Woman Trouble

If you really think about it, it’s a wonder we women folk haven’t burned the world down already. We make up more than half the world. Yet, when it comes to our place in it, we continue to be systematically subjugated by our male counterparts. This is not opinion, just fact. We earn less than men. We run less than men. We govern less than men.

In the 227 years of the presidency, we have never once had a female president. Not once. Yet somehow, mentioning our desire to perhaps see a woman be elected to the highest office in the land is playing some unfair and unreasonable “woman card.” Still it’s perfectly OK for one of our major political parties to pick a man to run for said highest office who sees casual misogyny as his signature brand. Neat-o.

Now, keep in mind, we women have only even had the legal right to vote since 1920 in this country. I would wager a few of you might have grandparents born before women’s suffrage. Almost all of you have great-grandparents who lived when we couldn’t vote. History you can still go to visit for tea.

None of this is news, which makes it all the more extraordinary. We live in a world that is patently unfair to more than half the population and quietly accepts it. This is not opinion, this is just fact. And, of course, the world is just as unfair, if not very much more so, when you add on our intersecting identities – be that as a person of color, or a LGBT person, or a person with a disability, et al. Life is just harder if you’re not a straight white male – period.

Yet, ironically, one of the most persistent political narratives this election is the power and importance of the Angry White Male voter. They flail furiously at any perceived threat to their long-standing dominance. That means when we women – or any underrepresented group – try to gain a little ground and find more equal footing, we are met with dismissal, mockery, hatred or violence. Want to wallow in despair forever? Find an “MRA” thread on Reddit.

Given all this consequential, real-world utter bullshit, it might seem silly to get riled up about something as seemingly insignificant as, say, a female-fronted TV show adapted from a female-centered book series not getting picked up became it skewed “too female.” Or, say, a blockbuster superhero franchise nixing a female villain because the toymaker thought it would hurt sales. Or, say, a trailer for a high-profile female-led movie reboot getting the most “dislikes” on YouTube ever.

All the while, it should be mentioned, over on CBS (the channel which passed over that “too female” Nancy Drew series starring Sarah Shahi) all six of the new shows ordered for next season by the network feature white male leads? But by all means you stay angry, white men – stay angry.

The thing is all of this feeds into each other. It piles on. Our cultural narrative, despite our statistical dominance, is one that dismisses women as secondary, less important, unequal. We women make up 51 percent of the population, and yet.

The simple fact is we women are on the losing end of representation and governance and ultimately control in this country. Yet, because of our prevalence, it’s easier to dismiss the insidious institutionalized sexism that exists. Many men think, how can women still be discriminated against? I see them every day. They are everywhere. They seem fine.

And, yes, some of us are fine. But fine is not the same as being truly equal. And being told we should be happy with what we have, quit whining and definitely stop talking about it is exhausting, so terribly exhausting. But also maddening. We are not crazy, we are just sick and tired of this crap.

But we cannot get beaten down by it either. We cannot simply accept it as our place. We need to keep bringing it up, both amongst ourselves and to the men in our lives.

Like, hey, don’t you think it’s crazy we’ve never had a woman president? Or, hey, don’t you think it’s nuts there are so few woman bosses? Or, hey, isn’t it whack that mom/sister/wife/best friend/coworker makes less than you just because she is a woman? Or, hey, isn’t it weird that so few major studio films are about women? Or, hey, isn’t it stupid that people think men won’t go see a movie/watch a show/read a book featuring women? Or, hey, isn’t it cuckoo bananas people still expect women to do most of the housework and child-rearing – still, today, in 2016? Because it is, all of it is.

Pointing out the fundamental inequality women face is a necessary part of progress. We should, and will, never shut up about it. It is in fact the only way we will ever achieve the equality we deserve. Feminism is how we solve this. I mean, what else can we do? Burn the whole world down?