Morning, Threaders, Threadheads, and all in between.
Coffee time.
When reality bites.
This is a difficult post to write. In all honesty this is my second go at it. I want to be clear and precise and it’s hard to share a perspective that transcends me even if it affects me. I will try. Walk with me and keep an open mind.
As a white male born in Europe I am in the eyes of others the embodiment of privilege. Society also reinforced that perception and growing up I was taught the benefits of patriarchy. Boys and girls were told how superior we were because of the color of our skin BUT, at the exact same time, boys were given guns to play with and dolls were assigned to girls, along with toy kitchens. And when it came to play “doctor” guess who was the doctor.
White privileged women have confounded me for this reason since I became aware of this. What exactly is their privilege? The privilege to play “patient” or at best “nurse” in a world where only men play “doctors”? While for white men privilege comes from birth, for white women it comes from submission to them. It’s their reward, their allowance. This revolting reality has been fought for centuries and the XX Century brought at last many victories for women’s rights.
Women’s emancipation was part of the civil rights movement and their struggle was (and is) very real. In the US they conquered the right to vote in 1920 but it took them 45 more years to actually make it true. It was their quest for equality and a revolt against patriarchy. One would expect such struggle would wash away any misguided white privilege but it hasn’t. As for men, we seem to still cling to the delusion of whiteness and also long for the days girls played only with dolls.
Both these things, racism and misogyny, go hand in hand when it comes to white people but the latter spreads far wider. In a world designed by and for white males, many men who are not white find some comfort in sharing the sense of patriarchy. They may be made to feel inferior to white men but they sure can make up to it by feeling superior towards women. Of course not all men feel this way, either about the color of their skin or their masculinity, but a lot of them do.
I honestly believed women would save us this election but the result showed me this: if only women voted we would have won. Women are ready, men are not. Men are not ready for a woman “doctor” yet. They wish they were clinging to their “dolls”. And many white women are showing us submission to the patriarchy is still embedded in their beings even when women are dying as a result. Other women are right to feel betrayed by them but in the end it was the men who did it.
I am not blaming women for not saving us as I expected. I chose this aspect of the results and misogyny over racism because for too long myself and many others, men and women, have entertained the feeling we were ready for a woman as President. The fact that many of us don’t think so is terrible and it should dispel this notion. No, we’re far from ready and even less ready to have a black woman in that role. But this reality is enhanced by our political system.
With no electoral college, with the adoption of national sovereignty over state sovereignty, with the certainty that for national office one person’s vote really matters, this may not be as true as it seems. But we lost the popular vote. Was it because of all these things? Did we at last resigned to the fact minority will rule no matter what? I hope not. In any case, losing the popular vote and having still so many who don’t care to vote reinforces my feelings.
This is the hard truth we need to come to terms with. Despite the righteousness of our cause and the right of women to be recognized by their own merits, just as the same applies to all women and not just white ones, we need to face reality. The way elections work in this country will not change or it will get even more resistant to change and THAT is the system we got to work with. We can either go ballistic into the realm of idealistic purity or we can come back to Earth.
And the truth is this: when it comes to the Presidency of the United States and how it may affect our world and enact the changes we need only a qualified, relatively young, white man looking like a million bucks can do it for us. Only he can break the glass ceiling under these conditions and expected worst ones. I am well aware that as a man this is a terrible thing to say and if you come at me I understand. But know this is the only way. No point denying it.
It turns out we don’t live in a romance where the brave amazons take the power from the evil king and bring Justice to the land. That’s a fantasy. A nice fantasy, but still one. In the real country we live in, as demonstrated by this election, we still need a qualified, eloquent, educated, rational, clear minded person like Kamala Harris to put us on the right path. Unfortunately that person can only be a white man that looks like a movie star.
This may not be the America we want but it’s the America we live in. If we keep denying this and refuse to adapt to it we are not going to make it. This was always an inside job. We just thought we could beat the system from the outside. We can’t. We must not accept what is to come but if there is one thing we cannot accept is to live in a fantasy world where a rainbow colored fairy will save us, no matter how much we love rainbow colored fairies.
I still don’t think I found the right words for this message to you - especially if you are a woman. I apologize. I want to live in a world where our most beautiful fantasies come true but I am absolutely certain that we can only reach it if we stop living in one. I wish I was wrong about this. I wish we lived in a country where a competent black woman could be accepted as our leader. It seems like we need a competent man to make that possible. And he better be white. Just in case.
