A LETTER FROM MUFFY HIGGINBOTTOM,
PRESIDENT OF DELTA SIGMA TAU,
ON THE OCCASION OF INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY

Dear Sisters,

OMG, it’s finally International Women’s Day, y’all! Holla! I know we’ve all been prepping for this day for, like, FOREVER. (I’m looking at you, LaKeisha—that Mary Shelley cosplay is tight. I seriously did not know that you could embroider “Kicked Byron’s Ass” on a corset. Learning!) It’s kind of like the Olympics of Women only nobody gets a Wheaties box. Here at Delta Sigma Tau, we’d like to represent the American chapter of this special day.

So. First of all, thanks to Ashley, Ashley T., Ashleigh, Ashlee, and Tiff for the amazeballs house decorations. The Ruth Bader Ginsburg toilet tissue cover is so on point. This morning, when I was changing my tampon, I got a little misty just knowing that the most badass of the Supremes was watching over my taint and its repro rights with just the right expression of, “Don’t you even think of touching my Coke can, Clarence Thomas.” Serious Snaps, Decorating Team! Hashtag: Impressed.

Okay. I know we are all super stoked for tonight’s party. But first, let’s just DST-handle some housekeeping matters for this super-special day:

• Delta Sigma Tau Witches for Equality—how’s that spell coming along? The one that turns the current American presidential candidates into ladies for a week? Holla if you can’t wait to watch Marco Rubio pregnant or Donald Trump passing a construction site in four-inch heels or Ted Cruz as an economically disadvantaged mother of three driving around for hundreds of miles trying to locate just one open Planned Parenthood clinic so she can find out if that weird pain down below is only a UTI or something worse, like cervical cancer, while Ben Carson keeps stopping the car at Exxon stations to pray to his dashboard Jesus in hopes of tithing the lady-hurt away. LOLZ! Anyway. Let me know if I need to make a stop for more candles, my sisters. Keep up the great work!
• Delta Sigma Tau Goes to Hollywood! I know we’re all in the Bummer Tank™ about the dismal representation of women in the dazzling world of movie making. And look, I totally, to-tal-ly get why it would be easy to imagine space alien Westerns, comic book heroes & villains shaped like house plants or BDSM Hannibal Lecter cosplayers come to life, dream landscapes and animated cities that morph into other equally inventive landscapes on a dime, people being sucked into video games to battle the forces of evil, and the entire Tolkien catalog but not be able to fathom a world in which women play something other than hookers, moms, understanding wives and girlfriends, and strippers. And, like, it also totally makes sense that in the 87 years the Oscars have been around, only one woman has won a statuette for Best Director. I mean, blink and before we know it, another 87 years will FLY by, and it’ll be time for a lady to grab the gold once more! #Optimism. But just in case we want it to go a little quicker, please see our “Holly-Ain’t-Just-Wood Team”—Esther, Haruka, Jennifer and Jennifer—who are arranging a full-scale invasion of the Cinema Boys’ School via film school applications, mentorships, and solidarity. Our invasion doesn’t have lasers or asteroid monsters, but we can totally, totally imagine it. Complimentary film school baseball caps downstairs.
• I’ve heard some grumbling about today’s Google logo: #OneDayIWill. Ladies, ladies, ladies. Come on, now. Nothing inspires like an ill-defined, quasi-Hallmark card-meets-Up With People video about a pie-in-the-sky future date when we’ll be recognized as humans who take up half the planet—especially when that video features ladies being all inspirational-dancey while shaky illustrations of what might be one day flicker and taunt above their heads just out of reach. Let’s not be haters, mmmkay? And as I understand it, the original logo—Pam Grier as a gun-toting Foxy Brown under the hashtag: #WhereAreMyFuckingEqualRightsBitch?—was still in development.
• I seriously canNOT get over how cute our new Delta Sigma Tau Tasers are! The bedazzling must have taken hours! Snaps for our talented Taser Team—Abayomi, Maria, Esfir, and Oksana. For those who didn’t attend the “Ezekiel 25:17 Seminar,” here’s the drill: When someone talks over you or explains what you do back to you as if you aren’t currently double majoring in Economics and Poli Sci or plays “Blurred Lines” on a date, you know what to do. #Squadgoals.
• Um, Beyoncé. Thank you, Lady Jesus. That is all.
• Our “Slut—Say, What?” Squad has been CRAZY hard at work. I swear, Bonita, J.R., and Huifang—you never sleep! Granted, it’s a little like playing Sexual Agency Whack-A-Mole, trying to take on The. Ways. that we’re shamed just for walking around in these particular meat sacks, but y’all have the energy of 12 Red Bulls! Anyhoo. You can pick up your “My Lady Business Is None of Yours” tee-shirts on the dining room table beside the Janet Mock-Rachel Maddow-Malala Yousafzai-Nicki Minaj centerpiece for tonight’s party. (Thanks, Ryan! You have achieved greatness with a glue gun.) Oh, and Sarah, fer sure take one of those tees to your judgy mom. Telling you that “Nice girls don’t show cleavage or they’re just asking for it” is super retro-hater. It’s 2016, Mrs. Lewis. Seriously, WTF?
• Moving on. Glossaries! I know there’s some “wiggley-room” about what certain words or phrases mean when they’re applied to women and this has everybody all confused. Well, we at Delta Sigma Tau are nothing if not helpful. Right, Sisters? Can I get some snaps a-going? With the photocopying help of the awesome David at Kinko’s—What up, David? You rock!—we’ve put together a “No. Actually, Here’s What That Really Means; We Are Not Shitting You” glossary which we aim to put in doctor’s offices, schools, newsrooms, media centers, film studios, even hotel rooms in place of that pesky document that often gets misinterpreted to our disadvantage. Sample NAHWTRMWANSY glossary entries include: “Bossy/Aggressive/Bitchy” = “Stay in your lane or we’ll shame you some more.” “Angry woman” = “Has both brain and mouth” “This is for your protection” = “Oppression.” “It’s just common sense” = “Oppression.” “I don’t think you understand” = “Oppression. Also: asshole.” “Calm down” = “Shit. She might be winning this argument.” “Are you on the rag?” = “Here is my friend, Mr. Taser.”

Now, I’ve heard some grumbling about how today is “only one day out of, like, 365,” and “While the nod is nice, maybe we could trade in a celebratory but relatively empty Twitter hashtag for, like, real progress: reproductive rights protections, passage of equal rights legislation, closing the pay gap, better childcare and family leave policies, stronger litigation against gender-based violence, reducing gender-based poverty and homelessness, ending female genital mutilation, more and diverse representation in politics/government/film/music/sports/business/Fortune 500 top management/the world, period.”

Okay. I hear you. But I think you’re forgetting that International Women’s Day comes just once a year, y’all! It’s like Christmas–but without any merchandising might or economic power! Like, you guys, this will all be forgotten by tomorrow, and we’ll be back to square one again. So let’s break out those dance moves and party, mmmkay? (Just remember that no matter how you dance, even if there are little illustrated squiggles of lady astronauts and soccer players above your heads, somebody will post a comment somewhere saying that you gave them a boner and you should be ashamed. Mrs. Lewis, I’m still looking at you.)

Oh, and it should go without saying, my sisters: You better fucking vote like your lives depend on it. Because they do.

Clear eyes, full hearts, tasers on stun, can’t lose.

See you at the kegger. I’ll be the one in the push-up bra and Sleater-Kinney jacket. Later, y’all!

Your President (maybe for real one day),
Muffy <3