WIMB £100 RUNNER UP PRIZE WINNER LOUISE TAYLOR

A Woman’s Role is in the Revolution

I was bored. By Louise Taylor 

“You cannot buy the revolution. You cannot make the revolution. You can only be the revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere.” 

Ursula K. Le Guin.

I can’t say it was completely out of boredom that I became a political and environmental activist, but it certainly played a part. I was bored with being underestimated, bored with being overlooked, bored with being told how I should behave, act and think. Bored with the unwritten rules that I was supposed to follow, bored with how my body, my life and my future had been thrown into complete turmoil because I was born with a vagina and could give birth. 

I was bored of doctors not listening to or believing my concerns. I was bored with being misdiagnosed, invalidated, gaslighted, harassed and silenced. I was bored by overly confident, overpaid and incompetent men dictating to me because they can succeed in systems created by them which work predominantly for them. I was bored by masculine thinking and tendencies dominating the most highly paid roles and careers and I was very bored by listening to men debate on issues that don’t affect them or their bodies. I was bored by men in power abusing that power and congratulating women who behaved like them; women behaving like men to get paid the same as men is very boring to me. I was bored by billionaires - Bill Gates. Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are so boring and obscenely boringly wealthy, I almost can’t bear it. 

I was bored by HIStory and all these successful men doing all these amazing things for humanity with so little women about, because women can’t do men things which are important, until all the men die and there is nothing more for it than a woman to become queen. I was bored by medicine, bored by the stock market, bored by the destruction of our planet. I was bored by capitalism, bored by misogyny, bored by patriarchy, bored by prime ministers talking crap and politicians squabbling amongst themselves whilst peace walls were attacked by our peace babies. I was bored by MLAs and Councillors in shiny cars, working in big buildings, doing important things whilst ignoring the climate science, the youth strikers and the pleas concerning our future. 

I was bored of being educated and overlooked. I was bored of being autistic and ignored. I was bored of being disabled and abused. I was bored by being continuously let down by systems, services and institutions that appear to have been set up to primarily serve those they pay. I was bored of watching people suffer and most people doing nothing about it. I was bored of the women being killed for walking home alone. I was bored by young men jumping off bridges, I was bored by the lack of hope, I was bored by the lack of action, I was bored by the lies, the greed and the neglect. I’m not bored with being a woman, I am bored with being in a world that celebrates the wrong things. A world that celebrates competition, profit, military strength, insane personal wealth and mindless consumerism. Women are leading the revolution, because many women, like me, are bored of being forced to participate in sick societies that have been thrust upon us.

I’ve heard two things recently that resonated with me as a forty-something year old female. The first being that life often plays out in two halves, the first half is trying to become someone, and the second half is about truly becoming yourself. The other was about how women past the age of forty become a law onto themselves. Both are true for me, and both relate to activism, agency, hope and all of those relate to creating a space for revolution to occur. Those who believe we don’t need a revolution are generally benefitting from the status quo, in my opinion if it isn’t working for everyone, it isn’t working. In the famous words of the glorious, groundbreaking and incredible feminist Angela Davis- “I’m no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I’m changing the things I cannot accept”.

Revolutions change the trajectory of life and society and whilst no revolution speaks for all, many women know that the game is rigged, and the die has been set. Women in academia know that and women in many high-end business sector jobs know that too. It has been a man’s world for far too long and the greatest trick and triumph of patriarchy and misogyny has been the widespread misunderstanding and misuse of the word feminism. Feminism is often associated with attacking men, which is such a strong signal of misappropriation it is almost laughable. Laughable if it wasn’t so dangerous. It is frustrating living in a society where most people associate feminism with man hating as opposed to equity loving. Where I am taxed for menstruating and condemned for my fertility if rape, incest or any other sexual misadventures may expose my innate vulnerability through my reproductive capabilities. My feminism is rooted in life loving and an obsession with justice, integrity and equality. Feminism is not about men; it is about humanity. 

Birth is when I started rebelling and death is when it will no doubt end, because injustice busting is in my DNA and revulsion to prejudice, and discrimination is deeply rooted in my psyche. I have birthed other people, and this increased my rebellion propensities rather than tempered them. ‘Why?’ you may not ask, because I gave birth to two girls. Thus, my revolutionary credentials increased threefold, and as I watch them grow and effortlessly challenge gender norms; I feel a strong sense that the youth are the true revolutionaries. Revolution seems the only choice, I did not consciously choose to be revolutionary; it seems like Lady Gaga and many other bored women- ‘I was born that way’.