Nice, Nasty, and Deplorable, #SoCS

A few years back, late one night, I sat in silence and I thought. I thought and I wrote a letter to a special little girl in my life, about how she could be a superhero or a princess, or both. I wanted her to know she could do anything, be anyone, and go anywhere.

I wish I believed that, even here and now, for her and for myself and for all girls and women. I don’t, but I believe in our feminine spirit. We will. We are already accomplishing so much, more than women long ago likely ever would have hoped for, dreamt of.

Stream of Consciousness Saturday, #SoCS

It was really only one hundred years ago now since women were to be granted the same rights as men, voting rights, to help decide the direction of their own country. Canada started with Manitoba.

Women had to be polite, nice, and ladylike. They had to be whatever men wanted or needed them to be, but of course, not all of them were. I can’t judge, either way, as I can scarcely imagine what it was like in those days.

Heck, these days it still feels like we haven’t progressed nearly far enough. I must be patient, keep telling myself to look again at how far we’ve come, but then I say to myself that I don’t need to stay quiet and just be satisfied with the progress thus far. I can and should want more, expect more from the world. Us nice women are never happy I suppose.

We can all pretend misogyny didn’t play a part in the US election of 2016, but that would be as dishonest and disingenuous as saying that neither did racism show its true colours…yes, even after a black man was in charge for eight years. There were many factors, of course, but all the denial is nothing new. It just continually surprises me how prevalent the need is to pretend we’ve come far enough in our efforts to accept each other, to recognize all we have to offer for our gifts and talents and viewpoints.

I am not from the country that just voted yet another man to run the show. Actually, I am from Canada and we did that last year. He will do, for now, but somewhere in Canada there is a young girl who will be the woman next in line.

We had a female prime minister, over twenty years ago, but for only a brief moment in time, set up against all the nearly 150 years of being run by men.

This means we keep moving forward, not going back. Any good election slogan is one that will stick in people’s minds. The most recent example, Make America Great Again, this is one of the most baffling things I’ve heard in a long time. No part of North America was all that great for women, during this period of “again” everyone loves to reference.

I miss all the memes meant as activism, because I can’t see, that circulate on Facebook nowadays. I read and I write because I can. I blog about all that will never stop being important to me and to the better world I want to see the next generation grow up in.

It’s funny how the slogan from a century ago fits into a lineup of words that can’t possibly hold down or peg down any human being.

What else is there to do when “nasty” is used to describe a strong woman or when “deplorable” is used to label any sized group of your opponent’s voting base? If you can’t beat em, join em, is that it?

All I can say is, we’ve all got our work still cut out for us.