 in 5 is a common statistic). I can’t take my chances and trust men. I have, and I have been physically stalked and verbally harassed because of it. I learn from experience. I learn what not to do, who not to trust, and that has become most cisgender men. I have become increasingly furious over gender inequality in recent years as I have watched man after man get away with serious crimes. The rapist Brock Turner is a prime example. I do believe him being white also plays a part in his mere six month jail sentence. But there are other famous cases of celebrities being absolutely evil and abusing and raping women and children and still being idolized. Michael Jackson and Kobe Bryant come to mind. I will always maintain the stance that just because someone dies does not make them a good person. It is also horrifying that a man can literally admit to raping a woman and be publicly forgiven, yet a woman can’t even make a minor mistake without her career being ruined. I remember Kathy Griffin’s beheaded Trump photo and how it almost ruined her career for good. Her speaking out against the horrible hateful dictator we have as a president is worse than raping someone? I have seen women dragged in the media for any small thing, and often for changes in their bodies, since they are expected to follow society’s beauty standards, and yet male celebrities can literally assault people and still be considered national treasures. Sickening.
Everything I have learned and observed plus my cumulative life experiences have made me extremely bitter and angry. I recognize I am a white woman, so I don’t even have the worst of it, and that makes me even madder. The pain wrenches deep in my body and makes me hate and distrust almost everyone. As a queer woman I have tried to find refuge in the queer community, but I have not found out. It turns out queer people hate women too. I speak from many experiences, but my most recent experience still stings the most. I recently joined the board of an organization called Stonewall Sports that has queer sports leagues that play for fun and raise money for charity. This organization exists all over the country, but my experience is with the one in Detroit. The latter part of 2019 I started a queer yoga meetup group. I missed teaching yoga, and I wanted to meet some other queer people and make new friends. I only had two meetings, and ultimately had more support on Facebook than actual people who showed up, but my online presence led the leader of Stonewall Detroit to reach out and ask if I wanted to teach yoga for the organization. I was excited about the prospect of reaching more people and being more effective with the same goals I had for my own queer yoga group, so I agreed. Yoga was to be my baby, I was to lead the process. What unfolded over the several months we planned yoga was not pretty, and I did not lead the process. Every time I could give an opinion, I was ignored, talked over, or (literally) laughed at. I was scolded for missing events and meetings because I was working or traveling when I had already made the board leader aware of my schedule. I put in a lot of work planning yoga, but was told it was already planned at the last minute and I essentially just had to show up. The one social event I made it to I was struck by the lack of women in the organization. There were three as far as I know (I do not know how everyone identifies) and a lesbian couple I talked to told me they agreed that the club was not very diverse. It also lacked racial diversity. For a Detroit organization in a city that is 90% black, I saw maybe two people of color at the social gathering and as far as I know there was only one person of color on the board. When I joined I was told they had a “diversity and inclusion” person on the board but only heard that they dealt with fee waivers- letting people participate in the sports for free if they stated they could not afford to otherwise. After months of being treated like garbage by an all-male board, I finally stood up for myself and said it came off as very misogynistic that my views were never respected. The response I got was effectively gaslighting. The board leader said it was awful of me to call him misogynistic and took no accountability for his actions. He said, “it’s not your tone that is disrespectful, it’s the words you choose.” Now I was being told by a man which words I could and could not use, and that was enough. I quit the organization in person, and it felt so liberating. 2020 was my year to stop taking other people’s shit!
But what happened was disheartening, and it’s not an isolated case. The queer community has long been an exclusive space. The show POSE on FX highlights how hateful cisgender gay men have been of transgender people, cisgender women, and lesbians for decades. I have personally witnessed this hatred in the queer community. I was naive to think queer spaces would be any different than the rest of society. It’s a boys’ club. Women, non-binary folks, and transgender folks are not taken seriously, excluded, laughed at, and harassed. The face of Pride is a skinny cisgender white homosexual man. One of the last things I said to the board leader (who fits this description) before I quit and walked out was this: “Queerness is more than this. You need more women. You need more people of color. Queerness is so much more than this.” I have heard countless stories on the internet of gender-oppressed folks talking about how exclusive queer spaces can be. I still haven’t found any place that feels entirely welcoming, and I can only imagine how much worse it is for those who are not cisgender like I am, because I can fit into straight spaces and cisgender spaces, even though I don’t emotionally fit in or connect with those groups. I can pretend to feel at home, though I don’t. Many people who don’t present themselves in a socially conventional way can’t pretend to fit in anywhere, because they are not welcomed and they will be pushed out. I wish for a queer community that embraces everyone and highlights and amplifies the voices and self-expression of those who have been pushed out and shut down, which historically is not white men. Now that the world is becoming more open to queerness, white gay men need to realize they have had their time in the spotlight. Most mainstream media with queer characters have featured white gay men. Lesbians are often the punchline in shows like Friends and even the more recent show Modern Family. There is a very clear message sent to non-male queer people: you are not valid, you are not important, you are not seen. I don’t want to echo this in anything I am involved in which is why I could no longer be a part of an organization I knew was squandering my voice because I am a woman. The board leader before I quit bragged to me that so many people have come and gone from the organization because they “couldn’t handle it.” His complete lack of self-awareness floored me. I realized these board members were probably from other oppressed groups and probably quit for the same reason I did. My heart wrenches for those people, and I can only imagine how many organizations on a national level are reinforcing oppression while claiming to work against it.
I want to believe there are organizations and efforts out there that are working effectively by everyone, for everyone, and with everyone. I am still searching for one, but I am realizing I may need to start my own. I am still figuring out how to best use my limited time and resources to support the most people. I do not prioritize myself or my voice but I recognize my mind is valid. My thoughts are valid. I have been told my entire life that the only thing of value about me is my body because it can be used to please men, but I am untangling this ideology that has brainwashed me. Little by little, year by year, I am standing up for myself. I am cutting men off and letting them know I will not be their puppet and I will not continue to be silenced. I have a voice, and I use it not just for myself but for all the other oppressed groups who are ignored and excluded. I use my voice and exert my power to resist oppression wherever I find it, even if it’s in my own backyard. I denounce policing the way marginalized folks express themselves, and validate anger, sorrow, distrust, and bitterness towards one’s oppressors. I believe and listen to experiences of others going through similar and worse situations to what I went through with Stonewall. I reject being a people pleaser and a male-pleaser and I commit to pleasing myself and working for the greater good regardless of who I piss off. I criticize my leaders, I criticize myself as a leader and a follower, and hold everyone to the same moral standard. I cease to internalize my oppression so I can stop the cycle and force a man to question the way he uses his privilege to brutalize. I don’t just hope for better, I help make things better by practicing what I preach, by being fearless, charging forward, focusing on the effectiveness of my efforts, and caring for my soul at the same time by not allowing others to squander me any longer. I believe in callout culture/accountability culture fully, and although this is only one small instance, by sharing my story I am re-emphasizing the importance of standing up for oneself and doing what’s right. Whenever it arises, we must resist oppression. We must call out oppressors. We must risk our public reputation, our friendships, and our personal stake in things to stand for what’s right not just when it is convenient, but ALL THE TIME. I know as a woman I am expected to keep the peace, but I refuse to do so while so many people suffer in our broken system. I refuse to be complicit in situations of injustice. I vow to liberate myself whenever possible by not allowing men to treat me poorly or objectify me. I have a life of trauma under my belt as a queer woman, and I will always be working against messages society sends me about who I should be, but I know I am strong enough to keep pushing and creating a better world. I know how convenient it would be if I believed them every time they told me I should do a “girl push-up” or the metaphorical equivalent of that throughout my entire life, but I have always resisted. I have actively defied norms my entire life until I have gotten to my emotional breaking point where I will not tolerate any more misogyny. This resistance has become my means of living. Although I embody physical strength in every sense, this vigor is more than a physical emanation. I am more than my human body. My grit shines forth from the blood of this trauma and lights my path forward. I am no longer what anyone expects me to be. I am a new kind of fire.
MERRI WORDS 