5 Tips for Surviving as Female

The Weeklings participated in a nationwide Writers Resist event on January 15, at Bearsville Theater in Woodstock, NY. Over thirty readers and musicians participated, and more than $6,000 was raised for endangered causes Planned Parenthood, The New York Civil Liberties Union, and Riverkeeper. This was one of the pieces that was read that day. 

Trump-Statue-710x445Stay vigilant.

ASSUME THE STANCE of outrage. Don’t let it go. Believe you are a feminist soldier in the army of the United States of PussyGrabsBack. Part Angela Davis. Ruth Bader Ginsberg, your mom when really mad, Patty Hearst in her SLA days, Patti Smith, Beyoncé. Do not calm down. To compensate for crazy winning, be more crazy. Do not keep calm. Aim low.

Avoid buy-in.

Shopping for your new post-election look? Consider a cute combat belt and mace canister. Or marchable boots and matching, regulation-small bag, small enough to pass muster but large enough for a gas mask. But careful: Pre-purchase, do research company donation history as well as customer reviews on quality and sizing. 500-plus businesses enabled Drumpfler’s favored nation to commit a national grope: Zappos, Amazon, Bluefly, Lord & Taylor. And yes: LLBean. Beware of heiresses in sexless brown smocks. Try to avoid taking classes at the Learning Annex. For years, they offered a seminar by Valdetrump: The World Wants You to Grab it By the Pussy, Believe me. Here’s How! Careful about accidentally supporting the new American fascists — they’re everywhere.

Be creative.

When doing your makeup and contouring your face, no need to sell off your rights on Ivanka cosmetics. Create a perfect “spawn of an asshole” glow using a red sharpie — just blend well. Extra bonus: It’s perfect for making signs too! To define your cheekbones for post-apocalyptic impact, grab a gob of contaminated river mud and smear warrior style, eye socket and up. Have fun by switching up the look: moderate for basic day demonstrations, dramatic for those tear-gas and water-cannon times. Marching in Washington? Perfect chance to test it out. The extra application may protect your eyes.

Subtly change behavior.

Avoid holding babies near people who purr with biological approval and suggest you’re “next.” Refer them to Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. Sadly, now’s a very, very bad time to defer to male opinions in general. If budget permits, buy an extra washing machine, just in case (a la Breitbart) the cheeto in chief decides to take yours away. Lock your shoe closet as well – hard to dash to Canada barefoot! At work, while giving a speech or presentation, do not keep talking if a dema-fuck is lurking behind you. Turn around. Face him. Go Maori haka: Bug eyes, gnash teeth, widen stance like a crone birthing a volcano, throw both hands onto his white-collar neck, and squeeze

loslassen_grafik_engCustomize tactics.

Top tips work always work best when they fit you and your lifestyle. But these may help everybody’s chances of survival now that nothing’s the same. It’s a good time to abandon your 50s-ironic nostalgia outfits ­— except on extreme occasions of overt resistance. Just like music or thinking, monsters don’t “get” irony. Dressing like a housewife may get you kidnapped, or impregnated, we don’t know yet. But we know they want us in aprons, bringing snacks to the lynching party. They want us pretty and exhausted: that’s what makes America great! So while learning to crochet your pussy hat, why not learn how to throw knives? Top tip: aim for the guy with the gold hair.

 

 

About Jana Martin

Jana Martin is the author of Russian Lover and Other Stories (Yeti Books / VerseChorus Press), as well as numerous books of nonfiction, including Smoke Gets in Your Eyes (Abbeville Press), Great Inventions, Good Intentions (Chronicle Books) and Scarlett Saves Her Family (Simon & Schuster). Her stories and short prose have been published in such journals as Glimmer Train, Five Points, Mississippi Review online, Spork, Willow Springs, and Turnstile, and her nonfiction has appeared in The New York Times, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, Chronogram, Tucson Weekly, and many other publications. She is a former member of Eagle Valley Search Dogs, a K-9 rescue team in the Hudson Valley, and was for years a bass and guitar player and lead singer in various unsung punk and indie bands. She recently closed her Etsy shop to write a book about wolves.
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