You want to know why I don't go to your fucking meetings anymore?

Some women (maybe a lot of women) get this feeling that if they don't do something, no one will do it, so therefore they must do it.  For example, "If I don't cook for this conference then nobody will cook for this conference and then all of the people will not be fed, so I must cook for this conference even if it means that I miss a good portion of it."  [That, by the way, is a real story and I did actually miss what I consider to be the best part of the conference because I was in the kitchen.]

I don't know what motivates most (privileged) activists to do what they do.  I know what used to motivate me.  It was that feeling that a better world was possible, and if I didn't make my vital contributions to the collective 'we', then no one else would.  So, while that "if I don't no one else will" caused me to be complacent and complicit in some pretty fucked up sexist situations (how the fuck are you gonna shut me up in a kitchen while you rock out at some conference?  fuck you!), it was also my driving force.  It was the reason I commuted 40 minutes every day from Wilmington, Delaware, to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and then spent another 20 minutes trying to find parking so that I could attend 6 or so hours of meetings just to go home to sleep a few hours and wake up for school in Delaware the next morning.  I was needed, my contributions were appreciated, so I felt an obligation to be there.  And I loved it.

Then I moved to Washington, DC.

The anarchist elite of Washington, DC, made it very clear to me that my participation was not needed and it was not welcome.  The fact that I had to fight (unsuccessfully) to get into a pre-action meeting (to save their sorry asses by giving them a vital piece of info from the legal office -- the new phone number) screamed at me that I was not welcome.  [All in the name of security culture.  Fuck security culture.]  The fact that I was invited to one secret anarchist meeting (which was secret for no reason other than to stroke the cocks of the people involved) but not the other one or two other secret anarchist meetings of the same group tells me that my contribution is obviously not necessary or welcome (because it was kept a secret from me).
When I speak at a meeting (I should say "spoke", as I am not welcome at their meetings and therefore don't go) and one of three things always happens (no one responds and the subject is changed, my point is shot down, or the meeting is adjourned as soon as my last word is out of my mouth) then it is obvious that my contributions are neither necessary nor important nor welcome.
When their ignorance and refusal to listen and process what I say causes me to repeat myself (often over and over until I just quit), it is very obvious that they do not want to hear and process what I am saying, and that they would rather that I not speak at all.
And you wonder why there aren't more people in "your" movement.  Why do people only come to one meeting and then never come back?  Probably because they have better things to do that put up with your not-so-subtle hints that they're morons and have absolutly nothing to contribute to your white boy revolution.

by Kristin Bricker, retrieved from archive.org