89 online
 
Most Popular Choices
Share on Facebook 4 Printer Friendly Page More Sharing Summarizing
General News    H3'ed 12/2/24

Tomgram: Rebecca Gordon, Woman, Man, Fish, Bicycle

By       (Page 1 of 3 pages)   No comments

Tom Engelhardt
Follow Me on Twitter     Message Tom Engelhardt
Become a Fan
  (29 fans)

This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.

Imagine this: at the moment I was writing this introduction, Donald ("grab 'em by the pussy") Trump had appointed just twice as many women to his administration (six out of his 34 choices then) as he had men accused of sexually abusing women in various ways (three). And of course, if you're counting, don't forget Vice President J.D. Vance and his "childless cat ladies" or Trump's biggest, richest buddy, Elon Musk, with his 12 (yes, 12!) children, three wives (or former wives), and a transgender daughter whom he's declared to be "dead" on several occasions. That is certainly anything but a crew who might believe women's bodies are in any way their own.

Once, long ago, in something like another life, I worked as a printer for the New England Free Press, which, in 1970, published a booklet with the title "Women and Their Bodies." The next year, expanded, it would become the famous Our Bodies, Ourselves. But in the age (and he is definitely of a certain age) of You Know Who, as TomDispatch regular Rebecca Gordon makes clear in her latest piece, women are distinctly not considered their own property -- not in the universe of Donald Trump or, as she points out, far-right pundit and white extremist Nick Fuentes, who was infamously hosted by Trump at Mar-a-Lago and wrote this election-night post on X: "Your body, my choice. Forever."

And that turning of a claim of bodily ownership against women so many decades later catches something grimly essential about this all-too-male Trumpian moment in which, in fact, the fellow about to reenter the White House already stands convicted in civil court of sexually abusing (yes, raping) and defaming a woman.

And with all of that in mind, let Gordon take you into the misogynistic world of the next president of the United States and what it means for women (and the rest of us). Tom

Election Aftermath
Staring Down Misogyny

By

"I never realized before that men hate us so much." That was the lesson drawn by one of my fellow organizers in Reno, Nevada, the morning after the 2024 general election. She'd turned 21 during the campaign, a three-month marathon she approached as a daily opportunity to learn as much as she could about everything she encountered. "Of course, they hate immigrants, too," she added, "and I'm both."

That morning of November 6th, I sat down with her and four other women to face the election results. The six of us had spent almost every day together over the previous three months, recruiting, training, and deploying volunteers in northern Nevada in the campaign to elect Kamala Harris president and return Jacky Rosen to the Senate. We didn't yet know that we had indeed managed the latter, but it was already clear that the next president would not be Kamala Harris but Donald Trump. This was my fourth electoral outing with UNITE-HERE, the hospitality industry union. It was, however, my first time working directly with the union's partner in Reno, Seed the Vote (STV), a campaign organization whose mission is to "win elections and build our movements."

I'd initially been skeptical that STV, a progressive nonprofit outfit based in the San Francisco Bay Area, would be able to adapt to the union's model: waging effective electoral campaigns while simultaneously training cooks, bartenders, hotel room attendants, and casino staff in the skills they need to build and sustain a fighting union. Would short-term volunteers show the same discipline and dedication I'd admired in union canvassers over the years? Would they go out again the day after they'd rung a doorbell and a voter carrying a shotgun had screamed at them, or sicced dogs on them, or called the police, or shouted racist curses at them, or even later followed them slowly in a pickup truck? As it turned out, most of them would.

Nor, by the way, was it lost on us that morning that all six of us were women. So are most of UNITE-HERE's members and its two top officials, as was the director of the union's campaign in Reno, along with the folks running the data department (something I had done in 2022). A wide variety of concerns brought us to this battle, but all of us knew that as women, along with struggles for a living wage, affordable housing, and access to health care, we were fighting for our lives.

Welcome to Gilead. Enjoy Your Stay.

In Donald Trump we confronted a candidate who'd promised to "protect" women -- "whether the women like it or not." He'd bragged about appointing the Supreme Court justices who'd overturned Roe v. Wade, effectively ending bodily autonomy for millions of women. He'd claimed that handing control of women's bodies over to 50-odd state and territorial governments was what "everybody wanted." I doubt it was the kind of "protection" Jessica Barnica wanted when Texas doctors refused her abortion care in the midst of a miscarriage, causing her to die of sepsis three days later. And it probably wasn't what any of the other women wanted whose horror stories about suffering -- and death -- after the end of Roe were recently recounted in a New York magazine article, "Life after Roe." No, we did not "like" the kind of protection that Donald Trump was offering us at all.

Here was a man whose earlier boasts about sexual assault hadn't kept him out of the White House in 2016. Here was one who claimed that his female opponent in 2024 was born "mentally disabled." There's something wrong with Kamala and I just don't know what it is, but there's something missing and you know what? Everybody knows it." It's hard not to conclude that, to Trump, the "something missing" was a penis.

Penises were certainly on Trump's mind when he reposted a photo of Harris with Hillary Clinton over the caption: "Funny how blowjobs impacted both their careers differently-- That was, in part, an allusion to the right-wing trope that Harris had slept her way to the top, getting her start in politics through a brief relationship with California powerbroker Willie Brown. And Trump was a candidate whose sprint to the electoral finish line was fueled by attacks on some of the most vulnerable women of all -- transgender teenagers.

Next Page  1  |  2  |  3

(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).

Rate It | View Ratings

Tom Engelhardt Social Media Pages: Facebook page url on login Profile not filled in       Twitter page url on login Profile not filled in       Linkedin page url on login Profile not filled in       Instagram page url on login Profile not filled in

Tom Engelhardt, who runs the Nation Institute's Tomdispatch.com ("a regular antidote to the mainstream media"), is the co-founder of the American Empire Project and, most recently, the author of Mission Unaccomplished: Tomdispatch (more...)
 

Go To Commenting
The views expressed herein are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.
Writers Guidelines

 
Contact AuthorContact Author Contact EditorContact Editor Author PageView Authors' Articles
Support OpEdNews

OpEdNews depends upon can't survive without your help.

If you value this article and the work of OpEdNews, please either Donate or Purchase a premium membership.

STAY IN THE KNOW
If you've enjoyed this, sign up for our daily or weekly newsletter to get lots of great progressive content.
Daily Weekly     OpEd News Newsletter
Name
Email
   (Opens new browser window)
 

Most Popular Articles by this Author:     (View All Most Popular Articles by this Author)

Tomgram: Nick Turse, Uncovering the Military's Secret Military

Tomgram: Rajan Menon, A War for the Record Books

Noam Chomsky: A Rebellious World or a New Dark Age?

Andy Kroll: Flat-Lining the Middle Class

Christian Parenti: Big Storms Require Big Government

Noam Chomsky, Who Owns the World?

Comments Image Post Article Comment and Rate This Article

These discussions are not moderated. We rely on users to police themselves, and flag inappropriate comments and behavior. In accordance with our Guidelines and Policies, we reserve the right to remove any post at any time for any reason, and will restrict access of registered users who repeatedly violate our terms.

  • OpEd News welcomes lively, CIVIL discourse. Personal attacks and/or hate speech are not tolerated and may result in banning.
  • Comments should relate to the content above. Irrelevant, off-topic comments are a distraction, and will be removed.
  • By submitting this comment, you agree to all OpEd News rules, guidelines and policies.
          

Comment Here:   


You can enter 2000 characters.
Become a Premium Member Would you like to be able to enter longer comments? You can enter 10,000 characters with Leader Membership. Simply sign up for your Premium Membership and you can say much more. Plus you'll be able to do a lot more, too.

Please login or register. Afterwards, your comment will be published.
 

Username
Password
Show Password

Forgot your password? Click here and we will send an email to the address you used when you registered.
First Name
Last Name

I am at least 16 years of age
(make sure username & password are filled in. Note that username must be an email address.)

No comments  Post Comment

 
Want to post your own comment on this Article? Post Comment


 

Tell A Friend