The Hex Talk
When is it Appropriate to Hex the Government?
I used to write a Punk Rock Ms Manners column, so sometimes people still write to me for advice. They want to know: Ms. Manners, When is it appropriate to hex the government?
I offer my “Hex Talk” from Hexing the Patriarchy
Because it’s important to be thoughtful.
The word “hex” comes to us from the same mother-word as hag—Hagazussa, the wild sorceress in Nordic mythology who straddles the fence between the mortal world and the spirit world.
Before the inquisition, the word hex meant a slut, or a comedian, or a woman who flew through the sky at night. Doesn’t it make you happy that those three pastimes were synonymous?
Slut.
Comedian.
Witch.
After the inquisition, hex came to mean witch—as in a person who practiced magic. As in, “Hey, Hex, wanna grab lunch and put a pox on your bully neighbors?”
Heks still means witch in Dutch, Norwegian, and Polish. In Pennsylvanian German, hexe became a verb meaning “to practice witchcraft.” And a little over a hundred years ago, its English meaning morphed closer to current usage, so that it now suggests casting a spell.
While some people only use the word “hex” when talking about negative spells, we’re going to use the word more neutrally and positively here. Like, “Hey, Hex, come help if you can—We’re pulling the plug on this bullshit right here.”
See hag.
What would it look like to “hag the patriarchy?”
Hags get a bad rap.
But I like hags.
I aspire to be a most powerful hag.
Hagazussa says: Don’t use hexes to harm anyone unless you’d sign off on the same punishment for your own son—or cat—should he be discovered to be exploiting others in the same way.
Many traditions teach us that whatever we put out there comes back at us threefold. So don’t put anything out there you wouldn’t feel comfortable having triple boomeranged back in your face. Think about that.
On the other hand, this is true: Oppressed people have survived by sometimes hexing their tormentors.
Easy rule: Don’t do anything unnecessarily dickish.
Instead, entertain possibility.
Strengthen who and what you love.
Divest from patriarchy.
Invest in sexual liberation.
Divest from the binary gender system.
Invest in respect.
Divest from systemic and individual oppression.
Invest in equity.
Divest from white supremacy.
Invest in social justice.
Divest from capitalism.
Invest in community economics.
Break things when necessary.
It’s okay to be you.
You can say that out loud:
It’s okay to be me!
So many magical witches wrote spells for Hexing the Patriarchy—learn how to do everything from making justice jars to influence judicial matters to descending a giant Mother Spider onto an appropriate political target.