When I finally went to bed late last night, there was a small part of me that hoped I would wake up this morning to find that Donald Trump’s improbable victory had been nothing more than a very bad dream.
Barring that, which I knew was a bit of a long shot, I hoped that I would at least wake up with the inklings of a plan for what to do about this catastrophe. I hoped I could write a rousing blog post sketching out my thoughts on the road ahead– for this blog and for the anti-Trump movement as a whole.
Alas, that didn’t happen either. I’m still processing the bad news, emotionally and intellectually. And I know a lot of you are doing the same.
And that’s ok. Trump will not take office until the end of January. There will be plenty of time to come up with ways to fight back against the orange one.
Right now the important thing is to take care of ourselves and those around us. Give yourself however much time you need. Avoid stress. Don’t beat yourself up for what happened, and don’t take out your anger on others on our side. Turn off the news if need be. Do whatever you need to do to clear your head and keep yourself safe.
In the comments here, feel free to continue the discussion that started in the “VOTE” post yesterday. And please share any self-help and self-care strategies you have — even if all you’ve got at the moment is pictures of cats and videos of hedgehogs.
If trolls show up, or if there is anything else that pops up in the thread that I should know about, please send me an email about it.
We can fight this thing. We can beat this thing. But first we need to get ourselves centered.
Well, I’m completely shocked he turned out to be nothing more than a troll. Who could’ve ever foreseen it?
Shocked and appalled!
http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/mlp/images/d/d2/Fluttershy_shocked_S4E14.png
Its a shame. I hoped a law student would be able to make an argument for a case, and back it up with something a bit more intellectually rigorous than YouTube videos. Doesn’t bode well for his ability to pass his tests. Bodes worse for his country if he somehow does.
Well that was … cogent? Interesting? Incisive? Eloquent? Persuasive? No, no, none of those … now what was the word again … oh, yes: pathetic.
Joaquín is struggling (understandably: it may be a tough course; it’s certainly a fucked economy now) aaaaand where does he place the blame? Not on Argentina’s very own Trumplet, not even on the men at the top of his law course and his uni and his country, or the men having job ads placed for “hot, compliant” women that he sees swarming all around him as if in a nightmare. Nope, the blame must lie with the wimminz, of course! Well, only the “hot, compliant” ones (after all, it’s not like there’s any other kind whose existence is even worthy of notice).
I can’t help wondering how Joaquín would honestly feel about applying for a job where it’s understood that he will be subjected to constant sexual harassment by more powerful men*, and expected to be on permanent display (assuming he were “hot” enough to qualify, of course). I wonder how privileged he would think he was.
And quoting Viscaria,
* I put “men” only because on current showing I think it’s a safe bet to say that Joaquín has zero grasp of harassment, and is incapable of mapping himself into that situation with a female harasser.
@opposablethumbs
Yeah, because being constantly harrassed by the opposite sex would be a NIGHTMARE for me hahaha.
One at a time ladies!!!
Oh and one last thing, i DID try to discuss this seriously, but since you were so hellbent on considering me a troll despite my best efforts i said “screw it” i will play along.
No wonder Trump won, you treat everyone who doesn’t agree with you %100 as enemies, because feminism is perfect, and everyone should catter to your goals.
Keep antagonizing everyone who disagrees with you, and lock yourself up in your pretty safe space, which to be fair is what you did the last 8 years. You really should have seen this coming.
Away.
@Joaquin
If you aren’t going to actually be done here, please do try to be more interesting.
Yeap, that’s the typical dood reaction to women being harassed.
“Haha, I’d love the attention! Form a line, ladies!”
Here’s the thing, Joaquin. Harassment isn’t flirting.
Sure, it feels like flirting when you do it to women – it’s your intention, after all. You’re being flirty, why’s she being such a bitch about it? Amirite?
And there’s the problem. You don’t give a shit whether she wants the attention. You just want to be free to give your attention to her when you feel like it.
To put your attention on her, when you feel like it.
And she needs to giggle and respond, or she’s the bitch, instead of you being absolutely fucking clueless and uncaring about the lives beyond your own.
I’d say you’ve got the emotional perceptions of a child, but I like children.
http://img15.deviantart.net/73de/i/2012/141/0/2/fluttershy_angry_vector_by_starshinecelestalis-d4z99mv.png
Learn to have some fucking empathy.
Joaquin, are the fumes from the sump pump next to your bed overwhelming you?
@Jose
Bruh, seriously? You can’t say you have no privilege and then think you can dictate the particulars of your own harassment…
If you were here to discuss seriously, you would have been way more modest and open in your posts, and you would reply with more acknowledgement of the posts made against you. Here, I’ll show you:
You’re right on this – one of the problems was that a number of voters (the Bernie Bros) decided that if they couldn’t have everything they wanted they would throw all their toys out of the pram.
That isn’t feminism though, that’s the left in general. Feminism has a healthy and bubbly conversation about what is and isn’t included, and how to react to problems.
(Note also that right wing philosophies also have major ideological splits all the ding-dang day, too, so the same arguments can be leveled on either side. But I digress).
See? That’s how you have a discussion!
Lol.
Progressive ideologies are still on the rise across the world, jerk. 18% of the American populace voted for Trump, yes, and that was enough for various reasons.
And yet a majority and growing number of Americans want comprehensive background checks for firearms.
And yet a majority and growing number of Americans want some sort of universal health care.
And yet a majority and growing number of Americans believe in equal rights for LGBT citizens.
And yet a majority and growing number of Americans want the richest members of society to pay more taxes than they are – to pay their fair share.
This election hasn’t changed that, and I’ll bet bottom dollar that this Trump win will do nothing but accelerate that growth.
Do you watch the fucking news? Half of the states in the union are filled with protests that show no signs of stopping. They aren’t protesting him because their feels have been hurt, jackass. They’re protesting him because his platform goes against the American spirit.
But yeah, we’ve been hiding in our safe spaces.
Lol.
Doesn’t anyone have BINGO with this jamoke, yet?
@Joaquin:
As the saying goes: “A man alone in a room full of women is delighted. A woman in a room full of men is terrified.” You plainly manifest this attitude (in saying that you would welcome harassment from them; your thought that you could possibly welcome harassment, which by definition is unwelcome, is facepalm-worthy), and you still have the gall and doltishness to say that women are privileged. Scildfreja already dealt with you better than I could and more comprehensively than you deserve. I am beginning to see why she is well-esteemed here.
Piss off, troll. I repeat: let’s ban this ass-hat.
@Joaquin
You know, several people spent time trying to speak civilly to you and explain our positions. You ignored us and continued on your own rampage. So what you are really saying is that we should stop disagreeing with everyone who disagrees with us so that we won’t antagonize them. This is not going to happen.
But maybe you thought you were the amazing guy who could come here and convince us all to change our minds with your dazzlingly brilliant arguments about those poor men afraid to get in the elevator in Sweden, and the poor men who can’t get the degrading jobs for hawt chicks in your country, and those poor men who get executed for murdering their own children.
Keep working on it, and maybe in 10 or 15 years you’ll come up with an argument that will probably still be wrong, but at least won’t be utterly idiotic.
me:
Joaquín (in direct response):
QED, querido, QED. I honestly don’t think you could have proved me right any more resoundingly if you’d tried.
Ladies….shhhhhhh about those checks! I’m not supposed to even acknowledge they’re sent out, we don’t want those republicans catching word about budget line 67478-X!
Whenever men say they’d love to be harassed, they’re picturing themselves surrounded by a gaggle of giggling lingerie models and it turning into a porn scene. If women harassed men the way men harass women, it would not work like that.
Trigger warning: sexual harassment, stalking..
Hi JoaquinRL1,
I’m a man. I’ve been sexually harassed by a woman. It wasn’t fun at all. It made me feel very afraid, and caused me to have issues with using the internet.
She was very smart, which attracted us together; she was also very conventionally-attractive and well read, which didn’t hurt. We were living in different cities so the few months we spent together were mostly spent apart. Over that time, it became apparent to me that she had some severe boundary and control issues, and that I was safest being away from her.
I remember very clearly the day we broke up. She had a pattern of not responding to messages until I was about to go to bed, and then responding quickly and getting anxious if I didn’t reply. When I broke it off I tried to be as neutral as possible, blaming myself and saying that I just wasn’t in the right place. She responded immediately, and spent the evening making increasingly desperate and lurid pleas.
The next day she messaged me as if we’d never broken up at all. I didn’t respond to it. She then called me threatening suicide, sent me nude pictures of herself (which had not been part of our relationship), and changed her social-media status to “widowed.”
Over the next few months, I got almost daily messages from her: some flirty, some desperate, some angry, some with image attachments. She said that I wasn’t being a good friend to her. She said I was being a terrible person. She said she couldn’t continue to date me (!) if I was going to act like this. She tried rubbing my nose in her involvement with other men. When that didn’t get a response, she harassed my friends.
When I started dating someone else (and posted about it on social media) she sent her a torrent of abuse to my new partner, accusing her of betraying female solidarity by stealing another woman’s man. When my new partner and I broke up, she messaged me and tried to be the warm comforting reassuring figure. I didn’t respond, and I am proud of that.
When I blocked her, she started using new names and email addresses to contact me with. It made me unsure of whether any given person was actually her, and made it difficult for me to confidently talk to people online.
She found me on LinkedIn and OKCupid. (To this day I have no idea how.) For the next few years I would occasionally get a profile-view from her. The last one was a few months ago.
I have warned every woman I’ve been involved with that I have a stalker, which is a very uncomfortable conversation to have. She hasn’t sent anything to my current partner, and I’m grateful.
Therefore, JoaquinRL1, when you say this:
My response is that you don’t know what you’re talking about, and (more importantly) have no compassion towards men who have been in that situation.
Trigger warning: sexual harassment, stalking..
That’s awful, EJ, I’m so sorry. Thank you for sharing your story with us.
I sent an email to David.
Shit, EJ, that sounds awful. I’m sorry you had to go through that.
And yeah, fuck you, JoaquinRL1. You’ve been consistently terrible on this thread, and even though some people have shown an admirable amount of patience with you considering your attitude, you have shown no interest in learning anything. Grow an empathy or grow wings and fly the fuck out of here.
Better yet, let the banhammer hit you on your way out.
http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_meg02hHyFW1qcwic6.gif
@EJ
Sorry, man. That’s terrible. Hugs and love, buddy 🙂
Thanks, Viscaria, Anarchonist and m’lud Marchioness.
I acknowledge my privilege, in that no matter how unsafe it made me feel, I did not have the same physical risk as a woman would in a gender-flipped situation. I was never afraid that she was going to rape and/or murder me.
This is probably a very good example of male privilege, thinking about it.
@EJ
*curtsies* ?
Aight, muffuga. Somebody is taking time outta their triflin ass day to make you feel unsafe. Just accept the hugs, dammit! <3 🙂 <3