Category: Angry Rant

Women have persisted since the beginning of time.  It is what we do.  It is what we have always done and it is what we will continue to do, despite whatever challenge may present itself.

When I participated in the Women’s March last month and wrote about it, some of the feedback I got, from fellow women, no less, was wondering why on earth women felt the need to march in the first place.  “What was the problem?,” was the question, “Women have never had it better!  We can vote and own property and work in whatever profession we choose!”

Those things are true for many women, but certainly not all women.  They are, for instance, truer for white women than women of color.  They are truer for women native to America than for women who have immigrated here.  Some women have trouble acknowledging this reality, but that does not negate its truth.

This week, watching two completely unrelated situations unfold with women being silenced at the center of them, has reminded me of why so many millions of women showed up on January 21, and why we must continuing showing up and speaking up.

Earlier this week, Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts, was silenced on the Senate floor during debate of the confirmation of fellow Senator Jeff Sessions, a Republican from Alabama, to become the Attorney General of these United States. Senator Warren, reciting a letter written about Senator Session in 1986 when he was being considered as a federal judge, was told that her words were out of order and in violation of a rarely enacted Senate rule that forbids Senators from personally disparaging one another during debate.

Hard to consider a robust debate about the merits of someone to assume office when you are unable to speak frankly about the accusations that have been made about them not so very long ago.  Senator Rubio supported the effort to silence Senator Warren saying that when Hillary Clinton’s confirmation as Secretary of State was being debated, while senators might have wanted to disparage her, no one did.  No time to fact check that little tidbit right now, but rest assured I shall.

More troubling to me is that other senators, following the silencing of Senator Warren, were allowed to read from the exact document she had attempted to read from without any challenge made to them.  Huh.  How that can be justified, I do not know.  Senator McConnell, defending his actions, stated, “She was warned.  She was given an explanation.  Nevertheless, she persisted.”  A new feminist anthem was born.

The second instance I watched this week involved the expulsion of a female heckler at a comedy show of George Lopez.  After making an off color joke about blacks and Latinos, a woman in the audience had the audacity to raise her middle finger in silent protest. Lopez saw the gesture and pounced.

A man of power, holding a microphone, engaged in, what I can call without hyperbole, a verbal assault on the women that only ended when she and her friends left the show.  I watched the exchange and it disgusted me, equally for the words the comedian used, referring to the woman as a bitch, as well as for the other audience members who hooted and hollered their approval.  It seriously made my stomach turn to see such ugliness celebrated.

For me, the question isn’t whether or not George Lopez had the right to make a racist joke, truth is, he does, but it was his response to a silent heckler that was totally disproportionate to her negative response to his particular brand of humor.  It was a classic example of demonstrating power aggressively, silencing and removing a woman who dared object to him.

This happens all the time.  It is shameful evidence of how women continue to be treated and received as less than in our culture.  And you can use rules and a genteel manner, or you can use verbal assault and a mob mentality as your tools, but the common denominator is the ongoing attempt to keep women in their place, silent, passive, submissive.

I will keep marching.  I will keep writing.  I will keep speaking.  I will persist.  We all must, because, as women, there is no other way.

Pardon me while I exhale, slowly.  Tomorrow, I want to believe, our great national nightmare will be over.  Any hanging chads aside, within 36 hours of this post, America will have elected its new POTUS.

I’m wrong, of course, and I know it, because regardless of what happens tomorrow, the hate genie has been released from its bottle. We are a nation divided and whomever is elected tomorrow — America’s first woman president or America’s first reality television star president (and, dammit, I cannot believe I just typed those words), no matter the margin, lines have been drawn and people are ready to rumble.

This election cycle has put all of us through a beating.  We’ve become unhinged, on the precipice of what surely feels like what I imagine America felt like in early April of 1861.  For those of you who are not historians, that references the start of the Civil War.  And I do not mean to be hyperbolic there.  The degree of hate and intractability of whatever position any given American holds feels almost tangible to me.

Families are torn.  Generations are divided.  White and black and rich and poor and young and old and man and woman and gay and straight and urban and rural and faithful and heathens — we need to categorize one another, size one another up, see which side of the line we are standing on, so we know how to think about and treat each other, depending on how a vote is cast.

It is ugly out there and the resolution that we will achieve tomorrow — ELECTION DAY! — is, I fear, not going to resolve a damn thing. It feels incredibly cynical to type those words, to hold that thought, and if I am wrong, hallelujah, but I don’t think I am.

Sigh.

I remember the anxiety of elections eves in 2008 and, to a lesser extent, 2012.  2016 is nothing like those election cycles.  The lies and venom are relentless, the distress palpable.  I remember feeling hope and pride, a sense of unity and possibility in those days.  The good things feel so improbable right now.  Tonight I feel dread.  Honest to goodness dread.  It sucks.

There are slivers of light that I seek out.  So many of my friends are going bonkers about #pantsuitnation — a sort of secret, but totally not secret, HONYesque feel good Facebook group for those who support Hillary and want to exercise that support in a safe space online.  It’s lovely, really, the stories traded by people who fully support their candidate.  There is optimism and hope that is tangible and legitimate.

There is also fear.  Legitimate fear.  Hard core fear.  A Muslim woman fearful for her family and the attacks they experience on the daily from fellow Americans.  A mother of a transgender son who moved across the country to escape bullying and ridicule.  Two gay men holding a newborn, not wanting to lose their status as fathers.  All of these people have so much at stake in tomorrow’s election. Their fear cannot and should not be discounted.  Nor should the hate they experience.

I see friends, good and amazing humans, working their asses off to elect the first woman POTUS.  Their efforts are genuine and sincere and I applaud them.  GO, FRIENDS!  I am so proud of you for doing something, engaging, walking door to door, driving across state lines to swing states, preaching the gospel of voting and elections.

But as I keep scrolling, down just a little further, I see other friends, equally good and amazing humans, who are less excited.  Holding their nose as they cast a vote for someone they believe to be the lesser of two evils.

These are primarily friends of color who remember a different Hillary, a less enlightened Hillary who talked a lot about super predators and whose husband, during his own tenure in the White House, contributed to a criminal justice system that put a hella lot of people of color behind bars.  And welfare reform that contributed to racist stereotypes about African American mothers being perpetuated and institutionalized, while making it harder for those same African American mothers to raise their children.  There are other friends posting that if Hillary is elected it will be a win for the white feminist, but not for feminists of color.  And why in the Sam Hill is she so silent about the Dakota access pipeline?

The thing is, they are not wrong.  It’s hard to reconcile.  It’s hard to hope.

I cannot conceive of a President Trump.  I cannot conceive of an America moving backwards, in fear, retreating to a romanticized idea of what “great” means.  Our democracy is at stake, and, again, I am not being hyperbolic here.  American ideals and its revered, if also romanticized status as “the best country on earth” are what is at play on the table.  Do we hate or do we hope?

I don’t hate, so I must hope, even when it feels hopeless.

Tomorrow I will vote.  My sons will go with me.  I will cast my ballot for America’s first woman president.  I wish I were more excited about who that woman is, but I can hope and will hope that she has evolved from her past missteps.  I can hope and will hope that a ringing of American voices encourages her to put people over politics and donors.

But I have no illusions.  Eight years with an African American president has made certain Americans cling to their fading privilege, gasping for those days of yore when America was great.  For them. It is inevitable, I know.  People cling more tightly when they feel threatened, and an African American president followed by a woman president is very, very threatening to many an American.

Hate and fear are potent forces.  No matter who wins tomorrow’s election, hate and fear are now part of the American discourse.  We will all be dealing with the consequences, no matter how the election cookie crumbles tomorrow.