The following is an actual letter that I wrote to Representative Pete Olson of District 22 of Texas, the district in which I happen to reside. I would encourage all of you to write your own representatives and congressmen, as well as call them and let them know your stance on the issues they stand for.
__________
Dear Mr. Olson,
I'm writing today as a concerned citizen of not only your district but of the United States. The recent election has shown the racism and lack of education rampant in the US. As an educated woman who works at a university, I am appalled that such things exist at all, and to see them within our government is even more troubling. There are several such issues about which I have specific concerns, and, unfortunately, many of them are listed on your website among the issues about which you are passionate. The most troubling of these issues is that of women’s healthcare. While I will try to keep this letter brief, please be advised that I work in a Writing Center and value knowledge and rhetoric backed by data and statistics rather than, as Stephen Colbert puts it, “truthiness,” or believing something because it feels like it should be right. Since such truthiness has now become the ideological stance of the nation, I feel I must speak out and let you know the actual truth in order to become the best representative you can be.
To begin with, you say on your website that you are a “staunch defender of the unborn.” However, I see nowhere on your site where you mention protecting the lives of children after they have been born; indeed, on your website, you seem to dismiss the lives of many children born to immigrant parents, claiming that Obama’s decision to give children immigrant children under 16 amnesty was “illegal.” Similarly, I see nothing about funding children’s healthcare expenses, particularly for those mothers who, like you, believe that they should not get an abortion and are forced to carry their child to term, despite not being able to financially care for them. Quite the contrary; in your section on health care, you seem to make the claim that getting rid of Obamacare would “...[encourage] a competitive healthcare market.” While this claim has merit in theory, the truth is that the only accomplishments achieved by this action would be “...[increasing] the federal deficit by as much as $353 billion over the next decade” and that those making over $250,000.00 per year, “would escape ACA-related tax increases.” (1) Since Obamacare was signed into law, nearly 17 million people have been given access to healthcare who would not have otherwise gotten it. (2) Since the only benefit to repealing Obamacare would be for the wealthy and would hurt literally millions of Americans--including those who have young children and the children themselves--I must wonder what your true motive is in your many attempts to repeal it. If you are truly pro-life, to use the commonly-used term, will you step up and be pro all life, or just pro unborn life?
Aside from your double-speak stance on healthcare and abortion, there are other facts related to women’s health on your site that are misleading or simply untrue. For example, your belief that “life begins at conception” would make every woman capable of producing ovum to be an occasional murderer. Scientifically and medically speaking, while sperm may quite often find an egg and fertilize it, it is also as likely that the now-fertilized egg will then not take root on the uterine lining. When this happens, the fertilized egg is shed as though it had never been fertilized at all. For more information about a way a woman’s body works, I would invite you to view the Crash Course series on the reproductive system: https://youtu.be/RFDatCchpus Furthermore, I would invite you to consider your position from a woman’s point of view; would you want to be called a murderer by someone who has no idea what pregnancy and, for that matter, your natural reproductive cycle are actually like? I say these things not to antagonize, but to invite you to consider these issues from the perspective of those whom this will affect.
Yet another issue on your website that is rife with misinformation is the Planned Parenthood issue. Your belief is succinctly illuminated by the statement “I do not believe taxpayer dollars should be spent on these organizations.” Your website would suggest, as do many other conservative websites, that Planned Parenthood’s major function is to perform abortions; you use language such as “organizations that perform abortions” when talking about Planned Parenthood. This language is not only biased but reveals a lack of information and helps to spread misinformation to those who view your site. According to Factcheck.org, only 3% of Planned Parenthood’s patient care is for abortions; 35% goes to contraceptives (which prevent abortions in the first place), another 35% to Sexually Transmitted Illness screening, 16% to cancer screenings and prevention, and 11% to other health services, most of them specifically women’s health services. More importantly, by law, abortions cannot receive federal funding; all the current funding goes to desperately needed health services for women. (3) Once again, I must question your motives, since, as with your healthcare stance, it seems you wish to defund programs for those who need it the most. I therefore must reiterate my question: are you really pro-life?
Related to this issue is your discussion of the video which surfaced in 2015 of the so-called “undercover footage” from Planned Parenthood. Whether or not this is simply outdated information or an example of willing suspension of disbelief in favor of cognitive dissonance, I don’t know, but as of August 27, 2015, these videos had been exposed as fake; Jackie Calmes, in a New York Times article, reported that “‘A thorough review of these videos in consultation with qualified experts found that they do not present a complete or accurate record of the events they purport to depict,’ the analysis of a private research company said.” (4) I would like to request that you update this information on your website in light of this fact and please not continue to spread this misinformation. I would also hope that this may help you to reconsider your view on organizations which help women such as Planned Parenthood.
As a woman, I am very concerned by the aforementioned issues and your stance on them. It is deeply disconcerting to discover that decisions can be made about your body over which you have no control. I am fortunate in that I have a condition known as Premature Ovavrian failure with Primary Amenorrhea, which means that I am unable to produce ovum and cannot naturally conceive; because of this, I have to take birth control in order to get the needed hormones for my body to function correctly. Therefore, personally, I am concerned that I may have to once again begin paying for birth control if Obamacare is repealed, which is an added expense that I, a middle-class single woman, cannot afford. Frankly, I am also scared that these restrictions on women’s health are just the tip of a larger, anti-women iceberg. As a final plea, please take the time to read the account of a deeply religious LDS woman from Utah who had to have a late-term abortion in order to save her own life; she describes it as a harrowing experience, none the less so because she had to wait for an ethics committee to decide whether or not her life could be saved(!). (5) Because of all of this, I must inform you that, until your stances change and you publicly denounce Donald Trump, my colleagues, friends, and I will not be voting for you during the next election cycle--and believe me, we will be voting.
I had originally intended this blog to be a socio-political type blog, but I need to type some things out so I can process them.
The Tale of the Best Australian Shepherd, Ever
Sheila thought she belonged in everyone's lap. She did.
Today, I had to do one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. I had to take my 15-year-old dog, Sheila, to the vet to be euthanized.
***
I first saw Sheila when she was only two days old. My aunt, at the time, was living in Tulsa and had come down for a visit. In an attempt to keep her entertained, my grandmother suggested we go to the SPCA and see some of the animals, since my aunt and I are both animal lovers. We enthusiastically agreed.
When we got there, there she was: a beautiful, tiny, red merle Australian Shepherd amongst a litter of 6 other tiny, two-day-old Aussie pups and their beautiful blue merle mother. I had never had a dog before, though I had grown up around my aunt's dogs, but I nonetheless knew almost immediately that I wanted to have the little red merle as my own. In the coming weeks, I visited her frequently and very easily picked out a name for her: Sheila, because that's Australian slang for woman. She became Sheila Matilda because of the song Waltzing Matilda. I looked forward to the day I could bring her home.
Sheila after her first bath
When she was just three weeks old, however, my grandmother came to pick me up from school and had Sheila in a laundry basket in the front seat. I was obviously quite surprised; I remember saying "Sheila! What are you doing here?" in a surprised tone, and my grandmother, somewhat flabbergasted, sighing and saying "Get in the car." It turned out that, despite the five other three-week-old Australian Shepherd pups at the SPCA, they had decided to put the mother down because she was, quote, "bleeding from the rectum." They never really investigated why or what to do about it; they just euthanized her, and, at three weeks old, Sheila was left on our hands. I was furious at them, as you might imagine. While I was looking forward to bringing Sheila home, this was not how I wanted to do it. Moreover, now we had to bottle feed her every few hours throughout the night. Nonetheless, we did it all; we bottle-fed her, got her used to solid food, potty trained her--all of it. For all intents and purposes, we were all Sheila ever really knew.
She loved us all enthusiastically, and I loved her every minute she was alive.
She loved being outside.
***
For the last few months, Sheila has been rapidly declining. She has been in the advanced stages of dementia for some time now, and a few weeks ago I was told of this and had to begin to accept Sheila's coming end. That was hard enough. Then, last Saturday, my grandmother and mother and I decided that today we would do the humane thing and end her suffering. After the fear and disgust of last week's election, combined with finding out my grandparents voted for Trump, it was too much to handle.
I was surprisingly able to sleep last night, even though I've been in the habit for the past few nights of waking up at 3:30 or so and eventually drifting back off to sleep. I had my alarm set for 6 a.m. and when it finally went off I was ready to get up. I knew that the dreaded day had come but there was something in my unconscious that prevented me from completely accepting this; I got up and went about my morning as I usually did with little to no emotion attached to it.
The big difference between this morning and most mornings was that I took an unusually long time to get ready; typically I'll pull my hair up, maybe put on makeup if I feel like it, put on some decent work clothes, and head to work. This morning, as though my sub- or un-conscious brain were trying to delay the inevitable, I woke up, brushed my teeth, washed my face, put in contacts (I've been in the habit of wearing glasses), fixed my hair, decided I didn't like it, re-fixed it a bit, did some rather extensive makeup, dried some clothes to put on, went back and did my hair yet a third time, took my pills and vitamins, and checked Facebook, all before heading out the door. Outwardly I continued to show no emotion, even as I made the drive back to Angleton to see Sheila one last time, who had been living with my grandparents since I moved out of their house.
I thought I might cry after she passed away, but even before that, the moment I saw her, I broke into tears. The thing is, I didn't get emotional because I knew she would leave us soon, but because of the state in which I found her. My grandparents had been doing everything they could to take care of her, but even then, she could barely move, had been howling in confusion and probably pain, had a strange growth on her eye, and had basically peed on herself because she couldn't get up to go outside and, when she did, according to my grandfather, all she did was walk in circles. That was the proverbial straw that broke my emotion-camel's back; I sat down with her and pet her, trying to soothe her, and talked to my aunt who was doing the same. Soon my aunt and I loaded her into my aunt's SUV and headed off to the vet.
I sat in the back with Sheila. The ride there was nerve-wracking. I kept pulling Sheila close to me and holding on to her, which seemed to comfort her enough to keep her from howling for short periods of time and also from sliding off the car seat. It was nonetheless very hard to deal with. I kept thinking to myself, Sheila's already gone. This isn't my funny, happy-go-lucky dog who runs in the back yard and gets in everyone's lap and begs for treats; this is a shell of her former self. This isn't Sheila.
We eventually got to the vet and some vet techs came out with a smallish stretcher of sorts to carry her in. I was stunned to learn she had also lost a vast amount of weight, despite the fact that she had apparently been eating quite a bit; according to my grandmother, her blood work had been quite good, but something else was very, very wrong. I could feel her spine and when they weighed her at the vet, she weighed 15 pounds less than she once did, which is quite substantial for a dog. They then took her into a room and placed her on a blanket while they got everything ready; I followed them back because I wanted to say goodbye to the beautiful canine I had known since she was 2 days old.
With every moment my resolve strengthened; I was sure that what we were doing was the right thing, and that she had, in fact, been suffering for too long. This amazing dog did not deserve to suffer even a second more.
I had already been crying a bit by that point, but the worst was yet to come. The vet, who was very nice and sympathetic, took her for a bit to put in an IV, and then brought her back and placed her on a blanket on the exam table, and so the end began. He first injected a sedative and some anesthetic into the IV as I pet her on the head and stared her in the eyes, saying "I love you, Sheila. I'll always love you." She quickly drifted off to sleep but continued to make some grunting and huffing noises. It wasn't much longer until the vet injected the meds that would stop her heart; very soon after, he listened for a heartbeat and said, quietly, "She's gone." He then left the room to give me some time to grieve alone.
I'm glad he gave me this time. I haven't cried as hard as that in a very long time. I continued to pet her on the head, giving her kisses on her head and snout, stroking her beautiful red-merle fur, and reiterating that I would always love her and instructing her to sleep sweetly. I could have probably stayed in that room kissing her and crying for much longer; I'm not sure how I was able to eventually pull myself away from her, but through sheer force of will I did, and then gently knocked on the door to alert the vet that I was done saying my goodbyes.
It seems so surreal, and I'm constantly on the verge of tears, even though I'm back home with my spoiled-rotten cat, Loki. On the days leading up to this I had been feeling paralyzing fear to the point that I had my first full-blown panic attack in a long time, as well as extreme sadness over the loss of such a beloved soul. However, ultimately I'm happy that she's not suffering anymore; no one deserves to suffer like she did, and I'm glad I could be there to take it away for her.
This last week has been a very hard one to live through, and I'm not the only one who has expressed this sentiment. The fact that Donald Trump has now been elected as the next president of the United States is horrifying., He is a former reality TV-star who has appeared on Wrestlemania; a bankrupt so-called "business man" who is now being sued for fraud for his Trump University fiasco; a sexist, misogynistic rapist who loudly proclaimed that his fame and fortune allowed him to, and I quote, "grab women by the pussy;" and a racist, xenophobic, orange ball of hatred that has threatened to deport undocumented immigrants by the thousands and build a wall to keep any more out. His vice president actually believes it is possible to shock the gay out of people, and let's not even get into Trump's ridiculous beliefs surrounding climate change.
Everyone was shocked at the fact that Trump was able to win the presidency (despite, like so much Gore v. Bush, losing the popular vote), but, as Russell Brand has so eloquently stated, the conditions were already there for Trump to be able to become president. Racism, xenophobia, sexism, transphobia and so many other forms of fear and hatred were already rampant in America; Trump's election victory simply brought those to the surface.
And yet, all I keep hearing from people who voted for Trump or who are for some reason anti liberal/progressive is that everything will be okay and that we should stop whining; they had to live through eight years of Obama as president, so now we have to put up with Trump. This is infuriating for a number of reasons, the biggest of which is that this is a false-equivalency, but that's an issue that frankly deserves its own post because the problems with that are so, so many. But, even more than that, that rhetoric dismisses the opinions and feelings of the millions of Americans targeted by Trump during his campaign.
The Cognitive Dissonance and Ignorance of the Right Wing
I have recently seen posts circulating through various social media right now that claim that it's the fault of liberals and progressives that things are the way they are. Here's the one that has made me the most furious:
"Dear Democrats and Liberals. I'm noticing that a lot of you aren't graciously accepting the fact that your candidate lost. In fact you seem to be posting even more hateful things about those of us who voted for Trump. Some of you are apparently "triggered". Because you are posting how "sick" you feel about the results. How did this happen you ask? You created "us" when you attacked our freedom of speech. You created "us" when you attacked our right to bear arms. You created "us" when you attacked our Christian beliefs. You created "us" when you constantly referred to us as racists. You created "us" when you constantly called us xenophobic. You created "us" when you told us to get on board or get out of the way. You created "us" when you forced us to buy health care and then financially penalized us for not participating. You created "us" when you allowed our jobs to continue to leave our country. You created "us" when you attacked our flag. You created "us" when you confused women's rights with feminism. You created "us" when you began to immasculate men. You created "us" when you decided to make our children soft. You created "us" when you decided to vote for progressive ideals. You created "us" when you attacked our way of life. You created "us" when you decided to let our government get out of control. "You" created "us" the silent majority. And we became fed up and we pushed back and spoke up. And we did it with ballots, not bullets. Copy and paste if you agree"
Allow me to explain why everything in this post is just downright ignorant.
"I'm noticing that a lot of you aren't graciously accepting the fact that your candidate lost. In fact you seem to be posting even more hateful things about those of us who voted for Trump."
I wouldn't call Hillary "my candidate;" mine was Bernie Sanders, but I voted for Hillary because I felt there was no other realistic way to keep Trump out of the white house. Let's ignore that for a moment, though, and talk about the rest of what this post claims.
To begin with, Hillary won the popular vote. You must forgive us if, for the second time this century, (and we're only 16 years and five elections into it) a presidential candidate has lost the election despite being chosen by the American people. This is a pretty hypocritical stance to have anyway, since conservatives weren't exactly graciously accepting of Obama's white-house wins. And, while I admit my bias here (something I've never seen a conservative do...) and I may simply be perceiving things in an echo-chamber, most of what I see from the liberal/progressive side is either fear or people standing together to help each other. On the other hand, since Trump's election win was announced, those Trump supporters who are racist and/or sexist have gone on to paint swastikas on public property, scrawl "fuck ni***rs" on doors, burn pride flags, hang black dolls, and so many other things. That is the epitome of hate.
"Some of you are apparently "triggered". Because you are posting how "sick" you feel about the results."
Ignoring the poor grammar and punctuation for a moment, I'd like to discuss the idea of being "triggered." This concept has been derided by many anti-progressive, backward-thinking conservatives who say things such as "Trigger warnings prevent the free exchange of ideas." What the real problem is here is a fundamental misunderstanding of what a trigger and trigger warning are in the first place. See, when someone is "triggered," they aren't simply upset because someone disagrees with them; they may become so upset and have such vivid flashback of a certain event that they may cause a panic attack. Laci Green has a really great explanation of what they are:
I think that saying that some people may be "triggered" by this election is actually not an entirely untrue thing; because of everything that Trump has promised and everything that he stands for, the fact that he is now the leader of our country--the representative of America--is terrifying.
We have every right to complain. We have every right to be angry. And we have every right to be scared.How dare you tell us we don't.
"How did this happen you ask? You created "us" when you attacked our freedom of speech. You created "us" when you attacked our right to bear arms. You created "us" when you attacked our Christian beliefs."
I lumped these all together because they demonstrate something that conservatives are really good at: cognitive dissonance. They can say that we are "triggered" and "feeling sick" when a madman gets into office, but when someone says "Christianity isn't the dominant religion of America; it's literally written into the constitution that there can't be one," they tell us we're wrong, we're attacking their freedom of speech, and that we're attacking their beliefs. I've seen it many, many times, and here's why it's bullshit.
Someone can attack a conservative person's "freedom of speech" (which I can only assume means the freedom to use the "N" word or something? Idk.) all they want; that's also freedom of speech. The only time one's "freedom of speech" is considered violated is if the government itself prohibits freedom of speech. Quoth the first amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech," That part about "Congress shall make no law" is important; you can go into a restaurant and be thrown out for using a racial slur and that is not a violation of your freedom of speech; if the government made a law that said you can no longer say the word "pineapple," that would be.
The underlying issue here that they keep returning to is that they can say whatever they want, but heaven forbid anyone else say anything that opposes their beliefs.
Similarly, their idea about "attacking" their "right to bear arms" comes from this same type of thinking: they want to do what they want, whenever they want, however they want, with no consequences, and if anyone tells them they can't for some reason, they scream "oppression!" (And the oaks just shake their heads...)
No one is attacking their right to bear arms. I'm a pretty liberal, progressive person myself, and I've considered getting a gun for protection. The only thing that's actually been put in place is a set of what has been referred to as "common-sense gun laws." These laws would regulate gun ownership similar to the way that car ownership and use is regulated; you would have to get a background check, sellers would have to get a license, and there would be fees for selling them illegally. Obama has never "come for anyone's guns," he has never said he would take them away, and he has never "attacked anyone's right to bear arms; in fact, under President Obama, gun production has doubled. So much for attacking anyone's right to bear arms.
Possibly the one issue of all of these that makes me the most upset is the idea that their Christian beliefs are being attacked. As someone who practices with minority religions and considers herself an atheist/pantheist (it's complicated), I can't even believe how ridiculous this sounds. Christianity is the most adhered to religion in the United States, with 70% of polled American adults identifying themselves as Christian in 2014. Almost every US president has been affiliated with some denomination of Christianity, with only two not formally identifying with any: Jefferson and Lincoln, aka two of the most well-remembered, best presidents US has ever had. While it says in the first amendment that there shall be no law establishing a religion, in practice, there's all but one; in today's socio-political climate, candidates cannot be elected unless they profess to be Christian. Even the thought that Obama could be Muslim had the country up in arms.
I think this also goes back to people disagreeing with the religious right's beliefs; the people who say things like this say it because there isn't enforced prayer in schools or before football games (The establishment clause of the first amendment, again.) They believe their religion should be the only one and everything should be done their way, and when it isn't, they are "oppressed."
"You created "us" when you constantly referred to us as racists. You created "us" when you constantly called us xenophobic. You created "us" when you told us to get on board or get out of the way."
I mentioned some of the activities that Trump supporters are now engaging in since his win, and that alone is enough to call at least some of them racists and xenophobes (though I won't call all of them racists; I know better.) However, this obvious parallel between racists and Trump, if not his supporters, is a pretty obvious one.
During his campaign, Trump let the world know how racist he actually is. These included saying that he didn't think a Muslim mother of a war hero was allowed to speak because of her religion, claiming a judge was biased because he was Mexican, being sued twice by the justice department for refusing to rent to black individuals, and refusing to condemn white supremacists who campaigned for him, among other things. The obvious retort to these remarks is that, well, we know he's not perfect, but he's "better than crooked Hillary."
What Trump supporters are saying when they continued to support his candidacy despite his racism and bigotry is that they thought it was okay. If the leader of the free world can be racist, then it's okay for everyone else to be, too.
Let me say this loudly for the people in the back.
When you support a racist, you're saying racism is okay.
And xenophobia is really just racism under another name. Xenophobia (lit. xeno: alien; phobia: fear) is the fear of people from other countries coming into yours. This is never okay, but in America, where we were founded by immigrants, it's even worse. The poem at the bottom of the Statue of Liberty reads "give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free; send these, the huddled, tempest tossed to me; I light my lamp beside the golden door.*" It does not say "Go home, Syrians and Mexicans. We don't want you here."
A common defense of this fear, however, is the good ole' "They're takin' our jobs!" argument. Simply put, the job was never yours in the first place. There is a myth that there are only so many jobs available and that they only "belong" to Americans, a fallacy called the Lump of Labor fallacy. Furthermore, immigration is actually good for the economy. Adam Davidson wrote in his March 2015 article in the New York Times that, "...when people leave developing economies and set foot on American soil, they typically become more productive, in economic terms. They earn more money, achieve a higher standard of living and add more economic value to the world than they would have if they stayed home." But yeah, let's keep them out.
Probably the scariest thing about his racism and the general acceptance of it is the ignorance that the world has already been through this. Yeah, I know this argument has been done to death, but it bears reiterating: in Nazi Germany leading up to World War II, Hitler blamed everyone from the Jews to Gypsies for the economic problems that Germany faced and began forcing them to register and, as we know, eventually sent them all to concentration camps. Similarly, Trump has said he would "absolutely" require Muslims to register, and has vowed to deport two- to three million undocumented immigrants, chiefly from Mexico, whom he has called criminals, rapists, and murderers. I've heard a handful of reports from people who survived World War II and can see the parallels as well; Zeev Hod, a holocaust survivor, describes some eerie similarities between the events leading up to Trump's election win and Hitler's. Hod explains,
“One of the things people used to say about Hitler when he rose to power in the early 1930’s was that he was saying it like it is,” my dad told me over the phone from Tel Aviv. “They thought he was a bit of a clown, with his big speeches and over-the-top showmanship, but they also admired his ability to say what everyone thought, but didn’t dare say out loud.”
The last of the three statements is a little silly to me; the fact that someone would not want the country to move forward and is upset when the rest of us do is just.... mind boggling, especially from a historical perspective. I would like for those who are fond of "telling it like it is" to answer a question for me: do you believe women should have gotten the right to vote? Do you believe slaves should have been emancipated? Do you believe in the civil rights movement? Whether or not you did or didn't, the country did, and we created laws that protected these historically oppressed minorities. We, as a country, have been moving forward since its inception; just recently we have moved forward even more by giving LGBTQ+ individuals the right to marry. By saying you feel you're being told to "get on board or get out of the way," it sounds as though you're saying "halt the progress of history." Perhaps you should try getting on the right side of history this time.
*This may not be 100% accurate; I memorized this when I was about 10 and that's what I remember from it. Same sentiment, though.
"You created "us" when you forced us to buy health care and then financially penalized us for not participating.
You created "us" when you allowed our jobs to continue to leave our country.
You created "us" when you attacked our flag."
I'd like to say that, in some ways, I do agree with the first of this next set of statements. I don't necessarily agree that people should have to buy health insurance (not health care), but the problem is that that should not contribute to voting for someone as truly awful as Trump. Again, this is a false equivalency, and I can't help but wonder if there isn't something else going on in the minds of his supporters.
On the issue of "jobs continuing to leave the country," I'm particularly confused by this, because Trump, despite his bloviating about levying taxes on overseas American businesses, has businesses all over the world; simply look at the tag on any of his hats and you'll find "Made in China." There are Trump Hotels in Panama and Rio De Janeiro, and Trump Towers in India and Istanbul. According to this, he should either charge himself insane taxes or close down all of his overseas businesses.
I had to Google the third point, because it sounded so bizarre. The only results I got had to do with the protests after his election, which would have nothing to do with creating the conditions for Trump to be elected and more of a protest against the backward ideals that got Trump elected. If someone wants to weigh in on this, let me know; it sounds, to me, like a made-up problem to give conservatives a reason to be angry. But again, if there's something I'm unaware of, please let me know.
"You created "us" when you confused women's rights with feminism.You created "us" when you began to immasculate men.You created "us" when you decided to make our children soft." Sigh. This is getting old. These arguments really bother me because they show the extent of the ignorance that has allowed to fester in America, and along with it, the misconceptions of progressive ideals.
Let's start with feminism. I think the issue that conservatives have with feminism is that they see it as angry misandry instead of what it actually is--equality. I've been asked several times why we don't call it something like "humanism," and it's for the same reason "black lives matter" is more accurate than saying "all lives matter;" no one is saying that men (or other lives) don't deserve rights as well, but when you call the movement something other than what it is (in this case, feminism,) you ignore the central problem that's being addressed: that women are a traditionally oppressed gender and that we continue to be oppressed, even if only in smaller ways. One of my favorite political cartoons gives a great metaphor for this: imagine there's a house burning down, but instead of pouring water on it, you pour water on the neighbor's house (which isn't burning down) and proudly proclaim "All houses matter." Trump's campaign brought a lot of this to the forefront, but to be honest, it's always been there and continues to be there. When conservatives post this kind of ignorant shit they actively set women's rights back.
This also has to do with the second point, about men being "immasculated" [sic]. I'm not sure who exactly is emasculating these men, but they must have some pretty fragile egos if their manhood is being threatened by something other than a sharp knife. If I had to interpret this "men being emasculated" idea, I think I would have to conclude that it means that men are no longer able to be sexist, misogynistic, and rapey, and conservatives aren't okay with that. One only need to watch an episode of Mad Men to see what I mean. Here's a great example of how "great" America used to be:
These commercials illustrate the prevailing view that men had of women once upon a time and the way they were allowed to treat them. If that was the norm, perhaps they needed to be "immasculated."
This fear of emasculation is indicative of toxic masculinity, which is masculinity that has essentially run amok. The Geek Feminism wiki describes Toxic Masculinity as "...the socially-constructed attitudes that describe the masculine gender role as violent, unemotional, sexually aggressive, and so forth." Along with the idea that feminism is somehow inherently a bad thing, the idea that toxic masculinity is okay hurts not only women but men as well. Men, as well as women, should be able to express emotion and be their true selves without worrying about being looked down upon. (See? Told you feminism was about equality.)
Both of these things also contribute to the "making children soft" argument as well. If teaching children that it's okay to experience their authentic emotions and be themselves is wrong, then, as they say, I don't want to be right. Teaching children to be "soft" teaches them that things such as bullying is wrong and that using violence to solve arguments is never okay. Bullying in particular needs to be discouraged: the website bullyingstatistics.org lists the following correlations and statistics about bullying and suicide:
Suicide is the third leading cause of death among young people, resulting in about 4,400 deaths per year, according to the CDC. For every suicide among young people, there are at least 100 suicide attempts. Over 14 percent of high school students have considered suicide, and almost 7 percent have attempted it.
Bully victims are between 2 to 9 times more likely to consider suicide than non-victims, according to studies by Yale University
A study in Britain found that at least half of suicides among young people are related to bullying
10 to 14 year old girls may be at even higher risk for suicide, according to the study above
According to statistics reported by ABC News, nearly 30 percent of students are either bullies or victims of bullying, and 160,000 kids stay home from school every day because of fear of bullying
If, indeed, conservatives are pro-life and not just pro-fetus, one would think they would rally behind the idea of making children "soft," as that can literally save lives.
Everything else listed has essentially already been argued against in some way or another, so it's pointless to go over them again.
The Prevalence of Anti-Intellectualism
So if all of those things can be disputed, why do people believe them in the first place? Why do people listen to soundbites and believe them instead of accepting actual facts? How did this happen? People can't surely be that dumb, can they?
Well, not all of them, but a good number of them certainly can. George Carlin famously quoted, "Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that." There is certainly validity to this; intelligence ranges from very low to very high in a population, but more than that, I think that those who are otherwise intelligent have simply not had the benefit of having their intelligence fostered and allowed to grow.
I know that many of the people with whom I associate will not like what I'm about to say, but I lay the blame for this anti-intellectualism squarely on the shoulders of only one thing: organized religion.
Just hear me out for a second.
One of the basic tenets of the big-three "Abrahamic" religions, Christianity in particular, is blind faith. If you accept the validity of Christianity (again, by far the most popular religion and belief system in America), you accept the following things as true:
The Earth was created in 7 days.
All humans come from two original humans and everything bad that happens to us is their fault--especially that nasty woman, Eve's, fault.
The Earth is only 6-10,000 years old
When you die, an invisible part of you that continues to "live" floats away to a magical realm to live there for all eternity, unless you don't believe it, in which case you go to a realm where you burn for all eternity.
If you're Christian, you believe that the creator of the universe--who can see everything you do and think and everything you will ever do, who has supposedly decided everyone and everything's fate and so regularly kills children with cancer and causes horrible natural disasters (But remember: he loves you!)--sent his "son" (because for some reason, despite everything written above, he couldn't do it himself) to die painfully so that we wouldn't have to deal with something he created in the first place.
I understand that not all Christians believe all of the above, but that's quite possibly worse; in my view, you either believe what a religion teaches you or you don't; you can't compromise your beliefs because they suit what you think should be true.
And so we come to the crux of the issue: believing without any proof, often just because you think it feels "right." I've had various discussions with religious people who have told me that they believe all these things based on "faith," despite scientific and frankly just logical evidence. The Oatmeal calls faith a "magical wizard sauce that, when drunk, allows you to do, say, and believe in the dumbest shit imaginable and still feel right." Here is the full video of The Oatmeal's speech about religion (prepare to laugh your ass off):
As the video so hilariously illustrates, religion teaches people to accept truths that go against science and logic and to never question these truths. This idea of faith-based belief then bleeds into other areas of the lives of those who truly believe these things; they're never taught to question anything, so they hear something that feels true to them and they accept it blindly without another thought.
Once again, I realize not all religious types blindly accept these things. However, the fact that they accept any of it as true, despite so much evidence to the contrary, speaks to the easy willingness to listen to soundbites like "Hillary is crooked!" and "Make our country great again!" without questioning them.
It is because of reasons like these that I'm leaning more toward, as Richard Dawkins puts it, "Militant Atheism."
My Personal Connection
TW: Sexual assault, graphic descriptions
In the interests of revealing bias, I'd like to let you all know why this is such a big deal to me.
Growing up, I was a girl who desperately wanted attention, especially from males. I grew up with my grandparents, my grandfather being my only consistent male role model, and, while he filled the job in the best way he could, he was not my biological father. Both of my grandparents came from previous generations that believed differently than the subsequent generations and who relied heavily on religion, and the things they told me shaped me into a girl who felt guilty for feeling any kind of sexual desire and didn't know how men were really supposed to treat women. (I resent my father for not being there for me more but, again, that's a whole other post.) Because of this, I had low self esteem and a certain susceptibility to being taken advantage of by men.
Instance One:
When I was 14, I had quite a few male friends. I was a nerd (still am; big surprise, right?) and we used to get together and play games, listen to music, chat online, etc. Some of these male friends introduced me to one of their friends whose name I don't remember; I believe my brain has shielded me from remembering his name, to be quite honest. Also, this was 17 years ago. He was a couple of years older and, for some reason, had a bit of a crush on me.
One day, he came to visit me, and, as we were watching something on TV in my room with the doors wide open (because my grandparents would let me have little to no privacy and even the smallest infraction would be met with harsh derision and a constant string of guilt-trips). I must have been walking by this guy who was sitting on a glider I had (and still have) and he pulled me into his lap. I giggled and thought this was cute at first, but then he began to stick his hand down my pants. I'd had little experience in this area but had been dealing with the stirrings of pubescent cravings for some time now, so it didn't bother me much, and was a little bit exciting. The only problem was that the door was wide open and it scared me. So, I told him to stop.
But he wouldn't.
I tried to physically pull his hand out of my pants, but he was stronger than me and kept it there.
My grandfather walked by and I had to hurriedly lean forward and cover his hand with my shirt because I was sure--so sure--my grandfather would blame me and that my grandmother, after finding out, would go into her tirade of shaming and guilt tripping me for something that was beyond my control.
This was confirmed several years later when my mother and grandmother found out that I was sexually active and responded by treating me like a whore, telling me that "It's the girl's fault."
Instance Two:
A few years later, I started dating a guy online who lived in Florida (I'm from Texas.) This person came across as charming, caring, intelligent, and good-looking--everything I had been looking for. After falling in love online, we finally met, and I found out that he was shorter than he had claimed, constantly smelled like a three-day-old garbage can, faked a German accent, and is one of the biggest narcissists I've ever had the displeasure to know. I spent four-and-a-half years with this asshole.
"Four and a half years?" I hear you screaming. "Why didn't you break up sooner?!?"
The short answer is that I felt trapped. He moved down to Texas and I felt like I was all he had and therefore had an obligation to him. I also had the lowest self-esteem imaginable; not only the upbringing by my family, but the way I had been treated at school and even at the church I was forced to attend left me feeling like an ugly, disgusting worm. I sincerely thought he was the best I could get at the time.
Because of my low self-esteem and the fact that I felt so trapped, I felt I owed him sex. He physically disgusted me, but would basically pressure me into sex, so about once a month I would let him have sex with me. (TMI warning...) He couldn't get me wet but would pound into me mercilessly. I can't even describe the pain. I would bleed a lot afterwards and sometimes it would even be hard to sit down. Even wiping after going to the bathroom would hurt. But as long as he got his, it didn't matter what I felt.
I never considered this any kind of rape or sexual assault because I always said "yes," even though I felt coerced into it. It wasn't until someone told me that "Yeah, you may have said yes, but your body was screaming no," that I reconsidered that position.
And the worst part was that I never considered telling him no in the first place.
***
I've been through other, smaller instances of sexual abuse since then: the guy who wouldn't ease up when I told him what he was doing hurt, the guy who basically started humping me in his sleep even though I was too dry (and didn't remember the next morning...), but I've always excused them because I felt like I deserved them. Thank you, Christianity. Thank you, society. Thank you, rape culture. Thank you, patriarchy.
When I told my grandmother recently--who voted for Trump--that I had been sexually assaulted twice and how it really, really upset me that she voted for someone who was okay with sexually assaulting women, she claimed she "had no idea" and "would have voted for Hillary if she had known." The problem is that that's not the point; millions of women are routinely sexually assaulted--one in four women in the US--and anyone who votes for Trump is saying that's okay. It shouldn't--and doesn't--matter if you happen to have a personal connection to one of those women who was sexually assaulted; we need to work together to make sure that ALL sexual assault is abolished.
Trump is the living embodiment of rape culture. When he proudly claims that he can do whatever he wants to women, including grabbing them by the pussy; when he puts women down for their weight; when he cheats on two different spouses; when he calls his opponent a "Nasty woman" and when he threatens to jail her; and when he seriously discusses overturning Roe v. Wade he is showing his contempt for the opposite sex and reinforcing the mainstream ideals of sexism and rape culture. As President Elect (it's still hard to say that...) he is saying that it's okay to think that.
That is why I'm terrified, and why I have every reason to be. Don't you dare tell me to stop whining. It will NOT be okay.
A New Hope?
(cue Star Wars music)
However, despite all of the horrors that Trump has been/will be inflicting on America, there are small glimmers of hope.
Despite all that he said during his campaign, there have been reports of him rethinking his position on several things. For example, even though one of his key campaign promises was to build a wall to keep said "rapists and drug dealers" out, he has now said that the wall would be "part fence." A fence, as it turns out, is what Hillary Clinton was originally for. Similarly, he has said that, rather than completely demolishing Obamacare, he would simply amend it.
Frankly, this surprises me a bit, because Trump has absolutely no political experience and yet is behaving exactly like a politician. I'm not sure how to feel about this.
There are also glimmers of hope at the more local political level: Somali-American Ilhan Omar was elected to the Minnesota House, making history by becoming the first Somali-American legislator in the United States; Zena Stephens made history by being the first African-American woman to be elected to the office of sheriff in Texas; the Senate will see the first female biracial senators, the first Latina senator and the first Thai-born senator; former California Attorney General Kamala Harris becoame the state's first senator of Indian descent -- and the country's first black female senator since 1999, and many more. Click the link above for the full story.
As Delenn once said on Babylon 5, "There is always hope."
