A Painful Week for Women

Denial, a refrigerator magnet I own, states is a Goddess-given survival tool. And women have used that survival tool for centuries. It isn't easy to stay in denial about the verbal and physical abuse women have put up with to keep the peace or keep their jobs or stay in a relationship.

But there is a cost to keeping the peace. It steals our confidence and our freedom and our aliveness. We stay married to avoid being single or we find living single works best because the men we pick are wrong. We learn to pal up with other women to do things men get to do alone like long walks in the woods. Some of us quit our jobs we sacrificed so much to get and keep. I could not live with the compromise of keeping my mouth shut to keep my job.

Mother said I was stubborn and had not learned the lesson of keeping silent. I would be happier, she maintained, if I was not so prideful and intelligent. I even toyed with becoming a nun. My aunt told me I could become a boy if I could kiss my elbow. OMG, I tried. You were safe if you were a man or boy.

These days I am self-employed and avoid large parties and lonely walks in the woods without a gun. I tell myself it is because of the bears. Bears don't scare me. Men do.

This week the news broke about Donald Trump and his abusive conduct and degrading language in relation to women. And the walls of denial came cascading down not just for me but for a lot of women I know on the internet or personally. I had to admit the world had not gotten better. Women are still third class citizens without equal rights to even our own bodies. But the truly hurtful part was when men I know excused Trumps shameful behavior. My cousin maintains Donald apologized. And said it was just words. Locker room chatter.

This man who would be president believes women are to use and abuse and demean and be graded on boob size. And a whole political party seems to agree with him. The nation seems to be putting down the women who reported the behavior. One, who lives in the deep south, is even moving to a foreign country to be safe. Fine example we are for the world. I am more thrilled than ever I chose to not bring children into it.