Go to the Mattresses. Change the Strategy.

Huddle up, fellow women.

I’ve talked to a lot of women friends recently. Actually, I’m pretty sure I have fewer women friends after some of these conversations. More and more, I hear them saying they’re turning away from the situation we now find ourselves in politically. “I’m going to stick my head in the sand,” one said. My response? What will you tell your 9-year-old and 11-year-old 10 years from now when they ask you why you did nothing? Perhaps now you understand why I have fewer friends than I used to.

And then there are the ‘wait-and-see-what-happens’ friends. We hit the iceberg, friends. It’s happening, and the longer you wait to see what is going to happen, the less likely it is that there will be any way to stem it. Take, for example, the press—ABC capitulated with no pushback to settle on a case against George Stephanopoulos brought by DT that they should have won. Shouldn’t all the advertisers know that none of my fellow women and I are going to watch ABC ever again? Shouldn’t ABC worry that we will put them out of business faster than this newly formed government? Have we really not learned that our power in this moment—our only power—is to follow the money and start showing our own agency with it?

A few days ago, I was on a call with a woman who influences other women and provides tools for competing in the world of business. Well, how is that working for all of us? She told me that is her focus - to continue what she has taught all these years.

She is going to focus solely on teaching women how to fill their toolboxes with the tools that she teaches will take you to the promise land—just as she has for decades. That is what she can do now, and that is what she is going to do. She had lunch with a mover-shaker recently, and the topic of this new America didn’t come up. Seriously? The entire playing field has changed, and you’re going in playing croquet with white outfits and gentle ball-hitting as if nothing is different? Everything is different. There is a reason they no longer teach Home Ec in high school to girls.

I’m not good at nuance, and I know I don’t have all the answers. But I couldn’t help thinking: for me, she’s spending her time teaching women how to put on a life vest so it floats in the water, even though the Titanic has already hit the iceberg. The water will kill you in five minutes. Shouldn’t she be teaching women how to get our asses into the boats, how to get as many people in the boat as possible, and how to leave no one behind? That’s our only hope of survival.

Teaching women how to behave in the boardroom when we are losing ground getting into the boardroom is keeping people busy, but the image I have is a woman standing underneath another woman trying to lift her higher. But mostly white men, all around them, are adding dead weight to her shoulders, so the ability to lift her higher is more and more difficult—and more and more futile.

Get this: in a monumental shift within the U.S. House of Representatives, no women will chair any of the 17 standing committees in the upcoming 119th Congress—the first time in over two decades that female leadership at this level is completely absent. So teaching them how to behave in congress, leading committees? Well, girlfriend, that ship has sailed.

Not enough? How about the fact that the recent race for the top Democratic position on the House Oversight and Accountability Committee was given to a 76-year-old congressman dying of an especially deadly form of esophageal cancer. (Go to the bottom of this post for more details.) And Pelosi led the vote. And who did he beat? Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

The absence of female committee chairs isn’t limited to the Oversight Committee. The House Republican Steering Committee’s recent selections resulted in all committee leadership positions being filled by men—without a single person of color chosen either.

This trend isn’t new. In the previous Congress, the number of women chairing committees was already limited. For instance, at the start of the 118th Congress, women chaired only three committees, while men named “Mike” chaired six.

Shouldn’t we be lifting the weights off the women? Lightening our load? Attacking the people adding the weight? Boxing with them on their terms? Again, those terms are follow the money. We have the money. We control spending. We just aren’t using it.

We must change our focus. Women who are as good as my friend at teaching women’s tools and giving others the confidence to rise, should pivot. We have to change the tools in our toolbox. We should be teaching and learning skills that will win this battle—how to run for office, how to win, and how to navigate the sea of paperwork filled with lies and shiny distractions. Teach us how to secure grants from women like Melinda Gates and MacKenzie Scott. Teach us how to pool money to make films that inspire action, how to get on school boards, and how to claim space in decision-making rooms. And teach us how to collectively demand change—not through marches to nowhere wearing hats with pussy ears (I still can’t get over that!). Take us to the mattresses. Teach us how to fight, fight, fight. Our way. Fair, but brutal. With money. It’s the only currency they understand.

We women are ill-equipped for what we’re facing right now. Continuing the same strategies we’ve used for the last 20 years is spinning wheels. I won’t do it. I won’t participate in it.

This is a war. Not a war with guns—I’m not buying one—but a war of discipline and strategy. It’s about refusing to spend money with companies that treat us as an oppressed minority. Yes, I’m talking about Amazon. Only five cents of every dollar you spend there goes back to our communities. Are we willing to sacrifice and be disciplined to not go the wayside of Hungary? That’s the decision we need to make.

We need to rise up and reveal the truth. It shouldn’t take the murder of a CEO to expose a company’s role in harming and killing possibly millions of patients over the past two decades. And why do our elected officials let them continue? Thirty-two out of 33 countries have figured out universal healthcare. If I’m so smart, why haven’t I done something to change the fact that we’re the only holdout? Why didn’t I make my ‘leaders’ accountable? There are ways to fight these systems, but companies bank on the fact that once they deny our request for care, we won’t push back. That we will never collectively fight them. And, we haven’t.

We women must send PACs, paid for by women, run by women, to go to DC and fight, fight, fight.

Teach me how to fight. Teach me tactics. Teach a class on boxing with these evil humans, for God’s sake. For those of you who are teachers, change the curriculum. Ours is outdated.

But head in the sand? Continuing to do what we’ve done for 20 years? That’s not an option. Not for me, anyway.

I hate that I know I’m alienating some of the women around me. I hate it. I need to find a better way to inspire rebellion—a new, collaborative, and deeply feminine rebellion. But I don’t have that together … yet. I can tell you it keeps me up at night. And, input is always welcome.

In the meantime, please don’t shoot the messenger. Instead, evaluate the message. Ask yourself: Could she be right?

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Dying Congressman to Head Oversight

In an article you shouldn’t miss titled Dying Congressman to Head Oversight, Ken Klippenstein and Dan Boguslaw, wrote the following:

“A 74-year-old congressman stricken with an especially deadly form of cancer was chosen today to be the top Democrat in charge of oversight, a watchdog role that will oversee investigations into public corruption and wrongdoing over the next two years. Two days after his re-election last month, Rep. Gerry Connolly on November 7 disclosed that he had esophageal cancer. Medical experts told us that the survival rate for esophageal cancer is extremely low.

“The cure rate is extremely low, and even under the most favorable of circumstances only a tiny minority can be cured,” Dr. James Stark, a Harvard-educated 30-year veteran oncologist, told us.

In other words, Connolly, now the top House Democrat on a committee responsible for overseeing ethics and accountability, will very likely die of the illness. Yet despite that, House Democrats today voted 131-84 for Rep. Gerry Connolly to serve as ranking member of the Oversight Committee. Connolly defeated Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the 35-year-old congresswoman also contending for the position. Connolly won the support of several of the party old guard, including 84-year-old Rep. Nancy Pelosi, who found the strength to whip votes in his favor even after she was rushed by a U.S. military medevac for a hip replacement after suffering a fall while on official travel. It remains unclear whether Pelosi advocated for the septuagenarian directly from her sick bed or with the help of her whip team.