The Importance of Rebels

Last year, Riwo’s empowering Galentine’s talk was met with a standing ovation. This year she’s digging into her love of Star Wars and women’s history to showcase the importance of rebels.

After multiple requests here is the speech Riwo gave on February 9, 2025, at the Galentine Rebel Brunch in Noblesville, Indiana.

---

Hello again Galentine’s! How are we doing? We feeling rebellious? We feeling celebrated? Wanna learn about the Importance of Rebels?

Once again I’m Riwo…and I was born… in a place far, far away. They called it Minnesota, and it was 1977. The same year there was this war in the stars. That’s me poetically saying I was born the same year as the first Star Wars movie. It was the first movie I ever saw, I was only a few months old, and it’s safe to say it imprinted on me. 

When I think of rebellion and rebel scum (in the best way) I think of the Star Wars movies. Rebellions built on hope. Rebellions cemented with friendship. Secret missions. Ancient texts. Facing our fears. Learning from great masters.

Transforming your ancestry from fear, anger, hate, and suffering…into hope. 

My two favorite characters Leia & Rey, both have terrible bloodlines. I’ll try not to spoil the 12 movies and 14 TV shows. But y’all had some time to watch these. So instead I’ll say, the two big bad guys in the Star Wars universe –  Leia and Rey were related to them. 

Both of these women inherited this magical and deadly power to wield because of who they came from. The force is with them, they are with the force. But they also are two abandoned women. They were taken from their parents – for good reasons – and yet they didn’t turn to hate. They fight against a patriarchy that takes a planet, builds a big gun in the middle of it – powers the gun up by sucking the life from a star – just to blow up another planet. Leia saw her own home planet destroyed and yet didn’t turn to anger. 

I love to quote Yoda, but I acknowledge I sound like a crazy person if you haven’t seen these movies. This little green goblin says, “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger; anger leads to hate; hate leads to suffering”

These women didn’t go down the path of fear…even when they knew that hate was in their DNA. 

The Star Wars bad boys built the empire on smashing things for the sake of smashing things because they were scared. You make stupid mistakes when you react out of fear, anger, or hate. We all do. Fear is a weakness, and it can be exploited. 

Instead, build your decisions on wisdom and love – fierce love. 

I’m sure I’ve got a few mama bears here today, I for one, identify as a mama bear. I will love you so hard that I will stop you from hurting yourself. If I’m standing with my kid on the sidewalk and they are about to cross the street without looking, and I see a bus coming. Bam! That arm goes out and I fiercely stop them from walking. It’s a “whoa, nope!” Stopping you from hurting yourself. Having the wisdom to know that a bus can’t always see you or stop for you. Wisdom and fierce love. Quick, compassionate, without hatred, just “nope!”  

So the Star Wars characters are grouped into opposing sides… The spiritual battle is Jedi vs Sith. The political battle is Empire vs Rebel. There are people who switch sides, there are those who appear to be working for one, but really are working for the other side. There are those who are only in it for the money and profit off both sides. There are those who care only for the spiritual element and those who are militant on the political. 

Another small character with big eyes, in the Star Wars universe is Maz Kanata. She says, “The only fight is against the dark side. Through the ages, I’ve seen evil take many forms. The Sith. The Empire. Today, it is the First order. Their shadow is spreading across the galaxy. We must face them. Fight them. All of us.” 

“A shadow of evil spreading across the galaxy.”

So how do they fight that? In every Star Wars movie, it’s the power of friendship. It’s actually the friends fighting against the parents but that takes a lot more Freud and philosophy and we’re here to celebrate rebel gals not get into a rabbit hole of existential dread. So…power of friendship. Luke, Leia & Han…Finn, Rey & Poe… R2 & C3PO don’t forget the droids. Friends willing to be vulnerable, to put themselves on the line. But here’s the part that gets me every time – friends who still love you when you show compassion for a person within the shadow of evil. Luke wanted to save Darth Vader from evil. Rey wanted to save Ben from evil. They still saw the good in people. 

Friendships and fierce love is also on display in The Last Jedi, Rose Tico, a beautiful character, adds wisdom without fear, anger, or hate. Rose says “We’re gonna win this war, not by fighting what we hate, but saving what we love.”

It makes you wonder, what’s the point of any of this if we can’t celebrate with the ones we love? If “winning” means finding happiness in our connection to other people. If saving those connections to compassion, kindness, and care. We win when we find the good in people.  

So how are you going to build a rebellion out of saving what we love? As General Leia says as she looks out to her rebel friends, “We have all we need.” 

Leia, Rey, and Rose. Didn’t go down the path of fear, anger, or hate. They chose love and they chose hope. They saw a way to help and they helped. They banded together with other helpers. They built an army of rebels. They built an army of the resistance. They led. They fought. They saved what they loved and they loved fiercely. They were a beacon. They were also fictional… 

When I think of rebellion, I also think of the many women of history. Founding a women’s history library will do that. Each year Gal’s Guide shines a spotlight on at least 100 different women of history through our podcasts, book clubs, events, and workshops. So picking just a few rebellious women of history to tell you about today is… unbelievably hard. But I got a top 5 and if you ask me tomorrow I might have a different top 5 but this is where my wisdom and fierce love took me. 

Rebellion isn’t always super serious. Sometimes it is trolling the shadow of evil. Sometimes it’s asking loaded questions. The Guerilla Girls, are that group. The Guerilla Girls are anonymous artist-activists who wear gorilla masks to hide their identity in order to disrupt and expose gender and ethnic bias in art, film, politics, and pop culture. They “believe in an intersectional feminism that fights for the rights for human rights for all people.” 

In 1989 when the Public Art Fund asked the Guerrilla Girls to make a billboard, they did some research at the Met Museum. They found that (only) 5% of the artists in Modern Art Sections were women… but that 85% of the nude paintings were female. So they centered their design around a simple question,  “Do women need to be naked to get into the Met museum?” When the billboard design was rejected, due to lack of clarity…the Guerrilla Girls found another venue…New York City busses. 

The Guerrilla Girls are still active today. They continue their 40-year streak of pointing out bad behavior and discriminatory practices. Their Motto: Do one thing. If it works, do another. If it doesn’t, do another anyway. Keep chipping away

My second rebel gal is a famous artist. In fact, she’s probably the world’s most recognizable female artist. Who here has heard of Frida Kahlo? The interesting thing to me is that people see her as an image of rebellion without really knowing much of her story…Because if you knew her story you’d know that she was in school to be a doctor. You’d know that her dreams of being a doctor ended at age 18 when she got into a horrific bus accident that broke so many of her bones she was in a full-body cast. 

Her father was a painter, and so to help her while on bed rest, Frida’s parents gave her a lap easel and she painted. She had a mirror above her bed so she could paint self-portraits. Frida put her pain into her art. Women authentically showing pain is one of the top rebellious things there is in life. I mean leading an army of rebels is amazing but you can’t show pain while doing it. 

Women authentically showing pain is one the top rebellious things there is in life. 

Frida painted taboo topics, pregnancy, miscarriage, abortion, gender roles, all through the lens of pain. Beyond the canvas and into her real life she challenged gender norms and showed her love and commitment to Mexican culture. 

The days before her first solo show in Mexico, doctors advised her that she was too ill to attend the show and needed to stay in bed. So she had her bed transported to the gallery and attended the opening night reception in bed. She told reporters “I am not sick. I am broken. But I am happy to be alive as long as I can paint.” She lived for only 1 more year. She was 47 years old when she died. 

So when I see people gazing at a picture of Frida or a painting of Frida’s and they do that “Oh Frida!” I can almost touch that energetic spark that goes from artist to observer that Frida transformed that pain and healing into something the world needed. 

The next rebellious gal I picked led a protest for disability rights. She and hundreds of her friends took over the Federal Building in San Franciso for 28 days.

Judy Heumann contracted polio as an infant in 1949. When she was 5 years old she was denied the right to attend school because was a wheelchair user. The New York school considered her “a fire hazard.” Later in life, Judy was denied her teaching license by the same school district. She failed her medical exam because she could not walk. Judy sued the New York Board of Education and went on to become the first wheelchair user to teach in the state of New York.

But the takeover of the federal building in 1977… This all started because one guy, the Secretary of Health refused to sign section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. It’s a law that prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities. It applies to programs and activities that receive federal financial assistance. It would pave the way for bringing children with disabilities into the educational mainstream, giving them access to better schooling and opportunities.

The protesters showed up at the San Francisco federal building and said they would not leave until he signed. He fled the building and then went a step further ordering no meals or medication be delivered to the building while the protestors were there. He intentionally tried to starve them out. Don’t worry the Black Panthers helped them out. They had hot meals every night of the sit-in. While Judy and 150 people were in the San Francisco, building 10 more groups hosted sit-ins and protests in federal buildings and spaces in 10 different cities. After the longest sit-in at a federal building, the Secretary of Health signed section 504. I highly recommend reading Judy’s book Rolling Warrior and Being Heumann. 

Judy is my Rolling Warrior and Ani Pachen is my Warrior Nun. 

Ani spent 21 years in a Chinese prison. Ani was born in Tibet and was the only child of the Chief. As a young woman, she had to decide between being a Buddhist nun or learning how to take over from her father and be chief. She chose chief – if she didn’t have to marry. 

Only a few months later was the 1951 Chinese invasion of Tibet, Ani heard stories of Chinese soldiers taking children against their wills for re-education. Parents and children who resisted were sent to labor camps. Monks and farmers had taken strongholds in the hills in an armed resistance to the Chinese. Ani and her father were among them. She learned how to shoot a gun, ride a horse, and lead a resistance. 

Then her father died. 

Then she became Chief of her clan.

She was 25 years old.

Ani led her 600 resistance fighters to join other Tibetan Warriors. She also gathered thousands of families who were looking to either join the resistance or get to freedom. 

She was unfortunately captured with her mother, aunt, and grandmother. Ani was sent to the worst prisons for Tibetans. She was beaten and lived in leg irons. Her harsh treatment? For refusing to give up her Tibetan culture and religion. She survived her 21 years in prison. No one else in her family survived. When she left the prison she became a Buddhist Nun and spoke up for her Tibetan people, her culture, and her religion. Her name Ani Pachen means “Nun, big courage” 

Many of these rebel gals started legacies and were inspirations to millions but there is one gal who is a touch point in history, one whom it’s clear the world got better because of her rebellion. For me, that person is Ida B. Wells. 

Ida was born as a slave in 1862. She was freed the following year because of the Emancipation Proclamation. Both her parents and her brother died in the Yellow Fever Epidemic when she was only 16 years old. She got a job as a teacher in Memphis and started showing the world it could be a better place.  

In her lifetime Ida refused to give up her seat on a train, found her voice as a journalist, led anti-lynching campaigns, and published the truths of violence and how to stop it. Ida’s life was threatened multiple times for using her voice. She fought for justice for African Americans – especially that of women and was one of the founding members of the NAACP. 

Ida spoke truth to power and was an inspiration for the rebel gals to follow. Ida sued the train station for forcing her to give up her seat because of the color of skin in 1883 and she won. This was one of the many reasons Ida was an inspiration to the Montgomery Bus Boycott and Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat on a bus in 1955. Rosa was also a member of the NAACP. 

Ida’s writing voice was bold, unflinching, and driven by a relentless pursuit of justice. You felt her impassioned advocacy against racial and gender oppression. Toni Morrison read sections of Ida’s Memoir in the documentary A Passion for Justice. Toni wrote about the complexities of Black identity but Toni’s refused to frame her writing for a white audience. Toni Morrison was revolutionary with the written word. 

Ida exposed racial violence and demanded justice. It can be seen today in the Black Lives Matter Movement. The three women who founded BLM, Alicia, Patrisse, and Opal also use grassroots activism to challenge systemic oppression. 

Ida published the Red Record in 1885 reporting the abuse towards women and its ripples can be felt all the way to #MeToo Movement. Founder Tarana Burke unlocked empowerment through empathy and asking all of us, to counteract a culture of “Destroy and Take” and instead ask us to “Build and Serve.” 

Ida B to Rosa Parks to Toni Morrison to Black Lives Matter to MeToo. That’s a Rebel Era. And we’re living in right now. 

We are the rebel gals that the world has been waiting for.

We are from the ground where these women planted the seeds of loving fiercely. They have been begging us to learn from their story. 

There are rebels who look like you and rebels who don’t look like you. You must learn from as many as possible.

The world needs your rebellion but it also needs your wisdom and your fierce love. Use your smarts to do the hard things that help people.

I believe in you.  

As Riwo finished this speech a bald eagle flew by the windows.