Essentialism

Essentialism is at the root of so many
Of the present woes that plague us.
Essentialism is the belief that people of certain types
Have specific and essential characteristics.
The idea that men are inherently rational
And women are too emotional, hysterical.
That men are inherently stronger and have more physical prowess.
That women are inherently and always maternal and caring.
That blacks are lazy and hypersexual,
Unintelligent and prone to criminality.
That bisexuals are sluts.
That Asians are smarter and Jews are good with money.
That Christians are inherently virtuous.
The list could go on, but it would not make any of it true.
Essentialism has deep roots in history,
Much further back than the slave trade.
All the way back to the patriarchy of the Indo-European invaders
Conquering the matriarchal culture of early Europe.
You see the legacy in the rape of Persephone,
The fear of the Amazons,
And the only permissible strong women must be virgins.
You see it in the writings of Saint Paul,
And in the purity of the blood myths of the Aryans,
And even in our words like “hysteria”.
To make others seem weak, we compare them to women.
Feminine is an insult.
Essentialism is at the root of assuming that white men are virtuous,
And should be excused for their mistakes, large and small,
But others are jailed for much smaller infractions
Because they are inherently violent, criminal and lawless.
It’s at the root of the drag show bans,
And trans healthcare bans and sports bans.
It’s as if melanin and testosterone are magic elixirs—
Too much of one degrades you; more of the other is power.
It makes it so easy to devalue others.
It’s why women are under attack today,
Because we can’t be trusted with making good decisions,
Or even knowing our own minds—
Especially if we are pregnant, or on our periods, or menopausal.
We’ve escaped this thinking in only small ways,
Though not in all circles.
Think about the value of royal blood and kingship,
But we have so much further to go.
These ideas make everyone invisible.
They keep power in the hands of those who already have it.
It’s at the root of attacks on voting—
Because how can every vote be equal if you believe this?
If we don’t attack the problem where it lives,
If we only argue about the surface stuff,
It will remain, deep in the underbelly of our culture, our psyche,
And will only come back the moment we look away.
Look at the last decade in America and you see it at work.
We can’t defeat any of them,
Until we tackle them all at once.