Crack. The sound of the egg hitting Marguerite Stern in the face. The sound of women’s patience reaching its breaking point around the world.
Because the truth is, she took that egg to the face for all of us. For victims of sexual exploitation, whom she was demonstrating for that day, but also for every woman who has been told to shut up by the trans activists who tell us we are not allowed to say what a woman is.
Marguerite is a full time French activist. She founded a collage campaign to raise awareness and to speak out against femicide. She also refuses to lie about what a woman is. She knows a woman is an adult human female, she knows that the reason some people are victims of femicide is because they were born with a female body. She knows and says out loud that woman is not a feeling, not an identity that a man can don at his will. For this crime, she has been hounded, pushed out of her living quarters, forced out of work, and been physically attacked.
Tomorrow is International Women’s Day, and it’s been 101 years since the suffragettes won their fight here in the States. In 2021, women are assaulted just for correctly defining the word woman. The demonstration in Paris where the egg was thrown took place today, March 7th 2021. Marguerite and her fellow feminists were cornered and attacked by “queer activists”.
Marguerite has dedicated her life to the struggle to stop male violence against women. The “genderfluid anti-fascist” who posted the video of the criminal throwing the egg captioned it “THERAPY”. Yes, therapy. Hurt a woman, yell at her, throw eggs in her face, torture her, lock her up, cut her tongue out, put her head in a scold’s bridle, bind her feet, rape her, kill her—this is the therapy women have been treated to throughout the ages.
Another woman who was subjected to similar treatment is Raquel Rosario Sánchez, a feminist writer, campaigner, and researcher from the Dominican Republic who is pursuing her PhD at Bristol University in England. What was her crime? Agreeing to chair a meeting of Women’s Place UK, an organization that also does not lie about what a woman is. When other students got wind of Raquel’s intent to chair the meeting, they organized a campaign of harassment against her that went on for two years. The organizers of the campaign incited their social media followers to throw eggs and milkshakes at her. They called for her deportation and called her “heinous scum”.
On Twitter, someone asked why Marguerite had an egg thrown at her. The response? She’s the one who is violent, because she is “transphobic.” So the real violence was not the egg thrown at her face, but Marguerite’s words. A woman’s words are violence?
Paris, today, during a protest for women’s rights. The red writing says “Save a trans, kill a TERF”. pic.twitter.com/P1LqQqcwLL
— Marguerite Stern (@Margueritestern) March 7, 2021
If I were more naive, I would think that the video of the egg hitting Marguerite in the face—so clear, so obvious—would be the point when enough people say “no more” and the bullying of women by trans activists comes to an end. I know that won’t happen. But for this International Women’s Day, we will make as much noise as we can. We will let Marguerite know that she is not alone. That when they threw that egg in her face, thousands of us flinched. Thousands of us were shocked, and if the thousands are anything like me, we then got into fight mode.
But we can’t fight back alone. They try to pick us off one by one, and the quiet multitudes watching it all go down keep lying and lying about what a woman is, to appease these abusers, to keep themselves safe. But if we band together to tell the truth in numbers, the bullies just won’t stand a chance. We have the truth on our side. We have men and women on our side who are brave enough to tell the truth even when the eggs keep flying at their faces. These are the characters who stand up to atrocities when everyone else goes along. In every generation they are in the minority, and time and time again they are punished. But history lets their courage shine through. We have many of these people in our own era. Marguerite is one of them. Raquel is another. We have to stand behind these Amazons, we have to bring strength in numbers.
At Plebity, our small way of doing this is our Free Speech Fund. In January of this year we started a Fund for people who are punished for exercising their right to free speech. Our first grant recipient was none other than Marguerite Stern, who was about to lose her place of residence. That was just the start, and we are gearing up to support more brave men and women who speak the truth, no matter if they are as fearless as Marguerite or if their voice shakes with every word. Together, we have their back. And if you speak out, we will have your back too. Join our community and support the Fund on Patreon if you are able, or spread the word to let Marguerite and others know they are not alone in the slightest.
In the movie Spartacus, the slave rebels found it in themselves to stand up and say “I am Spartacus,” when they knew punishment lay in store for their leader. We can do the same. We can all stand up and say, “I will also refuse to tell lies. I will not lie about what a woman is.” The truth will win in the end, but we can hasten that end if we all take the plunge together. If you’re scared, know that you will be greeted with open arms. When I myself was fired publicly and mobbed online for refusing to participate in the lie, I was as scared as I’ve been in my life. But when thousands were outraged on my behalf and stood by me, it changed everything. It turned me into a warrior for this truth that is being suppressed. We can keep doing that. Join us.
–Sasha White
