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The patriarchy is no good for anyone, and this week I came across an illuminating example. My friend discovered a major issue at work and had to manage the resolution process. Listening to them describe the whole experience conjured up a vivid (and completely insane) depiction of how it all went down. In my mind’s eye I could clearly picture the gaggle of tech-bros-with-stay-at-home-spouses running around uselessly flapping their arms without a clue where one could even start solving a problem. In this particular incident, the tech bros blew up the collective data stream by failing to consider their team’s impact on the system as a whole. They had an idea and then they did it… using the shared infrastructure. They did not identify how much space their new idea would take up, and they did not check to see if the common-use infrastructure had that much space available. It did not. The tech bros acted just like people who are nearly never required to consider their impact on other people in any area of life. Consequently, my friend – a person who grew up cultured as fem – had to mom the shit out of all the tech bros to facilitate everyone working together to solve the problem they created. Vast income inequality is similarly no good for anyone. As exemplified every single day since January 20th when the Orange Menace was sworn in as president. This is what happens when you take a person who has had literally everything in their life arranged for and around them for their entire existence. Then someone (or a lot of someones) think it’s a good idea to put them “in charge” of a massive institution that has to actually function like the federal government. They have no idea what they’re doing and the big important agencies they are in charge of start to falter. I just saw the new Frankenstein movie and it’s a similar story. A wealthy man (who grew up under the tyranny of his cold and overly-demanding father) spends all his time shut away in his manor doing dangerous science without any colleagues, peers, or mentors to bounce things off of. His staff takes care of the mundane day-to-day business of the rest of his life, so the wealthy out-of-touch-with-regular-life scientist is free to spend all his time in the echo chamber of his own mind. Then he makes a thing with consequences beyond his initial imagining and it hurts a lot of other people. Somehow the well-funded, mistake-making, peerless, mad scientist avoids all actual accountability and never has to resolve the fallout from his horrible mistake because he dies while running away from his problems (after first making things worse). The poor creature must live on alone in a world that doesn’t understand or accept it with no liaison to usher it into any aspect of the rest of society. And everyone else who was hurt or impacted by the whole making ill-advised mistakes, running away from them, then coming back and making things worse fiasco is left to pick up their own pieces. Our current societal systems are built on the pillars of Patriarchy, White Supremacy, and Wealth Domination. That’s why society doesn’t actually work for most people. The ultra-wealthy elites who currently run things do whatever they want and the rest of us have to run around picking up all the pieces and managing the fallout of their self-centered policies and investment schemes. We have to work multiple jobs to afford groceries and health care, collect cans to fund schools, and hold bake sales to pay for access to art and literature while out-of-touch fools drunk on their own ideas hold exclusive meetings in expensive places to hatch new and more complex methods for absorbing all the world's resources for no actual purpose other than their own continued accumulation. Those same folks at the top refuse to make the significant changes necessary to fix our broken systems because the current systems work quite well for them. The people who are benefitting from the current system should not be in charge of “fixing” it for the rest of us. Just like how the health insurance companies should never have been invited to help “fix” the health care system when the ACA was crafted. But someone gave those grifters a seat at the table and now here we are spending more on health care than everyone else in the world and having nothing but debt and poor health to show for it. And yet some folks still can’t connect these dots. It’s continuing education season for the accounting industry, so I have spent the last two weeks listening to old white men explain how they help their already overly-resourced clients continue to accumulate excess wealth. Mostly it’s just depressing how out of touch these professionals are with the economic reality of most people, but I did attend a surprisingly fascinating update on the economy. The Economist began his presentation by saying “It’s not as bad as it looks. In fact I think it’s going to be fine.” Then proceeded to explain himself. What was fascinating to me wasn’t the content of his presentation, although he did provide some interesting charts and figures showing the vastly different impacts of inflation on various sectors and other assorted data. But the most interesting thing to me was how he almost made it into pro-socialism camp. He said wages are down and “It’s terrible for the employee who is dealing with the same inflation as everyone else.” Yes; correct. But then he said “But it’s great for the employer.” And I rolled my eyes. No, sir. It. Is. NOT. It’s never good for employers to have a workforce who can’t meet basic living needs. "Consumers represent 69% of the economy," he told us. Where does he imagine those people get their money to buy all the stuff these companies are selling? Later in his presentation, the economist talked about health care and highlighted that some folks will see as high as a 20% increase due to the end of government subsidies. He said “When you have the highest cost and the worst results, that’s a broken system.” Yes; correct. Then he went on to say “How do we fix our health care system? It won’t be the politicians; it’s going to take the people rising up.” What?! YES. And then he kept going, “And New York is just the tip of the ice berg. People want real change and they want real solutions.” YES. THAT’S WHAT WE HAVE BEEN SAYING THIS WHOLE TIME. Followed by, “The young people (Gen Z) are looking around and saying ‘you know, capitalism really isn’t working for me; let’s try socialism.’” Yes, you’re on the right track! Keep going! And then he said “Oh no no, socialism isn’t the answer.” Wut. He thinks we need to cut other stuff to fund health care… You were so close! SO CLOSE. So. Close. He walked right up to the door and had his hand on the handle and then… I don’t know what. I guess he missed a stair and ended up back at capitalism’s doorstep because that’s all he knows. He, like many other finance professionals is too steeped in our current system to see outside it. And they don't know anyone who isn't just like them, so they are never exposed to different ways to consider problems or solutions rooted in different perspectives. The people who are in charge are terrible people. They are selfish and inconsiderate and greedy. Otherwise they would not have clawed their way to the top of a system that rewards those behaviors. Generous, community-minded folks don't make it through the system to the top with their humanity intact even if they start with good intentions and a human-centered outlook. The system changes you. The people at the top should not be in charge of the rest of us because they are uniquely qualified to serve only themselves. This is also clearly evidenced by almost every response to significant natural disasters. A Paradise Built in Hell by Rebecca Solnit is full of these stories. Tragedy strikes and the people come together to take care of each other. In the absence of the status quo, people come together to society in a decent and sharing way. Then the authorities arrive to ruin everything by “establishing order” because the ruling class is frightened of losing its grip on power. Those wealth-and-power-holders are so steeped in the current system they cannot imagine any other option. They cannot imagine how to function if they aren’t in charge. Community and social skills are something a lot of us don’t have the privilege to avoid learning. Anyone and everyone can learn these skills, but certain demographics get through most or all of their life without having to pick them up – namely white, cis het men. Which leaves their slack to the rest of us to pick up and sort out in a mostly or totally unacknowledged way. As a fem human, I have been required to pick up quite a lot of slack for adults around me who should be able to manage their own shit but definitely aren’t doing it. And most of that labor has been invisible and unacknowledged. And that reality fills me with an incandescent rage. Which I then also have to do all the work to process through and manage. It’s exhausting. And I only sit at the intersections of fem and queer and grew up poor. As a white person with a college degree I benefit from other flavors of privilege. My consideration for some of my fellow human beings has been optional. Which means I should definitely do that work. Because I care, I take the time and invest the energy in pulling my own social and emotional weight. I manage the practical impact I have on the people around me in life, work, and play. I tend my own internal and external landscape. I consider my fellow human beings. We should all definitely do the work to hold all our fellow society members in our considerations. Please do your work. Especially now when all we have is each other. Information and inspiration
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Throughout this year I have been thinking a lot about our present reality. We are living in strange and scary times and I am often unsure what to do with it all. Like many people, I have to structure my consumption of news and social media so that I can decompress and re-find my grounding, otherwise I will break apart at the seams. Unfortunately, I also need to know what's going on. It continues to be critical to not look away in this moment - I must witness the unfolding catastrophe so I can get in its way at every possible opportunity. Fascism is not a problem that will solve itself, but it is solvable. Just not if everyone sticks their head in the sand. The whole point of the Broligarchy's "strategy" is to take an outrageous number of horrible actions in rapid succession so the rest of us are overwhelmed by the sheer number of atrocities and paralyzed in horror as the pillars of our society come crashing down around us. So I have refused to check-out entirely. And I'm grateful to see so many other folks sticking it out with me. In fact, there are a lot of people who are paying much more attention now than they have in their entire lives. Which is what we need. But if the shitshow continues as it has done, if it goes on and on and on relentlessly, and we must remain ever vigilant in our opposition, how do we survive under these conditions? How do we work and play and love under these conditions? How do we thrive under these conditions? We do it together, that’s how. The fascist and conservative playbook is to pit we lowly masses against each other based on arbitrary factors none of us actually care about like skin color, salary, and who you want to bang. The antidote is solidarity. I recently took a trip to Seattle to connect with some martial arts friends. The folks at Seven Star Kung Fu feel like cousins since we share a common lineage a few generations up our respective martial family trees. They usually come to Portland for the twice-yearly Fun Fighting workshops my long-time training buddy and I co-host. They couldn't make it down in October, so we took ourselves north to return the travel favor. When Michelle and I first started Fun Fighting we called it Femm Fighting. Our aim is to create a safe space for martial artists who have historically been marginalized in dojos dominated by cis men, to train and have fun and find community. We're forging connections across martial arts styles and between schools and among all ranks and experience levels. Our demographic includes women, femm humans, nonbinary people, and trans folks. Which there is not yet a single term for in the current lexicon of popular culture. (At least not one that doesn't continue to center cis men, as in the category non-cis-men) After the most recent workshop, we received feedback that some folks who are definitely in our demographic were not sure they were invited because they don't identify as fem/femm/femme. Luckily we are making up the protocols as we go in collaboration with our community, so we simply changed the name. Enter: Fun Fighting. Close enough to the original name to keep most of our branding, but without the gendered specificity of the word femme. The Patriarchy will take all our efforts to overcome and we want to include all our fellow fighters. While I was in Seattle I visited the Wing Luke art and history museum in Chinatown International District. I lucked-out with an amazing and singular version of the Museum and Historic Hotel Tour. The usual Guide was out that day, so the Director lead me and four little old ladies on a fascinating journey through time. We explored what life was like in the early days of Seattle's Chinatown and Japantown districts. We stood in shop fronts and boarding house rooms and family meeting halls and heard about the people who lived their lives in those places. Our Guide shared many interesting personal accounts from the early 1900's, and the little old ladies shared stories from their own childhood experiences in the neighborhood during the middle of the same century. We all asked so many questions and the Director had so much information to share, we went over our time by a considerable stretch. But none of us minded; it was like we checked out of modern time to fully take-in the people and places of the past. The tour also covered the history of labor movements started by Chinese and Japanese and Filipino immigrants in and around Seattle. We learned about how these different cultural groups joined together to overcome racist policies of the day and gain workers rights and fair treatment. We learned about the geoduck harvesters who joined up with the longshoreman. And we learned about Larry Itliong, the Filipino farm worker who took the Seattle labor organizing practices east to the Washington agricultural workers, and then south to the fields of California where he convinced Cesar Chavez that the Filipino and Mexican laborers were stronger together. That museum visit was a timely reminder for me to stay the course of community building because the way we survive under these horrific conditions is by coming together. None of us can ever defeat the powerful few at the top of our capitalist, profit-centered societal structure. But we can do truly amazing things when we come together in solidarity to share in each other's fight. So take the time to learn about the other people around you who are oppressed. Learn about your own family or cultural history of struggle and solidarity. Then come together to craft a future where everyone is free. Their struggle is your struggle. Your struggle is my struggle. Their fight is our fight. Information and Inspiration
These days most things are upsetting if you’re paying any amount of attention. Since my last essay on the heels of Inauguration Day, I have felt buried. Both by the day after day onslaught of complete federal insanity as well as by the sheer amount of effort and energy it takes to continue to survive it. It’s absurd that while federal agencies are dismantled and my neighbors are kidnapped and troops are deployed to my city and the government shuts down that I still have to show up for work. I still have to organize my community and do everything we can to obstruct the rise of fascism. And I still have to drink water and do the laundry and brush my teeth. Frankly it’s a miracle that any of us are getting anything done at all. But we mostly seem to be managing, and that's amazing. Two weeks ago I was buoyed up by Saturday’s enormous protest march. It started on the bus. A couple seats behind me a small group discussed their recent employer’s choice to replace their jobs with robots. "I can't fund that product now, not if it's produced in that way." How nice to overhear labor organizing on the bus. I glanced slightly to the side to look out the window and saw an anti-swastika social media image scroll by. How nice to sit next to someone with that social media feed. At every stop, more folks boarded the bus with signs and sassy tee-shirts, talking jovially and clearly headed to the No Kings protest. Meanwhile the bus vibrated so intensely while stopped or at low speed that I couldn't look at anything without scrambling my brain. So I closed my eyes and practiced some internal Taiji Qigong Kung Fu stuff. I was fully in my body, enjoying the ambiance of solidarity around me. It felt like an incredibly Portland bus ride. I felt a profound sense of belonging and I love every second of it. Downtown, I got off the bus with everyone else and we walked together toward the protest. Along with all the other busloads of people just arriving. There were so many of us we were like a mini march all on our own. Hundreds of people streaming along blocks and blocks of sidewalk carrying signs toward the waterfront. At one point a pro-OrangeMenace march went by and we stopped to let them pass. There were... tens of people. Chanting vapid slogans in flat passionless voices. It was a remarkably tense moment, everyone around me seemingly holding their breath and unsure what to do. Then I laughed out loud. Heartily. Because it was just so absurd. We weren't even there yet - we were still just on our way - and we already outnumbered all the president's supporters 10 to 1. Once I broke the silence, others began booing at the backs of the maga group and we carried on. A few blocks later we blob merged with the main march and I was enveloped by the sea of people and signs and inflatable creatures. It was the most joyful protest I've ever attended, it felt more like a festival than a political action. There were people from all ages and demographics, coming together to be loud and resistant. There were so many good signs! I laughed, I cried, I rolled my eyes. I felt called to action and I felt inspired. The photo highlights were all over social media in the days after the protest, so the witty reprimands and sick burns will live on indefinitely online. Thanks, internet. After we crossed the bridge it was my time to go. I stood at the bus stop watching the crowd pass. It went on and on and on. I was not at the beginning of the march, somewhere in the middle, and there was so much more march behind me. 15 minutes later my bus arrived and the march was still going strong. Like it was never going to end. I felt hopeful in a way I haven't very often this year. Not naively hopeful that a protest alone will stop tyranny in its tracks, but hopeful that as I resist the rise of fascism it will be in solidarity with more people than have shown up before to fight for justice. A few weeks ago as I went by on the bus I saw a some words painted on a wall: still here It reminded me that one of my great contributions to the revolution are these words. My loving and insistent call for everyone everywhere to heal themselves enough to see themselves, so they can see the humanity in others and then treat everyone humanely. It is my gay agenda. And at this point it's not optional. We can't not get our shit together. The alternative is what’s happening right now: fascist psychos who think they can fill the deep dark void within themselves by taking away the right for other kinds of people to exist and controlling everything and everyone else (and also amassing all the money even though they have plenty and there's absolutely no point). Those of us who have been on our healing journey for more than five minutes understand that it doesn’t work like that. There is no way to fill an inner void with external input. And there is no way to take your fulfillment from others. There is no way to take your security from others. All it does is cause suffering and trauma. And we don't have time to keep traumatizing each other, especially with the looming future catastrophe of climate change on our doorstep. Also, in the end, when this is all over - when we have suffered and then overcome and we kick the fascists out of government and we fix the planet and we equitably redistribute all the resources - I’m still going to be here. And they’re going to have to look me in the face. All those people who caused this catastrophe by voting for it and enacting fascist and racists and bigoted policies are going to have face me and everybody else. They are going to have to go to the grocery store and take their kids to school and show up at work alongside all the people they tried to legislate out of existence. It’s gonna be so awkward. But not for me. Because I was paying attention to what all that terror and injustice was doing to my heart and soul and body. I was mitigating and expelling and healing as we went about the business of making change and seeking justice because otherwise I would not have survived. So in the end, I will still be here. We will still be here. And we will demand accountability. Information and Inspiration
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AuthorJaydra is a human in-process, working to make the world a better place. Sharing thoughts, feelings, and observations about the human experience. Archives
November 2025
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