A New Solidarity
#BoysLockerRoom presents an idea of solidarity as a quality used to protect wrongdoers from consequences. Everyone is made to participate as a virtue. I want to reclaim this idea of solidarity. It’s not a fortress meant to protect privilege. It’s a context of support that nurtures people’s better values.
Women are told that other women are the enemy, that we can’t be friends, that our relationships with each other can only revolve around a man. We’re encouraged to suffer in isolation. The bonds between women are downplayed, disrupted, even villified. This is because female solidarity opposes the idea of protecting privilege.
For a woman, identity is a tug of war between a world hellbent on erasing us and one fragile body, a delicately built identity, a sensitive set of senses, a limited brain. What do women’s issues have to do with identity & solidarity? I’ll tell you.
My sense of self does NOT come from protecting men’s privilege to be monsters. It does not come from competing with other women for validation from that male idea of solidarity.
My existence is constantly challenged by men whose entitlement I reject. Also by women who benefit from patriarchy by compromising their self-respect. Every nasty barb, every attack by a rejected man, every thoughtless word by a distracted friend, every malicious act by a stranger is designed to remind me that the world doesn’t see me as a human.
But I’m healed by female solidarity. Men cannot do this because they do not have our context of struggle. A woman who knows the fight, can see past it really sees me. This validation between women doesn’t say anything about how strong we are. It doesn’t seek to rescue or make excuses for faults. It affirms & heals our best selves.
You deserve to exist. You are good. You are beautiful. You are love. You are power. You are joy. You are peace. You are all. The universe has a place for you. These matter when a woman says them to another.
We hold up each other’s best selves. Women who understand this are challenging the toxic idea of solidarity by making it about support, not protection.
(@ideasmithy)