New Project: Chapter 23
The unthinkable happened. Our country elected hate. Watching the election returns, my body felt as if all the air had left it. Crushed. Broken. Hopeless. The work I’d done, the work of years to undo the ravages of sexual assault, the work of letting go and believing that I could have power, choices, agency disappeared in an electoral count nobody predicted. I thought I could let go. I thought I could matter. I thought the weight I bore, the scars I wore counted for something. I thought, believed, hoped, prayed that I was more than some horrible man’s judgment of me. I was wrong. In a few hours, the 2016 election affirmed every doubt, every wish for a different body, a different mind, a different mode of expression.
There was, honestly, not enough whiskey in the world for the hurt I felt. How many times would I be raped? How many times would men assert their fear and render me powerless against them? How many times would my body be worth more than my heart and mind? What, now, did being a woman mean?
Broken. Beat down. Used. And also aging. Not a ten or an eight, but a two. Maybe. My worth dictated by a mob angry with an elite. Like I was nothing. Like my mind was nothing. Like my experience and hurt meant nothing. How was this possible? And where to go? What to do? How to fight? How to lead? How to finish this book, this work?
I wanted to curl up under a rock. I didn’t even want Steve to see me. That our country could elect this man meant everything I believed was a farce, a construct of magical thinking. What would I tell my sons? How would I go to work and open my business – a safe haven for women who hurt? What guidance or hope could I possibly offer? What strength was left to give?
The sobs wrecked my body, rendered me even more powerless. I longed for the cold of fury, but it didn’t come. A woman’s place, again, was in the home.
Donald fucking Trump. Really? Oh my fucking god. And everywhere women cringed. Democracy, it seemed, was at an end. The stock markets tumbled. The world revolted. Terrorists grinned. In one evil, dastardly night, the US of A determined my panties were in a twist
And still, despite it all, I maintain (and offer Trump’s election as proof) the only thing we control is what we give.
Writing this I felt so small, but I wrote. There is a flame. That flame is love – love for the millions of women who feel the weight of what our country did, love for the men who love and respect women, love for the children who learned the bright hope of their future had dimmed.
Steve said, “Like after the second plane hit the World Trade Center, our world just changed and not for the good.”
How does an educated, financially successful white man comfort a wife whose pain he can only imagine? The world, really, did not change for him.
We only control what we give.
Should I have phone banked? Donated more? Should I not have been exhausted by the email pleas and phone calls?
All the polls said Clinton would win. I expected a landslide, would have been fine (mostly) with a win.
Caught in a web.
And yet, re-reading my own words and convinced of their truth, I reassert there is never a moment when we are powerless. A Facebook friend – a white, male, university professor – suggested we rise up. In my bones I know that won’t work. Again, I hear a whisper. Only in quiet revolution will we win.
We must stop seeing ourselves as victims. Trump’s election did not diminish my worth (no matter how much it felt that way at the time). It did not undo my years of work. It triggered a reaction, certainly, and his election brought me to tears, but I still stand strong.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. We will not achieve equality in this country until the oppressed cease to behave as victims of a society that does things to them. Privilege can be taken. We have the power to reclaim our nation. Our resiliency is not dependent on flexibility or adaptability. Instead, it is dependent upon the health of our relationships and our moral code.
As a society, we have been conditioned to fear the “other.” People not like us are a danger, but fear of the other breeds isolation. It severs communications, keeps us in line, and creates the problems it presumes to solve.
Fear taught women to be judgmental and prejudiced against the “other” even as it taught them to be sweet and compassionate to their own kind. Through fear, we learned women have monsters inside. The monsters are terrifying. They loom dark and uncontrollable when we feel thrilled, aroused, deeply sad, terribly angry, ambitious or just desirous of something. Women believe that if their monster gets out, it will consume them.
The monster is power. It can wreak havoc, make mayhem, even murder, but that’s not what it usually does. Instead, that monster fosters and sustains courage. It defends our families, gives us the strength to endure tragedy, and promotes our ambition. In fact, it is the monster that makes us human. What women have been taught to repress is their strength, sexuality, intelligence, agency, and anger. To unleash these, to take off the restraints, is to be fully alive, but many don’t know this. Many keep their monster locked inside.
53% of white women voted for Donald Trump. There has been much speculation as to why. Some say that women’s conditioning led to compassion for a bully. Others say white privilege and racism are to blame. Perhaps both played a factor, but I also think women who voted for Trump did it to protect this country from the monster they couldn’t contain. Hillary Clinton is the monster unleashed and therefore couldn’t be Commander-in-Chief because society dictates that powerful women are evil. If you have doubt, you need only look at history and the thousands of women burned at the stake.
For centuries, women have been taught to suppress their own power in order to stay safe. Compliance and compassion, generosity and temerity, daintiness and desirability were the qualities we had to embrace. We’ve fought this and we’ve won some victories. The very fact that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by well more than a million demonstrates the work that’s been done. However, the election crushed our optimism. Nationwide, women grieved hard. Hollowed out, directionless, and exhausted from too many tears, they formed a steady stream in and out of my store.
“What do we do now?”
“Where do we go from here?”
“How could this have happened?”
“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think I need to get a gun.”
Like me, they felt hopeless, lost, and broken.
Fear raised its ugly head, licked its slimy lips, and slithered toward us in anticipation.
Then liberals and progressive women shed the fog of complacency and gathered on social media and in the streets.
“No more,” we said. It ends today. Now is not the time for fear. It is the time for rage. Yes, rage. White-hot, laser-like feminine rage. It’s time to unleash our monsters and make concrete, positive change.
If the election of Donald Trump did anything, it woke us up, roused us from the dream of safety, and motivated us to congregate.
The election requires us to move forward with a vision of freedom or abdicate. In moving forward, we must harness the power inside us and use it to combat corporate greed, climate change, and political corruption. Listen to the monster when it speaks. Follow its lead. Reach out and embrace the “other” even if you’re terrified. Talk, listen, and discover common ground. The other’s fear is as real as yours, their future as uncertain.
We all want the same thing: the freedom we were promised to pursue life, liberty, and happiness. As a nation, we must come together in defense of freedom and the tenets it demands: liberty, empathy, and economic independence.
To achieve freedom, we must support the businesses that support our communities, spend like getting is less important than giving, and boycott the corporations that condone rape, misogyny, xenophobia, bigotry, and environmental irresponsibility because their pursuit of profit is more important than humanity and the preservation of the world.
