Editor In Chief’s Open Letter to Women

Dear Women of Fem Friday,

It is with a deep gratitude and concern that I write this.

I just finished the first draft of an upcoming novel about one of the most special Fem Friday Women I have written about. As I reflect on the strength and experiences of the woman the main character is based on, I am proud to have known her and honor her memory, but I lament how hard her life was because of misogyny. My heart is both filled with appreciation for women and fear for their safety.

I am beholden to the women who have raised me, inspired me, loved me, and helped me become the father and the man I am today. When this letter publishes, there will be only 11 days left until the presidential election in the USA. As we get closer to that day I think about my mom, my grandmother, my sister and so many others who have given me so much, including life.

I was born into a world where women could not keep their job if they were pregnant, report sexual harassment in the workplace, get a credit card on their own account, refuse to have sex with their husband, or have the right to an abortion and legal autonomy over their bodies. Most of these changes happened when I was a toddler or in early elementary school and I was too young to understand how precious these rights were and how hard they were fought for.

I am grateful in my formative years to have had a grandmother who protected me and loved me when my mother could not. She could not because severe abuse at the hands of cruel men led her into a life of addiction and trauma rendering her incapable of caring for me.

As I grew into adolescence my grandmother exposed me to many classic movies featuring Katherine Hepburn, Mary Astor, Jean Arthur, Claudette Colbert, Myrna Loy, Barbara Stanwick and Rita Hayworth. While that was going on I was taking in the music of Heart, Madonna, Cyndi Lauper, Tina Turner, Bjork, Patti Smith, Joan Jett, Siouxie Sioux, and others who had strength of character and will and messages.

This set the tone for puberty to find me attracted to women who were strong. With the list above how could I not be drawn to women who were creative, talented, and strong as fuck? Between 1986 and 1991 I would start a journey of intimacy and explorations of love with women who were feminists and showed me what love and affection given without toxic manipulation was. Each one of them inspired me and taught me lessons about life, love, and meaning.

But in the 90s I let you down. I had been through a lot of trauma in my childhood. As a child victim of DV and SA I was easily manipulated. I lost my innocence and had my ribs broken for the first time at the age of nine at the hands of a man my mom met at a runway modeling show I was in for Vidal Sassoon in the Chicago burbs.

Years of sustained torture and abuse makes you pliable to manipulation. American Evangelical Conservative Christianity offered me purpose, family, love and a sense of belonging as long as I was compliant. They told me that these women, from my grandmother to Cyndi Lauper to my girlfriend who I loved dearly were Jezebels and were outside of God’s will and used and manipulated by the devil himself. I know it sounds weird to read that. It is weird to write that. I tried to resist the worst of their messages, but I did not have the inner strength some of the women I knew did.

I got lost and stopped supporting women. I opposed your right to bodily autonomy and did not stand up vocally for Anita Hill, Monica Lewisnki, and countless others in the press and in my community who were suffering. And the lessons of strength of character and will you instilled in me over my lifetime, I forgot those. When I lost my belief in you, I lost my belief in myself and was essentially personality tofu absorbing the flavors and toxins around me.

Between 2012 and 2013 the life I built without a foundation crumbled. And in that time there were, yet again, amazing women who stepped in and lifted me up. Deep inside me the seeds of the women from the before times were still there. The weeds of restrictive thought could not choke the life out of the dandelions within that were ready to break through the cracks and ruins that was once my life.

Ever since I have endeavored to not only rediscover the boy that knew women mattered, but to become the man that is a humble ally and an ardent feminist.

Never in my life did I think I would write something that connects with so many women as the Fem Friday series does. I just wanted to offer homage to the women of my youth that helped form me and inspire me and others and hope a few people liked it. But I have read countless letters from so many of you. I’ve seen women that did not know each other prior to an article I wrote become friends. Hell, three women I have written about have also contributed content here or connected with our readers through interview.

I am not myopic enough to believe that a single election will be the end all be all of restoration of women’s rights and safety in the US, but I do know that if it goes the other direction, women could lose so much more.

Roe was lost leaving many women in danger. When DeVos was a cabinet member in 2020, victims of SA on campuses across America lost what limited rights they had in reporting and having their violations investigated properly. What else could be lost? Credit cards? Bank accounts? Property rights? Right to tell your husband you are not in the mood or do not want to have a child? Right to hold a job even if you are pregnant? Considering what has already been lost that was won in my lifetime, everything is in danger right now.

My promise to you is that I will always be a humble ally and I will continue to learn and to grow. I will also never stand quiet in the “locker room” as many of my progressive peers do. Hell, some of them are the locker room.

Coming next month I will continue to offer weekly homage to women who inspire and create change. But I will also be “turning up the heat” a little after the election regardless of how the election goes. As far as the upcoming YA series. I hope that women of all generations see themselves in the women represented in these novels. It is not just the main character, there are mothers to be, an immigrant, and a woman with a disability who is there as a significant and powerful character as opposed to sympathetic trauma pron.

If the election goes one direction, it will be a fight for your lives. If it goes to Harris, then I feel I, and others, have a responsibility to hold our representatives accountable for not just stemming the damage, but restoring what has been lost and codifying it like they should have so many times and failed to even try. It was even a campaign promise that was unfulfilled by a two termer democrat (Thanks Obama).

You are not a token for votes. And you deserve the rights you lost, the rights you have, and the rights you still need and have yet to receive.

But it is not just the USA. There are women in nations all over the world that need help in moving forward. And I hope that even if you are unhappy with the USA’s actions or inactions for these women in these other spaces that you vote anyway. It will be easier to fight for others abroad if the women here are safe and free to speak out and use a credit card to get a plane ticket somewhere and raise hell without needing a man’s permission to do so.

I am not a hero, just an ally who loves you and promises not to let you down again. Though I may stumble and make mistakes, I will listen, learn, and grow. I will not go dark again and I try my darndest to get men out of the locker room and into the fight.

Thank you for reading, changing me, and allowing me the honor to stand with you as best as I can despite my horrific contribution to that which threatened you.

In love and respect,

Patrick L Green

Editor in Chief

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