I want to start by taking the opportunity to say FUCK TEDDY ROOSEVELT because I insist on doing it whenever possible. He is the absolute worst and so many white dudes fall all over themselves insisting on his greatness, which is telling as to the state of white dudes.
I find all of this so maddening. I saw the Fox clip too somewhere. And this just crossed my radar today:
"After the overturning of Roe v. Wade, some people believed that white women would abandon the Republican Party. But the midterm elections made clear that’s not the case. This election, more white women voted Republican than in 2018 (CNN). This was particularly strong in the south; 72% of white women voted for a Republican governor in Georgia, and 64% for a Republican governor in Texas. Also, on a national level, white women in the suburbs flipped to the Republicans after favoring Democrats in the past two elections (WSJ)."
Montana's election results certainly bolster this paragraph though I haven't seen statistics. I've largely given up on white dudes and I'm leaning that way toward white women too. I don't know what to do about it other than wave a flag for an anti-marriage movement.
I will join in the chorus of FUCK TEDDY ROOSEVELT. Jesus, just why and ugh and ew and just fuck no. He is the absolute worst and did so much to perpetuate the john wayne frontier bullshit of white masculinity, let alone the myriad other atrocities he helped to create. I should start counting how many times I turn to M each evening and ask what the fuck is wrong with white men?? So unfair to him--he has no idea and he's at the same point. And I'm at the same with white women. It's just ridiculous and emblematic of legacies and the stench of colonization and exploitation of others, of animals, of land. I want none of it. So yes to a flag for the anti-marriage movement. And I want a pro-treat-everything-and-everyone-with-kindness-and-reverence flag too.
This is soooooo good, and I have SO many thoughts. (Sidebar, this quote needs no extra vomit but WOWZA is it gross: "A race is worthless if women cease to breed freely." I can't parse all the disgustingness in that one. ) Here for the waxwing utopia, the return to place for all beings, the collapse of imperiling structures by undeniable winds.
isn't it gross?? It's beyond disgusting--and it's truly the quiet part out loud, that's so much of what the anti-abortion stance of conservatives is about--it goes back to race, breeding workers, population growth. It's really really gross. But yes to waxwing utopias. They are on to something in those trees I suspect...
this is tiptoeing into weeds (maybe) but I also heard an interview with someone who studies religions about how it wasn’t until Billy Graham that religious views mixed with politics. I’m not gonna articulate it right but, basically, there’s this whole tangle of clisterf@ck thinking where insane views were threaded into “Christian” circles, and then those were threaded into politics. (Obviously lots of people have talked about this and better.) In short, now people who otherwise wouldn’t have a second thought about abortion feel like they have to defend it because it’s been threaded into their community identities, and then they link it with their voting agendas, too. And are then right where power mongers want them (by the balls/uteruses.) I’m not suggesting people aren’t thinking for themselves (ok, I am), we’re in a very extreme compression of bad ideas and power (understatement). It’s . . . very not good.
yes--it's fascinating and infuriating. Abortion wasn't even an argument politically in the 1970s until there was a conflict that made it politically advantageous for churches to align the ultra-conservative wing and evangelicals were mobilized as a voting force. It was highly orchestrated--it's so fucked up how quickly we forget history politically--and instead believe it to always have been this way. Some of it yes, but other threads, as you say--no.
Ah!! I knew someone else could say it better :) thank you! “Highly orchestrated” = such a powerful phrase. I feel like among (many??) possible options for fighting ignorance, just continually highlighting history and really laying it out so people can see it, helps. Of course lots of people think this is Pollyanna of me . . . I don’t know what to say about that 😑 Getting through to people, etc, the polarization of views etc. Again, very not good! That’s when I take my head and heart out for a walk and say I DONT FREAKIN KNOW
Coincidently, and not trying to score points here, but I was in a grateful husband frame of mind today and appreciating the fact that in general women (not just my wife) are actually far more self-sufficient than men. Having said that, I think I'll quit while I'm ahead.
“From dusk until dawn, you can do exactly as you please, which, after all, is a pretty good allotment in this world where a lot of conforming is expected of everyone.” I imagine my family gets a little tired of me mentioning how much more suited I would be to a life filled with those kinds of days :/
I love this idea of spinsterism as a state of relationship to oneself and other women rather than of marriage or not. What an interesting idea!
I love this articulation of friction between the family and self. Like: "I'm a nun inside and also a (mostly) happily partnered person in a female body, mothering children who have a LOT of needs. Both are true! Stop giving me that look when I say this."
Well put, yes! I guess it loops back to the previous post about women being so many "selves." How many millennia have we been doing this to ourselves aka has this been done to us?
Yessss. When I was reading I was thinking very much about the last post that linked staying home with resistance; home as a safe space away from the warps of patriarchy. I really relate to this too.
I really loved that, though I don't 100% relate. There's a lot about me that's always been a natural nurturer/homemaker/caregiver, but there's also a lot about it that feels increasingly suffocating, where I'm forced into roles that eat up every single speck of time I could use for other things that also nurture me. Home IS that space, but it's also the space where everything is asked of me.
I get that too--home is complicated on a lot of different fronts, and it pulls us in different directions--too many too often. I do find some solace in the sense of the space and lands around us at home as a place of our own for a space of time--not in own as ownership but as relationship, as knowing the intimate details of a space around us day to day...
YES, so feeling you here. We recently relocated so my “sanctuary” is upside down with moving boxes. I’m finding local coffee shops with blasting music and unkind employees to be an escape from all the demands waiting at home. I feel weird about this, like: “why can’t I just make coffee in my calm kitchen and work there?” But something in me needs to be out in the world and away from the endlessness that awaits the primary homemaker aka me. A reprieve, a chance to wear public hats…essential I’m finding.
o there is so something about being in company with strangers--I totally think that is a similar kind of reassurance, of not having to engage but having company, movement, life, around us. The freedom to be anonymous and focused on writing, but with the whirl of life around us.
I want to start by taking the opportunity to say FUCK TEDDY ROOSEVELT because I insist on doing it whenever possible. He is the absolute worst and so many white dudes fall all over themselves insisting on his greatness, which is telling as to the state of white dudes.
I find all of this so maddening. I saw the Fox clip too somewhere. And this just crossed my radar today:
"After the overturning of Roe v. Wade, some people believed that white women would abandon the Republican Party. But the midterm elections made clear that’s not the case. This election, more white women voted Republican than in 2018 (CNN). This was particularly strong in the south; 72% of white women voted for a Republican governor in Georgia, and 64% for a Republican governor in Texas. Also, on a national level, white women in the suburbs flipped to the Republicans after favoring Democrats in the past two elections (WSJ)."
Montana's election results certainly bolster this paragraph though I haven't seen statistics. I've largely given up on white dudes and I'm leaning that way toward white women too. I don't know what to do about it other than wave a flag for an anti-marriage movement.
I will join in the chorus of FUCK TEDDY ROOSEVELT. Jesus, just why and ugh and ew and just fuck no. He is the absolute worst and did so much to perpetuate the john wayne frontier bullshit of white masculinity, let alone the myriad other atrocities he helped to create. I should start counting how many times I turn to M each evening and ask what the fuck is wrong with white men?? So unfair to him--he has no idea and he's at the same point. And I'm at the same with white women. It's just ridiculous and emblematic of legacies and the stench of colonization and exploitation of others, of animals, of land. I want none of it. So yes to a flag for the anti-marriage movement. And I want a pro-treat-everything-and-everyone-with-kindness-and-reverence flag too.
✊🏽
I've been asking what is wrong with white women for years now and so far am still not getting answers :(
I know. It's insanity. Why?
This is soooooo good, and I have SO many thoughts. (Sidebar, this quote needs no extra vomit but WOWZA is it gross: "A race is worthless if women cease to breed freely." I can't parse all the disgustingness in that one. ) Here for the waxwing utopia, the return to place for all beings, the collapse of imperiling structures by undeniable winds.
isn't it gross?? It's beyond disgusting--and it's truly the quiet part out loud, that's so much of what the anti-abortion stance of conservatives is about--it goes back to race, breeding workers, population growth. It's really really gross. But yes to waxwing utopias. They are on to something in those trees I suspect...
SO the quiet part out loud, yes.
this is tiptoeing into weeds (maybe) but I also heard an interview with someone who studies religions about how it wasn’t until Billy Graham that religious views mixed with politics. I’m not gonna articulate it right but, basically, there’s this whole tangle of clisterf@ck thinking where insane views were threaded into “Christian” circles, and then those were threaded into politics. (Obviously lots of people have talked about this and better.) In short, now people who otherwise wouldn’t have a second thought about abortion feel like they have to defend it because it’s been threaded into their community identities, and then they link it with their voting agendas, too. And are then right where power mongers want them (by the balls/uteruses.) I’m not suggesting people aren’t thinking for themselves (ok, I am), we’re in a very extreme compression of bad ideas and power (understatement). It’s . . . very not good.
yes--it's fascinating and infuriating. Abortion wasn't even an argument politically in the 1970s until there was a conflict that made it politically advantageous for churches to align the ultra-conservative wing and evangelicals were mobilized as a voting force. It was highly orchestrated--it's so fucked up how quickly we forget history politically--and instead believe it to always have been this way. Some of it yes, but other threads, as you say--no.
Ah!! I knew someone else could say it better :) thank you! “Highly orchestrated” = such a powerful phrase. I feel like among (many??) possible options for fighting ignorance, just continually highlighting history and really laying it out so people can see it, helps. Of course lots of people think this is Pollyanna of me . . . I don’t know what to say about that 😑 Getting through to people, etc, the polarization of views etc. Again, very not good! That’s when I take my head and heart out for a walk and say I DONT FREAKIN KNOW
Coincidently, and not trying to score points here, but I was in a grateful husband frame of mind today and appreciating the fact that in general women (not just my wife) are actually far more self-sufficient than men. Having said that, I think I'll quit while I'm ahead.
P.S. Yes, I forgot to tell my wife that 🤔
ha--go tell her! But what a lovely frame of mind to be in, in my humble opinion. ;)
“From dusk until dawn, you can do exactly as you please, which, after all, is a pretty good allotment in this world where a lot of conforming is expected of everyone.” I imagine my family gets a little tired of me mentioning how much more suited I would be to a life filled with those kinds of days :/
I love this idea of spinsterism as a state of relationship to oneself and other women rather than of marriage or not. What an interesting idea!
I love this articulation of friction between the family and self. Like: "I'm a nun inside and also a (mostly) happily partnered person in a female body, mothering children who have a LOT of needs. Both are true! Stop giving me that look when I say this."
yes!
Well put, yes! I guess it loops back to the previous post about women being so many "selves." How many millennia have we been doing this to ourselves aka has this been done to us?
Yessss. When I was reading I was thinking very much about the last post that linked staying home with resistance; home as a safe space away from the warps of patriarchy. I really relate to this too.
I really loved that, though I don't 100% relate. There's a lot about me that's always been a natural nurturer/homemaker/caregiver, but there's also a lot about it that feels increasingly suffocating, where I'm forced into roles that eat up every single speck of time I could use for other things that also nurture me. Home IS that space, but it's also the space where everything is asked of me.
I get that too--home is complicated on a lot of different fronts, and it pulls us in different directions--too many too often. I do find some solace in the sense of the space and lands around us at home as a place of our own for a space of time--not in own as ownership but as relationship, as knowing the intimate details of a space around us day to day...
Oh, yes, I know what you mean! The space around me helps a lot.
YES, so feeling you here. We recently relocated so my “sanctuary” is upside down with moving boxes. I’m finding local coffee shops with blasting music and unkind employees to be an escape from all the demands waiting at home. I feel weird about this, like: “why can’t I just make coffee in my calm kitchen and work there?” But something in me needs to be out in the world and away from the endlessness that awaits the primary homemaker aka me. A reprieve, a chance to wear public hats…essential I’m finding.
o there is so something about being in company with strangers--I totally think that is a similar kind of reassurance, of not having to engage but having company, movement, life, around us. The freedom to be anonymous and focused on writing, but with the whirl of life around us.
Oof, so true!