In Defense of Our Sister

I hate social media sometimes.  It is a goddamned nursery; a place for infant souls to have tantrums without fear of a well deserved spanking.  

Last night Patricia Arquette gave an impassioned acceptance speech at the Oscars.  I have seen it, and I have listened too it closely more than once.  She is absolutely right in what she said on behalf of women.  It is, in fact, time that those we have supported, fought for, and loved do the same for us.  It is, in fact, time that women’s equality becomes more than a slogan.  Pay equity, unquestioned and unfettered access to healthcare and the freedom to decide when and if we will have children must be more than just political footballs to be kicked down the field, back and forth, between the pseudo Left and the ugly Right for the purpose of scoring political points.

Arquette is an actress not a politician.  She is not a public speaker in the way Mr. Obama is, nor was it incumbent upon her to be either.  Yet even though she stood up on a national stage and said bravely and without equivocation that the time has come for the concerns of women to be seen with clarity and purpose as the equal of all civil rights causes, within moments of her speech the fulminating and festering sewer of social media was churning out and spewing its usual filth.  Feminists, or so they call themselves, were tearing into her, dissecting her speech with malice of forethought and the intent to diminish, destroy and dilute her message.  Why? It didn't meet their standards and criteria; as if any speech by anyone had an obligation to do so, or the rights of any speaker depended up their narrow minded acceptance.

Well, as an old Feminist who was going to jail for the cause long before some of these Facebooking and Twittering brats were motile sperm I have this to say, if you can’t get your ego out of the struggle, sit down and shut the fuck up.  The grownups are at the barricades.  We have no time for daycare or for explaining to the simple minded that you can’t simultaneously defend and attach the rights and value of your sisters.