In honor of Women’s History Month, we present 31 Days of Revolutionary Women; a series of daily essays by local authors documenting, honoring and celebrating powerful women who inspire us in South Seattle and beyond.
by Nikkita Oliver
Womxn are always on the frontlines of revolution—be that in our bodies, on our bodies or with our bodies; be that with our hearts, our minds, our spirits, our prayers; be that in our homes, at the protest, on the job, walking the sidewalk, in the stores; be that with our families, our children, our partners, our communities, the many peoples and places we nurture day in and day out, in the light and in the dark, with our hands and our hearts—womxn are always on the front lines.
We scarcely recognize it, but patriarchy is one of the first and oldest forms of oppression. It is a pervasive beast. See how it rapes and pillages our Mother. See how it desensitizes us till we become complacent with its mischief and mistreatment of our grandmothers, our mothers, our aunties, our sisters, our daughters. See how it teaches us exclusion and exploitation; to push out the trans womxn and the two spirit amongst us. See how we miss out on the beauty and the revolution that is simply being womxn.
Being womxn, however one defines this for herself, in today’s world is, in and of itself, a revolutionary act. All womxn by virtue of living as the womxn we choose to be are therein revolutionaries.
So let us remember
the hands unseen
unknown to the texbook
unremembered by the historian
She’s got the whole world in her hands
swaddled and lying in a manger
no room for her in the inn
still watch how she makes
73 cents to the dollar
multiply like fishes
bounty so full
she can’t help but smash
the glass ceiling
Let us remember the stolen,
murdered, lost and forgotten
indigenous womxn
let us honor this land
and this water
birth of a nation on her back
let us remember womxn of color
not just locally but globally
call forth the matriarchs
Pour out libation for black womxn
who bring us up on their ancestors
waters still giving
care take generations not their own
as if they were their own
and still have more to give
Let us remember
our sister in the scarf
no different than the sister without one
her feminism is no less visible
no less powerful
her feminism is her right
to choose to cover her head
Let us remember
trans womxn’s rights
are womxn’s rights
are huemxn rights
whats rights is right
and it’s wrong
if they ain’t alright too
Let us remember
the womxn of the global south
the working poor
the cash poor
those for whom the struggle
is more than a catchphrase
who tear their teeth on oppression daily
for whom 73 cents makes more sense
yet it is still less than dollar
Injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere
it all makes me want to holler for all the womxn
we forget
So let us also remember
our sisters in chains,
caged with no end date
let us march
round walls and borders
till they can’t make sense anymore
till they can’t deport anymore
till they can’t police our bodies anymore
Let us remember
the queer and the femmes
those for whom gender is fluid
flexed and changing
you, we, womxn
spelled on purpose with an “x”
are more than a check gender box
Womxn is spirit
and we honor
the grandmothers,
the mothers,
the sisters,
the aunties,
the soul sisters
Who hold
our hands,
our hair,
our hearts
Who remind us
our true value
is more than
the sum of our parts
cannot be divided
We be intersectional
we beyond measure
beyond makeup
beyond clothing
beyond profit
We cannot be monetized
will not be militarized
will not be occupied
will not be capitalized upon
We, womxn warriors,
on the front lines
holding our hearts
to the earth
to our Mother
from whom all life
springs forth into creation
Let us remember
the hands unseen
the womxn’s work
unknown to the texbook
unremembered by the historian
unexamined by the spotlight
yours is the warmest touch
unseen yet forever felt
Nikkita Oliver is a Seattle-based creative, teaching artist, and anti-racist organizer. She is an attorney and holds a Masters of Education from the University of Washington where she studied racial disproportionality and disparate impact in school exclusion. Nikkita is a writer-in-residence with Writers in the Schools at Washington Middle School and Franklin High School. Additionally, she is a teaching artist and case manager with Creative Justice–an arts-based alternative to incarceration. Nikkita has recently entered the Seattle Mayoral race as the People’s Party candidate.
featured image _forgotten emotions 11 from SeRGioSVoX. is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) license
