When I was a kid my Mother took me to a babysitter, up the street, in a larger trailer park than the one I lived in. I knew nothing of the working poor or social services then, but I knew that my babysitter really only valued a few items in her home—one was the wooden table in her kitchen and the other were ceramic items, like the ceramic mugs she and other women drank coffee from, with oddly large, orange-headed mushrooms on them; after all, it was the seventies. I don’t remember how or why I came to know that one of the women in the neighborhood had been hurt by her husband, and I don’t know where she disappeared to, but I knew these women overlooking these children and mushroomed, ceramic coffee cups, had something to do with her leaving, and I had a vague feeling that woman’s safety had somehow been secured. It was the first time I really felt the power of a community of women.
As an adult, I have felt this community of women again, several times; one was when I had the opportunity to meet Wendy Davis, last night. She spoke at the Greater Kansas City Women’s Political Caucus: Trailblazers Celebration, amongst mostly, a community of women, and thanks to Mike Czerniewski, a videographer who serves the Kansas City area, you can hear her words here:
When women like Wendy Davis stand in office, and argue in the tradition of a public servant for a woman’s right to choose, and someone makes an abortion doll in their likeness, I know it is a violence against women, just as that woman in that trailer park all those years ago experienced a physical violence. I know that when a woman stands in office and her image is hyper-sexualized, in a way that is designed to take attention from her powerful words, it is a deep violence against all women.
I know the remedy for this violence against women too, and it lies in that community of women, in calling out the misogyny of dolls and images, but also calling out that subtle sexism when media figures ask women about childrearing while male candidates are never called upon to address the care of children or their wardrobes.
Wendy Davis is right to ask us to get to the ballot box and run for office. Most importantly, she is right to ask us to expect to be able lean on each other, to walk in each other’s shoes, and to be able to rely on each other when any kind of violence is perpetrated against any of us.
Special thanks to Keith Reavis for the photograph of Wendy Davis, and Mike Czerniewski for the film of Wendy Davis.