Saturday, December 30, 2017

The Year of the Frock

So according to some, 2017 is/was the Year of the Cock, though, as I noted in my earlier blog under that title, this is a western twisting of the Chinese Year of the Chicken, a designation that makes rather more sense, given all that we get from the chicken compared with the cock.

When I wrote this earlier blog on Jan 6, fifty-one weeks ago, it was before the Women's March and the Weinstein revelations and the  #MeToo movement and the box-office smash hit feminist films Hidden Figures and Wonder Woman and TIME magazine's pronouncement of the sexual harassment "whistle-blowers" as Persons of the Year,  all of which, and much more besides (including the election here in September of a woman PM that made international headline news), contributed to such a surge of feminist activism and interest in exposing and fighting sexism around the globe that the word 'feminism' became the most searched for word in 2017 and voted Word of the Year by Merriam-Webster for 2017. 

Who would have thought it would take the election of the world's biggest cock to finally, after the tireless efforts of dedicated and much derided feminist campaigners for more than two centuries, liberate and listen to the chicken?

Well I didn't think. But I did sense the beginning of this long-awaited and hard fought for uprising at the Women's March in Auckland two weeks later, when so many women, here as around the world, showed up with their voices and their placards to protest that king cock and loudly and openly identify with the feminist cause.

I'd been on a fair few feminist marches before this one and never seen anything like this level of collective anger and support for the sisterhood, with there being so much to lose for those, especially women, who identified with the much despised 'F-word' and movement. But now, in one short year, that once reviled word is the word (and cause) of the moment and women (and men) who identify with it are hailed as brave instead of hated as bitter, man-hating harridans, at least by many, if not most.

So in honour of this seismic shift I designate 2017 The Year of the Frock, with "frock" loosely woven to mean whatever item of attire you chose to wear -- or not to wear -- that celebrates the life-giving and hate-trumping power of the world's egg layers, with and without feathers.


     

 
  

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