The Daily: 26 November 2024

It’s ‘splaining season. Everybody has their own pet theories of why it happened. Most are probably wrong, but some are spectacularly, garishly wrong, wrong in so many ways you have to wonder if they’re right.

Jon Stewart had one such on his Weekly Show. Richard Reeves, President of the American Institute for Boys and Men, believes that men voted for Trump because “they felt they were not being seen” and Trump apparently saw them. Reeves claimed that Trump is a likable guy, a funny guy, someone who will make the world safe for locker room humor again. According to Reeves, men feel that this is an important quality in American leadership.

Somehow, this is not misogynist.

To Jon’s credit, he did not unleash the full snark beast. Jon’s mostly female staff was not so kind.

I was listening to this as I was making cranberry sauce and cleaning the bathrooms and getting the laundry done, all so there could be a holiday meal on Thursday, which will probably not be cleaned up entirely before I have to go back to work on Friday morning to work yet another 9-hour shift. This is probably what most American women were doing this past weekend. Many have parenting duties added to that list. Some have to figure out travel, scheduling two or three meals in one day. Some have to cook the equivalent of three meals to accommodate dietary needs. Some have to do all this and not have a weekend in which to do it. Holidays are not for women. Holidays are extra work.

It is perhaps unfair to pass judgement when I am already stressed and tired, preparing for a holiday that I don’t particularly enjoy even as a concept. Maybe I shouldn’t have been listening to Jon Stewart, except that he is one of a few people who say things that chime with how I am responding to all this. So it feels good to listen. Except when a white guy tells us all that men elected Donald Trump because they weren’t being seen… which I assume means that they weren’t seeing themselves in the Democratic candidate, or perhaps they weren’t the only thing being seen, for once. And what is most distressing about this assertion is that, though I do not think that Reeves is right, still… yep, I can totally believe that. It would not be at all surprising to learn that this country’s men threw a tantrum because the camera had shifted slightly, just enough to include a few more people, just enough to make men feel uncomfortable about their insulting preadolescent sense of humor, just enough to allow for a female POTUS, and now we have abominable Donald as President.

All I could think was “Yeah, that tracks…”

Not being seen… as if there is anything to see in this culture except the preoccupations of men. And yet, this is definitely not sexism…

I understand that sometimes it can be both/and… Men could have voted because they felt diminished by a female candidate, and yet they may not support the sexist policies of the candidate they chose. But is it not alarming that the majority of voters in this country can not see how those sexist policies will hurt their wives, their daughters, their sisters, their mothers, their granddaughters? (And in the case of women voting for Trump… I got nothing on that one…) Whatever their motives, they voted to hurt their own loved ones. The people who are now preparing a holiday for them…

And then I got an idea. Because I have always been partial to Lysistrata. Only it isn’t enough to withhold sex because Trump voters are largely not on the receiving end of that anyway. (Oh… did I just say that…) What if we were to stop all this extra work? No holidays. No turkey. No driving to the in-laws for pumpkin pie. No mountains of dishes. No leftovers that inevitably end up in the trash. No gifts, no parties, no booze. And no more of this no days, no hours, no minutes off. Ever.

If you all want your cake, you can bake it. We are tired. We are done. We are going to put our feet up and eat popcorn and watch Hallmark movies for the rest of the year.

Here is what it feels like to truly not be seen. Try it on for size…

And then we shall tell jokes.

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©Elizabeth Anker 2024