Bridget Callahan is Your Best Friend

So here's something I don't do very often, which is push a video that my sister pushed on me. Aren't we pushy?



Carrie and I argue about a lot of things related to feminism, but the things we disagree about are not (usually) matters of fact, but degrees of intensity. For instance, she posted this video as something that would make you really really angry. But I hand this to you as something that will make you really really sad.

I'm not a Hillary supporter. I'm not even an Obama supporter right now, except that I will always vote Democrat. The two of them are interchangeable policywise, and when that happens it comes down to personality, of which Obama has the more affable one.

So I didn't necessarily want to see Hillary win. HOWEVER (and we'll see if I have to eat this words in November) what was nice about this election was that race, for many voters, was not an issue. And it certainly wasn't the big issue everyone thought it would be. Many people, including myself, see this to be a great sign of the times, that racism is finally starting to fade into the backgrounds of voters' cultural consciousness.

Sexism was an issue though, it was a big one. Members of the media, the republican and democratic national parties, and people on the street were openly sexist about Hillary.
It made it chillingly obvious that America is more okay with sexism than racism. That in many cases, America saw nothing wrong with it. Women saw nothing wrong with it. Their brothers and fathers and boyfriends and sons saw nothing wrong with it.

I mean, awesome for black people. But half those black people are women too. Is it because everyone is, or knows a woman that sexism is so much harder to fight? That no matter what color your skin is, you've been inoculated with whatever your culture's particular problem with women is?

So my point is that yeah, real equality means sometimes the woman is going to lose. Real equality means you get judged on your merits and your experience, that everybody has an equal chance to prove themselves a saint or a douchebag. But I would have been really happy with this election if people could have not voted for Hillary because of her personal flaws, not her makeup.

Why does America love her blacks more than her women? Why does cultural identity invoke stronger feelings of outrage than the organs of your body? Maybe the fight is more recent and violent there. Maybe because men used violence to get their skin acknowledged, but women don't even shout when they are degraded. Do men actually have this innate fear of being controlled by their wife or mother, and therefore overcompensate by refusing to be afraid of offending any woman? Or haven't we done enough to make them afraid?

No, I don't think we should take to arms. I also don't think everyone is sexist, and I think slowly but surely things do become more equal as generations die out. It just amazes me that people who were less than three hundred years ago slaves have managed to win more respect than half our population. We should be taking lessons.

Of course, the other scenario is that America just found itself unable to spout racism for fear of uprising and violence, so it doubled up on the sexism just to make sure it got all its kicks in, got to work out all its fear and insecurity. Because it knew it wouldn't lose the woman vote by doing that. But it sure as hell would have lost the black vote and half of the white vote too.