It’s everyone’s problem.

I mentioned earlier that I would give the copy of the book I have reviewed (after spraying it with Lysol) to the first person who emails me saying they want to pick it up from my front yard fence. I can’t do that with Moxie by Jennifer Mathieu because I already gave it away. My partner bought this Young Adult novel for me some time ago from Charis Books and More, https://www.charisbooksandmore.com/, the South’s last feminist book store here in Atlanta on the campus of Agnes Scott College, but I didn’t read it because I have historically been such a picky, fussy reader. On the first day we started social distancing, I grabbed it from the shelves and read it from start to finish in 24 hours. I thought it was so good for a young woman to read, (kickass, heartening and inspiring) that we drove across town to leave it on the front porch of our 13 year old niece. That was 34 days ago, and I am amazed at how scared and surreal I felt driving across town even then, like we were venturing out onto the surface of the moon and wondering if it was safe for my niece to touch a book I had touched. The horror of these times is wondering if something you do out of love will cause harm.

So we need inspiring stories of people getting together to do good, and that is what this book is about. Vivian lives in a small town in Texas and is fed up with the sexism in her school and the fact that girls get subjected to things like invasive, belittling dress code checks, while the boys are allowed to shut girls up in class by telling them to “make me a sandwich,” and the teachers just ignore it. I really like this book because it points out how gender discrimination is in every cell of our structural systems, but it has become so naturalized, we don’t even notice it. When I was teaching Spanish at the University of Tennessee 20+ years ago, I said something about gender discrimination in class, and I will never forget how this boy came up to me afterwards and said, “Excuse me, but don’t you think this is just your personal problem?” Well Viv and her friends at East Rockport High show that no, it isn’t a personal problem; it’s everyone’s problem. They band together through zines and direct action inspired by the legacy of such visionaries as Kathleen Hanna from Bikini Kill, a feminist punk rock band formed in Olympia, Washington in 1990.

Viv and her friends (many of whom are popular and have the advantages of “normalcy”) have to risk being humiliated, shunned, and punished to come together and live brave lives where they can be more fully human, more fully themselves.

We need this now; young women need this now, in a time when it seems like staying away, separating, closing your mouth and being thankful for the $1200 Mr. Trump sent you might be the best bet. It isn’t.

Holy crap, we can’t give up hope and need to fill out the absentee ballot request form even though it looks like junk mail, and it is literally taking thirty minutes every day to find your pants and a comb.

Close your eyes. Take a deep breath. Inhale. Smell the deep musky scent of the unshaved underarms of your punk feminist forebearers. Let their sacred rage swirl around you like a cosmic mosh pit. Let it pummel your derriere into finding a creative way to take communal action (any action for good) at this time. Don’t worry. You can do it without putting your pants on.