This is SO awesome! Wow… you’ve got it all in one post—everything I’ve ever thought about male dominancy over my whole life. Thank you, Summer, for having the courage (ovaries) to say all this. Thank you for being willing to bear whatever blowback comes your way as well. Just know: some of us male creatures have ALWAYS been against male dominance and long for a balanced world where the amazing gifts of females are fully understood and appreciated and put into place. And you hit the nail on the head: men have blown it! 10,000 years of patriarchal “running” (ruining?) the world… let’s give it a rest and let the stronger/wiser gender take the reins. I voted for both Hillary and Kamala and will again vote female the next chance I’m given. What a privilege to read this. 👍❤️
BRING BACK THE RED TENT. I have never experienced so much quiet power as I did in the birthing community of midwives outside the industrialized medical system. Also it's always been interesting to me that men love the longhorn (bull) symbol so much, and it's really the shape of the uterus, tubes and ovaries.
oooh I never realized that! awesome about the midwives community. were you involved with them for a bit? both my kids were birthed with midwives, one at home, and my sister and I were both delivered at home with midwives :)
Yes! My last baby was born at home and it was the most life-altering experience I’ve ever had. A true reclamation. I have a lot of grief around my other births, which were hyper-managed by my male OB. So much to say about this, but I’ll leave it here: in the company of midwives I was able to experience birth as the rite of passage it’s meant to be. I missed out o n that 3x.
It was the two paragraphs filled with all the maybes that not only had me cheering but totally reminded me of Gretchen wieners rant on Julius Caesar. Anyways, absolutely great article
You are your point! Such a powerful call to use the ovarian energy to save us all, to not sit down, to not shut up, to fight, to go where the so called leaders are and use their testicles for speed bags! Crude, yes. But they are going to be vulnerable in so many ways!!
You covered ALL the bases in this piece. Women have every right to feel angry and to take that anger and fight like hell in whatever capacity they are able. Neptune is now in Aries until 2039 and I believe the transitions are going to be explosive because women will be at the forefront.
What a terrific piece. Please excuse this long note, but your essay struck a nerve.
I'm still astonished that 53% of white women voted for Trump, and every one of my female buddies was devastated when Joni Ernst, one of their heroes, voted to confirm Peter Hegseth. The common question from them was, "How can a woman who experienced sexual harassment in the military and built her career around battling it, vote for a guy like Pete Hegseth," and they always added, "Every woman alive, with even a glance at that guy and his arrogance, was reminded of all the Pete Hegseths they deal with on a daily basis."
But, yes, only women can save us. Ironically, to use a male metaphor, they have more balls. I'm a white guy, who has, at different stages in my life, been part of every white-guy demographic, so I can confidently say that the majority of courageous white guys are currently AWOL. The time of the Bluebeard of fairy tales is sadly upon us. Read my post this week for a brief return to that tale and how wrongly men interpreted it. The piece ends by arguing that many men also have had to deal with different versions of the kind monstrous masculinity now in vogue. It can be exhausting, and sometimes even a bit dangerous if you push back, as I often gleefully do. https://johnsonp.substack.com/p/bluebeard-is-alive-and-well-thanks
But back to women. You mention Lysistrata. I'm sure your readers know the story, but let me briefly say something about the play, and then I'll go back to my weights, preparing for the next time a MAGA guy, high on Red Bull and grievance, wants to pummel me for wearing my blue T-shirt with the symbol of Ukraine on it.
In Lysistrata, written by Aristophanes, Lysistrata convinces her fellow Athenian women to end the Peloponnesian War by refusing to have sex with their husbands.
A preposterous solution, you might say, especially in our woke 21st Century. But is it really? When one of her friends asks Lysistrata if her plan will work, she simply replies: "Absolutely … If we sat around at home all made up, and walked past them wearing only our diaphanous underwear, with our pubes all plucked in a neat triangle, and our husbands got hard and hankered to ball us, but we didn't go near them and kept away, they'd sue for peace, and pretty quick, you can count on that!"
I’d like to think we men are more evolved than Lysistrata suggests, but all I have to do is to look into the mirror to know otherwise.
It's curious to think that, indeed, depending on the midterm elections, this solution may end up being the only one available, but if your women readers decide to choose it (a cooly designed T-shirt would be great), please don't tell anyone I suggested it, or my house will be peppered with bullets every evening by MAGA guys who are mad that their ED meds aren't working anymore and need someone to blame, and I have an adorable black pug I would hate to see become collateral damage.
This is SO awesome! Wow… you’ve got it all in one post—everything I’ve ever thought about male dominancy over my whole life. Thank you, Summer, for having the courage (ovaries) to say all this. Thank you for being willing to bear whatever blowback comes your way as well. Just know: some of us male creatures have ALWAYS been against male dominance and long for a balanced world where the amazing gifts of females are fully understood and appreciated and put into place. And you hit the nail on the head: men have blown it! 10,000 years of patriarchal “running” (ruining?) the world… let’s give it a rest and let the stronger/wiser gender take the reins. I voted for both Hillary and Kamala and will again vote female the next chance I’m given. What a privilege to read this. 👍❤️
Thanks so much Bill for speaking up for balance in a world gone awry and being an awesome ally!
Fire it up! Yeah! ‼️
Love your ovaries, Summer!
Hahhah ty!!!! 🥚 🥚
BRING BACK THE RED TENT. I have never experienced so much quiet power as I did in the birthing community of midwives outside the industrialized medical system. Also it's always been interesting to me that men love the longhorn (bull) symbol so much, and it's really the shape of the uterus, tubes and ovaries.
oooh I never realized that! awesome about the midwives community. were you involved with them for a bit? both my kids were birthed with midwives, one at home, and my sister and I were both delivered at home with midwives :)
Yes! My last baby was born at home and it was the most life-altering experience I’ve ever had. A true reclamation. I have a lot of grief around my other births, which were hyper-managed by my male OB. So much to say about this, but I’ll leave it here: in the company of midwives I was able to experience birth as the rite of passage it’s meant to be. I missed out o n that 3x.
It was the two paragraphs filled with all the maybes that not only had me cheering but totally reminded me of Gretchen wieners rant on Julius Caesar. Anyways, absolutely great article
Yay and I’m cheering with you! Thank you, Jenn! 💕
This is so good.
Thanks so much, Kara!
Pusillanimity is the origin of pussy. I’ll die on this hill.
I love that!
Wow, what a read. Well done👏
Thank you!!!!!!
All. Of. This.
{Mic Drop}
THANK YOU!
Right ON! As we witness in real time the downfall of our nation at the tiny hands of the epitome of toxic masculinity.
tiny hands LOL
Amazing essay. Instant classic.
Thanks so much, Bryce!
This is everything!! Thank you, Summer.
Thanks so much, Joanne!
Warrior Goddesses all ❤️.
Thank you, Brien!
You are your point! Such a powerful call to use the ovarian energy to save us all, to not sit down, to not shut up, to fight, to go where the so called leaders are and use their testicles for speed bags! Crude, yes. But they are going to be vulnerable in so many ways!!
Haha yep! Thanks Frank!
You covered ALL the bases in this piece. Women have every right to feel angry and to take that anger and fight like hell in whatever capacity they are able. Neptune is now in Aries until 2039 and I believe the transitions are going to be explosive because women will be at the forefront.
Summer:
What a terrific piece. Please excuse this long note, but your essay struck a nerve.
I'm still astonished that 53% of white women voted for Trump, and every one of my female buddies was devastated when Joni Ernst, one of their heroes, voted to confirm Peter Hegseth. The common question from them was, "How can a woman who experienced sexual harassment in the military and built her career around battling it, vote for a guy like Pete Hegseth," and they always added, "Every woman alive, with even a glance at that guy and his arrogance, was reminded of all the Pete Hegseths they deal with on a daily basis."
But, yes, only women can save us. Ironically, to use a male metaphor, they have more balls. I'm a white guy, who has, at different stages in my life, been part of every white-guy demographic, so I can confidently say that the majority of courageous white guys are currently AWOL. The time of the Bluebeard of fairy tales is sadly upon us. Read my post this week for a brief return to that tale and how wrongly men interpreted it. The piece ends by arguing that many men also have had to deal with different versions of the kind monstrous masculinity now in vogue. It can be exhausting, and sometimes even a bit dangerous if you push back, as I often gleefully do. https://johnsonp.substack.com/p/bluebeard-is-alive-and-well-thanks
But back to women. You mention Lysistrata. I'm sure your readers know the story, but let me briefly say something about the play, and then I'll go back to my weights, preparing for the next time a MAGA guy, high on Red Bull and grievance, wants to pummel me for wearing my blue T-shirt with the symbol of Ukraine on it.
In Lysistrata, written by Aristophanes, Lysistrata convinces her fellow Athenian women to end the Peloponnesian War by refusing to have sex with their husbands.
A preposterous solution, you might say, especially in our woke 21st Century. But is it really? When one of her friends asks Lysistrata if her plan will work, she simply replies: "Absolutely … If we sat around at home all made up, and walked past them wearing only our diaphanous underwear, with our pubes all plucked in a neat triangle, and our husbands got hard and hankered to ball us, but we didn't go near them and kept away, they'd sue for peace, and pretty quick, you can count on that!"
I’d like to think we men are more evolved than Lysistrata suggests, but all I have to do is to look into the mirror to know otherwise.
It's curious to think that, indeed, depending on the midterm elections, this solution may end up being the only one available, but if your women readers decide to choose it (a cooly designed T-shirt would be great), please don't tell anyone I suggested it, or my house will be peppered with bullets every evening by MAGA guys who are mad that their ED meds aren't working anymore and need someone to blame, and I have an adorable black pug I would hate to see become collateral damage.