A Letter from 'Her' to 'Them.'

Another day, another tired meme telling me I need your protection. I don’t. And let’s be clear—you might be the one who needs protecting from me. I do not need your honor or respect. I honor myself, and I respect myself. I do not need you to validate me. I need you to work on your own issues that have secured this moment in history. Here is my letter to you.

Dear Those of You Who Think I’m Asking for Your Approval and Protection,

Hey, huddle up—Roman philosophers, fellow countrymen, Indian gurus, and other humans who have no idea who I am or what I’m capable of—I have a few things to say.

I realize that my past behavior might have made you feel that my goal is to get your approval, protection, validation. Okay, I earned that headline. But I’m awake now, and we can put that to bed.

I don’t need you to protect me. Do you not realize that I’ve been the one protecting you for centuries? I can protect myself and others. I need respect for myself, not from you. From me and those I have in my chosen circle. I need to honor me. As to whether you are civilized or not (see the quote above), I will judge that one human at a time.

Look, I’ve been busy cleaning up your little messes for years—wait, centuries—so I’m a little late to this gathering you’ve created. But now that I’m here, and now that I’m tapping the shoulders of the other women—women who have been too busy handling the diversionary explosions you constantly create in our lives to see the bigger picture—know this. We’ve got this.

You will not win this battle. It may take us a while, but trust me when I tell you, you will be very sorry you started it. This revolutionary war, this unconscionable challenge to what’s right and what’s wrong for our country, without any need for a demarcation line to tell you where good begins and evil thrives, is ours to win. You are done.

One at a time. By one of us at a time.

The only thing I have to be careful about is making sure you don’t get in my head. That I don’t respond to the fear I sometimes feel when confronted by you. That I see, clearly, how very weak you are. How very unhappy you are. And as long as I remember how strong I am, how much I can appreciate so many things that are bigger than you could ever become, I’ll be fine.

And my country, the one you’re trying to overrun with your swarming bugs, each carrying your name, will survive without you in charge. We will have to rebuild, but we are good at that. We’ve been doing it for centuries.

You see yourself on a path toward a kind of power that, in your mind, can never be taken away. But that’s not the journey I see for you. And if you think this country was built by men like you, let me remind you of some truths we don’t rub your faces in—so you may have forgotten them.

We have also been the architects of what made us America. The silent partner. The one who didn’t need to be jumping up and down in front of everyone yelling, I did it! I did it! I did it!

This country was built on the backs of the huddled masses yearning to breathe free, and women, and children. Children who sold newspapers on the streets. Children who held their families together when their fathers walked out. Children who grew up long before they should have had to. That is who built this country. We all built this country.

I’ll give you an assist, sure. Many of you showed bravery on the battlefields, for example. But how many of those battlefields were created by your brothers—men who love a good fight where people die, as long as they don’t? And are heading in that direction on a global scope… again.

And yet, some of you were there because you thought you should be, because you truly believed you were doing what was best for your families. I give you that. I appreciate your service, and I tell you whenever I see you. And some are in my inner circle, but it doesn’t negate the damage that the men are doing now. The greedy, corrupt, unhappy, small-everything men. (Yes, there is the odd woman, but very few, and none with real power.)

I do not give you front-row center on the stage that is in front of all of us now—or even the front row of those watching the stage. Nope. You have to step aside. We are here because of you, and we need to step in now and clean up your mess.

And while I never cared before that you wanted to be there, wanted to hold the microphone, to set the rules, I can no longer afford to let you think you own the right to run us into the ground.

So take your respect, your honor, and your protection, and turn it to yourself. Ask yourself if you are behaving in the way you want to be remembered by the family that will be your legacy for centuries to come. Which side of history do you really wish to call your own?

I have come to realize over the past few months that I am a kind person. And I am an angry person. And I’m a calculated, smart, driven person. Maybe even a ruthless person. I never needed that asset before, but now I do, and I am. I didn’t understand until now that all of those things do go together. And the sign that still pops up—If you can be anything, be kind—never belonged on the stage at all. At least not for me. I will choose when each of my assets is brought to the round table of collaboration with other women (and men).

So leave your memes to other topics. Leave me out of it.

With certainty,

The Women of America (or at least one of them, me)