The results of this election felt as shocking as an alien invasion to me. I cannot contemplate the result and I’m asking myself if I can hide from it forever, if I can avoid looking at any picture that would make it official, if I can stop following the news entirely, if I can pretend after four years that this has been only a bad dream.
In the aftermath, I am just angry and I cannot get over it. I know I should be a better person, I know I should demonstrate hope and optimism and understanding, but I am not ready for that yet. And our world has proven that it does not reward any of these qualities. So for once I’m not in a hurry to get there. I’ll just sit in my anger and my depression for as long as I have to. Because what is this, people? What has become of our democratic ideals? What has become of us?
And I am addressing this rant not to everyone who voted for the terrible outcome that now we all experience, but only to the women. And not all women. Not the blue collar women from hard hit regions of the country, because they are not my demographic and instead of throwing shame and blame, I am trying to understand that I don’t understand, and that it was something legitimate that moved them to help creating the monster that is our today. And not the black women of all collar colors who voted overwhelmingly (close to 100 percent) the way I thought the entire woman vote should have gone. My problem is with the 49 percent of college educated white women who cast the vote that cannot ever be defended. I blame you for this, white women with a college degree! You should have been staunch defenders of feminist values and you should have voted for the first female president, but instead chose unbridled patriarchy and accepted the open abuse of yourselves and our sisters and our daughters that your choice represents.
I will never understand. I don’t even want to try. I had thought that feminism had made so many strides in the past few years just to realize that in truth nothing has changed. We are the same we’ve always been: patriarchy’s brainwashed, helpless little girls. Good luck to us. We’re going to need it badly.
I don’t get why we women do this to ourselves either. I tend to believe that women voted with their families (so their fathers, husbands, etc.) instead of voting for themselves and other women. Very strange but it’s not the first time.
But yeah, we’ll probably recover from this too, but it has set us back so much! How much time is it going to pass before there is another woman running for this presidency? I can’t envision it happening again too soon. But let’s hope. Hugs and love back at you!
One small point my friend pointed out is that Obama was a one-term senator when elected and most people didn’t know his name 4 years before he ran – so it’s possible that other women will come up and in the near future. We can hope.
Good point. It did sort of feel like Obama appeared from thin air. We MUST hope!
Oh Lori! I feel your pain and anger as a fellow feminist. I am not white, but I can relate to this. All of a sudden all the women around me feel like clones of Ann Coulter. I don’t know why we as women are self sabotaging… We just shot ourselves in the foot.. But, please don’t be disheartened. We will dust off and work on what we can, at home and within our communities. For now, take the time to be angry. It is important that we allow ourselves this luxury. Love, SA
I am so sorry for your country, Lori, and for the world. I can’t get over this myself, I feel the same you do, even though I can’t even vote in the US. It is truly sad times for us all.
I know, Tiia, it’s such a blow to all of us. It’s heartbreaking. Even now, after almost a week, it doesn’t seem possible to me, although listening to people talk about their choice I realize how many factors were in play that made this shocking result possible. Still, I feel so disillusioned with the human race! I know it sounds like an overstatement and I don’t like to be dramatic, but I can’t downplay this at all. I’m really sorry for what we did to the entire world!