Posted on 11/08/2017 3:45:50 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
This time last year, I was still hopeful.
This time last year, I was naïve.
As recently as the morning of November 8, 2016, I believed, as I think many American women did, that if we only played by the rules, we could rise to the highest positions of power.
There were still a lot of rules for women, of course. Anyone could see that. The rules became more rigid the more power you wanted. You couldn’t smile too little, or too much. Your voice could not be too high, lest you seem shrill. It couldn’t be too husky lest you seem masculine. You could not be overweight, or, for that matter, pretty in a way that was too obvious. Your hair… well, your hair and makeup would need to be done each day, or people would say you looked sick, and that would take hours. You needed to never appear angry, or, in the least, inconvenienced.
We were so sure that we could play by the rules and win.
I watched as millions of women excitedly gathered in secret groups to support Hillary Clinton’s candidacy. There they talked about what an exciting moment in history this was. They did not venture out because their husbands might not like their vote, or Bernie voters might yell at them, or someone at their work might not like it. We saw at the time, I think, no contradiction in being posed on the edge of ultimate victory for womankind and also secreting ourselves away to make ourselves completely unobjectionable. We were always supposed to be unobjectionable.
So quietly, unobjectionably, we waited. We baked cakes, and chilled champagne, and put stickers on suffragettes graves. And so many of us thought how especially satisfying it would be to see a woman win against a man who was repeatedly accused of sexual harassment, who bragged about sexual assault, who seemed to embody the worst of what women encounter from men.
"It became clear that you can be the most qualified woman and still lose to the least qualified man."
On November 9, we woke up, and Donald Trump had been elected.
It became clear that you can be the most qualified woman and still lose to the least qualified man.
That was like a spell being broken. All across the land, women woke up and realized we were never going to get where we wanted to go by playing by the rules. Even if you walked the tightrope of acceptable feminine behavior perfectly, even if you managed to sidestep every trap laid for women, you would still never to get to the top. The bar for men was so low they could slither right over it.
And I think something inside us broke. Some dam within so many women that kept them quiet, that kept their anger tucked away, pent up all the times women smile politely when we feel like screaming. That dam burst.
And every furious moment we’d tried not to think about came flooding forth. We were awake, and we were righteously angry.
There was a meme that was popular some time ago depicting Robin Wright and Carrie Fisher that stated “I’ve lived to see my childhood princesses become generals.”
2017 felt like a year when women all across America transformed into the fiercest possible version of her former self. Women who’d never thought of protesting before flooded the streets—three million strong—for the Women’s March in January. When Elizabeth Warren was chided for “persisting” in talking once Mitch McConnell tried to silence her, “She persisted” became, as the Washington Post reported, “a battle cry." Once women started talking, no longer worried as we might have been of seeming shrill, it seemed like we couldn’t stop. In April, a study found that female activists were making 86 percent of anti-Trump calls to Congress.
In the past few weeks, women have started speaking out, en masse, about harassment in Hollywood and the tech world and the media world.
And, remarkably, the world is responding.
Dozens of men who have harassed and intimidated women are resigning.
Every week, another powerful man seems to topple off his pedestal like those old Confederate statues.
If not being able to do precisely what they want precisely when they want is uncomfortable for them, well, they’ve been making us uncomfortable for generations. We’ve learned to make ourselves small and inoffensive so as not to upset them. Let them at least learn not to grab us without consent. Let them learn that we’re not to be raped. Let them learn that there are consequences to hurting women, because all this time, though we’ve been quiet, we’ve been people too.
Some men don’t like that. I think I can speak for a great many women when I say, “we don’t care if you like it.” We've put up with a thousand rules imposed on women since the beginning of time.
Our centuries of polite silence may be coming to an end.
This week a very demure friend told me that, when she was catcalled this week, she thought of spinning around and screaming at the top of her lungs, “don’t you read the news?! That’s. Not. Allowed. Anymore.” The world hasn’t changed that much. There may always be catcalls. But there may also be a day when women get to raise their voices in anger in response.
I think of all those young male Trump voters who claimed they wanted to vote for Trump because they wanted a revolution. They got one. It’s coming from women.
If you listen carefully, you can almost hear millions of women screaming. It sounds fine. It sounds like the world changing.
I’m hopeful again.
I stopped right there. Hillary Clinton didn't follow the rules. She's the most visibly corrupt Presidential nominee in the past half-century.
It blows my mind that the lack of character, such extreme corruption as to get in the realm of treason, corruption of the Democrat nomination process, none of those things count for anything to gung-ho Hillary fans. It’s depressing really to know these people vote!
One of the stages of democrat grief is stuffing rags into gasoline filled glass bottles. Another is beating people with bicycle locks.
Yep. The 19th amendment began the downfall of America.
This idiot thinks clinton “played by the rules”?
Airhead.
I guess the irony of this column escapes her grasp - that she could talk about the injustices of Hillary losing, and all of the men being outed as sexual predators, while the MSM and her supporters give her rapist husband a pass.
“”It became clear that you can be the most qualified woman and still lose to the least qualified man.” “
We should never have let women vote. They vote with emotions and not facts that lead them to believe such nonsense as that, and they tend to vote VERY liberal.
Must be her time of the month.
The only answer I could give to Jennifer Wright is, “Men are talking. Show proper respect, please.”
That ought to get Ms. Wright pumped up.
She would have to change her name from “Jennifer” to “Always”.
I wonder if there should have been a “Barf” indicator for this article. This part brought a chuckle:
“In the past few weeks, women have started speaking out, en masse, about harassment in Hollywood and the tech world and the media world.
And, remarkably, the world is responding.
Dozens of men who have harassed and intimidated women are resigning.
Every week, another powerful man seems to topple off his pedestal like those old Confederate statues.”
I guess this woman could not bring herself to mentioning Harvey Weinstein and other wealthy Hollywood men who gave very generously to Democrat coffers over the years are the ones being accused now and their behaviour would have likely been buried had Hillary won. These people are more pathetic than anything else, let alone glorious anger.
No, I don’t agree with this writer. Hillary did not play by the rules, the media was almost entirely on her side, she was calling those who disagreed with her views “deplorables” and she and her followers were disgraceful in their defeat. Women were donning pussy hats and spewing hateful and vulgar language on Inauguration Day. And a year later they’re still whining. Sorry, but those women don’t represent me.
And for the good men of America who cannot find self assured conservative patriot women, God invented Hot Latinas so you would not have to settle for a feminist.
Let me ask the females here: Is any of this true?
Not just no but HELL NO!!! These ignorant broads actually think that Hellary is an example they should all aspire to??? They’re dumber than I thought.........good grief!!!
And English-speaking Christian Filipinas.
I spent a year ago doing a serious happy dance around my living room with my husband as it became more and more apparent Trump was going to win.
And for the good men of America who cannot find self assured conservative patriot women, God invented Hot Latinas so you would not have to settle for a feminist.
LOL....I have to agree only because feminists are bottom of the barrel scrapings........;)
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