Thank you for spending your time with my words, Jenny! I hope to have done Harriet justice—she was such a force for change, my goodness! I so appreciate the kind words, too.💜💜
This is searing and necessary. The way you connect Harriet Jacobs’ lived resistance to the broader architecture of “historical terrorism” makes it impossible to pretend that patriarchy is some accidental byproduct of history rather than its intentional operating system.
Your point about a “void of opposing views” in the historical record is exactly why voices like Enheduanna’s, Christine de Pizan’s, and Harriet’s matter so much. They don’t just fill a gap. They expose how the gap was engineered.
It’s the same pattern in church history. When women’s accounts are absent, it’s not because they didn’t speak. It’s because their speech was treated as a threat to the order, and threats get erased.
It will never not blow me away when someone refers to my writing as ‘necessary'. There are so many authors I think of when I think of that word — and to have it used towards my own writing is so generous. Thank you!
And yes, yes, yes! I always say the patriarchy is nurtured, not natural. We’re just taught the opposite to ease our own subjugation.
I have an older essay titled The Burning Truth of Women’s Words and in it I wrote about the beguine movement of the middle ages which were groups of women utilizing their resources to create communities of learning and piety around their idealized Christianity — it was really, really neat how they navigated the patriarchal world hell bent on harming us.
I really appreciate you spending such intentional time with my words. Thank you! Thank you for the kindness!
Thank you so much for spending intentional time with it. I’m so grateful! This one was a hard one to work through but it helped confront my own false internalizations—thank goodness for writing! 💜 I appreciate you, Lisa. Thank you for uplifting this piece!
Fantastic piece. I've found myself increasingly woken up the last couple years I've spent reading and researching women's history and discovering the race and class intersection embedded in all of it. Thank you for your work. As I've had my own awakening reading more true unsanitized history I'm left wondering what we do with this information. I want to blast stories like these to the world, but we know that they're often received with defensiveness or denial (especially among those whose hearts need to open up the most)... or in groups connected to those victimized throughout history, they can result in even more anger, trauma, and resentment.... how do we use this kind of growing awareness in a healthy constructive way to develop new social paradigms? How can we feel anger and heartbreak while also moving forward purposefully, together? I'm working on these thoughts myself, how to build that next constructive step to a better society, but would be curious to know your take!
Thank you so much for spending such intentional time with my words, I'm so grateful! And yes, yes, yes -- that intersection is a necessity if we are truly going to understand the lived realities of the past. In another piece I wrote about the different foodstuffs available between the classes of medieval English women and was absolutely floored when I finally got my hands on what others kept referring to as "the definitive paper" only to be met with an opening sentence along the lines of "class is far more punishing than gender." LIKE, were women just not a part of this imagined social structure?! My goodness. I can't imagine perceiving the past with half of the population unaccounted for and presuming any authority in such a recreation. Patriarchy is a silly construct, indeed.
I too am looking for the answers to your questions - and I wish I had them freely to offer. I often look to abolitionists' such as Angela Y. Davis and Richie Reseda for these type of insights addressing both the systemic and communal changes required. I personally think addressing the prison industrial complex in the US is a necessary first step, but we can't do that while all the systems that try to support humans basic needs are being stripped away. (But this is very US centric). There is a book by a collection of authors, Angela Davis being one of them, titled Abolitionist. Feminist. Now. which was an excellent resource on this very topic, if you haven't already read it.
By chance have you read bell hooks' The Will to Change? Within she discusses the need for the media landscape to shift, to present the alternatives through the forms we are already receiving--which in part is why I write this newsletter! And I so agree with that sentiment. If we can't visualize or imagine it, how could we possibly create it?
On the personal community level, my family and I have been really intentional with neighborhood participation and support, trying to really create that sense of community on our block. It has been such a joy and the way that a few of us now look out for each other, be it picking the other's children up or dropping off dinner, hosting block parties for social needs, etc., has been just so, so rewarding!
But I'm curious what you think? Anything working for you on the personal level or maybe community level? Again, thank you for engaging, thank you for the time spent, and thank you for the thoughtful reflections! 💜💜
Thank you so much for the thoughtful reply. I've marked down both of those books for my reading list. I devour books more than chocolate now - love getting specific recommendations like these.
I love the idea on media... that machine feels very broken (and owned by special interests) and is a particular sore spot for me since childhood when I realized they're telling stories, not necessarily full truth. How to change media without infringing on free speech... that's a biggie.
As for my thoughts, I always think in "systems" so I'm kind of forming a vague arc in my mind like awareness-->communication/sharing-->changed action ... but the trouble is what are those changed actions? It may be that when more and more people are 'aware' the animosity and resentment naturally changes (i.e., when I don't need to prove anything to you, when I feel safe, I will let my guard down and we'll connect and collaborate better). That's subtle and passive, is that the way sustainable change/progress must work?
Or maybe there should be a priority list of big social/legislative goals... but I don't think you can legislate mindsets, beliefs, people's way of thinking - then you end up with painful reversals later like we saw with Roe v. Wade when the root cause underpinning ideas was never really changed. More examples, reconstruction (or failure thereof), prohibition (or failure thereof)...
As a mother of young kids and homeschoolers, I think about the next generation quite a bit. Teaching critical thinking, less emphasis on spoon feeding "information" and more emphasis on interfacing with an array of sources/texts - learning to learn, to understand, and think. I can say personally it took me way too long to realize that there are so many views on almost any topic - even the 'hard' science topics we think are black and white. If kids grew up with this understanding, I think we'd have less 'certainty' and more 'openness' to others, or at least an awareness that none of us holds the whole picture.
It's a balance I think, thorough awareness/knowledge of the past without dwelling in it vs. living in the now with a complete lack of the lessons of thousands of years of history. Alas, I don't have the answers but appreciate the conversation!
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (which I know want to revisit) really made the concept of intersectionality *click* for me as a first-year college student. It opened my eyes to how ideological notions of race, class, sexuality, and gender are simultaneously forged, mutually reinforcing, and inextricable from each other. You do a beautiful (impressive!!) job weaving Harriet Jacobs's account into a much broader tapestry of social domination across eras, cultures, and disciplines.
I'm also grateful for the reminder that creating and maintaining patriarchal, racist, and imperialist norms requires deliberate, protracted work — work that has been consistently met with deliberate and forceful resistance! I think there's a tendency in a lot of contemporary social critique to focus on the nefariousness of social systems or to single out exceptional people or movements, whereas the reality (which you clearly illustrate) is that such systems are neither natural nor static, and that individual actors are just as much a part of our collective historical fabric (not merely specific to a single time and place).
Oh my goodness I can absolutely understand how your mind probably parted from Harriet’s words in such a new and expansive way — I saw Incidents cited in another work I was reading and then it was at the second hand bookstore the next time I went and it felt like fate. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t read her account before. And you’re so right to call it intersectionality! Too many push back that such things couldn’t exist because the words did not yet exist and that take always confounds me — we create words to explain our reality, not the other way around!
Thank you for your kind words, they truly do mean everything. 💜
We have so many epochs to unpack, but the commonality for the last 5000ish years is this naturalization of male-supremacy; and everything created within that paradigm reflects that paradigm, even unconsciously. I appreciate your acknowledgment of the intentionality to counter it. Even after writing this—and an archive of other works dissecting these oppressive paradigms—I will still minimize the importance of plainly stating and identifying these harms for others to witness. That self doubt will creep in, and you remind me of the importance of it and I am so very grateful. Thank you for so thoughtfully engaging with my words. 💜
I really want to do another piece focusing just on the FL standards I quoted/cited because, oh. my. goodness., the minimization of oppression just oozing from the pages is atrocious. It is one of the most blatant pieces of white supremacist propaganda I’ve seen in the contemporary moment!! To use your word, it is just so deliberate!
I am truly horrified (though unfortunately not surprised) by the Florida curriculum standards. It reminds me of the uproar over the SD social studies reforms in 2023 that intentionally left out American Indian/Indigenous history and tribal government education (following initial proposals to integrate more of this content into the reforms). I’d gladly read a deeper analysis and critique of the Florida case!!
A beautiful piece. Thank you for articulating what history so often seeks to silence, not just the brutal realities of patriarchal domination, but the means by which those realities are rationalized, sanitized, and repeated through the official narrative. Your framing of “presupposing patriarchy” as a kind of historiographical terrorism is devastatingly apt: the violence isn’t only in the events themselves, but in how they are remembered, who is permitted to speak of them, and what is excluded from the sanctioned archive.
The interweaving of Harriet Jacobs’ life with broader philosophical, political, and historiographic critique, especially the analysis of Aristotelian naturalism and the censure of voices like Enheduanna and Christine de Pizan, is brilliantly handled. You challenge not only the patriarchal past but the epistemological structures that continue to uphold it.
I was especially struck by your line: “To assume acquiescence and unwavering assimilation to such subjugation as inherent to the human condition is to allow the terrorism of patriarchal history to become fully actualized.” It reminds us that refusal, resistance, and survival are not exceptions to history—they are history, and the failure to center them is not neutral. It’s erasure.
Exactly this - “It reminds us that refusal, resistance, and survival are not exceptions to history—they are history, and the failure to center them is not neutral. It’s erasure.” You synthesized that so perfectly! Thank you for that. We see these moments of rebellion, of revolution, and think they are singular, yet they only seem so because we’ve never fully documented those disadvantaged by the systems put in place. As you said, we’ve ‘sanitized’ history.
I so, so appreciate you spending such thoughtful time with my words, Lizzy! I saved this comment, the generosity and kindness of it is just so wonderful for the heart—thank you. 💜
I grew up in Mass and we would, every so often, drive through “The Sumnah”. I know the caning history well, but never heard of Harriet Jacobs before reading your work. Thank you for bringing history together and illuminating facts that I can pass on to my sons and daughters.
Thank you for spending your precious time with my words, Meghann! 💜 I found it incredible how their lives were intertwined, yet their hardships were so very different. We truly are all in this fight together.
what an amazing piece of writing. i have read it multiple times, each time reflecting on a different one of the many well presented concepts and exploring the many well documented sources of inspiration. i will come back to this essay again and again i'm sure. so many parallels with today's struggles for liberty. so many motivational notes to keep on resisting. bless you for the time and effort you put in to enliven and enlighten us 🙏🏽🧿
Reem, this is such a gift of a note. Thank you. Thank you for sharing this with me and thanking you for sitting with what harms can perpetuate when we presuppose patriarchy. I’m so grateful for your time and presence, thank you 💜
A powerful articulation of the uneasiness many of us feel whenever the words "that's just the way it was" are uttered without an ounce of critical inquiry. Thank you for the time you spent researching and writing this, truly a piece that should be read by all.
Thank you, Kate! This was a tough but important read, and the older I get, the angrier I get at this patriarchal system. I appreciate the work you put in, and am looking forward to the follow-up piece.
Thank you for always spending your precious time with my words, Sheila. It really does mean everything! It was so hard to work through Harriet’s story, and I hope I did her justice because, oh my goodness, what a force! Thank you for always honoring the time and energy these pieces require 💜
This is so informative and I’ve learned so much from reading this! It’s actually sad that the oppressive power of patriarchy still exists today. But at least we are more equipped with knowledge and understanding to vanquish at least some of its vestiges within our consciousness. I’ve also seen a few changes in the system thanks to those who protested against oppression and assert the rights of the minority. Enlightenment is still a progress! I’m beyond in love with this essay!
Thank you for spending such thoughtful and intentional time with my words, I'm so grateful! Yes, we are absolutely more equipped to identify these oppressions and I'm so thankful for those unwilling to acquiesce to ensure their narrative, their hardships, came to light. Harriet was such a force - she spent the remainder of her long life advocating for education for all and I hope to have done her strength-of-will justice with my words!
Harriet was an absolute firebrand! Never stopped advocating for others the entirety of her long life while fighting to ensure all had access to education. A true beacon.
I so appreciate you spending time with my words, with these women. Thank you for uplifting my words so 💜
Thank you for such an articulate and well researched piece!
Thank you for spending your time with my words, Jenny! I hope to have done Harriet justice—she was such a force for change, my goodness! I so appreciate the kind words, too.💜💜
No problem!
This is searing and necessary. The way you connect Harriet Jacobs’ lived resistance to the broader architecture of “historical terrorism” makes it impossible to pretend that patriarchy is some accidental byproduct of history rather than its intentional operating system.
Your point about a “void of opposing views” in the historical record is exactly why voices like Enheduanna’s, Christine de Pizan’s, and Harriet’s matter so much. They don’t just fill a gap. They expose how the gap was engineered.
It’s the same pattern in church history. When women’s accounts are absent, it’s not because they didn’t speak. It’s because their speech was treated as a threat to the order, and threats get erased.
It will never not blow me away when someone refers to my writing as ‘necessary'. There are so many authors I think of when I think of that word — and to have it used towards my own writing is so generous. Thank you!
And yes, yes, yes! I always say the patriarchy is nurtured, not natural. We’re just taught the opposite to ease our own subjugation.
I have an older essay titled The Burning Truth of Women’s Words and in it I wrote about the beguine movement of the middle ages which were groups of women utilizing their resources to create communities of learning and piety around their idealized Christianity — it was really, really neat how they navigated the patriarchal world hell bent on harming us.
I really appreciate you spending such intentional time with my words. Thank you! Thank you for the kindness!
It was indeed a difficult read in terms of the themes, but what an essay. Thank you for articulating this 🙏🏻
Thank you so much for spending intentional time with it. I’m so grateful! This one was a hard one to work through but it helped confront my own false internalizations—thank goodness for writing! 💜 I appreciate you, Lisa. Thank you for uplifting this piece!
Fantastic piece. I've found myself increasingly woken up the last couple years I've spent reading and researching women's history and discovering the race and class intersection embedded in all of it. Thank you for your work. As I've had my own awakening reading more true unsanitized history I'm left wondering what we do with this information. I want to blast stories like these to the world, but we know that they're often received with defensiveness or denial (especially among those whose hearts need to open up the most)... or in groups connected to those victimized throughout history, they can result in even more anger, trauma, and resentment.... how do we use this kind of growing awareness in a healthy constructive way to develop new social paradigms? How can we feel anger and heartbreak while also moving forward purposefully, together? I'm working on these thoughts myself, how to build that next constructive step to a better society, but would be curious to know your take!
Thank you so much for spending such intentional time with my words, I'm so grateful! And yes, yes, yes -- that intersection is a necessity if we are truly going to understand the lived realities of the past. In another piece I wrote about the different foodstuffs available between the classes of medieval English women and was absolutely floored when I finally got my hands on what others kept referring to as "the definitive paper" only to be met with an opening sentence along the lines of "class is far more punishing than gender." LIKE, were women just not a part of this imagined social structure?! My goodness. I can't imagine perceiving the past with half of the population unaccounted for and presuming any authority in such a recreation. Patriarchy is a silly construct, indeed.
I too am looking for the answers to your questions - and I wish I had them freely to offer. I often look to abolitionists' such as Angela Y. Davis and Richie Reseda for these type of insights addressing both the systemic and communal changes required. I personally think addressing the prison industrial complex in the US is a necessary first step, but we can't do that while all the systems that try to support humans basic needs are being stripped away. (But this is very US centric). There is a book by a collection of authors, Angela Davis being one of them, titled Abolitionist. Feminist. Now. which was an excellent resource on this very topic, if you haven't already read it.
By chance have you read bell hooks' The Will to Change? Within she discusses the need for the media landscape to shift, to present the alternatives through the forms we are already receiving--which in part is why I write this newsletter! And I so agree with that sentiment. If we can't visualize or imagine it, how could we possibly create it?
On the personal community level, my family and I have been really intentional with neighborhood participation and support, trying to really create that sense of community on our block. It has been such a joy and the way that a few of us now look out for each other, be it picking the other's children up or dropping off dinner, hosting block parties for social needs, etc., has been just so, so rewarding!
But I'm curious what you think? Anything working for you on the personal level or maybe community level? Again, thank you for engaging, thank you for the time spent, and thank you for the thoughtful reflections! 💜💜
Thank you so much for the thoughtful reply. I've marked down both of those books for my reading list. I devour books more than chocolate now - love getting specific recommendations like these.
I love the idea on media... that machine feels very broken (and owned by special interests) and is a particular sore spot for me since childhood when I realized they're telling stories, not necessarily full truth. How to change media without infringing on free speech... that's a biggie.
As for my thoughts, I always think in "systems" so I'm kind of forming a vague arc in my mind like awareness-->communication/sharing-->changed action ... but the trouble is what are those changed actions? It may be that when more and more people are 'aware' the animosity and resentment naturally changes (i.e., when I don't need to prove anything to you, when I feel safe, I will let my guard down and we'll connect and collaborate better). That's subtle and passive, is that the way sustainable change/progress must work?
Or maybe there should be a priority list of big social/legislative goals... but I don't think you can legislate mindsets, beliefs, people's way of thinking - then you end up with painful reversals later like we saw with Roe v. Wade when the root cause underpinning ideas was never really changed. More examples, reconstruction (or failure thereof), prohibition (or failure thereof)...
As a mother of young kids and homeschoolers, I think about the next generation quite a bit. Teaching critical thinking, less emphasis on spoon feeding "information" and more emphasis on interfacing with an array of sources/texts - learning to learn, to understand, and think. I can say personally it took me way too long to realize that there are so many views on almost any topic - even the 'hard' science topics we think are black and white. If kids grew up with this understanding, I think we'd have less 'certainty' and more 'openness' to others, or at least an awareness that none of us holds the whole picture.
It's a balance I think, thorough awareness/knowledge of the past without dwelling in it vs. living in the now with a complete lack of the lessons of thousands of years of history. Alas, I don't have the answers but appreciate the conversation!
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (which I know want to revisit) really made the concept of intersectionality *click* for me as a first-year college student. It opened my eyes to how ideological notions of race, class, sexuality, and gender are simultaneously forged, mutually reinforcing, and inextricable from each other. You do a beautiful (impressive!!) job weaving Harriet Jacobs's account into a much broader tapestry of social domination across eras, cultures, and disciplines.
I'm also grateful for the reminder that creating and maintaining patriarchal, racist, and imperialist norms requires deliberate, protracted work — work that has been consistently met with deliberate and forceful resistance! I think there's a tendency in a lot of contemporary social critique to focus on the nefariousness of social systems or to single out exceptional people or movements, whereas the reality (which you clearly illustrate) is that such systems are neither natural nor static, and that individual actors are just as much a part of our collective historical fabric (not merely specific to a single time and place).
Oh my goodness I can absolutely understand how your mind probably parted from Harriet’s words in such a new and expansive way — I saw Incidents cited in another work I was reading and then it was at the second hand bookstore the next time I went and it felt like fate. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t read her account before. And you’re so right to call it intersectionality! Too many push back that such things couldn’t exist because the words did not yet exist and that take always confounds me — we create words to explain our reality, not the other way around!
Thank you for your kind words, they truly do mean everything. 💜
We have so many epochs to unpack, but the commonality for the last 5000ish years is this naturalization of male-supremacy; and everything created within that paradigm reflects that paradigm, even unconsciously. I appreciate your acknowledgment of the intentionality to counter it. Even after writing this—and an archive of other works dissecting these oppressive paradigms—I will still minimize the importance of plainly stating and identifying these harms for others to witness. That self doubt will creep in, and you remind me of the importance of it and I am so very grateful. Thank you for so thoughtfully engaging with my words. 💜
I really want to do another piece focusing just on the FL standards I quoted/cited because, oh. my. goodness., the minimization of oppression just oozing from the pages is atrocious. It is one of the most blatant pieces of white supremacist propaganda I’ve seen in the contemporary moment!! To use your word, it is just so deliberate!
Thank you again for the time spent! 💜
I am truly horrified (though unfortunately not surprised) by the Florida curriculum standards. It reminds me of the uproar over the SD social studies reforms in 2023 that intentionally left out American Indian/Indigenous history and tribal government education (following initial proposals to integrate more of this content into the reforms). I’d gladly read a deeper analysis and critique of the Florida case!!
Uh, just horrible! Terrorism of history, truly.
Thank you 💜
A beautiful piece. Thank you for articulating what history so often seeks to silence, not just the brutal realities of patriarchal domination, but the means by which those realities are rationalized, sanitized, and repeated through the official narrative. Your framing of “presupposing patriarchy” as a kind of historiographical terrorism is devastatingly apt: the violence isn’t only in the events themselves, but in how they are remembered, who is permitted to speak of them, and what is excluded from the sanctioned archive.
The interweaving of Harriet Jacobs’ life with broader philosophical, political, and historiographic critique, especially the analysis of Aristotelian naturalism and the censure of voices like Enheduanna and Christine de Pizan, is brilliantly handled. You challenge not only the patriarchal past but the epistemological structures that continue to uphold it.
I was especially struck by your line: “To assume acquiescence and unwavering assimilation to such subjugation as inherent to the human condition is to allow the terrorism of patriarchal history to become fully actualized.” It reminds us that refusal, resistance, and survival are not exceptions to history—they are history, and the failure to center them is not neutral. It’s erasure.
Thank you for this work. It does not flinch.
Exactly this - “It reminds us that refusal, resistance, and survival are not exceptions to history—they are history, and the failure to center them is not neutral. It’s erasure.” You synthesized that so perfectly! Thank you for that. We see these moments of rebellion, of revolution, and think they are singular, yet they only seem so because we’ve never fully documented those disadvantaged by the systems put in place. As you said, we’ve ‘sanitized’ history.
I so, so appreciate you spending such thoughtful time with my words, Lizzy! I saved this comment, the generosity and kindness of it is just so wonderful for the heart—thank you. 💜
👏👏👏👏👏⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
💕💕💕
I grew up in Mass and we would, every so often, drive through “The Sumnah”. I know the caning history well, but never heard of Harriet Jacobs before reading your work. Thank you for bringing history together and illuminating facts that I can pass on to my sons and daughters.
Thank you for spending your precious time with my words, Meghann! 💜 I found it incredible how their lives were intertwined, yet their hardships were so very different. We truly are all in this fight together.
what an amazing piece of writing. i have read it multiple times, each time reflecting on a different one of the many well presented concepts and exploring the many well documented sources of inspiration. i will come back to this essay again and again i'm sure. so many parallels with today's struggles for liberty. so many motivational notes to keep on resisting. bless you for the time and effort you put in to enliven and enlighten us 🙏🏽🧿
Reem, this is such a gift of a note. Thank you. Thank you for sharing this with me and thanking you for sitting with what harms can perpetuate when we presuppose patriarchy. I’m so grateful for your time and presence, thank you 💜
A powerful articulation of the uneasiness many of us feel whenever the words "that's just the way it was" are uttered without an ounce of critical inquiry. Thank you for the time you spent researching and writing this, truly a piece that should be read by all.
Oh that’s a frustrating one—“that’s just the way it was.” So incredibly dismissive of any other perspective, any other lived reality!
I so appreciate you spending such thoughtful time with my words. Thank you for the kind ones in return!! 💜💜
Thank you, Kate! This was a tough but important read, and the older I get, the angrier I get at this patriarchal system. I appreciate the work you put in, and am looking forward to the follow-up piece.
Thank you for always spending your precious time with my words, Sheila. It really does mean everything! It was so hard to work through Harriet’s story, and I hope I did her justice because, oh my goodness, what a force! Thank you for always honoring the time and energy these pieces require 💜
This is so informative and I’ve learned so much from reading this! It’s actually sad that the oppressive power of patriarchy still exists today. But at least we are more equipped with knowledge and understanding to vanquish at least some of its vestiges within our consciousness. I’ve also seen a few changes in the system thanks to those who protested against oppression and assert the rights of the minority. Enlightenment is still a progress! I’m beyond in love with this essay!
Thank you for spending such thoughtful and intentional time with my words, I'm so grateful! Yes, we are absolutely more equipped to identify these oppressions and I'm so thankful for those unwilling to acquiesce to ensure their narrative, their hardships, came to light. Harriet was such a force - she spent the remainder of her long life advocating for education for all and I hope to have done her strength-of-will justice with my words!
Thank you again for the kindness 💜💜
Thanks for "unflattening" the past in this painful, helpful essay that expands understanding beyond usual tropes.
Thank you for spending time with my words, Hans! This one was heavy, indeed. 💜
What a well-written and thoughtful article. Thank you so much for sharing Harriet's story.
Harriet was an absolute firebrand! Never stopped advocating for others the entirety of her long life while fighting to ensure all had access to education. A true beacon.
I so appreciate you spending time with my words, with these women. Thank you for uplifting my words so 💜