In a telling Daily KOS story about my hometown, a statement was made to women across the nation. I left Perryville Missouri (P'ville) many years ago. Though most of my immediate family are still there, so I get back now and then. And not to paint all conservatives one color, yet the misogynist remark by Missouri School Board member Mark Gremaud at a recent meeting personifies misogyny in the minds of deeply conservative males that I know and grew up around in P'ville Missouri...(continued)
The mind of Mark Gremaud is not singular in P'ville. Ignorance abounds in this land locked bastion of predominantly white Christian Conservatism. One might assume from conversation with locals that FOX news, of (un)fair and (un)balanced (to me unethical) reporting, is the only source of information of the outside world that the Whitelands of Missouri, like P'ville, receive. The bigotry and racism is well masked and codified these days, and openly displayed only in the security of like minded white male dominated places. Still, their social notions challenged often of late, retaliating under pent-up frustration perhaps, as with Mark, the ugly truth cannot be contained--blurting out what they really think of women, them blacks, and them white liberals like me.
Many, even moderates such as my brother-in-law, though open minded and kind to everyone of every flavor--bent during P'ville's hippy era--will claim quite firmly that there is no racism in this country anymore. Even so, in the wake and denial of Ferguson's fostered and festering racism, come to boil over. And I can never resist challenging them with the question, "If you had to choose, would you be a white man or a black man in St. Louis." (Not that this would not apply to most any location in the state or around the country.) They most often stutter and stumble, and I pause long before letting them off the spot, by saying, "I'd pick white! Want to know why?"
So conservative women of Missouri, of this nation, unfortunately there being so many of you allied to the Marks, please wake up and research your elected officials and candidates, and choose not based on religious convictions and moldy prejudices, but by their behavior towards humanity inclusive. It will be a better world for you, for me, for all when the Marks are dethroned, and if indeed the Christian thing to do.
Save your daughters from the Marks of the world. The Marks having such demeaning notions about women in common it seems, with all of the current GOP presidential candidates. Follow the lead of the Perryville BOE and voice your dissent towards bad behavior and thinking towards women at the ballot box in 2016. Your husbands can't see you in the ballot box, but they will certainly feel your wrath over their misogynist opinions.