By: Lisa M. Hayes – Confluence Daily is your daily news source for women in the know.
*Language alert – there are too many swear words in this post to count.
I’m coming in super-hot for a Thursday. So, buckle up.
Ladies, we need to talk about the patriarchy..
The patriarchy is NOT a group of men with power who get boners by running the board with their money and influence laughing while they hold us all down.
The patriarchy is a system of oppression.
THE DARK AND UGLY TRUTH ABOUT THAT SYSTEM OF OPPRESSION IS IT’S HELD TOGETHER BY WOMEN. *Yes, I’m yelling.*
How do I know? It’s pretty simple. All I have to do is look around at our political landscape and it’s the obvious conclusion.
White women have been blamed for putting Trump in the White House. While I don’t like that conclusion, it is a factual reality.
When I look at who’s going to be at the top of the ticket when the Dems settle on a nominee, it’s going to be women who put an old white man there – again. Whether it’s Biden or Bernie we will still be dealing with a white man who would be in his eighties before his first term in office ends should he be elected.
Women did that.
Women didn’t write checks for highly qualified and brilliant female candidates. Women went to the polls and voted for white men instead of voting for a woman who had plenty of fucking solid ass plans to deal with a whole bunch of shit white men don’t seem to give a damn about – and solid plans for a whole bunch of problems men do seem to care about but haven’t yet solved.
I am profoundly bored and painfully tired of conversations about fighting the patriarchy when we can’t get behind other women who want to lead and are qualified to do so. Lip service isn’t going to break anything and that’s exactly what we’re doing.
Why do I blame women? Because women are the largest voting block in the U.S. They are the largest voting block in the democratic party. They are the largest voting block in any country that allows women to vote.
And I can hear it now…
“I voted for a candidate I think can beat Trump”
or my all-time fav, “I don’t vote gender.”
But let me assure you, you can bet your sweet ass men vote gender. That is the foundation of the boys club – and for the record, the boys club is not an exclusively Republican institution. Dudes, especially the white ones, understand the rules of the club. They may not always agree with or even like their boys, but they stand behind them, write them checks, and sure as hell vote for them come hell or high water.
If we’re going to fight the patriarchy we will absolutely have to get over it and vote gender ESPECIALLY when the female candidates are qualified, brilliant, and ready. Elizabeth Warren would have been electable if women had voted for her.
Warren may not be the most charismatic or flashy candidate, but she certainly is capable and has a career of experience to prove it. I’m not going to claim I get super-excited by her. However, that’s not the point. This isn’t porn. It’s politics. More specifically, it’s gender politics.
Gender politics are real and women will be on the losing end of all of it every time until we learn to support women who step up. We need to quit whining and quit behaving like we are a minority group. We are not.
Elizabeth Warren lost her own state. She came in fourth in Texas trailing everyone, including Bloomberg who is a documented misogynist with a vanity campaign.
Women who like to hide behind the privilege of their men or are simply in the habit of dismissing their own interests ignored an obvious contender in favor of doing the same old, same old. And that’s exactly what we’re going to get, more of the same. All the kumbaya feminist hugs and pussy hat rallies in history will not change that until we change.
Women are the glue that holds the patriarchy together – and as much as I’d like to blame white women exclusively black women voted for Biden in droves.
To be clear, I like Bernie just fine. I can support him. If Biden is our guy, of course, I’ll vote for him. I’m going to be ride or die for whoever walks away from the convention as our nominee. However, at this point in history, we’ve got more to do than just beat Trump. Power structures have to shift and until women quit just talking about supporting other women and actually do the fucking supporting of other women, those power structures will stay fixed.
Of course, I will not vote a candidate unqualified for the office she seeks. However, I am not afraid or ashamed to say I will, in fact, vote along gender lines when the option is available, period, end of story BECAUSE that is what it’s going to take if we’re serious about “breaking the patriarchy”.
This isn’t about Warren.
It’s about what happens to all of us when we turn about backs on women in favor of men and then fane shock when nothing changes.
Now, obviously, I’m short-tempered today so I’ll just warn you in advance…
I will not entertain a conversation on the following topics:
Hillary Clinton
Biden’s stellar record on women’s issues
Bernie’s stellar record on women’s issues
Bloomberg’s history of promoting (sexually attractive) women
I will also not entertain comment from any dudes telling me how voting based on gender alone is nieve, wrong, or sexist.
Not today, Satan, just not today.
What I will be willing to chat about is why any of us who claims to care about things like wage equality, feminism, reproductive rights, and women’s wellbeing in general, thinks that another old white dude, even if that old white dude is Bernie, should or can be the torchbearer for fighting the patriarchy.
Lisa M. Hayes, Senior Editor of Confluence Daily.
Confluence Daily is the one place where everything comes together. The one-stop for daily news for women.
