Nevertheless, She Persisted
Gen X, Menopause, & The Long Game
There was a time when they told you it was a phase.
That you’d grow out of it. That you’d calm down. That once you had a career, a mortgage, a couple kids, you’d stop making noise.
Funny thing about that.
A whole lot of GenX women hit menopause & realized the quiet they were promised was never coming. The rage didn’t disappear. It clarified. The fear didn’t win. It burned off. What stayed was memory. Pattern recognition. A deep, bone-level understanding of how power lies & how it panics when challenged.
Menopause didn’t make us radical. It stripped away the tolerance for bullshit.
Misspent youth, perfectly spent
Some of you learned early.
Tree sits. Protest lines. Spotted Owls. Courtrooms where the state tried to pretend pepper spray on eyelids was “crowd control.” The kind of moments that teach a person exactly how fragile the moral high ground of authority really is.
Others learned later.
Workplaces that punished honesty. Relationships that demanded silence. Systems that smiled while extracting everything they could. My 1st encounter was a federal sexual harassment lawsuit that resulted in mandatory 48 hours of training for every employee county-wide.
Different roads, same lesson.
Power does not correct itself. It has to be forced.
The state doesn’t wake up one day & decide to be decent. It gets dragged there.
“Nevertheless, she persisted” wasn’t a slogan. It was a prophecy.
They meant it as a dismissal. A sneer. A way to say sit down.
Instead it became an anthem. The custom mug I had a dear friend custom make for my nibling. (Neither niece, nor nephew, but child of sibling. They’re amazeballs.)
Because persistence is what happens when you’ve already survived the worst case scenario. When the things you were told would destroy you did not. When invisibility stops being a threat & starts feeling like freedom.
This phase of life comes with a gift no one warned them about. You are harder to intimidate. Less interested in being liked. More willing to ask uncomfortable questions & wait for real answers.
You don’t need permission when you’ve already been underestimated your entire life.
Maybe this isn’t about rage. Maybe it’s about responsibility.
Some people reading this are men.
Some of you are the kind women trust. The kind they don’t cross the street to avoid. The kind they wouldn’t pick a bear over.
If that’s you, good.
Then maybe you’re here because you want the world you leave behind to be at least not worse than the one you found. Maybe you’re tired of watching women do all the emotional & civic labor while being told they’re hysterical for caring.
That’s not guilt. That’s a doorway.
Step through it.
Allyship isn’t a vibe. It’s participation.
Dig deep. Buckle up. Pick a lane that works.
Nobody is asking for martyrdom. Nobody is asking you to torch your life.
This is not about diving into the deep end without floaties.
It’s about churning the water.
Donating time or donating a few dollars. Boots on the ground or Amazon $ for a gas mask. Showing up once a month instead of never.
There are a lot of people who thought they’d be spoiling grandkids by now. Instead, here we are.
Shit went sideways. Pretending otherwise isn’t protecting anyone.
You don’t have to do everything. You just have to do something.
Learn the language of participation
If words like canvassing & phone banking sound like another planet, that’s fine. Ask.
Ask that friend who’s always posting about politics how it actually works. Attend that town hall. Sign up for that newsletter. Click the link you normally scroll past.
Forward more emails. Comment instead of lurking. Actually send the message to your representative. Join the organizing Zoom & keep your camera off if you want.
Low commitment still counts.
Democracy doesn’t fail all at once. It erodes when people decide their small actions don’t matter.
This is the long game
Resistance doesn’t always look like a march. Sometimes it looks like sustained attention. Like refusing to forget. Like teaching the people around you how to plug in without burning out.
GenX women didn’t stumble into this moment by accident. A lifetime of being dismissed is excellent training.
The anthem still holds.
Nevertheless, she persisted.
And this time, she brought receipts.
~AK