OTTAWA – After processing the denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance of the violence they faced today, women across Canada have gone to bed prepared to grieve the inevitable new misogynist brutality they will face again tomorrow.
“In a perfect world I’d stay angry for a bit longer, but there are only 24 hours in a day,” said Meredith Dillard, 37, who juggles a job, kids, and the inescapable endless stream of rape apologist content on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, television, the radio, and in everyday conversation. “I just don’t have the time to indulge like that with tomorrow’s grief coming up!”
Dillard went on to articulate a coping method she refers to as ‘organized spiralling’, beginning with breaking down her denial of sexism by being conscious on this planet. After the anger sets in, she builds and burns an effigy of Jordan Peterson, which, though emotionally satisfying, does not change her reality, leading her to her third stage, bargaining. Once she has announced to the powers that be that she will stop making fun of men who wear shorts in the winter in exchange for being able to eat a banana in public without being catcalled, she uses the last of her energy to enter stage four- putting a scoop of ice cream into a beer and getting into the bathtub. From there she can easily transition into acceptance, which looks a lot like putting her head in her hands and saying ‘fuck’. The whole process takes about three hours with a break to comfort her husband when he’s had a bad day.
Erika Ramano, 24, told reporters that she’s started staying awake at night in order to get her grieving in before heading to work. “I’m the only non-cisgendered male in my office, so I know most of my day will be taken up with watered down small talk about the latest women-hating activity in the news,” said Ramano, double fisting cans of RedBull.
“Between being talked over by my male colleagues as they try to explain ‘both perspectives’ to me and defending my humanity, I don’t have much time for me. The only way to get my five stages in that day is to cut out sleeping entirely!”
Ramano went on to explain that her method to remain lucid is remarkably easy- she just thinks of the very real threats facing her and literally all of her women identifying loved ones and screams into her pillow for eight hours.
“Crying in the shower is my time saver,” said Brittany Perkins, 40, while watching a news segment on a dog playing baseball as details of a new incident of racist police brutality speed by on the chyron. “Such a catch 22 as both a woman and a person of colour- double the grief and expected to process it in a quarter of the time!”
At press time, our team was unavailable as they were covering a new terrifying sexist current event that took place before you finished reading this article.
