life between the pages

“I spent my life folded between the pages of books.
In the absence of human relationships I formed bonds with paper characters. I lived love and loss through stories threaded in history; I experienced adolescence by association. My world is one interwoven web of words, stringing limb to limb, bone to sinew, thoughts and images all together. I am a being comprised of letters, a character created by sentences, a figment of imagination formed through fiction.”
Tahereh Mafi, Shatter Me

Wednesday, January 09, 2008

eyeing the soapbox

you all know i am not a pundit. i do not run my mouth (or my fingers) very much about politics. i can't predict the immediate future, only basic trends over time. so i'm never very much good at saying anything useful about mundane things like political primaries.

but after yesterday, i just have to say: YOU GO, GIRL. Here are the numbers. for the first time, we are sending a woman to the convention who has an actual chance of making it.

this is important.

our society has a history of squashing women who do not fit the mold we make for them. hilary, unfortunately, too often for my taste DOES fit that mold. she's a tough, unyielding bitch. good for her. we made her that way. but you know what makes me happiest, and makes me really feel good about liking her?

she didn't forget how to feel, when it mattered. thank you, mrs. clinton, for NOT being too big to cry. you had me worried there for a bit, i was sure you were too much one of the boys to remember how to find your own feelings. here's a hug, and a pat on the back.

congratulations, you earned it.

2 comments:

RaeS said...

But I don't *like* Hillary Clinton... and wouldn't it be terrible if a woman was elected president and she was the wrong woman?... Just as bad if not worse (since it hasn't happened before) than when the wrong man is elected?

susannah eanes said...

um, no.

i haven't decided for whom i'll vote.

i just thought it was great to finally see her take off that iron-jawed mask, for a minute, and let her real feelings show.

think about that for a minute.

we should never hold women to a higher standard of behavior than we hold men. maybe louisa may alcott said it best, in the words of jo march:

"I find it poor logic to say that women should vote because they are good. Men do not vote because they are good; they vote because they are male and women should vote, not because we are angels and men are animals, but because we are human beings and citizens of this country."

so, therefore, it doesn't matter what kind of woman we elect to the white house, as long as she is duly elected and the process is fair and reflects the will of the people. just as much as it has always been for a man - for better or for worse. it is the system we have put in place, and it is flawed, but it is what we have. and until a better system evolves (which i believe will happen), it is a travesty of justice not to have had a capable, competent, (or incompetent) woman succeed in it.

my 45c, as usual.