Women learn the hard way to speak out. We ask nicely. We get ignored. We ask again. We're told we're wrong/imagining it/exaggerating. Slowly we work out how and when to speak and the words to use. Sometimes something changes. Often it doesn't. So the cycle begins again. We ask nicely, using the knowledge we gained first time around. We get ignored. We ask again and we may get some platitudes, along with the being wrong/imagining/exaggerating. Something begins to shift in us. We begin to lose the 'niceness' that we have had inculcated in us since birth.
Over and over it happens. Until one day, we have had enough. We are no longer patient. We are angry. We weren't wrong/imagining/exaggerating.
Angry women are a threat to the status quo. It can be uncomfortable being the angry woman. It can be uncomfortable witnessing the angry woman. But make no mistake the anger is justified.
What I am seeing here is many angry women. Whose anger is justified. Yet within that anger there is dignity and eloquence. Because we have had to learn to keep that anger in check and articulate precisely what the problem is. Over and over and over.
Lang is the epitome of dignity and eloquence. Explaining over and over what the problem is. Measured and considered and clear in her reasoning as to why safeguarding is paramount and why there cannot be any sacred castes who are above being questioned.
So why is she (and the many other patient, eloquent posters on FWR) not being listened to? Whose interests are being served by trying to prevent those voices being heard?
I can't remember who said it but the quote along the lines of 'if you want to know who holds the power, look at who you are not allowed to criticise', seems apt here.
More and more women are becoming increasingly and justifiably angry. And finding ways beyond MN to connect up to channel that anger.