Women’s March (Jan. 21st)

Jack Sutter 14 Comments

Some of my favorite commentary so far on the Women’s March is contained in a reply to one of Milo Yiannopoulos’s videos relating to the event. Sharon (a woman, fyi) wrote…

“When you’re so privileged that you are some of the richest people on earth, have a higher standard of living than almost anyone in the history of the planet, can freely protest things that are proven to be myths, have voting rights, can hold elected office, can drive, don’t get stoned to death for being raped, can go out in public without being covered head to toe, can go out in public without being accompanied by a man, have higher rate of employment than men, win the majority of child custody battles, don’t have to sign up for the selective service, obtain the majority of college degrees, and only represent 0.1% of all combat deaths….

You are living proof that when you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.”

Here’s the link, too, if you want to see some of the replies to her:
https://www.facebook.com/myiannopo…/videos/826255620845668/…

That about sums up my outlook on the whole thing. What they’re claiming to stand for with this whole demonstration is disjointed, incoherent, somewhat anti-Trump – and that last bit is solely on the basis of irrational, fabricated, untrue nonsense – and ultimately meaningless. We live in an age where women are marching on the streets for rights that their mothers and grandmothers already fought for. Fought for, and won.

I think it would be nice if they’d wake the fuck up to that last part, and give the last few generations of women (when the feminist movement still stood for equal rights) the credit they deserve for having already attained the rights the modern movement (3rd wave “feminism”) claims to be fighting for. My advice to the women out there still fighting for this: pick a new fight, women stronger than you already picked this one decades ago imo.

They picked it, and they won it. You can’t make equality more equal.

Not unless you’re willing to sign up for selective service, which is one of the very few remaining things that aren’t equal yet (and that should be), but that’s leveling the playing field to be more fair to men, which is itself evidence not just of the rights women have in our country in the present, but the privileges and special treatment they still recieve and take for granted.

The only other alternative left to you is to go places where the fight really isn’t over, but for that you’ll need to travel. I recommend Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and a few other middle eastern countries, for starters. Go march for the rights of women who aren’t allowed to drive, who can’t go outside their house without a man to supervise them, and go march for the rights of homosexuals who are thrown off of buildings in many of these countries because of their sexual orientation.

They aren’t any gay men or women being thrown off of buildings here, and there aren’t any women being stoned to death. If you want to go fight that fight, go where you can fight it for real. Here, I – and many, many others – would argue that we’ve already won.

If I believed otherwise, I’d be out there marching with you in support, but you already have your equal rights. Have had them for years. So tbh, I’d just as soon not waste my time.

14 thoughts on “Women’s March (Jan. 21st)”

  1. Jack, I love the hell out of you and your spine for speaking your mind.
    I can see Ayn Rand’s “Selfishness as a Virtue…” book, and this valid comment you have reposted as slices of the evidence of the spectrum that reflect’s aspects of Women’s Rights for different reasons. Ayn Ran’s articles made me think of the breaking roles women had in the early 60’s from being housewives to women who wanted more. Your author’s comment makes me think of women who can’t fight for more because of their extremely oppressive societies and laws but here in the USA, there is evidence of a better way to live. I see many reasons for people marching yesterday. As I am acutely aware of the incredibly lucky female I am for being born in the USA and to add fuel to your rebuttal, I am a child who grew up near Berkeley, CA. with protests and women’s rights activists as common place.
    Every time I see or feel the imbalance of female oles to male roles in my country, I pull back because I am not living in the prison of a country where I could be stoned to death for marrying again after divorce since only sluts do that in a country where widows are treated as worthless after a husband dies. How fucking lucky am I?! Yes I am whatever adjective you want to call me because I live in the USA. Do you realize how many times I have thought that my complaints are ruthlessly selfish because I am not a woman with or without kids in Darfur who has children in a damn refugee camp and my smartest move that I can make to get water is to leave my tent at night hoping to god or whoever I can hope on, that the jackals of men who are already expected to rape anyone who they can catch – won’t catch me because besides being violated in the worst imaginable way that I know would devastate my being, my kids wouldn’t have a parent and they old become something I can’t even consider because it honestly takes me to a place where I would consider ending our lives. Why? I can imagine ending my imaginary kids lives and my imaginary life under such conditions BECAUSE my USA has taught me that life is so much more beyond the horrible other places where women live under horrendous conditions. Perhaps you have imagined being a woman under what this American woman calls oppressive. Perhaps you can understand that we females in the USA have it better than every other country except the countries of Norway, Sweden, Denmark. Of course that is my opinion based on the progressive concepts of the family dynamic and childcare that they practice. Come to think of it, I bet the Women of those countries have a different perspective on “women’s struggles” since they are far ahead of the USA in terms of gender roles and the comprehensive understanding of equality. That’s just a thought and if I compare you and I to a man and woman in those countries, I say that we have a way to go to be better than what we are as far as seeing and living as equals.
    I’m sure that you’ve heard of the phrase that defines the discrepancy between those that have never lived under any oppressive government or society which creates a blind spot for seeing, identifying, relating or simply believing that oppressive behaviors exist, let alone have impact on someone’s psyche and outlook. I can be tagged as being blinded to issues of men of the 50’s who bore the sole weight and responsibility of their family’s financial security. I can be blinded to so many other things because I can’t possibly understand the real yoke of another’s existence but I can try and I can imagine and I do because understanding people outside of my own little bubble is important to me. It doesn’t have to be important to anyone else because we can choose what we want to believe here in the USA.
    Still though, there are issues that are unequal between women and men. I didn’t go to the March in the city I’m in BECAUSE I didn’t want to be associated with an anti-Trump anything. I think Women’s rights are greater than any Narcissist, President or otherwise. My guess is that he won’t understand the March EXCEPT as an anti-Trump thing. I hope I’m wrong. To be clear, I had the thought and hope that Trump could fuck everything up for the betterment of us. His appointments have me doubting that but he’s no different than politicians before him.
    Anyway, my daughter did go for her own reasons. She asked me if I had heard the slogan I’m with Her” I said No and she was perturbed but oh well. She informed me that it was Hillary’s slogan. I didn’t care for Hillary. I didn’t care for her to be our first female President just because she was female.
    My point is that my daughter told me that there was a man with a sign that said “I’m with Her” and it had arrows pointing all around . I take that as solidarity. I take that man to be one who might have seen beyond his male perspective just enough to strengthen what the USA female existence is to your comments author – something much greater than she can comprehend of to the point of being narrow-minded to the possibility of it being greater than what it is already! Personally, I can imagine an empowering sexual paradigm shift if the majority of men stood behind the right for women to simply have the same self-determining rights that men have. I want to add that were it not for the women of the 1800’s who fought to have the vote, amongst other rights we take for granted here in the USA, your author wouldn’t have something as great to compare the status of women she referenced. There’s a statement that a friend and I used to laugh at about guys. It was in reference to having a shitty boyfriend who doesn’t understand a woman’s needs. It was “At least he doesn’t beat me”. I’m sorry for being verbose now that I could have summed everything up by that stupid funny thing I laugh at.
    There’s a reason that women aren’t stoned here – we don’t stand for it. There are still men beating women in private and vice versa. There has been progress and minds have changed for the better but there’s still room to grow. The right to contraception was won by our Grandmother’s yet – states have chosen to remove that right by removing Planned Parent clinics because the right to an abortion is a possible service a woman can attain. That’s a maddening circle jerk of an argument about abortion. Have you considered having the government and religion tell you what to do with your sperm? It sounds ridiculous doesn’t it?
    I’m sad that you aren’t behind the Women’s March because I see you as the type of man that I would want backing me up in a fight to be better than what I am. Men that would do that, seriously, understanding what it is and how it benefits them just as much are men I would kill for.
    I know that you will have an articulate rebuttal and I wrote this with my emotions bubbling. We women here have it great compared to other countries but we aren’t equal in many ways as I and other women would like such as equal representation in House and Senate for example. It takes time for real change to have a lasting affect in practice but more importantly in our mindsets. The March was a show that many have a desire to make things better.
    Love, Jayne

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    • Yes, I’m embarrassed that I didn’t re-read my comment to catch all of my grammatical errors and run on sentences. I’ll be a smart ass hack and blame it on my uterus hanging out on the border of becoming hysterical. : )

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    • “I know that you will have an articulate rebuttal and I wrote this with my emotions bubbling.”

      Well, I’ll dig in a little bit, as much as I feel the need to, but there’s only a few things I’d want to rebut, or to simply clarify and talk out further, tbh. Your comment, to me, speaks to the elements that (if a march like this is going to happen) out to be at the heart of it, though I’d still consider it mostly pointless. Rally as individuals, not women, march as individuals, not as women. Or as Americans. Same difference imho.

      That’s what my response to it would boil down to, even if it had been more sincerely about women’s rights. I mean, if the march was a show that many have a desire to make things better, then there are two issues. One, is that many of participants don’t even know what they want, they’re unable to give specifics when people ask them their motives, it’s just some vague, broad (and consequently meaningless) women’s rights demonstration.

      Which rights? That’s what I can’t figure out. Gender based discrimination is illegal. Companies, service providers, and so on are all subject to legal consequences if they fail to recognize the fact. They can, should be, and are penalized on a case by case basis, and not in the sense of different standards for each case, but in the sense that it is so rare compared to past times that the only practical way to fight against what remains of real (and/or institutionalized/organizational) misogyny is to do so as you come across each individual case. There aren’t enough instances of it *actually* happening to merit any ‘en masse’ approach anymore imo.

      “There’s a reason that women aren’t stoned here – we don’t stand for it.”

      Exactly. You don’t, and neither would I.

      “I want to add that were it not for the women of the 1800’s who fought to have the vote, amongst other rights we take for granted here in the USA, your author wouldn’t have something as great to compare the status of women she referenced.”

      I think she’s well aware of that, but differentiates (like I do) between 2nd wave feminism and modern (3rd wave) “feminism”. I don’t recognize them to be the same thing, at all.

      “My point is that my daughter told me that there was a man with a sign that said “I’m with Her” and it had arrows pointing all around . I take that as solidarity.”

      The crux of it is that, in my opinion at least, we are at a point (and have been for a few years now) in American society where I should not have to go out into the streets to march with a group the likes of which was in Washington on the 21st. Women in general should know by now that I, and the bulk of our society in general, are in full agreement about equality between genders. And if you ask me, I might dare to make the claim that most women probably *do* know that I shouldn’t have to prove my solidarity. It’s a given, assuming there’s something specific to stand for, or against. And there was no coherent cause in either respect. There were no ultimate, decisive specific purpose(s) concerning the march, and main ones tried for were pro-choice activism (pro lifers were not barred, but neither were they welcome, and I’m not pro life, but in being pro choice I believe in individuals rights (both men and women) to choose to take a pro life stance.

      Anyways, I think a fair case could be made that the majority of women *do* (rightfully) assume solidarity from the vast majority of American men. They say there were over 1 million women marching, total. There are over 300 million people in this country alone, and of that three hundred, approximately half are women. Where were they?

      Working, living, making their own choices, doing their own thing.

      There was that, though, the divisions between pro choice elements (the majority, I think) and the pro life, and there was the clear desire from various large elements of the overall march (sub-groups within it, large, substantial parts of the whole of it) who very much wanted it to be an anti-Trump demonstration. It could’ve been if they could have barred the people who disagreed with the bulk of the group, but as it is, many of the people marching were Trump supporters. And many of the people doing clean up (all the signs, trash, and so on left behind for someone else to clean up) were Trump supporters.

      I still don’t agree with the whole notion of it though, especially given that the intent was clearly to frame it as an anti-Trump demonstration. It was just luck (and some individual choices by participants with differing opinions on the politics) that there was enough of a counter weight to refocus it on something a little more worthwhile than hating on Trump. And imo, that also shows the lack of steam the anti-Trump movement has (rightfully so, because there’s very little basis in reality to the concerns his critics have about him, so far).

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      • Oh Jack, I’ve written a reply 3 times and they become bulbous blobs of extraneous blubber – good blubber I’ll tell you but extraneous to the core issue for me. Laws governing my choices for my female body while there are no complementary laws governing your male body makes us legally unequal. I live in a state where I am not prosecutable for certain decisions, yet I feel the oppression because it’s damn wrong since men are not held responsible. ( This is where I start to slide into blubber but I won’t.) Laws in some states can govern my body…that says I am not capable to determine my own direction with my own consequences and gains yet you as a male are free from any such laws. Questioning my own legally adult, cognitive and spiritual decision making sensibilities because I am female is not equal to what a man can expect if he ever has the thought at all. It all comes down to that for me.

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      • No, they don’t. The overall totals of what women and men earn, total, has a slight discrepancy. The discrepancy isn’t due to (or proved to be due to) inequality, it’s due to personal choices. That’s what the material, statistics and the like, seem to say. That the percieved inequality is not, in fact, what some might percieve it to be at first glance. And the overall wage gap is the only real attempt at an example that I’ve seen in that vein, the only thing coming close to an argument that things aren’t equal yet. The problem is, the facts don’t back up the assertions, not as far as I can tell. I’m glad to be proven wrong though, if there’s something you know of that I don’t, or if there’s specific examples of discrepancies in pay in a given (specific) work place between men and women. Otherwise though, I have no information at my disposal or that I’ve researched that supports your claims. Or rather, Huffington Post’s claims. I read their articles, but I’ve found them to be spun, distorted, and unafraid to shape ‘facts’ to suit their stances. I read their stuff (along with Breitbart, CNN, and many others at odds with one another), but personally, I take it with a grain of salt on all fronts.

        Huffington Post isn’t any more trustworthy a new source than Fox News, Buzzfeed, or CNN, imho, so I try to cross check as much as I can on any given issue. Including this one.

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      • It’s a known fact that men receive higher pay than women for the same work . That there is still a glass ceiling . Your inability to accept this fact says a lot. It reminds me of Trump’s inability to accept that he lost the popular vote. Perhaps we need a massine investigation Have a nice day.

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      • “It’s a known fact that men receive higher pay than women for the same work . That there is still a glass ceiling. Your inability to accept this fact says a lot.”

        That is not a known fact. It’s a disputed fact, at best. Give me a specific example and I’ll concede the point. It isn’t an inability on my part, that much I can assure you of. Give me a specific, concrete reason to reconsider my stance, my outlook, my assessment, and I’ll reconsider. So far, you haven’t. I cannot take your word for it when all the evidence I am aware of contradicts what you’re saying, and I don’t know how you can expect me too if you can’t even explain the data or reasoning behind it. I wouldn’t have asked you how I’m wrong if I was afraid of being proven wrong though. If you can, back up your claims. If you can’t… then why do you, in your own mind, stand by them? Critical thinking and logic should dictate one of two things: a) you have reasons to believe as you do that you haven’t yet mentioned to me or b) you have no reasons, and should reevaluate your own opinion and see how it lines up with the facts. And in that, I’m not even part of the equation. I’m alright with you (and Jayne) remaining in disagreement with me, but I’m not alright with the possibility of that disagreement springing from a lack of thought, reasoning, or reality on either side. If I’m the one missing avenues of thought, reasoning, or facts, I’d like to know it. If not, then on the flip side (if you value truth in any sense), I’d think you would want to know it, too.

        Not to give me a “win” but to have the knowledge for yourself. Even if you still disagree, that’s the kind of thing I consider a win.

        And you know… I don’t know with absolute certainty what goes on in the mind of Trump, but imho, you might want to consider the possibility he operates on much the same premise.

        The kind of controversy he generates, the polarized opinions on the issues he raises, might seem divisive. On the surface.

        In reality, whether he means it too or not, it’s bringing people together in disagreement, encouraging them to define, stand by, and fight for their own outlook and views, to do it openly. And if you’ve been paying attention, more than 90% of the violence that’s come of that has come from his opponents (and their supporters), not him and not from people like me.

        See, free speech means that just because I have a low opinion of the women’s march (and the pro life march today, as far as that goes) doesn’t mean I don’t recognize their right. If they believe in the things they say they do, they can and should march in spite of critics like me. Just because I criticize, even if I say a given demonstration is pointless or ought to be mothballed, that doesn’t mean I expect them to listen to me, or to treat my commentary (or the commentary of others) as an order. They’re exercising they’re rights to free speech, but what they (and maybe you) forget if that so am I.

        And I’m subject to the same criticism from others, if they wish to criticize (and they should, if they think I’m wrong). I don’t fault you or hold it against you for having a different opinion on this, for example. I don’t think your stupid or incapable of acknowledging facts just because you disagree with me, even if you think I am for not agreeing with you. I asked the question I asked because I assume you’re not. Generally, I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt.

        Check your facts. If they hold up, if you feel confident in standing by claims made on your behalf by outlets like the Huffington Post, then by all means throw them in my face however you please. If not, admit that you’re incorrect, or at least concede that you’re not sure. We *are* talking facts, reality, and truth, so you’re either right or wrong, and so am I.

        For my part, as of right now, my views hold up to reality as far as I can tell and you haven’t given me any reason to doubt my own perceptions of this, except “it’s a known fact”. A known fact? Says who, and on what basis? When I try to answer those questions, it leads back to untrustworthy sources, abstract, vague, and unsubstantiated claims, and little else. So I ask, “am I wrong?”, and the only answer I’ve gotten so far, in a nutshell, is “no, I’m not wrong”.

        What is there that you know of that would give me a reason to reconsider? If the answer is nothing, then I have no reason to surrender my opinions or to concede that yours are right.

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