©2018 by John LaTorre
In one of Kurt Vonnegut’s
books (and I’m not going to tell you which one, because that would be a
spoiler), there’s a mural that depicts the human wreckage in the aftermath of
World War II. The mural is eight feet high and sixty-four feet long, and shows
thousands of human figures: soldiers, concentration-camp survivors, prisoners
of war, and innocent civilians, all rendered in exquisite detail. Its artist
wanted to depict what happens when you let men determine the course of history,
and what a cock-up they’ve made of it. (And somehow, the term “cock-up” becomes
doubly appropriate here.)
The name of the mural is “Now
It’s the Women’s Turn.”
I was thinking of that mural yesterday
as a participated in the Sacramento Women’s March last Saturday. I was able to
hear every word of every speech, since I was a volunteer security guard
stationed at the elevated platform, just in front of the Capitol steps, that
was reserved for the press. Most of the speeches made reference, in one way or
another, to the importance of voting in the upcoming mid-term elections. There
was also general agreement that women were in a position to define their
futures in a way that has been unprecedented in American history since women
won the right to vote almost a hundred years ago.
Those were important things
to say. But what struck me as even more important was the call for women to
participate in elections not simply by voting, but also by running for elected
office. If you question the need for this, look no farther than any picture of
any legislature, state or federal, anywhere in this country. You won’t see a
lot of women there, although women constitute more than half the country’s
population.
One speaker made a telling
point when she said that there is no path to equality in this country, and that
there never has been. A path only exists when the pathfinders make one, pushing
against the obstacles that are placed before them. That was true of the suffragettes
and labor activists who faced beatings, imprisonment, and death at the
beginning of the last century, and of the marchers who faced fire-hoses and
police dogs fifty years later. Nobody gave these activists any rights. They
took them.
That situation will also be
true for women in their current quest for political equality, although the
weapons used by the people in power will be different now. When women put their
names on ballots, they will find themselves opposed by the same white male
power that has dominated politics since the birth of this country. They will be
confronted by the power that comes from corporations, political action
committees, and media outlets, which are controlled predominately by rich white
males. It won’t be a pretty fight.
To win that battle, women
will have to find ways to neutralize that power, and to leverage what power
they themselves have. By and large, they won’t have the wealth to compete
dollar for dollar. But if they can convince voters that they are better equipped to
do the job, by virtue of the same skills at negotiation, compassion, compromise,
and reconciliation that they have been honing for thousands of years in a
male-dominated world, then they’ll have a chance. And as Vonnegut pointed out
in his novel, we men have had a conspicuous lack of success in those things,
which is why we have wars, and which is why our government has now been shut
down by the very men we have elected to keep this sort of thing from happening.
I’m not saying that all women
are better than all men at governing. There are too many women like Kellyanne
Conway, Ann Coulter, and Sarah Palin to convince me that all women are immune
from poison politics. And it amazes me still that so many women voted for
Donald Trump, whose contempt for women and for women’s issues is plain to see.
But do you remember the white women
who led the crowds who were spewing hatred at the black students trying to
integrate the New Orleans school system back in 1960? It’s obvious to me that, just
as the latest “alt-right” fringe is merely the most recent manifestation of old
groups like the Ku Klux Klan and the Fascists, the women I mentioned in the
last paragraph are simply the old anti-progressives with more stylish clothes
and an updated vocabulary of catch-phrases. Like their counterparts of
yesterday, they are cheerleaders for a social structure that keeps rich white
men in power, and everybody else out of it.
So how will women find ways
to neutralize that power in the battles to come? They’ll do it by addressing
issues that have been portrayed by the media as women’s issues, but that have
really been human issues. Are women more moved to action by a starving child
than a man would be? Or by a family facing bankruptcy due to a catastrophic
illness? Or by young mothers dying because they cannot receive decent pre-natal
care? I think that women are motivated
by these issues, because the loudest voices on the issues have usually come
from women. They’re the ones, as wives and mothers, who have to clean up most
of the mess, and when the social safety net collapses, it usually affects them
and their children first. They’re the best spokespersons for the issue, because
they’ve seen the results first-hand.
So I repeat: these issues
aren’t “women’s issues.” They’re “human issues” with a largely female face. And
women’s path to electoral success lies in convincing men that these human
issues cannot be ignored or turned into levers for political advantage.
For example, we now have a government
shut-down because Democrats were, in effect, forced to choose between two
causes: health care for children, or keeping families of undocumented workers
intact and able to give their children the best possible chance of success. You
can’t have both, the Republicans said. Choose one or the other, or we will shut
the government down. And when you don’t make that choice, and the government
closes, it will be the fault of the Democrats for not having made that choice.
But why can’t we have both?
Why do we need to choose which one is more important? And why can’t we have a
government that won’t force us to make that choice? Wouldn’t a government
composed of equal numbers of men and women, with a genuine concern for its
citizens, be more willing to find a solution that can keep that government
functioning without the need to make such heartless choices?
Let’s find out. Let’s elect
as many women as we can, as soon as we can. Let them be presidents and senators
and congresswomen and governors and county commissioners. Let them be
councilwomen and mayors and judges and school-board members. And above all, let
them be accountable to their electors and not to the old, tired political
structure that is failing us.
It’s their turn now.
