When I signed up to write the WoW diary Thanksgiving weekend, I expected to write a different diary than the one I’m writing today, just as, I’m certain, you expected to read a different one. We are facing a brave new world (in the Huxley, not the Shakespearean, sense), and the only thing I’m sure of is that we will need each other as we move forward. I am thankful for the group of (mostly) women that this group has brought together. I am thankful that I was able to work as much as I did to try and avert this disaster. I have already expressed my feelings about the election here and here, and will not rehash all of that here.
Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by over two million votes. Although there are several times in our history when the winner of the popular vote did not win the electoral college, a difference of this magnitude only happened once. Rachel Maddow points out that the only comparable event in our history was when the south exchanged the presidency for the end of Reconstruction. I love it when she talks like the historian she is.
That was a reaction to great social change, and took us backwards for the better part of a century. This election was part of a similar reaction, and it could have a similar effect.
I want to thank some unlikely women who have openly challenged Donald Trump during this campaign in spite of the different reasons they had not to. First, a woman I would not have imagined I would follow, Megyn Kelly who refused to let Trump intimidate her out of asking a question about his treatment of women in the first Republican debate and then didn’t allow him to lie his way out of it. Then, there is Republican strategist and commentator Ana Navarro, who was always clear about how unacceptable Trump’s statements were, and who openly spoke of her refusal to vote for him, and at the end, of her decision to vote for Hillary Clinton. Next, all the Republican women who repudiated Trump during the campaign. And finally, thanks to the victims of Trump’s sexual harassment and assaults who came forward after hearing him dismiss his bragging about such acts as mere “locker room talk.”
Now for the regular news summary. Thanks as always to the women of this group who help collect the news, this week including Besame, Tara the Antisocial Social Worker, and elenacarlena.
News Abroad
The Turkish bill that would have allowed men to avoid prosecution for have sex with minors if they married them, was supposed to come up for a vote on Tuesday. However, the vote was postponed in response to large protests as well as Parliamentary opposition. Needless to say, the bill was an abomination, and I hope the postponement is permanent.
The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences is seeking to address the gender gap in its membership by holding two special elections for women only in addition to its regular membership elections.
News At Home
Jill Stein filed for a recount in Wisconsin, and now the Clinton campaign is joining in the recount, saying they will also join similar recounts in Michigan and Pennsylvania once they are initiated.
But recounts are unlikely to change the outcome of the election, and we must be prepared for what will likely happen to our rights in during a Trump presidency, noting that some states have provided a preview. The Guardian has a couple of articles that address this issue.
While many women and men have begun wearing a safety pin to let people who may be targeted by virulent racists and/or misogynists that they are not alone, patient escorts at abortion clinics are donning neon vests to announce themselves as safe people among anti-abortion protesters.
Thanks in part to the Affordable Care Act’s provision for contraception to be covered by health insurance at no cost to the patient, the abortion rate across the country in now the lowest it has been since before Roe v Wade. Of course, this provision has been under constant attack, and could very possibly be lost very soon.
Culture and Such
We have been hearing a lot about the “alt-right” lately. I refuse to accept that term. Calling fascism an alternative form of conservatism makes it part of the normal political spectrum. It is not normal, and does not belong in any list of acceptable political philosophies in the country. This Mother Jones article looks at the relationship between its racism and strong misogyny, and is worth reading in spite of its use of “alt-right” as a descriptor.
Sexism is alive and well on Google — see what a routine search for information about female athletes at the 2016 Olympics brought up.
In this year of rants against “political correctness” as the worst thing about our politics, liberals are considered weak if we call for basic decency and respect for each other. When I was phone banking, one woman told me she was “done with the Democrats” because of “the dead babies.” It actually took me a moment to realize that she was talking about abortion. When I asked her about Trump and sexual assault and how she squared supporting him with her beliefs, she said, “I think we have to stop thinking of ourselves as victims” and show our strength by bypassing these concerns. One area where such weakness is often ridiculed is the idea of trigger warnings. This article in Everyday Feminism explains what trigger warnings are and are not, and shows how they can be helpful.
And finally, I usually keep my two most personal groups at Daily Kos, this and the d’var Torah group, separate, but this week's d'var Torah by mettle fatigue looks at one Biblical woman and the ways her story has been co-opted by men over millennia, and is well worth reading from a feminist perspective.