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My mind, my thoughts, myself -- or, how I embraced fuck the patriarchy
[Error: Irreparable invalid markup ('<username=cofax>') in entry. Owner must fix manually. Raw contents below.]
<username=cofax> linked to an excellent essay that I encourage you to read: <a href="http://m.dailykos.com/story/2016/6/11/1537582/-The-most-thorough-profound-and-moving-defense-of-Hillary-Clinton-I-have-ever-seen"> "if a man with her qualifications had been running for the Republicans, they’d be anointing him the next Reagan while trying to sneak his face onto Mount Rushmore" </a>
This piece verbalizes A selection of the crimes that Hillary has been accused of by society and holds them up to the cold light of day. And given that it has now been roughly 25 years since Hillary entered my sphere of consciousness, this election cycle has brought up a lot of things for me.
Normally I'd put this under a cut. However this is so,ethi g I actually want read so I won't and I won't apologize. Feel free to scroll past. As any FYI, This is much more about my consciousness of patriarchy that about a proHillary rant
As someone whose interest in politics and world affairs began during the era in which Hillary entered the national stage, this article distills most of the teachings that my subconscious garnered during her career. However it also embodies the biggest lesson I learned from her career as well: as a woman, if I had ambition, I had to make myself deaf to the criticism of naysayers and society at large. If I allow others to define the right place for a woman, or the right attitude, I would lose before I began.
Granted, She's not the only one responsible: both my parents from an early age told me "can't never did anything" and did their best to never let me think that being a girl was a reason to not try something. But at the same time growing up with that message also made it perfectly clear that there was a place defined for me, and there were things not for me - they used it less as a reason or managed to not state it, and yet for every milestone that my brother had that simply didn't occur for me, I felt like that was the reason from never being granted the job of going to the attic to get Christmas lights, never being told mowing the lawn was my job, not being given a motorcycle when I was 14, and the fight I had with my dad when I got the job as pizza delivery person at 19, I had reason to doubt the why while at the same time as knowing I was supported in my ambitions for higher education
. But that was coupled with the outright skepticism/condemnation I got from my classmates, my fucking school counselor (who straight out asked me if my intention was to never have a social life when I was a sophomore), and even the parents of friends (I quote -- it's so amazing you are good at math and science since girls just aren't able to do that).
I'm thankful that my parents never encouraged and even actively discouraged my participation in teenage romances (had a cousin who was a teenage mom when I was 5 so they got to freak out early about that), and who pretty much managed to avoid giving me any "where's the grand baby" guilt.
Growing up in the south/Midwest culture, I recognize how rare that was. I also recognize how lucky I was to be able to see someone like Hillary give a big middle finger to the patriarchy while at the same time seemingly having held to social mores (she married, she had a kid, and she seemed like the perfect political wife.. And then she turned the system into something that let her excel).
Every presidential comparing that she's participated in has been painful because it brings into the light the attitudes the patriarchy would rather we internalize and not speak of. But fuck that noise. Especially when that is the exact reason we've been given the embodiment of patriarchy and class warfare in Trump.
I'm with her because I do support her policies. But a I'm also with her because frankly, I like the direction our society has moved since the election of 1992, and I want to see the progress continue.
I'm also with her because I want there to be a time, and a time soon, when a woman participating in half or more of the conversation isn't seen as being bitchy or shrill or dramatic, but as our due right and NORMAL. To borrow a turn of phrase I read somewhere today, I want court cases to be about the facts instead of the past of a woman and the potential of a man. I want it to be an unassailable fact that I have complete autonomy over every aspect of reality in my body regardless of your beliefs and without fear that my diagnosis will be that I'm just a neurotic woman.
This piece verbalizes A selection of the crimes that Hillary has been accused of by society and holds them up to the cold light of day. And given that it has now been roughly 25 years since Hillary entered my sphere of consciousness, this election cycle has brought up a lot of things for me.
Normally I'd put this under a cut. However this is so,ethi g I actually want read so I won't and I won't apologize. Feel free to scroll past. As any FYI, This is much more about my consciousness of patriarchy that about a proHillary rant
As someone whose interest in politics and world affairs began during the era in which Hillary entered the national stage, this article distills most of the teachings that my subconscious garnered during her career. However it also embodies the biggest lesson I learned from her career as well: as a woman, if I had ambition, I had to make myself deaf to the criticism of naysayers and society at large. If I allow others to define the right place for a woman, or the right attitude, I would lose before I began.
Granted, She's not the only one responsible: both my parents from an early age told me "can't never did anything" and did their best to never let me think that being a girl was a reason to not try something. But at the same time growing up with that message also made it perfectly clear that there was a place defined for me, and there were things not for me - they used it less as a reason or managed to not state it, and yet for every milestone that my brother had that simply didn't occur for me, I felt like that was the reason from never being granted the job of going to the attic to get Christmas lights, never being told mowing the lawn was my job, not being given a motorcycle when I was 14, and the fight I had with my dad when I got the job as pizza delivery person at 19, I had reason to doubt the why while at the same time as knowing I was supported in my ambitions for higher education
. But that was coupled with the outright skepticism/condemnation I got from my classmates, my fucking school counselor (who straight out asked me if my intention was to never have a social life when I was a sophomore), and even the parents of friends (I quote -- it's so amazing you are good at math and science since girls just aren't able to do that).
I'm thankful that my parents never encouraged and even actively discouraged my participation in teenage romances (had a cousin who was a teenage mom when I was 5 so they got to freak out early about that), and who pretty much managed to avoid giving me any "where's the grand baby" guilt.
Growing up in the south/Midwest culture, I recognize how rare that was. I also recognize how lucky I was to be able to see someone like Hillary give a big middle finger to the patriarchy while at the same time seemingly having held to social mores (she married, she had a kid, and she seemed like the perfect political wife.. And then she turned the system into something that let her excel).
Every presidential comparing that she's participated in has been painful because it brings into the light the attitudes the patriarchy would rather we internalize and not speak of. But fuck that noise. Especially when that is the exact reason we've been given the embodiment of patriarchy and class warfare in Trump.
I'm with her because I do support her policies. But a I'm also with her because frankly, I like the direction our society has moved since the election of 1992, and I want to see the progress continue.
I'm also with her because I want there to be a time, and a time soon, when a woman participating in half or more of the conversation isn't seen as being bitchy or shrill or dramatic, but as our due right and NORMAL. To borrow a turn of phrase I read somewhere today, I want court cases to be about the facts instead of the past of a woman and the potential of a man. I want it to be an unassailable fact that I have complete autonomy over every aspect of reality in my body regardless of your beliefs and without fear that my diagnosis will be that I'm just a neurotic woman.