Letter to a White Feminist

Happy International Women’s Day. Do you still call yourself a feminist? Do you still want people to view you as existing on the moral higher ground, and do you still justify the killing of Palestinians in the same breath? 

You tell me you’re proud of the military and how they have deployed more women, how it’s a true win for gender equality. I think when one has a gun pointed in their face, it doesn’t really matter. Killing is killing, and your justification of the barbaric act speaks louder than bombs. 

Do you still believe in women’s equality? Yet you belittle and question a brown woman’s experience because she hasn’t “read as many books” as you have on the subject? - blissfully unaware of the unforgiving pushing and pulling of the Western world and the impact on her existence? 

Are the women in Gaza not worthy of your feminist outcries? The ones who are displaced and wounded, bruised and lost. Who are using tents for their monthly bleed and eating animal feed to ward off the most violent starvation ever recorded in human history? Does the thought of them anger you? I suppose they’re not from the West, so your sympathies don’t align with their livelihood. They are abstract numbers, and you’re beyond feeling. This conversation between us is repetitive and tired.