The Glorious Anger of Hillary Voters, One Year Later
As recently as the morning of November 8, 2016, I believed, as I think many American women did, that if we only played by the rules, we could rise to the highest positions of power.
There were still a lot of rules for women, of course. Anyone could see that. The rules became more rigid the more power you wanted. You couldn’t smile too little, or too much. Your voice could not be too high, lest you seem shrill. It couldn’t be too husky lest you seem masculine. You could not be overweight, or, for that matter, pretty in a way that was too obvious. Your hair… well, your hair and makeup would need to be done each day, or people would say you looked sick, and that would take hours. You needed to never appear angry, or, in the least, inconvenienced.
We were so sure that we could play by the rules and win.
I watched as millions of women excitedly gathered in secret groups to support Hillary Clinton’s candidacy. There they talked about what an exciting moment in history this was. They did not venture out because their husbands might not like their vote, or Bernie voters might yell at them, or someone at their work might not like it. We saw at the time, I think, no contradiction in being posed on the edge of ultimate victory for womankind and also secreting ourselves away to make ourselves completely unobjectionable. We were always supposed to be unobjectionable.
On November 9, we woke up, and Donald Trump had been elected.
It became clear that you can be the most qualified woman and still lose to the least qualified man.
That was like a spell being broken. All across the land, women woke up and realized we were never going to get where we wanted to go by playing by the rules. Even if you walked the tightrope of acceptable feminine behavior perfectly, even if you managed to sidestep every trap laid for women, you would still never to get to the top. The bar for men was so low they could slither right over it.
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I think of all those young male Trump voters who claimed they wanted to vote for Trump because they wanted a revolution. They got one. It’s coming from women.
If you listen carefully, you can almost hear millions of women screaming. It sounds fine. It sounds like the world changing.
I’m hopeful again.
http://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/politics/a13446570/hillary-clinton-voters-one-year-later/
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