I’ve Got Two Words For You Bernie and Tom: Fuck and No.
I have been a proud Democrat since I declared myself one in third grade. And probably like some of you reading this, I’ve worked on many dozens of campaigns for Democrats in my life, pouring uncountable hours of labor and dedication into the success of a party that I believed saw me as an equal and had my back in forcing others to treat me as one.
Once the dust fully settled from this past election, I did my best to swallow my feelings about some of those within the party who I believed were partially to blame for the result, and advocated for mutual understanding and party unity if for no other reason than 2018 and 2020. I did this because fighting back together seemed to be the only way to win the House and eventually get rid of Trump. I believed that this was the most important thing and that there was nothing ideologically that I wouldn’t sacrifice to achieve that goal. I was wrong.
If women’s reproductive rights are not an absolutely fundamental, non-negotiable part of the Democratic platform, then I am not a Democrat. If the leaders of the party think that they can endorse someone without consequence, who believes that forcing unnecessary medical procedures on women seeking abortion in an attempt to dissuade her from exercising her constitutional rights is A-OK, they are in for a rude awakening.
Who do they think does the work of campaigning, organizing, and protesting? Walk into any campaign office anywhere at take a look around at who is doing the bulk of the work. And we’re supposed to keep being good little troopers, sacrificing our time, money, and earning hours while guys, the leaders of the party we work so hard for, pontificate in front of crowds about the need to compromise on the basic rights of those very women? Two words: FUCK and NO.
As a woman, I am sick to death of compromise. And I’m sick to death of watching my sisters compromise their rights to push forward yet another white guy who doesn’t get it. Our equality is NOT negotiable. It’s not just one more detail in a platform that can be brushed aside from time to time for expediency; it’s the basic belief that over half of the party actually has the right to control her own body!
Why are we so willing to put our economic, professional, and interpersonal security on the line for another privileged white guy? To shrug off our very dignity and rights as a human being? And, more importantly, who are we as white, financially stable women to decide that it’s ok to concede when those most affected by restrictions to our reproductive freedom are low-income women and, disproportionately, women of color? As a woman at the end of her reproductive life, and with the means to fly halfway around the world to obtain a safe and legal abortion if needed, in a real-world, concrete way, I don’t give a shit about how the slow degradation of the commitment to women’s reproductive equality affects me personally. But that means I have to be 1000x more awake to how it would affect those to whom it would be devastating. It would be very easy to not recognize how little cuts of the knife into the basic rights of women impact the status of women as a whole and those most vulnerable specifically. This is privileged, white feminism 101. Stop it!
So no, I will not just think of winning the mid-terms in 2018 and defeating Trump and suck it up. No, I am not willing to be pragmatic and wait for my rights to be fashionable again. I am not looking for perfection. I am looking for basic, fundamental equality. Without it, they’re on their own and to hell with the consequences. Bernie thinks he has a revolution going? That’s cute. Keep throwing women under the bus and they’ll all be reminded of the real meaning of the word.
