Resisting Bitchy Face

What do you wear on the frontlines of fighting fascism?

Hitler hated red lipstick. He forbade women in his circle to wear any makeup. So around the world it became an act of defiance to wear red lipstick: Women in America wore “Victory Red” or “Montezuma Red or "Regimental Red.” Red was all the rage.

Public domain: Army poster, World War II

In our current struggle against fascism, a lot of us American women are still wearing defiance on our faces, but it’s all natural, now, and free. Do you have RBF? Resting Bitchy Face? Yeah, me too.

Nobody at Mar-a-Lago has RBF.

Certain women develop, over time, an expression that signals we are displeased with the world (even if we aren’t): This a side effect of growing older and wiser. Our faces hang off our skull, apparently, in a way that makes us look disgusted by whoever is with us and whatever they are saying.

This is, honestly, an apt look for Trump 2.0.

If you came by your RBF the way I did (i.e. by living a long time), you have been called a lot of things that were flattering only if you understood the subtext: bossy (knows how to get things done), headstrong (smart and independent), sassy (stands up for herself and others), bitchy (fierce when she has to be).

Women are resilient about the names we get called. Take the women serving now on the frontlines of protecting America. They have renamed their RBF: Resisting Bitchy Face, their signs say. Yeah, me too, sister. Me too!

There are a lot of Resisting Bitchy Faces out there in the mass mobilization. We’re not mass enough yet; we are still in the mobilizing part. But a lot of us are mouthy to the power of ten: Hey, hey. Ho, ho. Donald Trump has got to go.

Last time I was out there waving my sign, passersby in trucks gave us some hand signals. Not all of them were thumbs up. One young guy hung out his window and yelled, “Morons!”

That’s a strong word. And I have trouble finding the silver-lining subtext. Except I do know that we women of the RBF know what we know, and we learned it from primary sources, the ones who lived it.

I grew up under the eye of men who fought the Nazis, who ripped airstrips out of jungles in the Pacific, who got ships shot out from under them, who liberated the concentration camps. I sat at their knee. I listened. I could see they were just men with age spots and tobacco-stained fingertips. They wore their belts too high. But I understood they had done something important.

I was born into the Civil Rights era. I was four years old when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. I watched the Vietnam War in black-and-white on the television and also the demonstrations against it. I remember watching the carnage at Kent State, saw the bodies on the sidewalk, felt the horror, comprehended what it meant.

I feel the horror now when I hear that the military is training for how to quell crowds. The military. Our military. What crowds?

On May Day, while demonstrating, I watched a man dressed in black walk along the line and film every one of our faces, every Resisting Bitchy Face out there, all the men too, and the young people, and also the drivers honking their support. How do we suppose that man in black intends to use our faces against us?

I discern that due process no longer applies, that the president can’t bring himself to say whether he’s responsible for due process.

He needs to read the Constitution.

We women with Resisting Bitchy Faces have read the Constitution and know history. We’re curious to know more. We follow Heather Cox Richardson, who connects history to current events. But it is exhausting to find out what HCR knows, and to already know what we ourselves know. Knowing is exhausting and so is not knowing what happens next.

Sometimes, all that keeps me going day to day is thinking of the other women in the Resistance. (Not just my friends, though I do think of you every day, my dears.)

I look forward to hearing from Janie on mornings when she can bring herself to post. Janie admits she gets discouraged. Which is real. And when I get discouraged, I think of Janie.

Every day, I hear the rallying cry from Susan Campbell, who seems never to get discouraged and isn’t afraid to tell the truth. She’s got a Pulitzer to prove how good she is at keeping after the truth. And she’s got her sword up. Which helps me keep mine up too. I think of Susan when I wonder whether I can lift my sword today. And then I lift it.

Maine’s governor, Janet Mills, is a grammy with guts. She saw him in court. And won.

I think of Jess Piper and Michele Hornish living under a Republican supermajority for a decade, and kicking butt anyway. I think of Amy Siskind and Olivia Lake just sharing the news every day, every day, every day. I think of Evelyn Quartz, who is too young to have RBF, and yet how we need her perspective!

Today, a lot of us are thinking about 64-year-old social worker Emily Feiner who got selected to ask a question during a town hall held by her Republican congressman. When Representative Mike Lawler didn’t answer, she called out, “Answer my question. Answer my question.” Men in uniforms surrounded her and demanded that she leave, but she told them, “You’re picking on an old Jewish woman, and I’m not leaving.” So the men in uniforms manhandled her out of the town hall.

Sometimes I have my doubts about the magnitude of what we’re up against, about whether we are enough. Where is the mass in the mass mobilization? I wonder if all us women of the RBF might be only the dying embers of American democracy. But then I try to encourage myself: Maybe we are the spark of what comes next.