If you happen to be an individual in possession of two X chromosomes, a functioning e-mail account, and at least a few female relatives, friends, acquaintances, or co-workers, odds are that at some point in the last ten years you have a received a forwarded missive something similar to one I have simulated for you, below.
“Subject Line: Forward this to 10 Awesome, Amazing Women in Your Life Right Now!!!!
It has been said that if all the woman in the world got together and combined their hearts and minds, that all the wars, problems, pain and conflicts in the world would be resolved, and we would be at peace.
When women work together, THEY CAN DO ANYTHING! Forward this e-mail to 10 Awesome, Amazing women in your life and let’s bring WOMAN POWER to the forefront and make this planet better!”
At this point in the scene, you find me staring at the computer screen, stupefied.
Sometimes the e-mail is linked or attached to some woman oriented fundraising thing.
Sometimes, the e-mail ends old school chain letter style, implying that there might be serious negative repercussions for me, or at best I’ll miss out on the major prizes of life, if I can’t reach deep into my contacts and scrape up the e-mail addresses of “10 awesome amazing women” to dump this sucker on.
In fact, sometimes the e-mail says I have to send it to no less than 15 awesome, amazing women, and that’s when I’m really screwed. 10 I can maybe do if I include a couple of ex-coworkers who I’ll probably never work with again, and that odd Avon lady who always seems to be off her meds when I run into her. 15? Yeah, I don’t think so.
Don’t get me wrong, I have several dear friends, who I think are awesome and amazing people; not necessarily because they’re women, but because they’re awesome and amazing people. Roughly half my friends are women and half are men, and it’s been that way a long time.
But getting back to the e-mail in question, and it’s important message to us, to quote one of the greats, “I DON’T WHAT.” Seriously, what is going on here?
As someone who has been a girl and/or woman the entire length of this particular incarnation in Earth, still in progress, I can’t figure out where this magical power is that women could somehow collectively summon. And if we’ve had it all the time, how come we haven’t used it to create a fluffy, rainbow filled, raspberry scented, society reminiscent of illustrations in pamphlets distributed by some of the more exciting religious cults of today?
I think the answer is: because it DOESN’T EXIST. In my experience the cool, wonderful people and total assholes in the world seem to divvy up relatively evenly over gender lines. Of course men have gotten away with a lot more violence and bullshit over the millenia. But I think that’s mostly just because they had that extra physical strength that really comes in really handy if you happen to be a louse and want to get your way. The women louses just haven’t gotten the same breaks, especially pre-technology.
Once upon a time I was briefly involved in a group in New York to promote female musicians. The premise, repeated endlessly on their press releases and promotional materials, was that if we all worked together we could create something great, and that somehow women particularly had all this “untapped talent that was being ignored.” Not for nothing, as they say, but there was pretty much the same amount of talent and lack thereof in the organization that you would find in any other random crowd of musicians.
After helping out on one event I quit, not because the event itself hadn’t gone well enough, but because I just couldn’t keep up with the false bravado and fake unity any more. “Woman power” only seemed to have the power to make me feel completely ridiculous standing under its banner.
