Hey.
Haven’t been posting much these day. Maybe since the kids are grown men and I’ve said most of what I had to say on parenting I’ve tried to be more of a listener.
At dinner the other night a friend kind of let me (and her husband) have it about what men need to do to step up in this moment as women are being denied a fundamental human right thanks to the Supreme Court. I felt both taken aback by my friend’s vehement and passionate anger, and also knew she was right.
But what voice do I have, I asked myself? And so here I am on my dusty little forgotten blog.
Yet just as I was trying to form words on how we might counter this current attack on freedom for women, I learned that there was a shooting in Highland Park Illinois. I grew up in Chicago, called my brother who lives there, and found out that his close friend’s friend is in surgery, another friend’s aunt is dead, a doctor friend of theirs texted that he did CPR on a child and saw at least five dead bodies, two completely “eviscerated by bullets.”
Although I made many hours of calls to swing states to support Democrats in 2020, I tire of their failure to effectively stop this current slide into erosion of women’s rights, more guns, more dead children, more suicide, more depression, more addiction, more climate denial/or disinterest, more racism, more hate for LGBTQ+ people, more power in the hands of the few against the will of the majority… yet we know that more Republican senators and congressmen and congresswomen will not make things better.
I want to be an ally, and I will make more calls, give time and money, march, and while I do not have the vision to know how to contribute optimally and effectively, much less win, I suspect that our collective power is not yet harnessed for maximum impact.
If you are on the sidelines, please join in whatever way feels right for you. The first calls I made in 2019 had me sweating with anxiety, my stomach in knots, as I felt like I was intruding on people’s lives, but I remember speaking with a frightened woman in Michigan who felt certain Trump would win with all the intimidating shouting and banners around her; but she quietly voted and HE DID NOT WIN.
At the end of the Day, the end of so-called “Independence Day” there are enough of us who believe in equality and women’s fundamental human rights for us to win on this single and era-defining issue if we use our power, our voices, our strength in standing together as women who deserve empowerment, respect, and where needed, protection, and as men to use our power, privilege, passion, and whatever else we have to lend to the cause to stand with our mothers, sisters, daughters, nieces, friends, and fellow human beings.
