White women, you need new role models
Get it together.
(Apologizing in advance for all of the exclamation marks and caps. I’m fired up.)
White ladies with internalized misogyny helped elect Trump to office twice — against their best interests!!! — even though they had the chance to vote in the first woman president both times (!!!).
What the actual fuck?
I said it in 2016 and I’ll repeat it today: No one group of people hates themselves more than white women. Well, maybe Latinos for Trump. Maybe.
Their proximity to white-man-power is intoxicating enough that they starve themselves, lose their humanity, and WORST OF ALL vote against themselves and against the best interests of THEIR OWN CHILDREN all so that men will approve of them. COUNT ME OUT OF THAT.
Why do they infuriate me the most? Maybe because, technically, I’m one of them. I want them to do better, to stop dieting, to love each other, support each other, but they simply do not! And they also co-opt other cultures and say things like “yas queen” and then vote against LGBTQ+ rights. It’s just, no. YOU DON’T GET TO GO BOTH WAYS.
Then I realized maybe these women just need role models, other white women who are good people and who can show them what loving yourself AND others looks like.
So here a few white ladies who GET IT RIGHT.
Use their strength and vision to heal and evolve, white ladies!
Jane Fonda: Jane Fonda is a goddamn queen. She is an actress and an activist, brilliant and fierce as all hell. She is passionate about the environment and gets arrested protesting for the earth on the steps of the Capitol at like 80. She cares more about the planet your children will inherit than you do! FOLLOW HER LEAD.
Elizabeth Warren: Finance bros beware. Liz Warren knows what you’re up to and she has worked to take you to task. Like many white ladies (ugh), she used to be a republican. She was. But now she’s one of the baddest asses in the Senate, trying to reform Wall Street and make the rich pay their fair share of taxes so that everyone can live better. You need people like her so that you and your little kids can keep living that cushy middle class lifestyle you’ve become so accustomed to but which Trump will soon scale back measurably. THANK HER AND BE BETTER.
Martha Stewart: Martha is a goddess in the kitchen, garden, and at the craft table. But she also went to prison and came out cooler than ever? Can you imagine? No, because you’ve never been cool in your life! But Martha tells it like it is. She’s funny, she’s weird, she doesn’t care what you think. She’s selling her weed gummies and telling you about the handsome married man she met at a dinner party. DO NOT FUCK WITH MARTHA, BE LIKE MARTHA.
Dolly Parton: Dolly is not only one of the most prolific songwriters of all time, but she financially supported the development of the Moderna Covid vaccine. Her Imagination Library program gives a ton of kids who need ‘em books to encourage literacy. She only looks like a servant to the patriarchy, but in actuality, she’s quietly flipping the patriarchy on its head with her desire to look like the “town tramp.” SHE OWNS HER SEXUALITY, HER TALENT, AND HER POWER — AND LOOKS GREAT DOING IT.
OK, that’s all I have in me right now. Feel free to fact check me. I’m tired, hurt, depleted, and SO DISAPPOINTED and I’m sure you are, too. But we’ll get it together. We have at least four more years — or the rest of America’s history — to explore our darkest emotional depths.
One last thought: If you were born in a white body or male body, please use your privilege —afforded you by white supremacy — to change the world for the better. The world doesn’t get better for a few people without getting better for all people. We are interconnected. With Trump in power, we’re all in for the fight of our lives whether we realize it or not. I will keep bringing my son to soccer, but then after, we’ll march, we’ll scream, we’ll organize, we’ll educate, we’ll vote (HOPEFULLY!! Lord help us) again, we’ll push back against misogyny and hatred and white supremacy in ways that they never imagined. Or at least that is my hope.
Bravo Liz!!! Well said! 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽