I Am Woman, Hear Me Vote
By: A. Bailey
Tags: Politics, Opinion, Feminism, 2016 Election

I Am Woman, Hear Me Vote

Being a Woman Who Speaks and Finding Satisfaction Within the Resistance

Yes, I’m waiting for it. I know it’s coming. In fact, in part, it’s already begun. They will undermine her. They will delegitimize her. They will delegitimize the entire campaign, the votes, the rallying, the presidency. If Hillary Clinton wins on November 8th, it will never in our lifetimes be because she won fair and square. It will always be followed with excuses, with ways that it didn’t really happen and how it’s a fluke, a one-off. They will find every way possible to undermine her power as president, to undermine female voters who led the charge, to continue the witch hunt. They will find ways not to listen, ways not to cooperate. She won’t be worthy of their attention or their respect.

She will have to be better than all other male presidents combined to be considered anything above a disaster.

While I hope all of that isn’t true, I have reason to believe it will be.

A little over a year ago I ventured into the world of opinion writing. And as is typical of women who publish opinions, I received a most baffling range of responses.

I was so fervently feminist I was labeled a feminazi. I was so terribly anti-feminist that I hated women. I was both black and white. Up and down. I was somehow a magical creature sitting at both extreme ends of a very broad spectrum. But the most bizarre responses were about me, personally. I keep a low profile and my photo did not accompany the article. But the very first thing most of the male readers wanted to know was, “What does she look like?” The fervent nature of the talk about my looks began to take on a life of its own. An attractive and stylish blogger in my town who shared my initials and last name was mistaken as me and dragged into the fray. Photos of her in dresses and bikinis taken from her Facebook page were plastered through the comments. My words and her looks didn’t jibe in their minds; it did not compute.

Then they found out I wasn’t her, and I hadn’t given them the satisfaction of my face as ammunition. Therefore, I was ruled a hideous, fat hag who should just shut up, said in words not nearly as kind.

But why did my looks matter? Why was it the first thing they wanted to attack? Why did they feel the need to attack in the first place? Ask the Suffragettes of 100 years ago, as they faced the same. I said something men didn’t agree with, something that scratched them deep within the confines of their most tightly held social norms, and they instinctively aimed for the supposed beauty “soft spot” . . . only my soft spot is made of steel, like so many Suffragettes and Hillary herself. We know our worth is within and the outside is irrelevant.

Despite a relatively banal and frivolous topic and opinion, readers immediately chose to try to discredit and dismiss me and anything I had to say in the most obvious and basic ways possible. The comments boiled down to this: “I won’t listen to you because you’re a woman, you’re stupid, and you’re probably ugly, and therefore your opinions and words have no worth. Who asked you, anyway?” My words were worth only the time it took to insult them, not the time it would take to fully engage with them. I had no place sharing my thoughts in a public forum because I was a woman who was likely unattractive and had a disagreeable opinion.

I was a nasty woman for speaking my mind and not sharing bikini pictures while I did it.

While the male readers attempted to shut me down, in public and in their own minds to comfort themselves, my piece went viral, international even. I did not take lightly the consequences, but I did enjoy a good chuckle seeing it make waves on such a grand scale. My opinion wasn’t popular per se, but something I wrote made the rounds of this interconnected planet. In that, I had the last laugh.

Then in walks the pantsuit-clad Hillary Clinton as the Democratic nominee, a woman who knows a thing or two about being undermined and delegitimized, a woman who garners nearly as much attention for her appearance as her policies, and I felt validated.

But Hillary didn’t earn a worthy opponent, no; she’s pitted against a Twitter troll no better than the hateful commenters I faced.

She has to pretend she’s on equal footing with Trump, a man who knows a thing or two about being the driving force behind undermining and attacking women. And so we get to watch the public discrediting of a woman based on gender and looks on a massive scale. One of the most recognized, experienced, and intelligent women on Earth has to go up against one of the most misogynistic men on Earth and battle it out while he whines, complains, and interrupts as she stays steadfast because anything less will garner more lopsided vitriol and insults.

If ever there was an example of feminism vs. the rest of the world played out in caricature, this election is it.

In this battle, Trump is staying true to form and calling the election rigged before it even begins. He and the GOP are laying the groundwork for a historical discrediting of a possible female presidency so the most sexist among us don’t really have to accept it. It’s all an echo of his concocted birther conspiracy. A black man’s presidency is meritless because he wasn’t born here (read: because he’s black). A woman’s presidency will be meritless because she rigged the election in her favor (read: because she’s the lesser sex). It’s a conspiratorial CYA move, only he’s covering his own ego and beliefs and those of so many men everywhere. “If I lose to a woman,” his actions say, “it’s not because she’s better than I am; it’s because she rigged it.”

But any woman who has to work twice as hard to be heard over the sound of a man’s eyes giving her the once over to decide if she’s worth his time knows it’s all noise.

We’ve surmounted far worse over the course of history, and the first person to do anything always bears the brunt of the resistance. Thankfully we’ve been given one of the most resilient women ever to bear that initial burden.

We must take her lead and not be intimidated by violent discourse or action. We must mimic her resilience in the face of their threats of impeachment and marching in the streets. It’s our duty to show Trump, with our votes, that if he loses to a woman, it is, in fact, because she’s better than he is, in so many ways. And it’s our duty to show our sons, with our votes, that being bested by a woman is no longer dishonorable; it is simply a loss, not a dismantling of manhood.

The men among us now, the powerful and privileged raised to feel superior to women, men who are offended by our votes and our voices, may just be the last generation to feel such a depth to that wound. And they will shout. They will resist.

However, even if they believe the results were rigged, even if they scream for the next four years that a woman’s presidency is illegitimate, we know that sometimes it’s the winning, the last laugh, that’s enough.