One Day is Today

It started with Lilith. She would not be ruled by Adam. She was relegated to demonic forces.

Next came Eve. Temptress. Responsible for the fall of all of mankind, as mankind was as inclusive as it was. It’s her fault that there is pain in childbirth, not to mention menstrual cramps.

Jezebel. A strong woman with a feckless husband who was indecisive and paranoid. We remember her as a worshiper of pagan gods. Men celebrated her death from a fall as she was eaten by wild dogs.

Sweet Mary. Mary Magdalene. Lover and devoted follower of Jesus. The first evangelist. Announcer of the Resurrection. She becomes a prostitute in a century where women are pushed out of leadership from the Church because Pope[1] begins with P, and y'all so does Penis.

Inquisitions: Spanish, Papal, and otherwise. Powerful women in Ireland, and healers in Salem. Maria[2], Alice[3], Tituba[4].

Thinkers, activists, leaders, poets, thealogians. Julian, Sappho, Eleanor, Dorothy, Eva, Flannery, Sylvia, Mary, Audre, Alice, Gloria, bell, Elizabeth, Maya, Hillary, Coretta, Beyonce, Malala, and Emma.[5]

We have known robbery, theft - not just at the hands of men who fear us because we are powerful, but by women who perpetuate patriarchy because they are afraid not to be favored daughters, church handmaids, or gracious ladies.[6]

One day...We hope and pray, and work for ONE DAY when powerful women will not be called…

Whore.

Bitch.

Dyke.

Witch.

Slut.

Cunt.

Butch.

ONE DAY we will all step into the powerful river that is our birthright.

One day these names and these threats that are meant to make us afraid and intimidate us back into silence will lose their hold on us. The tide is turning. We are connected as we have never been connected before. 

We remember who we are.

We are not afraid.  

We do not live in fear.

ONE DAY is today.

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[1] Pope Gregory the Great, in a sermon confused Mary Magdalene with the woman who washed Jesus’ feet in Bethany. In that sermon she became a prostitute and it stuck.

[2] Maria Cazalla was arrested in 1524 for regularly attending a meeting on the exposition of the Scriptures.

[3] Dame Alice Kyteler was the first person in Ireland accused of and charged with witchcraft. She was a wealthy woman and business owner.

[4] Tituba, an enslaved Barbadian woman, was the first to be accused of practicing witchcraft during the 1692 Salem witch trials.

[5] Julian of Norwich, Sappho (Greek poet from the Isle of Lesbos), Eleanor Roosevelt, Dorothy Day, Eva Peron, Flannery O’Connor, Sylvia Plath, Mary Daly, Audre Lorde, Alice Walker, Gloria Steinem, bell hooks, Elizabeth Warren, Maya Angelou, Hillary Clinton, Coretta Scott King, aka Queen Bey, Malala Yousafzai, and Emma Watson.

[6] A reference to feminine scripts that women tend to follow that perpetuate patriarchy from The Dance of the Dissident Daughter by Sue Monk Kidd.