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*Editor’s Note: Elephant Journal articles represent the personal views of the authors, and can not possibly reflect Elephant Journal as a whole. Disagree with an Op-Ed or opinion? We’re happy to share your experience here.
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My dear fellow women,
It is Women’s Day, and I wish I were writing to you about celebration or progress or about the long arc of history finally bending toward something kinder for women and girls across this planet.
But if I am honest, the emotion that rises in my chest today is not celebration.
Far from it!
I am enraged!
I am grieving; and, quite frankly, being a woman these days exhausts me in my bones!
Because never in my lifetime has the machinery of Patriarchy felt so evil, so brazen, so untouchable.
We are living in a world where billionaires move through society like modern kings, while ordinary people are lectured about paper straws and recycling. Where powerful men accused of abuse, corruption, and pedophilia continue to sit at the top of politics, finance, and industry…protected by wealth, influence, and silence.
Including the current f*cking president of the United States of…War.
And meanwhile, the world burns.
Israel’s genocide in Gaza is still ongoing, by the way. Gaza now holds the largest population of child amputees on earth. Over 39,000 children orphaned.
History will remember who spoke, who stayed silent, and who justified it. (Let me insert a big F*CK YOU to the United States, UK, and Germany who enabled much of this every step of the way!)
Beyond Gaza, the Middle East remains trapped in endless cycles of violence and destabilisation, thanks to the U.S. and Israel’s toxic relationship. Iraq. Iran. Lebanon. Afghanistan. Syria. Yemen. Decades of interventions, proxy wars, sanctions, bombings, and geopolitical chess games played over the bodies of civilians.
And while all of this unfolds, Mother Earth herself is being stripped, drilled, mined, and poisoned, and yes— raped!
We sort our recycling and drink through paper straws hoping these tiny rituals will begin to offset the scale of destruction. Meanwhile the war machine burns fossil fuels at unimaginable levels. Billionaires fly private jets to climate conferences (if they even bother to attend). AI data centres consume enormous amounts of water and electricity, while we are told to shorten our showers.
And in the middle of all of this chaos, most women are doing what women have always done:
Holding families together.
Raising children.
Caring for the elderly.
Caring for their community or the collective in any way we can.
We are trying to keep some thread of sanity in a world that right now feels completely insane.
So what does it mean to be a woman in times like these? What does it mean when so many of us feel that our voices, our protests, our tears seem to dissolve into thin air?
I see women everywhere who are not indifferent. They are not apathetic. They are simply overwhelmed. Nervous systems pushed beyond capacity. Hearts that cannot metabolise the sheer volume of suffering that’s flooding our screens every single day.
So many of us have quietly slipped into freeze mode. Not because we do not care, but because caring hurts too much.
I am so tired of crying because of this world!
I do not pretend to have answers to any of this f*cking mess! Do any of you?
But, my God, do I have questions!
How long will we continue to watch systems built by Patriarchal power destroy the very world that sustains us?
How long will the same small circle of powerful men rotate through politics, finance, war rooms, and scandal after scandal, while accountability never seems to arrive?
How long will societies tolerate political movements rooted in racism, authoritarianism, and fascism before finally drawing a line?
And at what point do women collectively say that enough is enough?
History has seen revolutions before.
The French Revolution rose from ordinary people who could no longer tolerate a system that protected wealth and power while the public starved.
But sometimes I wonder what a revolution led by women would look like.
What if women simply stopped playing along?
What if the future was shaped by people who understand that children matter more than borders, that rivers and forests are not disposable resources, and that power without compassion eventually collapses under its own weight?
What if balance returned to a world that has been violently tilted toward domination for centuries?
Perhaps we do not need another catastrophic world war before women step forward in full force, the way they were forced to during the last one.
Perhaps we could start now.
Because honestly, that sounds like a much better plan.
In fact, at one point earlier today, while contemplating the state of the world and the long tradition of revolutions sparked by ordinary people who had simply had enough, I briefly caught myself thinking: perhaps it is time to order a pitchfork.
Purely out of curiosity, I did briefly check online.
And apparently they do sell them…
Which raises several important logistical questions:
Do pitchforks come with free shipping?
Are they available in eco-friendly bamboo versions for the environmentally conscious revolutionary?
Is there a group discount if several million women decide to order at once?
Purely theoretical questions, of course.
But just in case one day you see women across the world showing up not with weapons, but with courage, clarity, and perhaps a symbolic pitchfork or two…
Well. I am ready to rock and roll! Or Pitchfork and roll.
You might consider joining me.
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