Rachel’s Performance Matters

Holly Haldane reflects on what Rachel Entrekin’s Cocodona 250 win means to her and other women:

And I cried.

Not delicate tears. Not cinematic tears. The kind that arrive from somewhere primal. Because there she was; exhausted, relentless, powerful. A woman refusing to shrink herself. A woman taking up space and daring the world to witness it. As Rachel herself said in a post-race interview; “why not me?”
…
I am angry.

Angry for the younger version of myself who learned to confuse silence with safety. Angry for the girl who internalised misogyny so deeply she mistook self-erasure for strength and spent months being frightened of the person she lived with.
…
History has never looked kindly on people who chose silence while others fought to be treated as human beings. History will judge this generation, so be on the side that chose love. Women are watching their rights, autonomy, and dignity erode in real time across the world, and we are being told to stay polite while it happens.

Fuck that. I say to women, be loud. Be difficult. Be impossible to ignore.

Eat enough to take up space in the world. Eat enough to be strong. Eat enough to have the energy to remain angry. Because anger is not a character flaw when it is a rational response to injustice. It is fuel.

Nothing for me to add but to encourage you, especially us men, to read her post and sit with it for a bit and for god’s sake keep that “ya but…” up your own arse for once.