A Day Without Women

I'm not the best when it comes to protesting. I'm well aware that there are some things going seriously painfully badly in the US, and it's difficult to figure out what to do or how to do it. Things like marches and rallies are a great way to make grievances known, but they're not exactly what you'd call "anxiety friendly." Add to that a problem with large crowds of people, and I'm not marching anytime soon.

It means that I feel like I can't always help out in the fight. There are certainly groups of protesters who believe that if you don't make the effort to show up in person, you're not really dedicated to the cause. While intellectually, I know this is not true, it still stings. There's always the question of "am I doing enough?"

March 8 is International Women's Day, and in conjunction with that, the organizers of the Women's March are planning A Day Without Women. I'm planning to take part in this, but I admit to being a bit afraid. The goal is to be disruptive, make it clear that society can't function without contribution from everyone, and that everyone should be respected for their contributions. These are all ideals I can get behind.

On the other hand...the idea of being purposefully disruptive is anathema. Whether it's what I absorbed as a child, how my anxiety and depression interact, or some form of lessons from the media, I have a deep-seated fear of rocking the boat. Keeping my head down and my mouth shut has been the mantra for most of my adult life, and the idea of doing anything other than that is terrifying. What if my manager decides that I'm not sufficiently dedicated to my job? Worse, what if he decides that he doesn't actually need my work? What if I'm making too big of a deal out of things? After all, I'm privileged in a lot of different ways, not least of which being that I can even contemplate taking a random Wednesday off from work in protest.

As of right now, I've messaged my manager and told him I will be out on Wednesday. I sincerely hope my doubts don't make me change my mind. For those of you who wish to help the fight but aren't in a place to stop working for a day, limiting your spending (if possible) on Wednesday sends a strong message, too. Also, just keep the conversation going. Write letters, make phone calls, tell the people who are supposed to represent you and your interests what they need to do better.

You do what you can, and I'll do what I can. Together, we'll make a difference, no matter what anyone else says.

Comments

Wanna Hear Me Talk?

I mentioned in my last post, but now I'm doing the official promotional thing. I'm going to be doing a couple of presentations at the Flights of Foundry convention next weekend! Specifically, I'll be doing a game demo for Rolling Realms on Saturday, September 28 at 1pm Pacific. On Sunday, September 29 at 3pm Pacific, I'll be doing a panel presentation on copyright and public domain basics; finally, also on Sunday, September 29 at 5pm, I'll be on a panel sharing my handwork (specifically my crochet, cross stitch, and blackwork) with a few other fantastic people. This is my first time doing this kind of presentation, and so I'm a wee bit nervous. Still, I'm super excited, and the fact that it's all online means that I'll at least be in my home, and the cats may or may not make an appearance on camera. So! If you're interested in what's looking to be a fabulous online convention (that's FREE!), come join us next weekend!

Calm Your Mind with Needle and Thread

I was fortunate enough to be able to host a workshop at GeekGirlCon last weekend, which went extremely well. My friend Erin was in town for the convention and was kind enough to co-host the workshop with me, which worked wonderfully because she was able to answer some questions that I didn't know how to answer, and also keep us on time (she's a professor, so she's experienced with dealing with classrooms full of people). I thought it would be a good idea, for my own benefit if nothing else, to document the first part of the workshop, which was a talk about embroidery and mental health. I've made the PowerPoint and list of resources available on a separate page of this blog ( here ). I don't know about you, but the last few years have not been especially kind to my mental or emotional health. I discovered early on in the pandemic that going back to something I learned when I was a child, cross stitch, was something that could help ease my anxiety and give me somethi...

Hope is a Four-Letter Word

I've been bouncing around with this for the last few weeks, ever since I read a couple of quotes from the book Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman. The book overall had some interesting ideas about reframing the idea of trying to get everything done. Even though there were a couple of things that made it clear the author was not approaching things with an eye toward neurodivergence (his discussion of distraction, for example, only talks about the "choice" to be distracted, and not how some people's brains simply don't focus the same way others' do), I was feeling generally positively toward the book until I got to the last chapter, and read this: "Hope is supposed to be 'our beacon in the dark,' [environmentalist Derrick] Jensen notes. But in reality, it's a curse. To hope for a given outcome is to place your faith in something outside yourself, and outside the current moment - the government, for example, or ...

Search This Blog