RBG, Rage, and Power

I’ve been absorbing as much as I can on Ruth Bader Ginsburg. This effort has felt a bit frantic, as if small wisps of her still remain in the air and I must capture all of them before she’s laid to rest this weekend, before those remnants of her powerful life get sucked into the greater political discourse and chewed up by men in power. This morning I was listening to a news report about the period that RBG called “the worst of times.” After Sandra Day O’Connor retired and the conservative leaning Alito was confirmed, Ginsburg was the only woman on the court. Standing at 5’1”, a journalist from the New York Times Daily said that you “could barely see her head over the bench, surrounded by these eight guys.” That image of her resonates deeply, painfully, so full of power but nearly disappeared behind the structures of her life. She accessed her power carefully. She was almost sly, advocating for equity so broadly, so carefully, so patiently lest someone notice she held power and tried to take it away. At some point, around Lilly Ledbetter when the men on the court were making eye-roll decisions, she began to dissent, unequivocally. She seemed to have reached her fuck-it moment. This also resonates, deeply, painfully.

Many of us are there, in the midst of our “worst of times.” I’ve felt powerful in my life but I’m struggling to access it now. I’m writing to you between the computer camera angles of my four kids and their teachers, my husband, the corporations. I sneak around the computers like a ninja, pressing myself against walls, around desks so I don’t get caught by a camera, disheveled and frustrated for all too see. I am tired of being shut away from the rest of the world by a virus that I could have smacked down if someone had given me the chance. I’m too often irritated at my husband who is lovely and kind but inadvertently taking every advantage that male hegemony has given him. I am holding it together but with winter coming, with RBG, with the election, with the warnings of flu mixing with Covid in this evil little pact to take my parents and my babies, it’s hard.

I find myself nearly disappeared, like Ruth, behind that bench, next to those men. I consider the rules of women; we find them empowering until they are not. We are allowed to think big. We can work outside or inside of the home. We can be paid a lot, more than the men in our lives or we can work for free, with the PTA, out of altruism, in service of others. We can have power through our abilities, our capacities, and our attractiveness.

I barely considered my power when I was younger, raised by kind midwesterners, tucked into a bunch of siblings who flatly asserted their authority. Once I was told that there would be a “Jewish” in my school and that I should be nice to her because she was just like everyone else; there hadn’t been any Jewish people in my town before as far as any of us knew. She was one of the first to wear mini-skirts. She was cool. They were cool; I learned about the Jewish. I imagined myself “protecting” the Jewish girl and then the Black kid when he came and played in the school band. It didn’t occur to me that I was sucking away their power, trapping them in their labels, holding them at a distance.

And then I was educated through the social justice of my college campus, of nonprofits, of smarter students who had been less protected from explicit hatred, who existed in forms that drew injustice. I listened, organized, and protested, advocating for everyone I was not. My form collected attention and praise; I was content with my femininity and my feminism and felt no need to send out calls for rescue. A man I barely knew, who I had met in an elevator at an anthropology conference, offered to write me a recommendation letter for grad school as we were leaving that elevator. He asked me to join him and his colleagues for dinner. I found it curious that he was interested in my intellect, as little developed as it was at that point. I hoped he saw something in the body of my project but I knew he saw something in the potentials of my body. He talked close as I leaned back. Though that was the extent of our interaction, I took him up on the letter; I didn’t know any other anthropologists. But then, I wondered about my validity and his dubious advocacy when I was accepted into graduate school.

I had a small crush on one professor. He gave me an A+ in his class, though I doubted he read my final paper. He never gave it back. I was rarely alone with him, but in office hours, I appreciated his eye contact, his soft praise. In seminars, we drank wine and he took our words to mean more than they did; we were a little embarrassed but grateful for the polish on our thoughts. Sometimes I felt jealous of his conversations with other students who seemed so much closer to being his equal; they were tight with him. He danced beautifully with these women at his anthropology parties where salsa music reminded us we were worldly. He smoked cigarettes with them on dark porches. Another professor’s leg would touch mine under the table when we had coffee. Was this accidental? He liked my work and engaged me frequently to discuss it. In that freedom of my youth, I didn’t yet understand how my power was leaving. I had the time and the resources to speak out, to advocate, to protest but, though I was learning all about power in my classes, the processes of power were still vague to me. I used the power I thought I possessed and they used what they had been taking until all of a sudden, I was shocked to find myself confused and oddly incapable.

We hold our power up high on a pedestal, proud, until one day, we realize that someone has stolen it off the pedestal. Sometimes we see them and feel them when they rob us, such violence is hard to miss. But I didn’t see them coming or going. I was lucky that they didn’t pound into my body as they flew by. I never looked them in the eye. I wonder if I maybe wasn’t as careful as I should have been with that power. Is it possible that I wasn’t holding that pedestal so level, tipping it back and forth a bit? Perhaps I was the one who let the power roll off and away—when I deferred and demurred in my work, when I took more of the blame than I should have, when I decided to leave my job at Harvard and move to a farm, when I took up more of the childcare because I didn’t have a salary coming in yet, when I breastfed, when I found the sesame oil in the cabinet, when I took care of the dog until she only wanted me, when I remembered that Tuesday was crazy sock day. The box tops.

I hate box tops. Those companies might just give money to schools rather than forcing us to buy their processed foods because our children desire the praise of their teachers. They could just cut a check rather than taking advantage of those mothers who are willing to cut and count thousands of tiny pieces of cardboard for a few dollars, a new slide on the playground. And I hate special school days that call for special outfits to build school camaraderie only for those children whose mothers remember and especially for those children whose mothers dedicate themselves to finding the best damn crazy socks in the world. (Teachers, this isn’t on you; I see you working hard to make learning fun.) To be clear though, I really don’t mind finding a lost item, making a special meal, breastfeeding, walking my dog, remembering, loving, being there. I am so grateful and sometimes even empowered by these things. None of us would “trade it for anything in the world” as we all agree by motherhood contract.

But listen, the ground is shaking. I may have let that power fall to the floor but so many of you are walking around so hard in your autonomous pursuit of your own power that you’re shaking our ground, making it hard for some of us to hold our pedestals steady. And don’t think we didn’t see you steal the pedestals of our friends and neighbors with your racism, your homophobia, your fear. They weren’t going to hit you with them. Stop being so scared. Please, fix those pedestals and then give them back. Women are strong enough to retrieve their own power but you might consider helping. That would be nice.

And we white women have work to do. The modes of some of our neighborhoods, our racial profiles, our class levels, our children’s activities, our marriages, and our circles are comfortable. Who are we to complain? We have so much—truly privileged. Quiet acceptance might lead to quiet love, quiet approval but something feels a little wrong. It might be wrong for us to speak out when we have so much but equally, it is wrong for us not to speak out when others have so little. And, there are moments in our lives that truly suck; can we own those, even when the negativity is wound tightly around our privilege?

Injustice pounds at all of us when it winds through the world, even if it skips our street; our parents are dying, black and brown men are dying, women are dying, babies are dying, the earth is dying. I suspect that even in our comfort, some of us aren’t as satisfied as we project when we post our photos and tell ourselves stories. If we haven’t disappeared from the larger world, some of us have become too small. We are leaving it up to others to be fierce and loud, others who might have less of a choice. If we join the struggle and add our volume, rather than disappear, we will find our own continuance. I embrace my fits of complaint and my whiny ways—no more shame. I am building up to a fiery rage!

My daughter and I went to the Women’s March in D.C. College friends came into town, bringing the past into our grasp. I braided my hair like I used to back then, tying myself to my activist youth. We put on our pink hats given to us by friends who put love into their work and shared that work with us so that we could feel the scratch of the wool on our foreheads as a mark of our bond. We read all of the instructions on the website for the Women’s March and we followed them. Millions of us followed these instructions because we are women and we tend to follow instructions when they make sense.

We worried that our daughters would get hungry and that our friends would forego eating in order to have free hands and so we designed duct tape straps to carry our required-by-the-rules clear plastic bags which also held our breast milk and our tampons. It was delightful how we all could see these things and we knew what they were and how they worked and we weren’t embarrassed; we were even proud. Though nobody checked our bags, we were all very happy that we had followed the instructions because there were so many people in relatively small spaces that some of us even got panicky and ambulances would come. We were worried but not that worried because we had seen panic attacks and we empathized with how scary they can be but we knew they weren’t immediately dangerous. We told our daughters that those people would be okay because we saw the littler girls worrying. We laughed at each other’s signs, made small talk, and chanted in a way that was more lewd and more explicit than we had trained ourselves to become. Through it all, as long as we weren’t squished too tight by the sea of people, we felt so comfortable, comfortable, comfortable and in control.

Power builds through successes, affirmations, and an agreement that we are worthy and it leaks out slowly in the hegemony of an age, in the passage of time, in the questioning of our worth. Power leaves us in the compliments that make us feel good, before they make us feel bad. At Costco the other day, I was shopping with my littlest. I was being a super fun mom. We were going around corners too fast and we were being loud. We nearly ran into a man and his young daughter. We laughed and apologized. She was entertained and he was kind and we went on our way. After grabbing the dark chocolate covered cherries from the last sample stand before the checkouts, we waited in line, chocolate in our mouths, debating pizza or hot dog. I felt a tap on my shoulder and I turned around to see that same man from the aisle corner. Quietly, closely, he said, “Excuse me but I just wanted to tell you that your legs have a very nice shape.” I considered which pants I was wearing. I wondered if they did look particularly good on me. I felt good for a moment, having been unnoticed for so long but then I felt a little caught. I said, “thank you,” and immediately regretted that I hadn’t said something different, though I’m not sure what that would have been. I worried about whether or not the options in my head would have been rude or not rude enough. I worried that I let women down who have truly suffered; I failed to teach this man, to let him know that he was being creepy with his unwanted assessment of my body. I didn’t make eye contact with anyone else, not even my favorite checkout person with the lipstick and the big jewelry, super competent. We skipped pizza. We had a lot of samples anyway. We left quickly. I didn’t lose my receipt this time. I was aware of my steps. I exited directly, efficiently, eyes down.

I removed myself from the store the second the man touched my shoulder, versed as we are in removing ourselves from situations that may turn, that may become more awkward, that may hurt. I removed my laugh, my proud motherhood, my body covered with stretchy athletic material, still smelly and slightly damp because I couldn’t possibly work out and get things done if I took time for showers and clothes changes. I entered my head and directed my child remotely, more effective than bringing the whole self. But I came back. We come back. I might not be present to get mad at the slightly creepy guy in the grocery store who left his daughter alone in the cart to make me uncomfortable, but I come back.

I hold within me abundant emotion. So much, my body doesn’t know what to do with it all. It comes out of my mouth in bursts of words that at first make sense but then tangle up as new thoughts meet old grievances, throwing guilt up against the resentment, spitting up an apology and then more anger; why must I always apologize?! The words rain down into my mouth and then I spit them out, wondering at what point I can stop. I see that understanding won’t settle into the noise I am creating and I realize that nobody is going to bring a soft blanket to me and wrap it around my shoulders and walk me away from the sharp letters of my words to a space where I can be okay. They won’t clean the words off of my shoes or the walls and I’ll have to just stand there within the thickness of my shrill confusion until it soaks into the floor boards and through the walls. I pour these words out onto my husband as we go for a little jog, make our morning coffee, or finally settle down for sleep. He, always surprised, drowns a little under the weight of them and the implications that I scarcely intend but then must address with more talk circles that fill the space within his oppressive and confused silence. I can make a mess of things.

But, I will forgive myself. I will recognize these outbursts as the motions one must make to break free from the tangles, the webs, the nets that have ensnared her. A tiger must look crazed when it gnashes and tears through a net that lifts it from the ground. But if it didn’t thrash and roar, would it be able to break free? I forgive myself for gnashing and roaring. I will tear through the social fabric that traps me to free my body, my intellect, my emotionality. I will reach my head above those structures, like Ruth, and I will change this world. At the least, I will vote.