What happened to Girl Power?
Every one of us knows someone who voted for Trump this time.
Every one of us knows someone who voted for him. Someone we didn’t expect to. “A good person.” A woman we thought we knew.
What happened?
Back in middle school
Ah, middle school. Boys had their own thing, but girls forged a new kind of exclusion. I couldn’t figure out what it was — some incalculable mix of looks, brains and personality? Only later did I realize it was just a factor of how much we appealed to boys.
I was a 5 out of 10.
Thanks solely to good girl friends, a feminist father, and a grandma who told me I was better than any boy, I survived. So when my high school boyfriend (a quarterback I felt lucky to land) tried to pressure me into having sex, I had no problems telling him no. He had no problems telling me he was dumping me and taking someone else to the prom.
Lesson learned.
How (much) we appeal to boys
If you don’t believe the US is 💯 run by men, please explain why we’ve never had a female president. I’ll wait.* 235+ years.
Even Mexico, the birthplace of machismo, just elected
their first woman president.
(Might explain the skyrocket in Latinos voting for Trump).
To be transparent, I’m feminist-ignorant (read: school me in the comments). All I know is from where I sit, women are (still) judged by how much they appeal to men.
And it’s not just men judging. A lot of women value themselves in male dollars. I feel gross even typing that sentence.
You’ve seen them; first Sarah Palin, now Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert. Beautiful women who love the limelight… of men.
Are they using men or being used by them? Real question here.
Sexual assault? Approved!
Who cares? It’s okay. No biggie. Total fact: We continue supporting politicians who’ve been convicted of sexual misconduct. Me, too (Bill Clinton). In our own party we just downplay it further. Men will be men, evidently, and we’re all A-OK with that.
I, you, men, women, everyone, we are all misogynist to a degree. We have to actively work to reverse it.
Team Women
As cuckoo as it sounds, half my brain (see above) says men are better, and the other half says women are. So in addition to being misogynist, color me sexist: After nearly 40 years in the work world, I’m convinced women generally work harder.
When I became a mom, it came in fuller focus. Women balancing babies on hips, navigating emotions of kids and tweens, while managing carts full of groceries. Women running crazy great mom-to-mom sales. While slaying a job.
Women. Get. $#!^. Done. Period.
Exhibit A: The 13K-member strong “Ann Arbor Area Mamas Network” Facebook group. They discussed changing their discriminatory name but voted to keep it. Rationale: Women need a place. Implied rationale: Without men. Proven rationale: To get $#!^ done.
.
As a first-time (i.e., clueless) mom, I’ve found the mom-helping-mom community not only immensely helpful, but awe-inspiring. Mamas asking for support of their trans kids. Mamas needing a reputable mechanic. Mamas asking for daycare reviews. Mamas needing a lawyer to get out of an abusive situation. The online support is palpable; members often comment dads would be lucky if they could have such a group.
Despite all this love, there’s one thing that has always bothered me.
Discussions involving child care, housecleaning, and hairstyling always include how expensive it is. It’s not that they’re wrong. It’s that those services are typically provided by women… who are anything but rich.
What’s going on here?
“Other countries have social safety nets. The U.S. has women.”
-Jessica Calarco
Women v. Women
In her book Holding it Together, Jessica Calarco discusses how privileged women can only stay that way by trodding on less privileged women. Services like child care, house cleaning, hairstyling, caregiving which are overwhelmingly provided by women are kept in the minimum wage camp.
Calarco goes on to talk about how US patriarchy is rigged to keep it this way. I know little about feminism and even less about history. But this is tragic.
Women aren’t the problem.
Where do we go now?
So here’s the deal: to move forward, we must
Stop bashing women (that includes ourselves)
Start bolstering all women*
That thing that started in middle school must stop. Please don’t divide from your girlfriends who voted for Trump. I’ll write more on that later, but you gotta know there’s something deeper at play.
We must band together. There are 3 million more women in the US than men. We can fix this. It’s time for another women’s movement.
Girl power needs to be more than a slogan. Women (should) rule.
*Please, don’t let BS like Ingrid Jacques spews come out of your mouth. “It has to be the right woman” — as if Harris and Clinton weren’t a billion times better than Trump. Are there better women? Maybe. But just because they only have your second favorite flavor of ice cream, you don’t vote smushed peas. If you find yourself challenging a woman in the company of a @#$&head man, please tell your inner misogynist to shuttup. And thank you.