These are things I don’t have:
Head lice
A hefty bank account
The desire to yodel
All the answers
A love for Mondays
This is not an all inclusive list as there are many other things I don’t have. Like all the stuff at your house and a headache brought on by drinking a milkshake too fast.
I wish I had all the answers. I wish I had all the answers and a way to make the humans listen to the answers.
I do believe, however, our quest to empower women would go smoother if women would work together.
I get that some of us are going to fail spectacularly when it comes to empowering women. This republican lawmaker, for instance. If you don’t want to click the link, I don’t blame you. I will sum it up.
She wants women who miscarry at 20 weeks or more, to carry the dead fetus until the due date. I have no words. I mean, other than “what the fucking fuck is wrong with fucking people? Who have we become that we could spawn someone this ignorant and evil?” Obviously, other than those words.
The point is, we’re not all going to work toward a common goal of women controlling their own bodies, getting equal pay for equal work, and being protected against sexual assault. This is not an exhaustive list, but you get the idea.
I want to turn my back on that woman, because as a woman, I feel betrayed in an unforgivable way. I don’t want to forgive her.
I am not claiming that I am right to feel like I can’t forgive her diabolical evilness. I’m just saying I don’t think I can.
I think, however, as women, we have to be a little careful when choosing our words when we voice our displeasure about other women. I think we damage ourselves in ways that aren’t in the same ballpark as douche twizzles who want to put our lives in danger by carrying a dead fetus in our womb for 20 weeks, but we still inflict damage on ourselves. 
Let me preface this by saying that I did not watch Melania Trump’s speech about empowering women. I didn’t read a transcript. I am just going to go ahead and assume it’s something Michelle Obama already said and I don’t need to hear it again.
I did, however, read a lot on social media where people expressed outrage at Melania Trump daring to speak out about empowering women.
I absolutely think that she is a terrible choice to give speeches about the advancement of women’s issues. An abysmal choice.
I’m not talking about the outrage over Melania Trump talking about women’s issues. I’m talking about reasons I’ve heard listed by other women why she isn’t qualified to speak on our behalf.
One reason I read, more than once, is that she is uneducated. She shouldn’t speak for us because she isn’t educated.
Fucking really?
Another thing I can add to my list of things I don’t have is a college degree.
I don’t have a formal education. Does that mean I’m not qualified to talk about women’s empowerment? Because if that is true, then I’m doing this shit all wrong.
I read these comments and felt resentful and frustrated. My voice doesn’t count because I didn’t go to college? I have nothing worthy to say? My experiences are meaningless?
I decided it would be better for me to let this shit go. If I react with defensiveness and resentment, then I will have a more difficult time working toward our common goal. It’s hard to stay focused on the positive when you feel like you don’t count.
So, I won’t let that happen. I do count. I’m not going to let anyone make me feel otherwise. I will be an advocate for women until I’m dead. How I respond when I read dismissive things is entirely up to me. I want to keep moving forward.
I also think we really need to start examining the words we use when we criticize other women.
Are we perfect? Not one of us are. Do some of us behave in ways that deserve to be called out? Hell yes. I’m looking at you KellyAnne.
I get that people dislike Melania Trump talking about women’s rights, I really do. But do we really want to run her down because she’s uneducated? How is that helpful? How is that behavior going to assist us with reaching our common goals?
I’m not perfect. I have behaved in ways and held beliefs which worked against advancing women’s causes. I’ve scuffed my knees and made bad choices.
What I need, is a tribe who will dust me off and then help me move in the right direction when I stumble. I need other women to help me understand why I need to change a long held belief or behavior. I need other women to accept me as I am, different from who they are, but working toward the same goal. Because no matter what level education a woman has, or how big her bank account or the size of her ass, she has something to contribute.
We need to get this shit together. We need to work together.
I guess I could be moved to forgiveness, even for women who I feel are behaving in breathtakingly vile ways. If they wanted to change. Also, I think they need to write lines. Like “I’m sorry I harmed women with my actions and promise to never do it again” at least a hundred thousand times.
I also really want a milkshake. I would risk the headache. And it’s possible I lied about the yodeling. I kind of want to yodel.
Bless your even-mindedness
Hahahahah..THAT is not something I hear often. 🙂
Tell it, Sistah!
One of the big reasons that I don’t, beyond the odd WTF, join in slamming Trump’s daughter and wife is because they’re beside the point. The Grifter In Chief and his team of horrifically unqualified, dimwitted, on-the-take racists, misogynists, christianists and corporatists plus the entire Republican Party ARE.
To focus our ire on the women who are, really, no more than window dressing meant to calm us angry Vagina Americans (FAIL) does NOT move the resistance ball downfield one inch.
OK, done ranting. THAN YOU!
Rant away! I love it!
I agree. We are all stronger when we support one another rather than tearing each other down.
Absolutely! If we could work together, we could move mountains.
You always pull the Ace when I’m least expecting it!
I agree. We shouldn’t hate on uneducated women in positions of power for being uneducated.
I actually feel sorry for Melania.
She has been told what to say, how to act and feel, and who her Daddy is.
She will NEVER be respected as a ‘leader of women’ in my opinion, because she represents what I have worked so hard to escape and everything out of her mouth isn’t even hers 🙁
And boy, is she stuck in a hard spot – Having to act like a supportive, agreeable wife to the biggest jerk ever in front of all the cameras.
I can’t even imagine what prescriptions she is on… or will be soon.
But, fuck. I feel sorrier for us.
It’s going to be a rough road and heavy load for all of us, but if women don’t pull together, we will lose the most 🙁
Thanks, Michelle, for keeping that life buoy all lit up <3
I feel sorry for her too and I have learned that people can react VERY strongly to that. I can’t help it. I KNOW what it’s like to live with a narcissist. She is a human. I feel sorry for her.
I don’t feel sorry for KellyAnne, though..my compassion falls apart when it comes to her.
Me too 🙁
And, yes. KellyAnne is just an old fashioned ass kissing gold digger.
We do need the support of women, you are so absolutely right. However, so many women have been sucked into the “Male energy,” agenda. Look at Teresa May.
Mother Earth is being destroyed by either ignorance or willful abuse, to serve some hell- bent agenda of greed or who knows what. That alone should stir up solidarity.
However….
Also some people do act in unforgivable ways, and I for one am fucked if I’m going to waste my energy attempting to forgive ’em.
I am with you on that. But I like to think that if a person makes an honest effort to change, that I will be willing to accept them and forgive them.
Yes, absolutely. I agree.
Sorry if I sounded like I was disagreeing with you- I’ve just re-read what I said and it sounded like that but not at all. Just some atrocious things I would not find it in my sometimes shrivelled heart to forgive.
I should work at being more heart-led than head-led!!!! xxxxxxxx
It’s all good whether you were disagreeing or not! I LOVE differing points of view. XOXOXOX
And I am not always a forgiving person. I want to be, but I am not always, that’s for sure.
Phew, the last person I ever want to offend would be you, believe me.
I am sometimes like the Grinch, my heart is 2 sizes too small. Lol. But I have a few Cindy-Lous in my life; it gets a little bigger each day. 🙂 xxxxxxx
I definitely have my Grinchy moments. No doubt about that..
You Go Girl!!! Love this. It is exactly right.
Thank you!
People with college degrees–especially the ones with college degrees who are criticizing Melania for not having a college degree–should know there’s a thing called the “genetic fallacy”, which is basically fancy shorthand for “judge the words, not the person”.
And that’s also really just a paraphrase of what you’ve already said, only you said it more eloquently and more intelligently.
Not bad for someone with no degree! Haha.
Uneducated about what it means to empower women? Maybe they mean uneducated in that sense….like the idiot who thinks it would be healthy and safe to walk around with a dead human inside of you….
I can’t get behind another woman who stands behind a man who thinks it’s okay to take advantage of women. I have so many problems with Mrs. Trump and none of them are about her lack of a college degree.
I have a shit ton of problems with her, too. I feel compassion for her because it must be horrible to be married to a monster..even if you do live in a gold gilded high rise. We all make choices, though.
Hi Michelle! I agree. That’s a big reason I wrote my current blog post about the Hawaiian practice of Ho’oponopono. Not only does it ask that we recognize that until we clean up our own judgments and anger, we can’t be that effective in the world…and YES, that starts with how women treat other women. I honestly believe that when women learn to work together the world will be transformed. And we are the ones we have been waiting for! ~Kathy
I believe that as well!
I had a miscarriage at 5-1/2 weeks. It was not viable from the beginning. If I had had to carry that around until my due date, I would have been a crazy person. I can’t even wrap my head around that. And, of course, I am from Texas, you gotta’ love how those “good ole boys think”.
As far as Melania is concerned, she has thrown her life and her energy into raising her son. I believe that is to be commended. Melania had a successful career before she met the goofball. That is glossed over, except only when someone wants to publish her nude photos. Not everyone is cut out for college. Neither Steve Jobs nor Bill Gates have degrees. We have a double standard in this country, we always will until women quit throwing our sisters under the bus.
YES!! And I am so sorry for your loss. 🙁
I debated responding, but not because I disagree with you. I do agree in many ways. This post makes me think (as well as smile–I love your way with words).
But I will be the first to admit that this election changed something in me. And while I haven’t been changed to do or say or think of criticizing anyone in the ways you pointed out, I do know that I just don’t think I’m a good enough person to defend certain people either.
I have never been nor will ever be one to tear down other people for “not having something”–none of us have everything and it’s not an educated argument (no or all puns intended) to say someone should not be listened to based on, for instance, a degree. And I certainly do think women should work to help each other or at the very least stop tearing each other down.
BUT I will admit I have very very strong reactions when I think someone is full of shit. Especially now. Especially when those same people work in ways that are actively against their own self interests or are just selfish assholes. Honestly, my automatic first reaction when hearing about what people were saying about Melania was “*shrugs* fuck her”. And then I started thinking about people who have been passed over for jobs because they don’t have a degree even though they have life experience which translated well. Which then led me to think of student debt (my mind is always going…)
I do not watch Melania. I do not watch Ivanka. I think they’re full of shit. It’s not that I don’t think spouses or family members can’t have different views, because I know they can. I just watched enough of them to literally just think that they are full of shit. But I would not tear them down for degrees they have or don’t have–there are other arguments I could make about complicity, lying etc….
Now, I do not think that all positions are black and white, and I can see pros and cons of certain issues. I do not need someone to agree with me all the time. When talking to people who are not just being assholes, I actually do my best not to be offensive, as well as to actually listen to what they are saying. I am open enough to recognize that there is no shame in changing your mind, or to come away from an issue more confused than when you went in.
But right now I do not know if I can expend any more of my energy, or caring or good will on people who want to drag parts of democracy and society down with their hatred and/or their lies.
I really do see your point.
But for the Ann Coulters, or Kellyannes, or Stacey Dashes, or the Ivankas or Melanias I just…maybe I’m a work in progress.
Oh I do NOT disagree with you. Not at all. I do not admire Melania. Or Ivanka. I just think saying she shouldn’t speak on behalf of women because she isn’t educated isn’t helpful. Because a LOT of us don’t have formal education. Or tearing her down because she was a nude model. I know a couple of people who are nude models for art students. Their voices are still valid. I’m just trying to say that we need to watch how we denigrate people because we might be painting a lot of people with the same dismissive brush.
Yep. People have all sorts of different experiences. That is what makes us unique and a lot of times is what makes us worth listening to actually. No one sees the world the same often because their road has been different, and if people were more open they’d realize they may learn something.
YES!! Instead of judging. Of course there are things that should be judged, but so many of us are willing to quickly judge on superficial things.
A little sad at your lack of desire to yodel. There are few yodelers left. Please rethink that.
Anyone who is willing to talk about empowering women should be heard regardless of her education. Education doesn’t teach you to think….. it teaches you to memorize.
I am a terrible singer..I don’t think I’d be good at yodeling, but you never know.
Is anyone? haha
You said it sister.
We sisters need to be kinder to each other.
I blogged in response to an anti feminist a couple of weeks ago.
https://mary-mann.blogspot.ca/2017/03/why-i-am-feminist.html
Fuck!
We all need to be kinder to each other.
And that story about the ‘person’ who said the dead fetus should be carried?
Don’t even get me started.
I have two close relatives that learned their almost full term babies had died in utero and they had to carry for only a few days and it was anguish for them.
You always hit the nail on the head.
Forgiveness is tough, but as always it starts with me.
Melania isn’t the first woman to find out after the fact that there are downsides to marrying into great wealth. I do feel for her a little, but not as much as I would if I thought her problems made a hill of beans when compared with the problems her husband is foisting on poor women all over the country.
As for Shannon Lundgren, I have already made some comments on a few political blogs about her. Let’s just say that I have been critical of her proposal, and leave it at that.
I’m gonna go out on a limb here and pull the “human decency” card.
Behavior and opinion don’t exist in a vacuum, and sometimes somewhat extreme stances are well within the realm of human decency. I’m reminded of Blue Gal, a political blogger I’ve been reading for more than a decade. She is half of The Professional Left podcast (with her husband Driftglass) and the mother of two daughters and a son. On that podcast one time they were discussing the Republicans who were advocating for rape victims who become pregnant from the rape to carry the fetus to term because it’s not the fetus’ fault that it’s mother was raped, as a way to justify not including rape or incest exceptions in their anti-abortion laws.
Blue Gal (who has a master’s in divinity from Harvard, not that that is so important) leaned back and expressed my own true inner feelings on that subject. She said that if it were her daughter, not only would she demand an abortion for her, she would want to be in the room when they did it so she could throw the fetus on the ground and stomp on it. Which is sort of bullshit, when you think about it, as the fetus at that point would probably be too small to see, much less stomp on, and I don’t have any children so I can only guess what it would feel like to be a mother confronting a situation like that, but her response did more than express the animal level outrage that was being denied by those evil Republicans, it pointed out the extreme nature of their idea, that they were just blithely ignoring as if it were a tax proposal or something,
I don’t have a degree either, but I sort of wonder where you would get a degree in human decency? And if you could get one, would it actually help?
I sort of feel as if a degree in human decency is something you either earn in the way you live, or not, and our president and his despicable crew are flunking really hard.
I won’t beat up on myself for not feeling too badly for them, although the nano-second any of them take that righteous first step toward empathy and human decency, I will be there to support them for it. That’s as far as I go with redemption, though. I haven’t forgiven George W. Bush for the Iraq war because he paints pictures or said about Trump’s inauguration “That was some weird shit.”
Molly Ivins said that she secretly believed that we’d be better off if women ran the world, and I agree with her on that, but she pointed out a woman on the Austin City Council named Louise Epstein who “is just awful” and said that “I’ve spent my whole life fighting for equality for women, but I think it’s a mistake to assume superiority” and that “Any time I catch myself doing that I just remember Louise Epstein, and it keeps things in perspective.”
I didn’t care for the speech because she obviously had no familiarity with it—someone else wrote it for her and she read it for the first time that day in front of cameras, off a teleprompter that was too far away (I suspect she normally wears reading glasses but isn’t allowed to do so in public). I also resent, at least a little bit, that the woman who has been locked in a tower for the last few months was trotted out to tell us all about the importance of empowering women. That said, let’s all agree to go empower some women, eh? If we don’t like the way Melania’s being treated, let’s reach out to her and talk about that. None of this deciding which women are good enough to spread the message horseshit. (I hate that, that’s an elitist pile of coprolites sold by the very patriarchy they claim to be fighting.)
The real danger of “uneducated” people (not just women!) speaking for others is demonstrated in your first example, the nutjob who wants women to carry dead babies around inside their bodies until the situation becomes a medical emergency (read: her life is in danger, so that both can die. Because if you can’t produce offspring to carry on your husband’s name then you’ve no value as a woman and deserve to die. Again, patriarchy at work.)
On a totally unrelated note, I also have no desire to yodel. But I wish I knew how.
Absolutely all of this. I am still stunned by the woman who wants a woman who lost her baby to carry it until she likely becomes septic. It’s insanity and ignorant. If you read the article she even address this. When someone pointed out that the mother could become very ill and possibly die, her response was “this law isn’t meant to protect the mother”. What the actual fuck? It’s there to protect a dead fetus? I so much don’t get the hatred this woman has got to harbor for other women.
What a wonderful collection of responses you’ve received from this post. My response: women do need to stick together. But I will not stick together with a woman who wants to send women back to the dark ages, endanger them, make coat hanger manufactures happy (yes, I grew up when that was your only choice). It’s sobering that when my mother was conceived, women did not yet have the right to vote in New York State. Do we really want to go back to them good ol’ days? And should I consider such a woman my sister? I can struggle with that.
Absolutely. I will resist being set back.
Quite the discussion going on here, glad to see it.
First, I can’t yodel either.
Second, my advanced degrees do not give me the right to speak for anyone but myself.
Leaving aside the completely unsupportable idea of forcing a woman to carry a dead fetus to term- other commenters have done a good job on that one already, I want to stress how important it is for women to start treating each other with respect. Women can be so nasty to each other. We don’t comment on how men are dressed, or their hair or makeup (or lack thereof) but we feel free to tear apart any woman who doesn’t measure up to our own particular standards. Why to do we (and not just women do this) reduce people to their genitalia? Men become pricks and women become cunts. Not helpful. Note, this is not an anti-swearing rant, this is an anti-belittling rant. Why do we decide that a woman who has achieved some level of success has slept her way to the top or become an agressive ‘bitch’ (there, genitals again). Men can sleep their way to the top too, darnit (tongue in cheek here).
I dream of a world where age, colour, gender and sex do not figure into our assessments of others. I would far prefer to be seen as a smart, capable human being than a smart, capable woman. I like being a woman, don’t get me wrong, but far too often that word means a pat on the head and a condescending tone. I dream of a world where my looks do not figure into the value set on me by others. I do not want to be a man, nor do I think that men are inherently better. Men and women do not have abilities that the other lacks, nor are they necessarily better at any given job than the other. Ok, strength plays into some jobs, and a man cannot give birth. That’s about it. Being of one gender or another does not let one off the hook for bad behaviour either, for example sexual agression, slut shaming, making rude comments, violence etc. These are learned behaviours; we teach our children, our teens, our adults and our peers what is acceptable behaviour though every social interaction. We can unteach bad behaviour, and we can teach (and ourselves learn) how to treat others with respect, consideration and fairness.
I hope that I live long enough to see true gender equality.
I am crushing on you so hard right now. YES!! THIS!!
Well said, Michelle. Very well said.
Here’s a story. When my daughter was 18 weeks pregnant her baby died – she had gone in for an ultrasound and the fetus had no heartbeat. The doctor assigned to her case gave her drugs to induce labor, drugs that didn’t work even though he kept upping the dose. My daughter was in terrible pain but still the doctor wouldn’t do the abortion, or, what is actually termed a D & E – dilatation and evacuation. It was only after several hours of this that a nurse told her, in confidence, that she should get another doctor because this one, unbeknownst to my daughter of course, was “never going to do the D & E.” It was against his religion. He was going to keep giving the labor drugs until they reached the maximum safe level and then he would just stop the drip and send her home to “deliver” the fetus…… whenever. Five years and a healthy pregnancy and delivery later we are still, as a family, recovering from that indignation, that assault, that violation of the Hippocratic Oath, which begins “First, do no harm.” And to think what my daughter might have gone through, the unhealthy situation she was in both physically and emotionally, to think that she could have had a ruptured uterus from the drugs and never been able to have another pregnancy, to think she could have died from sepsis brought on by carrying around a dead fetus for weeks, all because she’d basically been denied a choice in what was happening to her own body. That doctor thought he had every right to make life altering decisions for my daughter without ever even talking them over with her and her husband.
This is why women need empowerment. This is why we need to stand together, why we need focus, why we need to stop belittling each other needlessly over trivia and look at the whole puzzle. I don’t like the idea of Melania trump speaking out for women either, but it’s got nothing to do with whether or not she has a formal education. I don’t have a degree either. But I have a brain, I know right from wrong, and good from evil. I have eyes that can see and ears that can hear. I have a voice, and I have fingers on a keyboard. And maybe I can’t yodel either, but by golly, I can roar!
That is so freaking frustrating and sad. I am sorry your daughter suffered that loss. 🙁