Over the past few days I’ve been at a complete loss for words. In a state of shock, I went to bed on Tuesday night feeling alone, but knowing that I was far from it. I was completely shaken by the knowledge that America had elected such an ignorant and inane POTUS as Donald Trump, and I struggled to find any kind of silver-lining. Hillary Clinton’s concession speech helped to relight a fire in my soul, and I realized that this disappointment and setback was merely a taste of what women and minorities before me have felt since the dawn of time. As I watched my friends and family dust themselves off and begin to rally, I realized that wallowing in my fear was not going to make me any safer. My voice as a queer female has already been suppressed by that fear for too long, not to mention by the very demographic who have enabled this disastrous outcome.
What I found as the initial shock of the election faded was that these results are not as unbelievable as they first seemed. We live in an incredibly backwards country, one that has systematically oppressed racial minorities, immigrants, women and members of the LGBTQ community for too long, indeed. While we have made significant strides of progress, we are still embarrassingly behind many of our Western counterparts. This is the same rhetoric that has been flooding social media all week, I know, but there is good reason to keep the discussion going. If we (liberals, activists, decent human beings, etc.) intend on turning the tides once and for all, we have to convince the other half. I urge those who are privileged enough to threaten to pack up and move to another country and those who have gone on an unfriending-rampage against all Trump supporters to please think twice. There are people in this country who are desperate to stay here, terrified of being deported, and who need the support of their allies now more than ever. In order to turn this country around again in 2020 we can’t give up on each other, and we especially have to find a way to reach those who were so blinded by party loyalty that they couldn’t even vote against a poorly spoken nutcase.
In all honesty, the moderates have been more than a bit of a frustration for me during this election. There are some situations where it is great to stand in the middle of the road but I don’t think there is ever a time that it is morally valiant. That said, I know the two-party system is a huge problem and I wish our democracy worked better, but I’m not even going to go into how maddening it is that some democrats voted for a third party in this vital election; we already know what a mistake that was. Instead I am going to address the non-voters; what were you thinking? If you are young and uninformed or too lazy I can at least understand your excuses for being idle in the face of adversity, but to those who didn’t vote because “both of the candidates were so bad”, you seem to be hindered by sexism. There is no other explanation for even equating an intelligent and qualified albeit shady women to the highly under-qualified travesty that is Donald Trump, besides an intrinsic prejudice against women. You may try to hide it, you may not even be fully aware of it, but it’s there, and it’s just as toxic as outright male chauvinism if not worse. I’ll tell you why:
- The sexist in denial is the same person that enables male chauvinism by not condemning their peers, often defending them with a certain brotherly support that is as petty and juvenile as peer pressure.
- Female misogeny is a word that is becoming more popular than ever, stemming of course from the privileged white women who is in denial of the oppression that non-straight or non-white women face. Not to be confused with misandry, the female misogynist is a women that is hyper-feminized and condones the polarization of the sexes. The outdated belief that men and women are drastically different from one another is hugely detrimental to both genders, and once again enables intrinsic sexism. These are the type of women that voted directly against Hilary Clinton.
- Lastly, the ambivalent majority will continue to oppress minorities as long as their beliefs are backed up by conservative religious ideologies. It’s like a socially acceptable excuse to treat women poorly. Unfortunately, religion is at the root of many people’s prejudice toward women and is also to blame for demonizing the word “feminism”. It’s hard to combat this, because holy hell if people aren’t sensitive when you attack their religion! Sorry, I’ll attack any institution that threatens to limit women’s access to health care. *cracks knuckles*
I may sound like I am attacking only a specific group of people, and that’s the last thing I want to do. In fact, the straight white male demographic may itself be facing prejudice for the first time ever, and I know it’s not a good feeling. I already see a lot of my male friends on social media feeling obligated to prefix their entries with things like, “I know I am privileged and may not be able to relate to systemic oppression, but here’s why I’m saddened by this election.” I would hate for my anger to add to a new stereotype that labels a whole group of people as ignorant. Of course, social psychology tells us that all stereotypes are rooted in some kind of truth, and that truth is stemming from the fact that straight white males are largely responsible for the election of Donald Trump. Even so, we know that not all men find him acceptable. In fact many straight white men are appalled by all of the same things that I am, and it is those men that I urge to speak up! We want you on our side, we will not lose faith in you, and we need your support. Please don’t let defensiveness get in the way of activism, we feminists certainly don’t.
Last week I returned from my journey across the deep South expecting to find a much more enlightened pre-election atmosphere up here, but I was wrong. As I drove home I passed by one of the most disgusting displays that I have seen all year. A scarecrow tied to a cross with yellow caution tape had a picture of Hillary Clinton’s face stapled to it, had slurs written across the body and had its feet bound to a tire. A cardboard cutout of Trump has since been stolen from a makeshift podium that stood nearby, and several of the many campaign signs from the yard have been taken down. Still, the display remains in broad daylight, where children walk home from school every day and can often be seen pointing to it and laughing. The disservice many Americans have done to our country’s children is perhaps the saddest part of this election. I can only hope, as many generations before me have, that things are different for my own children one day. This is one story that I never wanted to be able to tell to my grandchildren, but now all I can do is join the fight to make something good come out of it. I hope we can all fight together, so that one day our Muslim, Hispanic, African American and LGBTQ brothers and sisters no longer have to live in fear.
Rove & Ponder 