In between the six year old refusing to put away dishes and the toddler melting down over her Play-Doh being the wrong color, I took some time today to look over Facebook. That was my first mistake, because I got all agitated and distracted. The second mistake came when I was so engrossed in an article about a certain poem recited today and the comments underneath that I failed to notice I wasn't alone until I heard Bren exclaim, "That's disgusting. Someone actually said that?"
Thanks to Trump, Ashley Judd, and Nina Donovan, I found myself having to explain what a "Nasty Woman" was, where the term originated, and why women were protesting across the world. She nodded and "Uh-huh"-ed through most of my explanation, but finally asked, "So, if everybody wants tolerance and acceptance, why are they being so mean?"
And so I got to teach my daughter about blinders.
If you're a horse-person, you know what I mean. Blinders (or blinkers) are flaps of leather or cloth on the side of a bridle that limit a horse's field of vision and are meant to prevent the horse from being spooked or distracted by obstacles or other animals. They don't hurt the horse or limit its movement, but no matter which way the horse looks, it can only see a restricted, narrow view.
The difference between people and horses is that people willingly put on blinders so they only see what they want to see. That doesn't make what they see less true or real, but it does mean that they only see part of the entire picture. The things that are inconvenient, disturbing, scary, or don't fit their narrative are blocked and forgotten, as if they never existed. It's human nature to dismiss what we don't understand or like, and to demonize the people who we disagree with. To see clearly, we have to remove the biases that blind us just as intentionally as we put those limits on our point of view.
I don't agree with some of the platforms espoused by the Women's March, but I understand why they are important to people and why this is a scary time for part of our population. While I understand why people are defensive, I despise the hateful and ignorant rhetoric being thrown around by both sides. Though I am glad some of my friends were touched by Judd's performance, I personally found it abhorrent. I didn't like the style, I didn't like the language, and I certainly did not like parts of the message, some of which were subtly just as divisive and openly as crude, petty, and derogatory as anything that Trump has said. It did not speak to me or my experiences as a woman.
I am not a Nasty Woman. I do not need to claim that title and make it mine to take my individual power back, because I never lost it. I have not been dismissed, marginalized, or diminished by men as a whole because of my sex. I do not have to be vulgar to combat vulgarity.
I do not want to raise Nasty Women. I want to raise Competent, Confident Women. I want them to know their worth and their power, that it comes from them and God, and not feel threatened by people who don't understand or value that worth. I want them to stand up for what they believe in without degrading or debasing themselves. I want them to be able to tell the difference between actual injustice and convenient outrage. I want them to not need blinders, but to be able to see all around them without being overwhelmed or spooked. That's what I want for my daughters, and it doesn't come from a government or a program or a movement defining them, but from how they define themselves.
That's heavier than I wanted to go with this blog, especially right at the beginning, but this is what is stuck in my head and, hey, you don't have to read it if you don't want to (bet you wish I'd put that at the beginning). There is a variety of opinions among my friends, and I'm grateful for them, for the points they give me to consider, and the fact that we can disagree without being cruel or snide. Maybe I'm just being naïve, but taking time to understand each other, to speak to each other and come up with acceptable solutions that we strive together to implement, is how we solve problems--not snarky memes, not activist poetry, not catchy but misrepresented statistics or my-way-or-the-highway demands. Just my two cents. I'll be delightfully trivial next time, but for tonight, be kind to yourselves and to others. You're worth it, and so are they.
