shame does not a movement make

and smearing millions of people's faces in the feces of right-wing misogyny is not going to make the right (or left) care more about women.

I watched the Martha Stewart documentary last night. Have you seen it? I think you should. It tells a very American story about a woman who was beloved by all when she was homemaking, growing a business that centered domesticity. Of course, as soon as that business went public and she became the first woman billionaire in this country the men fucking came for her. And yes I realize NO ONE SHOULD BE A BILLIONAIRE but if you don’t find it odd that THE MEN WENT AFTER the most powerful woman in business in a way THEY WERE NOT GOING AFTER MEN in business, then you aren’t paying attention.

And it reminded me of the thing I have been saying over and over these last few days in response to anyone saying AMERICAN MEN HATE WOMEN. Because I truly believe that American men LOVE women, actually. So long as we’re less powerful than they are. (I do not think Americans will elect a Democratic woman anytime soon. I do think we will elect a Republican one however! So long as she upholds patriarchal values SHE SHALL LEAD THE FREE WORLD! )

But I digress. I have seventeen posts in drafts about the election. I have been writing them for weeks, months… wanting desperately to scream NO DON’T DO THAT but also recognizing the hypocrisy of calling out in-fighting.

I am a registered Democrat but that’s only because I cannot vote in the primaries as an Independent (which I consider myself NOW more than ever) although I have only ever voted progressively. I have only ever voted for candidates who believe women are human beings who deserve autonomy. Because everything I need to know about a candidate starts and stops with women’s choice. But for the same reason I go hard for women’s choice I also go hard against ANYONE who shames women for their choices because I recognize that SO MANY women choose THE MEN in their lives over THEIR OWN NEEDS because that is what they have been raised and instructed and culturally conditioned to do and instead of calling them names, I have spent the last few years trying to convert them NOT TO MY POLITICAL PARTY but to THEIR OWN FUCKING POWER.

As soon as Kamala was announced I spoke to this directly:

In the last eight years I have gone from feeling angry at these women for their complicity to wanting to hug them so that they understand that they don’t have to be. (And I am not suggesting that anyone needs to feel this way. I am only sharing this because my own fluidity has given me much needed perspective as well as hope that as much as I have changed over the years, so may have others.)

And those are the women who I am hoping to bring into our voter bloc so that we can win this. The women who ARE WAKING UP. The women who are torn between what they were taught and what they want to unlearn.

Women who will gravitate toward the community that VALIDATES them as opposed to SHAMES.

Women who are tired of men telling them what to do — with their lives and their votes and their bodies — both in and out of their homes.

Well guess fucking what.

We didn’t validate them at all.

And this post (coupled with this one) is the reason I deleted Threads. Because asking an audience to stop shaming the VERY women we should be reaching out to join us got me dogpiled by my own fucking party. (Say what you will about Republicans. Their policies are racist, sexist, homophobic and patriarchal but they do know how to play the long game. They gas each other up without twisting each other’s words in order to virtue signal. They do not edit each other’s typos. EVERYONE IS INVITED TO THEIR LET’S-FUCK-THE-WORLD-IN-THE-ASSHOLE-LOL-PARTY. They are not trying to out “good guy” each other. In fact, the more open you are to NOT GETTING IT RIGHT, THE MORE THEY WANT TO HANG OUT. THE MORE FUCKED UP SHIT YOU DO, THE MORE CELEBRATED YOU SEEM TO BE!)

You think Republicans don’t know Trump is a clown? THEY LOVE HIM FOR IT! It sets them free! They get to be… flawed, too! They get to be shitty, even! No wonder Gen Z white dudes veered right! How liberating it must feel to be able to say whatever the fuck they want, honestly! Do you know how many (white!) young men are afraid to be cancelled? NOW THEY DON’T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT IT BECAUSE THEIR GUYS ARE IN POWER! And while I think the #MeToo movement started strong, it ate itself with the calling out of every. single. nuanced. thing. to the point of paralysis. And now? No one trusts each other and people seem to believe women even less.

After posting this, I went relatively silent re: the election. Because I realized, unlike in 2016, I didn’t have the energy to fight a losing battle again. Because I would rather put my energy into gassing women up than tearing people down. Because I wasn’t going to give Trump an opportunity to break my heart again. Because “fool me once…”

Instead, I stood by and watched many of the same people who proclaimed ACAB back in 2020, policing TF out of each other’s language and dismissing anyone for not saying the perfect thing according to the rules of whatever extremely online person wrote them.

I watched women apologize on behalf of their entire race in every other comment section without doing shit about shit. These same women came at me, too. Telling me that WHITE WOMEN NEEDED TO BE PUT IN THEIR PLACE by… white women DESPERATE to show how much better they were at being… white women.

And look. I get it! I went through a phase where I did the same thing. Where I truly believed it was my job to call people out! But I was wrong. It did not resolve a single thing and it certainly didn’t make me a better ally. It just made me FEEL like one.

AND THAT THERE IS THE FUCKING PROBLEM.

I am mortified by this need to proclaim THAT WE ARE THE GOOD GUYS. It’s the same as those fucking blue bracelets. Like, ugh! NO!!!! THERE IS NOTHING LESS SAFE THAN A PERSON WHO IS LIKE, “LOOK AT ME! I’M SAFE!” (Some of the worst people I know are the BEST virtue signalers online.)

You want people to trust you? Show up in the world like someone worthy of trust. Stand for something other than your own reputation.

In fact, BE WILLING TO FUCK YOUR REPUTATION UP to do what’s right.

Because while we SAY we stand for each other — we do not collectively act like it. Not as a party. Instead we tear each other to shreds. Turning each other rabid, apathetic and apparently Republican in the process. And, yes, I understand you’re anti-Genocide. Fuckin SAME. But turning your back on THE MOST MARGINALIZED people in this country in order to prove a purity point? Is that not the very definition of privilege?

And, look. Politics are fucking politics. You have to be scrappy and smart and manipulative. You have to say HI COME ON IN AND PARTY WITH US even if that means making room for people you don’t necessarily WANT TO HANG OUT WITH. That means not being a fucking NARC.

And yet, an entire campaign was built around “prosecutor and criminal” as if young people are going to identity more with… a prosecutor? As if those of us who feel more comfortable defying authority are going to suddenly celebrate that kind of language.

The Republican party knows this. Trump personifies “defy authority” in a way PEOPLE LOVVVEEEE. He may be “the man” but he’s also the dude who says “fuck the man!” (This is why I now believe that Bernie is the only person who could have beat him. And everyone who has argued this point in the last eight years was absolutely right.)

Trump pulled the same “FUCK THE MEN/I’M THE MAN” dichotomy when he ran against Clinton as well. She chose her words carefully and he vomited belligerence and the country was, like, THAT LOOKS FUN! And FUN became a distraction. FUN became meme’d by KamalaHQ — an Instagram account that started off VERY COOL and then turned into a Trump fan account. (ALL PUBLICITY IS GOOD PUBLICITY! We learned that in, like, 4th grade!)

A very simple thing to know about all people is that EVERYONE wants to feel validated, seen, listened to. We have allowed those who are incredibly online to become the moral authority of everything. We have become the party where everyone is afraid to say the wrong thing and so we all say nothing — look to the same four people to speak for us so we won’t get in trouble for daring to have our own thoughts.

So guess what looks pretty alluring? The party were saying the wrong thing gets you elected leader of the free world. Where being bombastic and “triggering” the left is hilarious. Where spewing vile shit turns you into a rock star.

It’s very hard to fight misogyny, when people are dragging you for doing womanhood wrong. (Do you know how many articles came out ripping on Ballerina Farm? Do you know who’s hand that played into? Not ours, I’ll tell you that much!) This is one of the reasons I believe that we lost. Because of our sanctimony. Our policing of each other. Our refusal to be open the doors and LET IN the women we NEEDED TO JOIN US in order to win the race. Our finger wagging and judging and shaming and shaming and shaming.

What the left doesn’t understand is that while we think we’re “waking people up” by smearing their noses in what we believe they should be ashamed of, the right is FURTHER doubling down on their ideologies and justifying the VERY things we are shaming them for.

I understand that we’re all angry. Rage is holy and we should be feeling all of the things. Clearly I am very angry, too. But what I’m seeing right now— a sort of movement to name, shame, cancel, blame; by creating highlight reels of the most vile shit we can find from the right — is not going to help ANYONE. Our lack of nuance in this moment. Our binary YOU ARE THE BAD GUYS AND WE ARE THE GOOD GUYS is going to set us back even further. And? It’s not even fucking true.

I always say to my kids, “take notes” when something doesn’t go your way. Look outward AND inward. Understand the things that trigger you AND recognize what you have said that might have triggered others.

Acknowledge that you are as human as anyone. That there is no grace in sanctimony just as there is no grace in ignorance. Do not villainize (or valorize!) without self-reflection. Find the people who are hurting and lost and give them a hand. Gas them up. Reach out to the people in your life who are scared and assure them that you love them. That you have their backs. That you will go hard for them if and when they need you to. That you will aid and abet their abortions. That you will hold their hands and escort them into the spaces they will feel unsafe. That you will break rules if you have to. Go rogue.

And then get involved in orgs that are doing the kind of work that upholds YOUR values. Look to new leaders who aren’t going to parrot the same shit or stand sanctimoniously in the wreckage of this country with “I told you so’s!” and “shame on you!”

Find new voices that are FEARLESS and ORIGINAL and aren’t TRYING TO BE YOUR LEADER. Fuck, be your own leader! Your own fearless voice! We need more of them! The ones who are taking up the most air time have no fucking edge, too concerned are they with bleeping out the curse words.

Anyway. Back to Martha Stewart because I was watching the doc like OH THIS SHIT IS ALL CONNECTED because I truly think it is. Because at the end of the Martha documentary, Martha is a different person. She has been traumatized, robbed, completely fucked by men, called a bitch by the entire world and now is showing up in her life as someone WHO GETS IT. She looks forwards instead of backwards. Tends her garden. Amasses a new kind of power that no one can take away from her. She goes back to work, yes, but this time, with a sense of humor about everything. She mogs for the camera. Rebels when she feels like it. Has FUCKING FUN.

And that is my hope for us as well.

I do not have the answers. But I do believe the point of THIS LIFE is to exist in the curiosity between questions. To be brave enough to advocate for a better world without shaming the majority of it. Without calling the cops on our neighbors and friends. That the toxicity of purity has diluted creativity and made us all turn against each other.

I believe this moment to be a REAL reckoning for all of us to replace our need to shame each other for every fucking thing and instead give each other grace, gas each other up and join forces to fight whatever good fights we have left.

Together.

All of us.

EVEN THE ONES WE DON’T AGREE WITH ALL THE TIME.

Like, me, for example.

And her. And him. And them. And you.

And all of us.

AND ALL OF US.