“This week has felt like a war on women. And we lost.”
I read something like that on a playwriting thread about turning the Ford hearing into a play, with people [men] complaining it would be too one-sided, not give the one side enough layers, not give a voice to those whose voices are already overwhelmingly heard. Discussing it more along the lines of some abstract problem that doesn’t touch their lives at all, ever.
That farce yesterday. Ford v. Kavanaugh.
Where it went exactly as people feared it would– into he said/she said land. A female prosecutor, a female assistant, as she was referred to, got brought in last minute to ‘balance’ the all-male panel facing Ford. No other witnesses were allowed to ‘testify’.
It was her word against his. Where she got grilled by an actual prosecutor from Arizona…[yet, it’s not a trial?] Rachel Mitchell, by the way, worked for Maricopa County. Joe Arapeio. Go look all that up. Fun stuff.
Kavanaugh got to rage, growl, sob and whine, and have the male senators throw out that same female prosecutor they’d flown in especially to deal with the troublesome Dr. Ford. As this female hussy suddenly started asking Kavanaugh some questions that he had trouble answering! HUSSY! HOW DARE SHE!!! Remove her! Which they did, after the GOP senators all said they would give all their time to Mitchell to question Kavanaugh! That’s on record. That’s on record, oh my.
So!! The male senators. They turned into defenders of one of their own. They let out growls of rage. They threw hissy fits about what a ‘fine’ man Kavanaugh was and how this was JUST SO UNFAIR GOL DARN IT.
Of course he was innocent!
It’s all a plot by Hillary! Ford was confused! She was raped by members of the Black Panthers, probably led by Obama’s friends, paid for by Soros! There’s two rando guys here saying they did it, so let’s believe these rando guys! She’s just some crazy, mixed up nice lady who can’t remember squat!
There has never been a more horrible awful thing to happen in politics ever than this– see Lindsey Graham for how to be a real drama queen.
Anita Hill got tossed into all this.
What happened to her. How Clarence Thomas even now sits on the Supreme Court. How it was the GOP back then who allowed him on the bench and now it’s a pack of truly hideous Grand Old Perverts more than likely gonna let ole Kavagrope on the bench, as well. Even though there are calls for an FBI investigation, for delays to get other witnesses to testify, for a more thorough looking into all this.
For something other than THAT BITCH IS PAID BY THE CLINTONS.
For something other than LET’S VOTE ALREADY AND FUCK SOME HOT ASS AFTERWARD.
Yes, Kavanaugh actually shouted out that he was the victim of Democrats trying to get back at the GOP for Trump ‘winning’ the election.
Okay, if I rehash all that yesterday, I’m not going to be able to function.
Not that I am doing that well right now.
Women lost yesterday. They lost. They got told they don’t matter. What happens to them doesn’t matter. Their voices, their traumas, their lives. They do not matter.
We’re opportunists. We make up stories of rape and assault just to get back at men in power. We lie. We’re confused. We’re vengeful harpies who just want to see men dead or broken. We’re every last fucking stereotype about women you can imagine. Or have heard. Or snicker about.
I’m angry.
A deep churning angry. I’ve been anxious for over a week now. I’ve been resorting to an old behavior of mine. I had a sleepless night. Yeah, stuff happened to me, too. And it was confusing, awful, confusing, confusing. I didn’t tell. I thought I’d get in trouble. I didn’t want to cause trouble. I thought it was no big deal– later on, when I heard what others had gone through. They had it so much worse. How could what happened to me be anything much at all?
I was just a drama queen wanting attention. I was just exaggerating and being all needy.
Except.
Rage. I am never not angry. Never. It never dies down. It never goes away.
I don’t like being around crowds of people, I don’t like people too close to me. Even people I know. Even people I love. I can barely hug people. I flinch if people touch me– a casual touch on the shoulder, I go stiff, I hold my breath. Someone hovering too close to me brings me into near panic and freak out mode at times.
I have nightmares. I mean the kind where you wake up screaming thinking someone is in the room with you. Usually a monster of some kind. A menacing male figure bent on harm. I remember screaming and screaming, trying to fight off some ghost-vampire thing darting across my bedroom. My mother said I screamed for a long time. I was in my teens.
There’s a list here.
Sure, I talked to a therapist about it. When I had the means. I talked about making myself throw up. I talked about my bouts of depression. I didn’t feel like I could fully trust the woman rolling her eyes and trying to listen to yet another garden variety woman with such silly problems. I’ve never had a therapist like the ones on television or movies. You know, the ones that seem to give a real shit.
Oh yeah, trust. I don’t trust anyone. I learned not to. A long time ago. I know better than to tell my little sordid store of secrets and stories. I will get dismissed. I will get that ‘okay, whatever’ face. I will get told I’m just attention-seeking. I will be laughed at. I will not be taken seriously. It will be used against me. It will be told to others without my permission. It will harm me if I tell. That’s what I have learned over the years. That people are just as awful and predatory and cruel and confusing as…yeah.
But. What’s been happening over the past two years or so, woman-toward.
It’s like seeing daylight after fumbling about in a dark room. You draw near the crack in the wall, look out into a world lit by the sun, get a whiff of fresh air. And then someone, from outside, brutally slaps a board over that crack, laughs as they nail that board over that small view you just had. Keeps laughing. Keeps laughing.
Except.
I think a lot of other women are angry, too. And anger gets shit done, to quote from American Gods, Mr. Nancy.
Women are watching this shitshow. They remember. Women remember. What’s going on now remains in memory. Coated with grit. Coated with whatever happened to them as well. Maybe this time it will be enough. Maybe this time. How many more Anita Hill-like episodes have to happen before that anger explodes into actual action? That’s…that’s the truly gut-wrenching, savaging part. How many more Anita Hill’s will it take? How many HOW FUCKING MANY? What’s the number? What’s the number??
It took quite a lot to get the vote for women. If you want to get funky, it took thousands of years for women to be able to vote on shit that impacts their lives. Thousands of years for women to have a say in policies that affect their bodies, their lives, their futures. It’s going to take quite a lot to get women regarded as human beings.
Ain’t it cute?? Women can vote now. They’ll probably vote on who they think is cutest. Or vote with their periods. Fucking bitches.
I hope it’s not a thousand more years for Jesustown, which is ‘murica’s new name, to decide women are human, too. I hope women don’t have to go about acting nice, smiling a lot, being so calm they resemble house plants until they can be themselves in public as well as mostly in private. As even in private, among our loved ones, women tend to wait until alone in the bathroom to scream into a pillow or cry their eyes out as the shower runs to hide the sounds. Or else they get called crazy. Or emotional. Or asked if they’re on their periods. Or. Or. Or.
Ford, after all, remained relatively calm during her testimony and got labeled anyway. Kavacunt went off the rails and got called a hero by the GOP. Go look that up. Go ahead. I dare ya. I also read yesterday that the bar keeps getting lowered for men and made even more impossible to clear for women. Yep. Uh huh. Duh.
I hope the collective anger right now builds to an actual result.
That this continuous shitshow ends. That’s there are real repercussions for yesterday’s massaging of the male ego. That’s what it appeared like to me, anyway. A massaging of that male ego that says men can do whatever they like to whomever they like, with no consequences. The men screaming and sobbing about poor Kavanaugh seemed more upset that he had to suffer this non-problem to get onto the SCOTUS.
As that shitshow yesterday was all for show.
I knew it.
They knew it. Everyone there knew it.
It was like watching a bad high school production of Twelve Angry Men. A really bad production where no one told the actors to not telegraph exactly what they’re going to do next.
Hey–unless you’re a blind nun who worked among lepers for the last eighty years, your words will be ignored, spit on, not believed and used against you. But since you’re a nun, and a woman, your words won’t be heard in the first place.
Sorry! Grow a penis, hon! Then we’ll take you seriously. Then you’ll matter, you’ll count.
What happened in the past should not impact how men should be rewarded with the highest honor a judge in America can be rewarded, damn it! He’s older now! He coaches girlie basketball, damn it! How dare you interrupt the rise of a magnificent man like this???!!!
How dare you.
Bitch.
How dare you.
It’s hard to concentrate on anything right now. Maybe I need to. I. Maybe.
ANN WUEHLER 