post-women's history month
A letter of feminist solidarity with the Palestinian women of Gaza
At the conclusion of women’s history month and the 178 days since October 7, 2023, roughly 9,000 women have been killed by Israeli bombs in Gaza. Almost half of these women are mothers. To me this is an unimaginable horror that I cannot turn a blind eye to, and yet I feel utterly helpless to do much of anything meaningful about it.
Why am I enraptured by Palestine? Indeed it is connected to my own decolonial investigations (link to piece) — and I believe that all formerly colonized peoples must unite against colonialism — but why not any of the other occupations and conflicts around the world? I am not a political scientist or social movement theorist. I cannot quite tell you why over the last few decades Palestine has received the amount of global attention it has in comparison to, for example, Kashmir or the persecution of Uyghurs in China (although I do have guesses).
But then I ask myself, when my lens is turned on human suffering isn’t it enough that, at least for a moment in time, I dwell on it? What if, for a second, I should forget my own grievances or hopes and dreams, and consider those of another? And shouldn’t my only reaction to such insight into humanity be gratitude?
My akka, or older sister, gave birth to my niece in 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic was at its beginning in America. The University of California San Francisco (UCSF) hospital was not allowing family into the building, so akka hobbled inside with her husband. Appa, or dad, and I waited in the parking lot, staring at the ceiling of the car. Amma, or mom, anxiously waited at home with the Milan, our family terrier.
After waiting a couple hours my dad and I returned home without my sister, who would end up being in labor for 36 hours. My mom greeted us at the door, worry etched across her face as she saw the wrong daughter cross the threshold. Appa tried to calm us down, telling us stories of how he and amma were born at home, without electricity. “How far we’ve come in such a short time,” he sighed sitting cross-legged on akka’s living room floor. The three of us had never felt so incomplete without our fourth corner.
None of us slept that night. Instead we dreamt of the journey akka had taken to getting pregnant. My sister had reached deep into the universe to place my niece in her womb. We prayed and prayed that akka would deliver without much difficulty, but the hours on the clock ticked by and the phone didn’t ring.
When a pregnant woman — a young mother — is killed in a war that has extended well beyond self-defense, humanity loses.
I have no power over this conflict happening thousands of miles from my home in San Francisco, California. Anti-war movements are a long-standing American tradition, but in this moment I feel so small, despite my outsized concern.
It is a deeply uncomfortable place to be.
So, what do I do? Spread awareness? Make my position clear to everyone in my life and possibly in my workplace? Attend protests? Follow in the footsteps of Henry David Thoreau and not pay my taxes? Perhaps this moment can inspire how I vote, what I read, and which stories I listen to, so that generations from now the world is different. Perhaps my reaction to this moment needs not be a reaction, but an undoing.
Major social movements in the U.S. that transpired during my lifetime have changed me — the fight for marriage equality, the first and second waves of Black Lives Matter, and the #MeToo movement. Each movement added layers of maturity, humility, and openness to my thinking. They complicated what I believed to be true and taught me to not assume that I understood the world. These movements changed my views and values, knowledge and ignorance, biases and self-awareness, and principles and morals. I have been changed to the bone before, and I will be changed again.
My good friend Colin Kimzey, one part of art collective Sour Soup Society, pointed me to the work Palestinian artist and ex-militant Zaharia Zubeidi:
"We, in Palestinian society, have lost culture, political culture and context," Zubeidi says. “As a resistance fighter, I felt I was missing culture and the depth of politics. So, unfortunately, all my resistance work was wasted. Therefore, I'm getting back to culture as my way of getting to resistance,” he says about opening a children’s theater.”
"Zakaria has realized that a revolution and revolutionary behavior is not only through the use of a weapon. It is through reading and understanding and talking and through nonviolence.”
It can be easy to assume we are post everything. Post-feminism, post-civil rights, post-marriage equality, post-reproductive justice, post-#MeToo, post-DEI, post-BLM. But simply because we have invented and disseminated language that articulates oppression, does not mean oppression has melted away. Our movement starts with language, but will require a lifetime of joyful, sustainable dedication. We are now post-women’s history month, yet we must remain political and, as feminists, we must strengthen bonds among us.
At the conclusion of women’s history month, roughly 9,000 women have been killed by Israeli bombs in Gaza. Maybe some, like me, were engaged to be wed. Waiting for a future of love and romance that would never come.
To quote comedian and cultural upstart Ramy Youssef, “God…please stop the suffering. Stop the violence. Please free the people of Palestine… and please free [all] the hostages.”
In the long term every positive activity including this article will aid in bringing peace to Palestine. Every brick contributes to the solidarity of a building. Very good article.