The Collection: Of Hurricanes, High Heels, and Healing

We should hold hands and sing “Kumbaya” once in a while

As some of you may know, our Editor-in-Chief Leslie has been weathering #HurricaneHarvey in Houston this past week. Although her backyard looks like this …

… she reports that fortunately she and her family made it through “dry and with power.” In one of her sporadic social media updates she mused on the sudden value of something our post-Facebook society routinely undervalues: neighborliness.

Not too long ago I was in a discussion about getting to know one’s neighbors, the importance of it. An elderly lady had written an article lamenting how it isn’t the norm anymore and was met with lots of “that’s not how we socialize anymore” push back. Well, the residents of Houston can now remind everyone, this is why neighbors matter. When disaster strikes, friends and family that are 2 miles — heck 2 blocks — away might as well be 200 miles away.

Those of us who remained dry and with power took others in and prepped. Those who flooded were obviously busy. Today was the first day regular high trucks could move around the city. Gather at churches with the donations organized yesterday, etc. The first stores opened. People re-provisioned. But that was the hurry up and wait phase — a much longer one than normal, but the rain just wouldn’t stop.

It will be a long road ahead and I’m sure all our readers wish Leslie and the rest of Houston Godspeed with the clean-up and recovery.

Harvey

Nicole Gelinas gives us many reasons to be thankful in Houston, Above Water, favorably comparing infrastructure and preparedness for Hurricane Harvey to the devastation and aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The fact that, for instance, New Orleans was without power for weeks following Katrina, but 94% of Houston still had power by Wednesday (allowing many more people to stay in their homes, cutting down on looting and general social instability) is a testament to the nation’s ability to learn from its experiences. In short, we’ve come a long way in twelve years.

Yes, We’re Still Talking About Melania’s Shoes

The waves from Nina Burleigh’s excoriation of Melania Trump’s shoes in Newsweek were just starting to subside when Vogue found fresh fodder in an unfortunate picture of the POTUS and FLOTUS preparing to board Air Force One to travel to Houston, in which Melania is conspicuously sporting a pair of her signature stilettos, prompting accusations of tone-deaf self-preoccupation in the wake of a national disaster. Tiana Lowe in the National Review (The Fashion Police Take on Politics) and Georgi Boorman (The Optics of Stilettos) here at Iron Ladies offer diverging takes on the significance, or lack thereof, of the First Lady’s choice of shoe.

(Fun fact: while psycho-analyzing the wardrobe — and particularly the footwear — of the first family may feel like an innovation of our modern, Instagram age, it is actually a time-honored American tradition dating back almost as far as our country’s inception. Thomas Jefferson was perhaps the first President to capitalize on the optics game of at least appearing to be “of the people”, as he, the wealthy holder of the sumptuous Monticello estate, chose to make his Inaugural parade on foot instead of by carriage (like his predecessors Washington and Adams), in part to show off his conspicuously plain shoes, which were fastened not with the fancy buckles associated with the class to which he belonged, but with shoelaces, the much less expensive choice of the commoner. And, like today, editorial America dissected his choice within an inch of its life, one commentator approvingly noting the absence of the aristocratic buckle, which was “superfluous and anti-republican”, while another more cynically pointed out that “In every age of the world, rulers and philosophers have made themselves remarkable for the affectation of some singularity …” Obsessing over the President and first family’s wardrobe may well be petty, it’s a pettiness that we’ve indulged in since time immemorial.)

Rethinking Equality

Most of us — men and women — would say that we are 100% for equal rights for both sexes, but many of us do not want to be associated with feminism. Cathy Young and Melissa Langsam Braunstein both have some ideas for making the movement towards true gender equality- whether we call it feminism, egalitarianism, or nothing at all — more inclusive.

In How to Build a Gender Equality Movement (Arc Digital), Young stresses that “shared goals and values are important, labels are not” and cautions against the “soft authoritarianism” of feminist thought policing.

Braunstein, in Women’s Equality in the 21st Century (Institute for Family Studies), points out the feminist movement’s self-sabotage in making itself synonymous with abortion rights, and refusing to partner with dissenting women on any other causes. Braunstein’s suggested remedy is re-prioritizing around issues that are — or at least should be — less controversial, such as fighting against human trafficking, sex-selective abortions, and child marriages.

From the Magazine:

Despite challenges both great (Hurricane Harvey) and small (Georgi’s computer going on strike), our writers have been hard at work this week, giving us lots of great commentary from both our current contributors and a couple of new ones.

Kitten Holiday started off our line-up with Grasping for Humanity in Trump’s America, a call to Trump voters to combat the dehumanizing narrative pushed by the Left by telling their own stories through creative mediums. Leslie Loftis, between battening down hatches in Houston, gave us a contrasting companion piece from the perspective of a Never Trump Conservative in Conservatives: “Monsters” From the Outside, “Traitors” From the Inside.

In Chasing the Great American Eclipse, newcomer Ramona Saridakis Bean took us along on her multi-state eclipse road trip and reflected on America’s need for finding moments of commonality.

As mentioned previously, Georgi Boorman stood apart from the rest of the con-woman pack on the infamous “Melania getting on a plane to Houston in heels” picture, in The Optics of Stilettos, arguing that the first family is well aware (or should be) that a picture is worth a thousand words in both politics and media, and they deny this reality to their own peril.

For a little creative non-fiction, another new writer, Kristin Leonard, took us back to 1970's San Jose with the harrowing tale of the time her mother got the call saying the the Republicans had her little sister, in The Day The Republicans Kidnapped My Sister.

In religion, Rebecca Lemke gave us her response to Kate Bryan’s Washington Post piece, “I’m a 32-year-old Virgin Living the Feminist Dream”, in Chastity for Feminism’s Sake?, lamenting that grace and gospel are lost amidst Bryan’s effort to fit Christian chastity into a feminist framework.

We finished off the week with the reflections of Houston resident (and new-to-Iron Ladies writer) Elizabeth Look Biar in What I Have Learned From An Epic Flood. From the practical (“ Frozen pizza, ice cream, pasta, and meats sell out AFTER the storm”) to the inspirational (“It doesn’t matter who we vote for or what our beliefs are, when someone needs help, we help”) Elizabeth shares 17 lessons she’s learned from Harvey.

As I compile this, I’m struck by how many pieces in this week’s line-up, particularly those from the magazine this week, hit on themes of American community, pleading (much more coherently, thankfully, than John Lennon & Co) with us to “Come Together” and recognize one another’s shared humanity. It seems many of us are longing to take some shelter from the political polarity that is pulling us further and further apart as a nation. In the past few weeks, we’ve been witness to two events — one tragic (Harvey), and one awe-inspiring (Eclipse 2017) — that have allowed us a few brief moments to do that.

America’s differences are real, but let’s not let these opportunities to stand on solid, common ground pass us by. Take the moment. Make it last as long as it can. As Leslie said, get to know your neighbors — even if they voted for the wrong candidate last year. Talk to someone from “the other side” about something — anything — besides politics. Hold hands and sing Kumbaya.

Differences, like dishes, can and should sometimes wait.