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Loyal in Her Fashion: The Honor of a Faithless Woman
by Cesca Janece Waterfield Celebrate any soul who defies unlawful sanction made decree. But send boldest gratitude to the woman who is faithless to the custom of carnage, while she levels her loyalty to humanity and eros. Loudly tribute the woman who refuses to be bound to pater, to flimsy commandments, imperious legislatures, religious rodeos, dressing room wrangling, and noblesse oblige hand wringing. Tonight, I sing praise to the faithless woman! Dependent on no gods or demons, she does not require mythologies to experience immortality. The eternal she finds in the sea, the soil, laughter, and lovers, as she lurches against silence, finding ways through dark. Having spent much of my life trailing behind convention and daddy's always-forthcoming condemnations, tonight I rightly bow at feminine feet that have kicked open doors for me, and us. To a woman who refuses to be silenced, shunned, or shut down: Saluté! Prosperity to her; she has stood up to sniveling giants and against the wrong rationing of their ill-gotten bounty. To find and tell her truth, she has paid, dearly so. By those wealthy enough to forge their greed into educational curricula - even after she's nursed their children, stood at the fore of their schools, swept their ballrooms, healed the sick, bent over soldiers on their battlegrounds as she took shots and shed blood - she has suffered revisionist history. Called dangerous, frightening, crazy, incorrigible, insubordinate, misguided, misanthropic, barren… Called a spinster, a tomboy, psycho, butch, bulldyke, and more. She is a slut, the whore. She is a cunt, the bitch. She likes it that way. She asked for it, made him do it, deserves no better, could have it worse, ought to be grateful, should have been at home, shouldn't have been there, shouldn't have been drunk, shouldn't have been with him, shouldn't have been, shouldn't be. Isadora Duncan, called, "An outrage!" Nan Goldin, Judy Chicago, Diane Arbus, Gloria Steinem, Gloria Allred, Helene Cixous, Julia Butterfly Hill, Sojourner Truth revisioned reality and refused rules of their day. Tonight, I sing praise to the faithless woman! Judy Chicago would not apologize: "You shouldn't have to justify your work." Called "an exhibitionist." Margaret Sanger cried, "No Gods! No masters!" Condemned as "a dangerous radical!" The woman faithless to ancient codes of belief will confront many who seek to imprison her. Her only crime that she will not toe lines of exclusionary, divisive, inhumane ideologies that serve unconscionable brokers of power. Exalt the woman whose heart wanders beyond convention, whose intellect strives for its whetstone, and when appropriate, makes of itself a respectful, but unforgivably accurate blade. Homage to women who walk through ridicule, to arrive fireside in spite of it; To the woman who is dragged handcuffed into a room to spell her name for a magistrate while refusing to bow to his dubious appointment as administrator of "justice." Cry in support of the woman who finds her voice, even during moments when she must hold her tongue. Our leaders claim she resides within any man's jurisdiction, and that sentencing need not match the crime of her sex. Punishment never need wait. The bones of language frame lingual muscles that flex in her absence. Entertainment objectifies her simplistically, while religion pities her. So thoroughly denied her own will and civil power, she has left the dominion. She was never its parcel, and only sought to contribute fairly. Exiled from the culture, she builds her own; one that accepts no punitive advances from the likes of anyone. Precious law asserts: agreements based on premises proven untrue are not legal. You, counselor, clutching at your legal system feebly set upon trumped up "morals," did you consider that such agreements are not ethical? The faithless woman is neither of, nor for, the faint of heart. Faithless, she is, to dogmatic schemes that would poison her passion. Faithless, to blades at her back. Compelled only to pursue what is humane, resolved to self-determination and reasonable resolution. She is beyond the predictable, protracted, prurient, puerile, punctilious call to march, hearing only entreaties for peace, and soft bawls for love. Tonight, I sing praise to the faithless woman!
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