Feminist gratitude

I’m coming to see that unveiling the processes of oppression is only one part of the work feminist labor theorists do.

 

The other part is unveiling the glory and bounty of underappreciated labor so that we can feel it more completely, and find a bright and full gratitude for it.

In this way, Aurora Levins Morales' essay "Revision" is like a fountain of feminist gratitude.



“Let's get one thing straight. Puerto Rico was a women’s country. We outnumbered men again and again. Female head of household is not a new thing with us. The men left for Mexico and Venezuela and Peru. They left every which way they could, and they left us behind. We got our own rice and beans. Our own guineo verde and cornmeal. Whatever there was to be cooked, we cooked it. Whoever was born, we birthed and raised them. Whatever was to be washed, we washed it."

Feminists point to the things taken for granted.

“Ours is the work they decided to call unwork. The tasks as necessary as air. Not a single thing they did could have been done without us. Not a treasure taken. Not a crop brought in. Not a town built up around its plaza, not a fortress manned without our cooking, cleaning, sewing, laundering, childbearing. We have always been here, doing what had to be done. As reliable as furniture, as supportive as their favorite sillón. Who thanks his bed? But we are not furniture. We are full of fire, dreams, pain, subversive laughter. How could they not honor us? We were always here, working, eating, sleeping, singing, suffering, giving birth, dying.”

I think part of what I’m appreciating is the feminist mirror, this way of holding up the things we do - not to prove ourselves to anyone else, but so that we see each other and ourselves more completely.

Aurora Levins Morales

“They said, This governor built a wall, and that one made a road. They said so-and-so founded a town, and this other one produced a newspaper. But the governor did not lift blocks of stone or dig through the thick clay. The capitanes pobladores didn’t labor in childbed to populate their villas, or empty the chamber pots. The great men of letters didn’t carry the bales of paper or scrub ink from piles of shirts and trousers. We have always been here. How could they not see us? We filled their plates and made their beds, washed their clothing and made them rich. We were not mindless, stupid, created for the tasks we were given. We were tired and angry and alive. How could they miss us? We were the horses they rode, we were the wheels of their family pride. We were the springs where they drank, and our lives went down their throats. Our touch was on every single thing they saw. Our voices were around them humming, whispering, singing, telling riddles, making life in the dust and mud.”*

 

I have so much gratitude.

*

Excerpts from “Revision” - which can be read in full online here: https://www.bustle.com/p/in-this-essay-from-women-writing-resistance-aurora-levins-morales-writes-of-the-true-makeup-of-puerto-rico-2970214