Okay, so I'm a little late to the show on this one, like, four months late, but apparently this is some movement where women are told to demand money for their unpaid emotional labor and generally putting up with men. It's roughly based on the "wife bonus" concept that made the rounds a while ago, except instead of Goldman Sachs assholes throwing their trophy wives some money to go shopping, the #GiveYourMoneyToWomen movement seems to ask for money from anyone who will donate.
Here, you can read about it in this Vice article. Highlights:
Quote:
VICE: Hey, Lauren. Could you tell us a bit about your background as an organizer? How did you come to start the #GiveYourMoneyToWomen movement?
Lauren Chief Elk: I've been heavily involved in this kind of work since high school, so going on ten-plus years now, and I've been involved in rape crisis advocacy and domestic violence victim advocacy. I also worked in organizing and policy at the governmental level and nonprofit level. Violence against women advocacy has been the center of my life and work, for my entire adult life and teen life.
Does your work helping victims of domestic violence tie into the idea of #GiveWomenYourMoney at all?
The hashtag came out of a lot of things. As a prison abolitionist, and as someone who is thinking of alternatives to justice for power- and gender-based violence, monetary compensation has been something that I thought of as a really good alternative. What is an alternative? Making people financially responsible to you, making your abusers financially responsible to you. [The hashtag] came out of my own praxis for justice in regards to that. It also came out of just thinking about what women have to do all day every day, whether that's in marriages or relationships or work environments—anything really. The type of labor that we are expected and required to do all the time.
Lauren Chief Elk: I've been heavily involved in this kind of work since high school, so going on ten-plus years now, and I've been involved in rape crisis advocacy and domestic violence victim advocacy. I also worked in organizing and policy at the governmental level and nonprofit level. Violence against women advocacy has been the center of my life and work, for my entire adult life and teen life.
Does your work helping victims of domestic violence tie into the idea of #GiveWomenYourMoney at all?
The hashtag came out of a lot of things. As a prison abolitionist, and as someone who is thinking of alternatives to justice for power- and gender-based violence, monetary compensation has been something that I thought of as a really good alternative. What is an alternative? Making people financially responsible to you, making your abusers financially responsible to you. [The hashtag] came out of my own praxis for justice in regards to that. It also came out of just thinking about what women have to do all day every day, whether that's in marriages or relationships or work environments—anything really. The type of labor that we are expected and required to do all the time.
Quote:
Should we just stop? Stop playing therapist, stop staying quiet, stop doing the labor we aren't being paid for? Or are there risks to opting out?
There are a lot of risks. Turning back to #GiveYourMoneyToWomen, a lot of the risks are monetary risks. If you don't do this [emotional labor] anymore, you could lose your job or your relationship or literally lose everything because all of this stuff is expected. It's sucks because a lot of the time women are told—and men have this in their heads too—that we are just inherent caregivers and nurturers, here to just take care of you. So when that gets disrupted, especially in an emotional sense, that's when they—this is going to be when empires crumble. When that is realized and women cut it off, truly, it's going to be when empires crumble. Because this [emotional labor] is so expected in any interaction when men interact with women. This [idea] started with Bardot Smith. Oh yeah, no, fuck this. Men get so much from us, they drain us for our knowledge, our support, our validation, our attention, no! If you want this, hand over your fucking money. Give me your cash, right now, if you want all of this.
There are a lot of risks. Turning back to #GiveYourMoneyToWomen, a lot of the risks are monetary risks. If you don't do this [emotional labor] anymore, you could lose your job or your relationship or literally lose everything because all of this stuff is expected. It's sucks because a lot of the time women are told—and men have this in their heads too—that we are just inherent caregivers and nurturers, here to just take care of you. So when that gets disrupted, especially in an emotional sense, that's when they—this is going to be when empires crumble. When that is realized and women cut it off, truly, it's going to be when empires crumble. Because this [emotional labor] is so expected in any interaction when men interact with women. This [idea] started with Bardot Smith. Oh yeah, no, fuck this. Men get so much from us, they drain us for our knowledge, our support, our validation, our attention, no! If you want this, hand over your fucking money. Give me your cash, right now, if you want all of this.
Can't knock the hustle, but trying to monetize basic human interactions seems rather churlish. There's also an undeniable Ayn Rand vibe to it. The internet is dumb and weird.
But now for the really weird part.
So I'm looking up this Lauren Chief Elk, going through her twitter timeline which mostly consists of yelling at people but not really anyone in particular, and then finally I get to a picture of her donning Raiders apparel in preparation for their game against the Bears two weeks ago. This fully redeems her in my eyes, because I like the Raiders, too, insofar as I like football, which I don't, really. So that's cool.
Who should comment on her photograph but fucking QUAD CITY PAT, YES, THAT ONE, WHICH OTHER.
This is like running into your teacher at the drugstore but worse. What are the fucking odds that I can read about Native American activism and intersectional feminism on Twitter from some woman in the Bay Area and bump into some jamoke I recognize for placing long-winded phone calls to Dan Bernstein? Why are these worlds being allowed to collide? I just don't know what I'm supposed to do with the internet anymore. This really should not have happened to me.
The real irony is that even if I could bill her for her time, there's not a girl I know who I'd be comfortable sharing this with.
