Today is International Women's Day, as well as A Day Without Women. As a self-professed feminist, this is my kind of jam. I've been poking around Twitter off and on throughout the day, and it's been great to see how many cool women have impacted history. Some are cool bits of trivia:
Some rake insipid criticism over the coals:
Some brought a painful history into a compassionate light, which reminds me that one of the greatest losses misogyny has caused humankind is that it has deprived deserved recognition of the kindest, strongest people who have ever lived:
No one I know marched, struck, or did much besides do their normal thing, though I made sure to wear red to mark the occasion and demonstrate my solidarity. It wasn't much--most people didn't know I was doing it--and it's given me pause to think.
I feel pretty strongly that there is a massive problem with the way that women are appreciated, understood, written about, and accepted in modern American society. The idea of the Women's March back in January, or the boycotts and protests and movements that marked today make a lot of sense to me. The president has said some alarming and hurtful things about women (and has also argued that no one respects women more than he does)--so many, in fact, that I don't need to link to anything, because the evidence is on the first page of Google. Especially considering the acrimony and sexist language of the campaign, I think there's validity in the fears and frustrations of the females in this country.
It reminds me of the ideas circulated about this time eight years ago. Remember the idea that America was both post-imperial (lol) and post-racial because a half-Black man was elected president? Yet it was during President Obama's watch where crushing police brutality became so harmful that an entire activist movement came into being. Ferguson, Missouri fell apart during Obama's tenure. Massive deportations. The racial ills that America has allowed to posset within its soul are deep. To lance the buboes of our racist plague is too much, it seems, for America to be willing to submit to. Not even a Black president could excise that.
Racism and sexism spring from the same poisoned root. It's not a surprise, in retrospect, that Hillary Clinton lost the election--and it's all Obama's fault. Moral license essentially pushed a complacency of having "come to grips" with our racist past. And treating women poorly is an even older trick of the patriarchy than treating someone with different colored skin as inferior. Lest you think that I'm being hyperbolic, don't forget that the 15th Amendment only needed two additional words to provide universal suffrage ("or sex"). But that was denied women until after the First World War. Indeed, many people argue that it only happened in 1919 because of the war. It required Western civilization to blow itself to pieces before women of any race would be given a chance to vote.
I want that to sink in. A country founded on principles of self-governance and democratic fuel inside of a Constitutional republic's engine would not allow half of its citizens to be involved in self-governance nor democracy until a war big enough to be called a World War broke up the society sufficiently to allow universal suffrage. That's madness. That's absolute madness.
Yet, when Hillary Clinton took center stage in the summer of 2016, demonstrating a centrist vision of America, there was a deep, vile outpouring of vitriol. Indeed, even some supporters that I saw were quick to point out that she wasn't perfect (not a requirement for the office), to qualify their support as something that they did reluctantly or with some reservations.* "She's not perfect, but..." was the unofficial motto of her campaign.
As self-imposed scandal after self-imposed scandal strikes the White House, I can't help but wonder if the negatives of Hilary Clinton's ties--emails, Clinton Foundation shenanigans, support for a philandering husband--wouldn't have been preferable.
And that's the thing: Clinton wasn't qualified to be president just because she is a woman anymore than Donald Trump was qualified to be president just because he is a man. Assuming that the gender is the basis off of which a person is qualified is what's so baffling to me. I recognize the differences among** the genders, but it's pretty obvious that a person's qualifications are what matter. I struggle to understand a point of view that insists that a woman can't make choices for herself, that her options are de facto limited, because of her gender. I can't understand a world that chooses--actively and, it seems, viciously chooses--to maintain patriarchal traditions that are damaging and do much too impoverish our shared humanity.
Would that every day were truly women's day.
----
* In some ways, I'm part of this group. I don't "support" candidates, though I might vote for them. I make the distinction simply: Support implies time, money, or both being lent to the politician. I've yet to give money to any politician, and I wouldn't give over time to canvas a neighborhood or attend a rally. Some people may disagree with that distinction, arguing that a vote for a person is without context, so the politician can take the vote as meaning a full endorsement and complete support. I don't know that there's any way to prevent a politician from reading the tea leaves of an election. Heck, our current commander-in-chief thinks that he has a mandate because fewer people voted for him. I can't prevent that. But the distinction I outlined here suits me.
** Grammar for the win.
 |
| I have some LeGuinn on my shelf. I realize that I'm remiss in my sci-fi cred by not reading her stuff yet. |
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| I love how happy she looks. Like, that's why feminism matters...in part. |
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| That quote, though. |
I feel pretty strongly that there is a massive problem with the way that women are appreciated, understood, written about, and accepted in modern American society. The idea of the Women's March back in January, or the boycotts and protests and movements that marked today make a lot of sense to me. The president has said some alarming and hurtful things about women (and has also argued that no one respects women more than he does)--so many, in fact, that I don't need to link to anything, because the evidence is on the first page of Google. Especially considering the acrimony and sexist language of the campaign, I think there's validity in the fears and frustrations of the females in this country.
It reminds me of the ideas circulated about this time eight years ago. Remember the idea that America was both post-imperial (lol) and post-racial because a half-Black man was elected president? Yet it was during President Obama's watch where crushing police brutality became so harmful that an entire activist movement came into being. Ferguson, Missouri fell apart during Obama's tenure. Massive deportations. The racial ills that America has allowed to posset within its soul are deep. To lance the buboes of our racist plague is too much, it seems, for America to be willing to submit to. Not even a Black president could excise that.
Racism and sexism spring from the same poisoned root. It's not a surprise, in retrospect, that Hillary Clinton lost the election--and it's all Obama's fault. Moral license essentially pushed a complacency of having "come to grips" with our racist past. And treating women poorly is an even older trick of the patriarchy than treating someone with different colored skin as inferior. Lest you think that I'm being hyperbolic, don't forget that the 15th Amendment only needed two additional words to provide universal suffrage ("or sex"). But that was denied women until after the First World War. Indeed, many people argue that it only happened in 1919 because of the war. It required Western civilization to blow itself to pieces before women of any race would be given a chance to vote.
I want that to sink in. A country founded on principles of self-governance and democratic fuel inside of a Constitutional republic's engine would not allow half of its citizens to be involved in self-governance nor democracy until a war big enough to be called a World War broke up the society sufficiently to allow universal suffrage. That's madness. That's absolute madness.
Yet, when Hillary Clinton took center stage in the summer of 2016, demonstrating a centrist vision of America, there was a deep, vile outpouring of vitriol. Indeed, even some supporters that I saw were quick to point out that she wasn't perfect (not a requirement for the office), to qualify their support as something that they did reluctantly or with some reservations.* "She's not perfect, but..." was the unofficial motto of her campaign.
As self-imposed scandal after self-imposed scandal strikes the White House, I can't help but wonder if the negatives of Hilary Clinton's ties--emails, Clinton Foundation shenanigans, support for a philandering husband--wouldn't have been preferable.
And that's the thing: Clinton wasn't qualified to be president just because she is a woman anymore than Donald Trump was qualified to be president just because he is a man. Assuming that the gender is the basis off of which a person is qualified is what's so baffling to me. I recognize the differences among** the genders, but it's pretty obvious that a person's qualifications are what matter. I struggle to understand a point of view that insists that a woman can't make choices for herself, that her options are de facto limited, because of her gender. I can't understand a world that chooses--actively and, it seems, viciously chooses--to maintain patriarchal traditions that are damaging and do much too impoverish our shared humanity.
Would that every day were truly women's day.
----
* In some ways, I'm part of this group. I don't "support" candidates, though I might vote for them. I make the distinction simply: Support implies time, money, or both being lent to the politician. I've yet to give money to any politician, and I wouldn't give over time to canvas a neighborhood or attend a rally. Some people may disagree with that distinction, arguing that a vote for a person is without context, so the politician can take the vote as meaning a full endorsement and complete support. I don't know that there's any way to prevent a politician from reading the tea leaves of an election. Heck, our current commander-in-chief thinks that he has a mandate because fewer people voted for him. I can't prevent that. But the distinction I outlined here suits me.
** Grammar for the win.