CIA veteran Gloria Steinem has died.She helped Langley win the Cold Warwhile women remain blacksited and brokenraining teeth from bloody mouthslike the reds in Pinochet’s torture camps.In this CIA civilization womenslap name tags over baby vomit stainssmiling ear to ear for chortling customerswho shovel cheesecarbs into their faceswhile she juggles dishpans and breast pumpsand goes home to collapse in bedand dream about work,womentake selfies in IDF uniformsand do TikTok danceson the ruins of Gazaand pilot Girl Power dronesand drop Girl Power bombsonto mothers clawing at the rubble,womenstand with sedated eyesstranded in suburban desertsspooning cereal into restless childrenuntil hubby comes hometo rape everyone in the house,womenhate their bodies so muchthey remove the fat from their cheeksso they look like skeletonsand then freeze their facestrying to look twentyand it freezes their minds at twentyand their hearts stay stuck at twentyand they don’t growand they don’t healand they don’t know any betterthan to call their daughters fatand stick porcupine quills in their flesh,womenspend their lives staring at the side of a man’s headyearning to be lovedand feeling their light fadewhile he stares at a screen and makes loud noisesto drown out the echoesof his father’s fists crackingon the bones of his face,womentear strips off each other’s fleshto win the approval of wolf-mouthed menwho gobble up the carnageand then choose a favorite slave.Gloria Steinem was not a girl’s girl.Gloria Steinem was a pick-me girl.Pick me, CIA.Pick me, empire.I’ll be a good little supplicant for the banker boys.I will starve feminism of its boobs and belly,shave it back to into the image of a child,put a tie on it and call it equal.I will say to the ladies:“Get out of the kitchen and into the Amazon warehouse!Take off that apron and put on this efficency tracker!It monitors your calories, too!10,000 steps a day for the empire.Congratulations, you do two jobs now.”And I will return my magical baby portal back to senderunused in my box.I promise I won’t even peekat my own life-creating god potential.I will poo-poo it even, if anyone asks.Who cares if we can make life?We can make money!That’s much more important.I will civilise us hairy juicy vag goddesses,sir.You can count on me.Gloria Steinem was a pick-me girl,and boy was she ever picked.But now she is dead,and the empire is dying,and the drumbeats of the wildare unnerving the boys at Langley.Something is stirring within us.Something ancient.Something forgotten.Something moves within our wombswhich they tried to paralyze long ago.The drums are getting louder,and we are growing increasingly feral.The time is coming,and coming up fast,where we will stand before them,blood-bladed and hairy-bushed,the wreckage of Langley beneath our feet,saying,I am not civilized,motherfucker.I am not fucking civilized.Reading by Caitlin Johnstone