Thanks for coming out and standing up for vaginas!
I am over you being afraid of vaginas! I am over trans-vaginal wands and dudes who
want to control my vagina but are afraid to know my vagina, respect my vagina. Who
can’t even SAY vagina!
I am over the over-regulation of women’s health clinics and women’s
bodies and vaginas when those same over-regulators do nothing to protect those same
women when they get pregnant, when they get raped, unemployed and sick and need more
financial support.
I am over dudes who pretend to care about personhood and cut Planned Parenthood
which makes the health of my personhood possible.
I am over forces who wanna call victims of rape “accusers” and not
“victims”.
I am over you having the chutzpah to redefine rape so that a drugged woman
or a date-raped woman wouldn’t even be considered a raped woman.
And, by the way, I’m over RAPE!
I’m over rape culture, rape mentality, and rape jokes.
I’m over people not understanding that rape is not a joke and I’m
REALLY over being told I don’t have a sense of humor and women don’t have
a sense of humor when most women I know (and I know a LOT of women) are really fucking
funny.
We just don’t think an uninvited penis up our anus or up our vagina is a
laugh riot.
I am over one in three women getting raped in the US military by their comrades.
I am over women still being silent about rape because they’re made to believe
it’s their fault and they did something to make it happen.
I am over dudes voting against the Violence Against Women Act when one in every
three women on this planet will be raped or beaten in their lifetimes.
The destruction and the muting of women is the destruction of life itself. No
women: no future. Duh!
I am really over some powerful men pretending this deep love of fetuses and babies
and life when we know it’s all about your terror of our sexuality and power. If you,
if you really cared about life, you would never, ever consider letting a woman die rather
than performing an abortion.
You would ask the life-givers, the women, what they need and want and you would
listen to them. You would honor their vaginas, maybe even worship their vaginas. You would
cherish the word “vagina” and know there is nothing dirty or disgusting about
the place where all life comes from.
I am over the Michigan state legislature, and any legislature, censoring,
rebuking and removing Lisa Brown because they find the word “vagina”
contemptible or out of bounds or lacking decorum. My vagina’s got decorum!
And I am over all those other legislators that went along with it and didn’t
stand up.
I want to say something to all the good men here: I’m a little over you. You
are brave and wonderful. But where are you? You live with us. You make love with us. You
father us. You befriend us. You brother us, get nurtured and mothered and eternally
supported by us. So why aren’t you standing with us? Why aren’t you driven to
the point of madness and action when you see us being raped and humiliated and censored?
Why don’t you care about this as much as you do about sports?
I am over brilliant remarks being called “tantrums” and outspoken women
being called “crazy” and lacking decorum when they are just smart.
I’m over it! We are over it! This the moment. This is the moment. This
is where it all turns around. This is the moment when we talk back and speak back. This is
where we rise up.This is where we say “yes” to Lisa Brown. “Yes” to
Barbara Byrum. “Yes” to every brave woman who is standing with us today.
Gretchen Whitmer. Barbara Byrum. Stacy Erwin-Oakes. Dian Slavens. Rashida Tlaib. Vicki
Barnett. Joan Bauer. Ellen Cogen Lipton. Maureen Stapleton. And all the amazing actors and
activists up on this stage.
This is where we say: “VAGINA!” Say it!
CROWD: VAGINA!
Say it!
CROWD: VAGINA!
Not ’cause we’re provocative. Not ’cause we’re dirty. Not
’cause we’re trying to make you uncomfortable. Not ’cause we’re
immoral or inappropriate.
VAGINA!
CROWD: VAGINA!
‘Cause they’re beautiful and real and mystical and alive and powerful
and SO ARE WE!
And I wanna say to all these Republicans: when we are free, YOU are free!
Santa
Barbara, April 2012
