Girl talk
As Women’s Month comes to a close, perhaps now is an opportune time to disclose that I don’t believe in imperialist or capitalist marketing opportunities disguised as month-long catchphrase solidarity occasions, such as the one we observe throughout March.
Believe me, I understand the need to highlight women’s contributions—largely unheralded, often diminished—to history and society. The fact that we have to celebrate it with such fanfare, however, means to me that it really is performative: It concentrates attention on women’s issues for one whole month, with a packed calendar of marches, galas, talks, awards nights, and the like.
But how often does awareness truly translate to action?
In an ideal world
Ideally, we shouldn’t have to celebrate a separate Women’s Month. Ideally, we should have an egalitarian society where recognition is unnecessary because everyone is valued. Ideally, women should be equal to men in all respects—god knows most of them have more balls than any man.
Even the origins of International Women’s Day on March 8 and the accompanying Women’s Month in their current form and thrust are—surprise, surprise—very much a Western (read: white) invention that exists to uphold the patriarchy.
Scratch that. International Women’s Day is, in fact, not an invention, but a continuation of the rapacious tradition of cultural colonialism the United States is known for. In other words, it’s yet another Western appropriation that has almost completely glossed over the day’s 1910 proletarian origins at the Second International Socialist Women’s Conference. A milestone that reaffirmed the Marxist doctrine of class struggle and championed the issues of working women who seemed to be sidelined by the women of the bourgeoisie, who dominated the wider feminist movement at the time.
Capitalism with a splash of empathy
It was an overhaul that made it palatable to that quintessentially American dynamic duo of capitalism and patriotism, with a generous splash of empathy for the plight of women.
Much like the way those two white women posing in dainty dresses for the New York Times repackaged—literally—the mahjong set for a Western audience. They’re giving feminism but make it floral. Trad wife but make it entrepreneurial.
Clueless they may be about the cultural significance of mahjong to Chinese and East Asian communities, but commercially savvy they definitely are—prettifying their sets with girly colors, bubble motifs, and orientalist themes and selling their “modern twist on a timeless classic” for $400 up, rebranding the thousand-year-old pastime to “American mahjong.”
Meanwhile, one of the last-standing retailers of hand-carved mahjong tiles in Hong Kong closed shop after 48 years. Now tell me, which is the greater tragedy?
The irony is infuriating.
Who is truly listening
It’s not my intention to minimize the deeply sincere intentions of many activists and progressives around the world, including the Philippines, who do us all a vital service in seizing the built-in megaphone of this month to amplify the voices of women everywhere. Women who continue to be marginalized, and even erased, as in the case of women in Gaza, Sudan, the Congo, and now Iran.
But who is truly listening, if not other women with the same deeply felt concerns?
We all seem to exist in the same echo chamber, screaming ourselves hoarse in the hope that real, lasting change will happen. Women, particularly women of color and from the global south, have been at the forefront of social change. Sojourner Truth, Angela Davis, Leila Khaled, Tarana Burke, Rosa Luxemburg, bell hooks, Susan Abulhawa, Simone Weill, Gisele Pelicot, Maria Orosa, Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza, and Opal Tometi… the list is long and far too many remain sadly unsung.
Unfortunately, Western feminists and pseudo-allies have always been the arbiters as to which women and causes should be platformed and which women should be ignored.
If the West were really serious about celebrating and uplifting all women during Women’s Month, it would have started in March by arresting all the rapists named in the Epstein files. Instead, it chose to begin the month by dropping bombs on a school in Minab, Iran, killing over 140 women and girls in a double-tap strike.
Talk about celebrating women’s month with a bang.
