I am here sharing an English translation of a Hebrew article written by Or Maroni-Cohen, who would love her writing to be read by non-Hebrew-speakers. The translation is by Sharon Neeman. She has given permission to share it liberally.
FYI: strong words, strong feelings, and some strong language.
International Women’s Day
To me, it feels a bit like the stew doled out to indigents in a soup kitchen.
We women are supposed to be celebrating. But the person in charge of the United States is a dangerous man, who is already taking measures to steal human rights. In Russia, Putin has erased human rights. In Israel, there are still rights, but only for white Jews – especially male ones. What exactly are we supposed to be celebrating?
The crazier the worldwide situation gets, the less I talk about it – perhaps because I feel that the world’s psychosis is closing in on me. Perhaps because I have never felt so infinitesimal in this universe.
Once I fought for change, and I really did some significant things in my life, for the community and the State. Now I’m looking after my own home, simply because I feel powerless.
When we moved to Shlomi, a small green town in the Western Galilee, I was already feeling choked by the political situation. More than anything else, I needed a bubble that would enfold me and waft me gently away from the filth that was taking over.
Today, deep inside the bubble, I find that the remoteness is accompanied by a sense of helplessness, which increases as the fascism grows stronger. One more restrictive law is passed, and another and another; and if we protested against the first law, we drooped a bit with the second law – and the third one is already taken for granted. After all, we’re living in a fascist country. So why should anyone be surprised?
Women’s Day. Don’t make me laugh.
What this day is really about, more than anything else, is the oppression of women. Let’s give women one day a year when they can feel like queens. Let’s envelop their lives in flowers, presents and sex – so we can gloss over their unequal salaries, their unequal representation, their unequal life.
Fuck Women’s Day. Fuck this fascist state. Fuck this damn world that marches to the drumbeat of oppression.
Guys: don’t celebrate my womanhood and don’t do me any favors. Instead, pull up your own stinking socks. Change your heads and your discriminatory laws.
It doesn’t matter if we’re Jewish, Muslim, Christian or atheists – women are the ones who mourn their (and your!) dead, the ones who care for the wounded, the ones who pay the price of arrogance.
Take your roses – thorns and all – and shove them up your ass.
– Or Maroni-Cohen
I commented elsewhere, I am reminded of Morgan Freeman’s thoughts on Black History Month and racism:
It does seem pretty patronizing to give Women a single day of recognition when fully half (if not more) of the accomplishments of humanity are theirs, and when sexism is still so ingrained in various societies that most people don’t even recognize it. Even ones who think about it.
So essays like this are important, and need to be kept in the light and not in the dark.
The Old Wolf has spoken.
