The Wonder Chronicles: 19
On Subversion
Pyaari Azaadi, Mona Eltahawy, 2020 (Contact the artist for inquiries, to purchase)
This is part of a running series. Read the previous Wonder Chronicle: On A Woman’s Voice
The most subversive thing a woman can do is to talk about her life as if it really matters.
It does.
A male editor I once worked with tried to dissuade me from writing about my personal life.
“Who cares about what happened to you?” he said.
I always share that question as one of the most inspiring things that anyone has ever told me. It inspired me to launch FEMINIST GIANT four years ago.
Because, fuck yeah: what happens to me is important!
The personal isn’t just political. It is kryptonite to patriarchy’s superman myth wrapped in fiction wrapped in nonsense: that one man with one action will change the world and not the millions and millions and millions of daily and personal acts of defiance, disobedience, and disruption.
And it is because patriarchy wants us to believe we have no power that it dismisses our personal lives.
I am the daughter of the taboos and silences from which I fought to free myself. I broke the silence and unchained myself from the taboos by writing about my personal life.
I am the sister of every woman struggling against the oppressive forces that have suffocated us at home and on the streets and which find their power reflected back to them by the state. That trifecta of patriarchy: state, street, and home. My personal stories defy, disobey, and disrupt the power of each.
I am the best friend of the woman who marches in protest against the political despots outside and continues that protest against the personal despots inside–and then shares her personal life.
The most subversive thing a woman can do is to talk about her life as if it really matters. It does.
Our life stories are important--to fight silence, shame, fear and the violence that the trifecta of State, Street, and Home exacts on us.
Our life stories are flags planted on the planets of our beings, they say this is mine, I have fought for it and despite your best attempts, I am still here.
Just as important, our life stories help us find each other and overcome the isolation that threatens to overwhelm and to break us.
Subversion as in sabotage, the dictionary tells me. As in “secret efforts to weaken or ruin a political system or government from within.” As in “turning over” of something.
Talking about our lives as if they really matter sabotages patriarchy’s stranglehold over “important”: it signals “I can count. I matter. I am important.” That is how we weaken the political system that is patriarchy. It is how we turn over the gears of a patriarchal system that runs roughshod over our sense of self worth, flattening the contours and the edges of planets of our beings.
Saying “I count,” pledges treachery and disloyalty to patriarchy.
Saying “I am important with my daily acts of defiance, disobedience, and disruption” is to promise disloyalty to a world that tries to diminish us when we can be giants.
Become a turncoat.
Become a traitor.
Subvert the patriarchy.
My goal: that you are found by wonder.
My wish: that you intensely live.
Thank you for reading my essay. You can support my work by:
Hitting the heart button so that others can be intrigued and read
Upgrading to a paid subscription to help keep FEMINIST GIANT free
Opting for a one-time payment via buying me a coffee
Sharing this post by email or on social media
Mona Eltahawy is a feminist author, commentator and disruptor of patriarchy. She is editing an anthology on menopause called Bloody Hell! And Other Stories: Adventures in Menopause from Across the Personal and Political Spectrum. Her first book Headscarves and Hymens: Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution (2015) targeted patriarchy in the Middle East and North Africa and her second The Seven Necessary Sins For Women and Girls (2019) took her disruption worldwide. It is now available in Ireland and the UK. Her commentary has appeared in media around the world and she makes video essays and writes a newsletter as FEMINIST GIANT.
FEMINIST GIANT Newsletter will always be free because I want it to be accessible to all. If you choose a paid subscriptions - thank you! I appreciate your support. If you like this piece and you want to further support my writing, you can like/comment below, forward this article to others, get a paid subscription if you don’t already have one or send a gift subscription to someone else today.
