RUTHFULLY YOURS

If the “March of Parts” women’s protest in Washington, D.C. on January 22 wasn’t enough to leave you begging for eye bleach, apparently, the crowd of perpetually aggrieved protest organizers are gearing up again.  They’ve hijacked March 8 (formerly known as International Women’s Day) and renamed it the “Day without a Woman.”

Aside from word salad gymnastics, organizers published a plethora of questions regarding their cause.  Their litany is as follows:

In the spirit of women and their allies coming together for love and liberation, we offer A Day without a Woman. We ask: do businesses support our communities, or do they drain our communities? Do they strive for gender equity or do they support the policies and leaders that perpetuate oppression? Do they align with a sustainable environment or do they profit off destruction and steal the futures of our children? We saw what happened when millions of us stood together in January, and now we know that our army of love greatly outnumbers the army of fear, greed and hatred. On March 8th, International Women’s Day, let’s unite again in our communities for A Day without a Woman. Over the next few weeks we will be sharing more information on what actions on that day can look like for you. In the meantime, we are proud to support Strike4Democracy’s as National Day of Action to Push Back against Assaults on Democratic Principles. This Friday, February 17th, gather your friends, families, neighbors, and start brainstorming ideas for how you can enhance your community, stand up to this administration, integrate resistance and self-care into your daily routine, and how you will channel your efforts for good on March 8th. Remember: this is a marathon, not a sprint.

Confused?  If the overarching goal is to rally women across the country into a cohesive and riled up mob of estrogen-fueled resistance, it would certainly behoove the organizers to clarify exactly what they are resisting.  As a rule, keeping it simple always works – like when the crowd gathered in front of the Supreme Court building on the evening President Trump announced his SCOTUS nominee.  Easy-peasy – the protesters brought along blank signs and, using markers, simply penciled in the name “Gorsuch.”  The same can’t be said for the “Day without a Woman” planners.  Nothing the organizers have offered up is simple, easy to understand, or coherent.

Diving into the murky mix, “Do businesses support our communities, or do they drain our communities?”  The obvious answer is…what businesses, which communities, and do we have a plumbing problem?  Serving a big plate of nothingburger isn’t very inspiring and doesn’t give potential planners much to go on, if in fact large numbers of disgruntled and angry women will actually gather on February 17 to brainstorm.  And what about those businesses owned by women? Or is the target of organized resistance directed only at businesses owned by men?

During the course of the brainstorming sessions, women are also asked to consider questions on gender equity (really? all 56 genders?), support for policies (policies regarding what and written by whom?), and identifying leaders (using the anonymous nondescript “they” reference) who perpetuate oppression.

It’s worth noting that no list of factionless oppressed people, groups, clusters, or subsets of the larger oppressed set was provided with the organizing statement.  Also missing is a comprehensive list of villainous oppressors.  Oppressed women have to be oppressed by someone, right?  Surely, someone has a list?

Moving along and keeping up with the current politically correct groupspeak, women should also discuss leaders or perhaps companies (the reference is not clearly defined) that align with a sustainable environment, while tossing around terms like profit (the horror!), greed (a Pavlovian response in Socialist circles), destruction (maybe referring back to the environment?), and “for the children” (Progressive Liberal groupthink trigger words used to emit guilt).  Surprisingly, the anthropomorphic climate change screed was not directly mentioned – unless, of course, “sustainable environment” is the adopted catch-all phrase to include the “hottest year ever” meme, which now occurs every year and will be officially declared every year…going forward.  Or CO2 is bad.  Take your pick.

Rounding out this monumental day of rabid discussion, in the midst of fomenting seeds of resistance (or is it revolution they want?), female future protesters are reminded that in order to “integrate” by standing up to the administration (government in general? or, by default, President Trump’s administration?  Again, there is no clear clarification of standing up to whom.), women must also discuss their daily routines of self-care.  Seriously?  Such as mani-pedis?  Shopping and lunch dates?  Best diet to shed those pesky leftover holiday pounds?  Swapping recipes or recommending a fabulous new skin cream?

This brings me to an ugly but honest conclusion.  If the meandering, meaningless, and insipid missive of sophistic planning instructions for the scheduled March 8 “Day without a Woman” protest is indicative of the collective intelligence of the protest organizer, I have but one simple request: please do all American women a favor and cancel the protest altogether.  Don’t go to these lengths in a misguided effort to degrade and embarrass women in front of the world.  Tell moms to stay home doing what they always do for their kids.  Ask women to run their board meetings, see their patients, fly their airplanes, keep welding, building, baking, counseling, teaching, clerking, or any of the other thousands of jobs women do every day.  And keep encouraging women to volunteer in their towns, schools, and places of worship, because, truthfully…there is no such thing as a “Day without a Woman.”

Oh, and one more thing: tell Madonna and Ashley Judd their services won’t be required.  They don’t speak for me.