crazy cat lady

seeing a lot of people talking about the commentary on women in the election.

my first instinct, because i trauma-bonded to facts long ago, is to hug the yield curve. but if the commentary were on queer people, i wouldn’t hug the curve quite so quickly.

at a fundamental level, women in america have never been free. most men in america haven’t been either, but whereas there are classes of men that have been/are free, there is no class of women that has been. or is. that makes turning away from commentary about women unwise. because if you can’t even talk about yourself not being free, you’re even farther from being free. (why are most readers and writers women? if you had to escape this world to be free, and you found a way to do that via fictional worlds in books … )

commentary on women in elections tends to get down to a few issues, including abortions. at a fundamental level, the one trait i see in supporters of abortions that i do not see in opponents of abortions is the empathy to let people who aren’t like you make decisions you wouldn’t.

trust, in other words.

a politics in which men empower women to get laid a ton and have no more babies than they want requires trust that those women will continue the cycle that put those men in power. in my experience, that cycle is a world apart from the dominionism and other elements of coercion that men like donald trump and jd vance support.

that coercion is dispensed in a number of forms, including rhetoric. rhetoric is often used to label things people — men — in power disdain because it reduces their ability to coerce women. they use terms like crazy cat lady and career woman to dismiss the freedom women seek. witch is an older term for the same thing.

if a politician — if a person — doesn’t want you to be free, and uses words to show you same, maybe don’t vote for — maybe don’t support — them.

<3