I absolutely love your analysis Susan - as always you are very precise and clear with the true facts rather than our current media who really isn’t liberal at all. The covered Kamala great for 3 weeks then the usual bashing began and just like that - she is lesser of 2 evils. Our media also killed Biden and his coverage was the worst of any sitting President. They feared Trump and bashed Biden.
Please please NEVER STOP WRITING! I need to hear sane and intelligent reasoning and it’s hard to find anymore. We are now Russia as far as the press is concerned!
Every time I heard that "lesser of two evils" nonsense I wanted to explode. Every time I heard her or Walz speak, even just saw a campaign image, I felt my heart lift with optimism for the country and the future. To anyone who comes at me with that bothsider "evil" bullshit (like my younger brother, a conformist industrial executive) I would respond in a way to make Jeff Tiedrich blush.
Thank you for your always cogent observations. As a 72 year old white man, I have been saying much the same thing since November 6. This country (well, the men in this country) aren’t ready to elect a woman president. And a Black/Asian woman? No freaking way. I have come to accept that I may never see a woman president. And for the next four years will be subjected to a non stop barrage of that disgusting felon’s fat face and whiny voice. I have turned off all TV news, and refuse to read any story where the lead image is a photo of the felon.
Thank you Ed. I think it’s particularly depressing for those of us who are old enough to wonder if we will be around when (and if!) it turns around. I think that’s partly why it feels like a death to me. I’m not dying, but for us 70-pluses, it does feel like the resilience of our hope has just about expired.
my personal goal (one of them) is to outlive that grotesque pretender. I want to experience a few years when his bloated face and poisonous pronouncements are not dominating the media. What a balm that will be.
I felt the same bewilderment and hollowness on November 6 as I did after the death of my son, so yes, it felt like a death of this country. We have learned since then that we can still fight and that 45/47’s ignorance and in I may actually help us stop him.
"Why have white men like Bernie Sanders and James Carville been allowed to set the terms of the discussion? Where are the feminist commentators who dare to actually talk about misogyny, sexism, and/or the media mistreatment of female candidates?" I've been screaming these same questions since the election--actually, I began to scream a couple of weeks beforehand, when I saw the way the media coverage was going. Thank you for hearing me, seeing me. You've added a point to the tip of the pencil with your details and I'm grateful. But I'm still so angry at the white women who remain unable to think for themselves, whose minds have been colonized by the imposition of a dominant narrative that has silenced them. I'll go to my grave (I'm 76) with rage and resentment on my lips over this form of self-destruction by a population of trad-wife Disney-princesses, too afraid to let a woman of color fight for the rights they don't know they've lost. I hope you'll write another book!
Love this comment, Jane! It’s so important that we continue to hear and see each other. And at times I do feel the tug of another book. But my agent deserted me and no one new is knocking at my door.
Your agent deserted you? That says a lot about the way the industry tries to silence women, doesn't it. I know there are other women who need your voice so I hope you'll keep posting and looking for another publisher.
It was even worse than just the agent thing. After being very generous with reviews, interviews, etc. for my books on the female body, masculinity, and Anne Boleyn, the corporate media (NYT, WaPo, LaTimes, etc.) basically sent my book on the 2016 election off to die. Surprise, among other things it faulted the media for their coverage of the election. They preferred and promoted “Shattered,” which came out the same week and laid all the blame on Hillary.
Yeah, I was pretty upset, not even so much for myself as because the true story of that election wasn’t allowed to come out. Just to be clear—it wasn’t that they gave me bad reviews, it was that they gave the book NO reviews at all. But hey, what they did to Hillary herself was so much worse!
Susan, thank you. So often when I read you I think, yes, exactly. I'm grateful someone is saying it like it is. I appreciate your perspective very much. And I believe it's immensely important that we keep speaking truth again and again in this time when not only is disinformation wildly rampant but, as you point out, too many actually see the grotesqueness and embrace it as a mirror and a permission to lean into their worst selves.
Thanks so much, Holly! “Saying it like it is” is all the praise I need to keep going. I appreciate your taking the time to let me know it does that for you!
As a trailblazer (one of the first woman, like you, to do many things and break many ceilings in my creative areas of the working world) the last ten years have been… challenging.
Stating the obvious, the patriarchal system has ruled for thousands of years, and rights for women only started to be discussed politically a hundred ago. My grandmother, was vilified because she dared to defy their rules, so I keep reminding myself of this, when I get discouraged. (Prove me wrong guys, sign the ERA already. Hello.)
Especially after the last few US elections. I begrudgingly accept that perhaps, the changes I long for, have lived and worked for more than half a century, may not happen in my lifetime, despite our best efforts.
The tech bro billionaires cheat, swinging states with their big data crunching, and now they think they have the right, and a democratic mandate to continue to rule. (My drone is bigger than yours.) Liars, cheaters, murderers, the mafia, arms dealers and bit coin shuckers. After a lifetime spent trying to succeed by their rules; my pussy is closed for business. Foolish many may presume, because I don’t cheat and I prefer not to lie. Or something like that. Blah Blah Blah.
So what else can we do.
Keep on keeping on. Stay with the bother I say, as I stash covert clues in galleries, movies, museums and books for the young women who follow the craggy trails of world betterment. The brave and naive trajectory of women throughout the ages, and as the beauty queen was trained to state: World peace and equal opportunity for everyone.
We shall overcome some day.
I fear that the world these new “male leaders” have created in their haste to dominate the market will make Gilead look like wishful thinking.
I don’t know, my scrying bowl is cloudy.
My father, an officer and gentleman, warned me last century. His clandestine team built the Deifenbunker. (I was born Canadian.)
Bunkers, are they a cold war relic, or an insurance policy? Boys, with their very destructive toys.
God, I love this comment. All of it. I hope you’ve shared it on “notes.” Keep “staying with the bother” and stashing clues, sister, and I will too. And we will bolster each other as needed. But, forgive me, what is a “scrying bowl”?
“can’t these guys occasionally come up with a different example [than the price of eggs]?”
Don’t forget that it actually shows lazy thinking on their part in more ways than one. Currently the price of eggs is unusually high because of avian influenza. Flocks are affected, supplies are affected. Trump is not going to be able to magically bring the price of eggs down. In fact, it is possible that the price of raw milk goes up too. Some phenomena do not subject themselves to the magical wand waving of the boys club and techno bros. More woes to the crowd that puts the faith in them and expects food to show up magically on their tables.
Totally. Thanks for the reminder. And it’s not just the price of eggs that no one country, let alone any POTUS, can control. The economy is global, no matter how many magical fix-its (most of which will make things worse) Trump proposes. It’s infuriating that the media NEVER puts our ups and downs (inflation, etc.) in the context of what’s happening all around the world. We are children who still believe in the lone man on a horse galloping in to save us.
There have been people saying that it was about race and gender. Those who have been saying it have been ignored, told they're wrong, told that it was all about the economy or some combination of them. The economy stands as a facade. We need to have those conversations and it may be decades before we have them even though we desperately need them.
Thank you Bill. “The economy” blame wouldn’t be so bad if all the aspects of “the economy” were actually named instead of it just functioning, as you say, as a facade that obscures the way that race, gender, ideology, myths and lies function in it.
Part of the problem is many people like facades, masks, costumes more than they like the below the surface realities. They don't want to dig down or they might have to face something about themselves. The media isn't helping as it has decided to gloss over everything in a veneer of what you see is what you get rather than anything deeper.
Yes, and the way the “news” has moved into amplifying the “appearance” of things, thereby giving them a reality that overshadows the actual facts. Virtually all coverage on Hillary in 2016 was of that ilk. It began, of course, with televised coverage and visual images (e.g. of debates, etc.) but it’s gone way beyond that, creeping into print media and including textual narratives as well as visuals.
Although you were quoting yourself, i must have missed the first reference to the word "absorption," because it really leapt out at me. It describes how I feel, like I am already being absorbed into something without my consent. I've had depressions, in my life; i think it's a predisposition, as the therapy community says, but this one is different. I feel helpless and passive, and I feel myself shrinking. Now for those who don't want to hear or read negativity or whatever you want to call it. Read something more hopeful. But pieces like these are the places where I feel seen and understood. yes, Bordo is continuing to talk about Kamala. About Hilary. She's not going to stop. Someone is going to keep the travesties alive. Because I find myself more and more interested in staying home, not socializing, and trying to do some writing. Yes, it's cold out, but it's like there is a different kind of chill, and I pretend I can avoid it like I avoid the news. But I realize it is seeping through the cracks in the doors and windows (yes, like The Blob) as evil takes ascendancy, or at least runs amok for a while. It is The Blob, and it is The Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Please come and take the pod laying next to me, absorbing me, away. Set it on fire if you must. I don't want to be fully awake in a hateful, white supremacist, misogynistic world.
Yes, Binnie (who happens to be my sister, but I can be objective!) does have a gift. A major gift. And she’s starting up her own stack, too. So far, there’s only a “welcome” post, but more will be coming and you should subscribe!! @Binniek.substack.com.
Thank you for your writing, which offers a kind of balm; knowing that others feel as strongly the disappointment and disgust that I feel about the election and what it says about our nation. But hanging on to hope is easier when you find others who put themselves out there and say what’s true.
I’m so glad to read this. I agree that the sharing of both our knowledge and our feelings helps prevent total despair. Grateful for readers like you who let me know!
Also, the other side won because of the cheating. Let us never forget or sideline that, or think in saying so we are buying into ‘stop the steal’-like conspiracy bullshit. Cheating happened, and it was effective.
You’re welcome. I wrote it for the many women (and some men, too) who I believe, like you, know it in your bones. It’s almost always what motivates my writing. So I’m grateful that it hit home!
It took all the power of the patriarchy, all the money of it's business interests, all the fury of the whining men and their captive wives, all the excuses of the "I'm secretly racist but it was really the economy," to eke out a win against the Harris campaign. Take heart from that and never surrender.
I want to see this in bold as a stand-alone note (maybe minus the “take heart and never surrender” part) It’s so important to remember that even though the devil won, he had a fucking hard time doing it.
Can I bring my companheira along? She's had a lifetime of that bullshit, including death threats for decades, being one of the first in her country to qualify in her surgical specialty and then foolishly providing care to people without giving a fuck how much money they had in the bank or how important their families were. If I were a fan of the patriarchy, listening to an hour of her life story would make me exclaim "caedite eos!"
Susan, thank you for your courage to speak the truth. I’m 60 years old and it’s possible I might see a female president before I die. But, when my husband and I were having dinner with friends who are also Democrats, the man (not my husband) said he was “surprised” Kamala was “so smart.” I realized then we, as women, still have a long way to go. Admittedly, I sneered at him and asked how he thought she got to be Attorney General of California? His arrogance and entitlement angers me!
I absolutely love your analysis Susan - as always you are very precise and clear with the true facts rather than our current media who really isn’t liberal at all. The covered Kamala great for 3 weeks then the usual bashing began and just like that - she is lesser of 2 evils. Our media also killed Biden and his coverage was the worst of any sitting President. They feared Trump and bashed Biden.
Please please NEVER STOP WRITING! I need to hear sane and intelligent reasoning and it’s hard to find anymore. We are now Russia as far as the press is concerned!
Thank you Ann! Sometimes I feel like stopping, but comments like yours keep me going. And I guess it’s in my DNA too.
Quit? Just don't. Your contributions are among the few that help the day make sense.
Thank you!!!
Every time I heard that "lesser of two evils" nonsense I wanted to explode. Every time I heard her or Walz speak, even just saw a campaign image, I felt my heart lift with optimism for the country and the future. To anyone who comes at me with that bothsider "evil" bullshit (like my younger brother, a conformist industrial executive) I would respond in a way to make Jeff Tiedrich blush.
Exactly like me I am beyond Done with this crap
Thank you for your always cogent observations. As a 72 year old white man, I have been saying much the same thing since November 6. This country (well, the men in this country) aren’t ready to elect a woman president. And a Black/Asian woman? No freaking way. I have come to accept that I may never see a woman president. And for the next four years will be subjected to a non stop barrage of that disgusting felon’s fat face and whiny voice. I have turned off all TV news, and refuse to read any story where the lead image is a photo of the felon.
Thank you Ed. I think it’s particularly depressing for those of us who are old enough to wonder if we will be around when (and if!) it turns around. I think that’s partly why it feels like a death to me. I’m not dying, but for us 70-pluses, it does feel like the resilience of our hope has just about expired.
my personal goal (one of them) is to outlive that grotesque pretender. I want to experience a few years when his bloated face and poisonous pronouncements are not dominating the media. What a balm that will be.
I felt the same bewilderment and hollowness on November 6 as I did after the death of my son, so yes, it felt like a death of this country. We have learned since then that we can still fight and that 45/47’s ignorance and in I may actually help us stop him.
That’s ignorance and incompetence.
"Why have white men like Bernie Sanders and James Carville been allowed to set the terms of the discussion? Where are the feminist commentators who dare to actually talk about misogyny, sexism, and/or the media mistreatment of female candidates?" I've been screaming these same questions since the election--actually, I began to scream a couple of weeks beforehand, when I saw the way the media coverage was going. Thank you for hearing me, seeing me. You've added a point to the tip of the pencil with your details and I'm grateful. But I'm still so angry at the white women who remain unable to think for themselves, whose minds have been colonized by the imposition of a dominant narrative that has silenced them. I'll go to my grave (I'm 76) with rage and resentment on my lips over this form of self-destruction by a population of trad-wife Disney-princesses, too afraid to let a woman of color fight for the rights they don't know they've lost. I hope you'll write another book!
Love this comment, Jane! It’s so important that we continue to hear and see each other. And at times I do feel the tug of another book. But my agent deserted me and no one new is knocking at my door.
Your agent deserted you? That says a lot about the way the industry tries to silence women, doesn't it. I know there are other women who need your voice so I hope you'll keep posting and looking for another publisher.
It was even worse than just the agent thing. After being very generous with reviews, interviews, etc. for my books on the female body, masculinity, and Anne Boleyn, the corporate media (NYT, WaPo, LaTimes, etc.) basically sent my book on the 2016 election off to die. Surprise, among other things it faulted the media for their coverage of the election. They preferred and promoted “Shattered,” which came out the same week and laid all the blame on Hillary.
OMG! That's terrible. So sorry to read this, Susan.
Yeah, I was pretty upset, not even so much for myself as because the true story of that election wasn’t allowed to come out. Just to be clear—it wasn’t that they gave me bad reviews, it was that they gave the book NO reviews at all. But hey, what they did to Hillary herself was so much worse!
I can't even listen to five minutes of Sanders or Carville without wanting to scream. Or that bloated fool Michael Moore.
Susan, thank you. So often when I read you I think, yes, exactly. I'm grateful someone is saying it like it is. I appreciate your perspective very much. And I believe it's immensely important that we keep speaking truth again and again in this time when not only is disinformation wildly rampant but, as you point out, too many actually see the grotesqueness and embrace it as a mirror and a permission to lean into their worst selves.
Thanks so much, Holly! “Saying it like it is” is all the praise I need to keep going. I appreciate your taking the time to let me know it does that for you!
Long meandering post…
As a trailblazer (one of the first woman, like you, to do many things and break many ceilings in my creative areas of the working world) the last ten years have been… challenging.
Stating the obvious, the patriarchal system has ruled for thousands of years, and rights for women only started to be discussed politically a hundred ago. My grandmother, was vilified because she dared to defy their rules, so I keep reminding myself of this, when I get discouraged. (Prove me wrong guys, sign the ERA already. Hello.)
Especially after the last few US elections. I begrudgingly accept that perhaps, the changes I long for, have lived and worked for more than half a century, may not happen in my lifetime, despite our best efforts.
The tech bro billionaires cheat, swinging states with their big data crunching, and now they think they have the right, and a democratic mandate to continue to rule. (My drone is bigger than yours.) Liars, cheaters, murderers, the mafia, arms dealers and bit coin shuckers. After a lifetime spent trying to succeed by their rules; my pussy is closed for business. Foolish many may presume, because I don’t cheat and I prefer not to lie. Or something like that. Blah Blah Blah.
So what else can we do.
Keep on keeping on. Stay with the bother I say, as I stash covert clues in galleries, movies, museums and books for the young women who follow the craggy trails of world betterment. The brave and naive trajectory of women throughout the ages, and as the beauty queen was trained to state: World peace and equal opportunity for everyone.
We shall overcome some day.
I fear that the world these new “male leaders” have created in their haste to dominate the market will make Gilead look like wishful thinking.
I don’t know, my scrying bowl is cloudy.
My father, an officer and gentleman, warned me last century. His clandestine team built the Deifenbunker. (I was born Canadian.)
Bunkers, are they a cold war relic, or an insurance policy? Boys, with their very destructive toys.
God, I love this comment. All of it. I hope you’ve shared it on “notes.” Keep “staying with the bother” and stashing clues, sister, and I will too. And we will bolster each other as needed. But, forgive me, what is a “scrying bowl”?
To scry is the ability to see the future, by gazing into a scrying bowl.
“can’t these guys occasionally come up with a different example [than the price of eggs]?”
Don’t forget that it actually shows lazy thinking on their part in more ways than one. Currently the price of eggs is unusually high because of avian influenza. Flocks are affected, supplies are affected. Trump is not going to be able to magically bring the price of eggs down. In fact, it is possible that the price of raw milk goes up too. Some phenomena do not subject themselves to the magical wand waving of the boys club and techno bros. More woes to the crowd that puts the faith in them and expects food to show up magically on their tables.
Totally. Thanks for the reminder. And it’s not just the price of eggs that no one country, let alone any POTUS, can control. The economy is global, no matter how many magical fix-its (most of which will make things worse) Trump proposes. It’s infuriating that the media NEVER puts our ups and downs (inflation, etc.) in the context of what’s happening all around the world. We are children who still believe in the lone man on a horse galloping in to save us.
There have been people saying that it was about race and gender. Those who have been saying it have been ignored, told they're wrong, told that it was all about the economy or some combination of them. The economy stands as a facade. We need to have those conversations and it may be decades before we have them even though we desperately need them.
Thank you Bill. “The economy” blame wouldn’t be so bad if all the aspects of “the economy” were actually named instead of it just functioning, as you say, as a facade that obscures the way that race, gender, ideology, myths and lies function in it.
Part of the problem is many people like facades, masks, costumes more than they like the below the surface realities. They don't want to dig down or they might have to face something about themselves. The media isn't helping as it has decided to gloss over everything in a veneer of what you see is what you get rather than anything deeper.
“The Tyranny of Optics” is the working title of a stack I’m planning.
Sounds good. Talking about perceptions and misperceptions?
Yes, and the way the “news” has moved into amplifying the “appearance” of things, thereby giving them a reality that overshadows the actual facts. Virtually all coverage on Hillary in 2016 was of that ilk. It began, of course, with televised coverage and visual images (e.g. of debates, etc.) but it’s gone way beyond that, creeping into print media and including textual narratives as well as visuals.
It's so Orwellian.
Although you were quoting yourself, i must have missed the first reference to the word "absorption," because it really leapt out at me. It describes how I feel, like I am already being absorbed into something without my consent. I've had depressions, in my life; i think it's a predisposition, as the therapy community says, but this one is different. I feel helpless and passive, and I feel myself shrinking. Now for those who don't want to hear or read negativity or whatever you want to call it. Read something more hopeful. But pieces like these are the places where I feel seen and understood. yes, Bordo is continuing to talk about Kamala. About Hilary. She's not going to stop. Someone is going to keep the travesties alive. Because I find myself more and more interested in staying home, not socializing, and trying to do some writing. Yes, it's cold out, but it's like there is a different kind of chill, and I pretend I can avoid it like I avoid the news. But I realize it is seeping through the cracks in the doors and windows (yes, like The Blob) as evil takes ascendancy, or at least runs amok for a while. It is The Blob, and it is The Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Please come and take the pod laying next to me, absorbing me, away. Set it on fire if you must. I don't want to be fully awake in a hateful, white supremacist, misogynistic world.
“staying home and trying to do some writing.” Do write. You have a gift.
Yes, Binnie (who happens to be my sister, but I can be objective!) does have a gift. A major gift. And she’s starting up her own stack, too. So far, there’s only a “welcome” post, but more will be coming and you should subscribe!! @Binniek.substack.com.
Done! Looking forward to hearing your voice here Binnie.
Profound. Excellent read. Thank you.
Thank you for the comment, Posey!
Thank you for your writing, which offers a kind of balm; knowing that others feel as strongly the disappointment and disgust that I feel about the election and what it says about our nation. But hanging on to hope is easier when you find others who put themselves out there and say what’s true.
I’m so glad to read this. I agree that the sharing of both our knowledge and our feelings helps prevent total despair. Grateful for readers like you who let me know!
Also, the other side won because of the cheating. Let us never forget or sideline that, or think in saying so we are buying into ‘stop the steal’-like conspiracy bullshit. Cheating happened, and it was effective.
Yes.
Susan,
Thank you for speaking the truth with such eloquence. This truth I have known in my bones, but could not form the words. Thank you.
You’re welcome. I wrote it for the many women (and some men, too) who I believe, like you, know it in your bones. It’s almost always what motivates my writing. So I’m grateful that it hit home!
I’m in Mexico right now and it sure feels nice and normal, even with a Jewish female president! Go figure.
Love it!! Maybe we should move.
I’ve got one foot out the door, sis.
It took all the power of the patriarchy, all the money of it's business interests, all the fury of the whining men and their captive wives, all the excuses of the "I'm secretly racist but it was really the economy," to eke out a win against the Harris campaign. Take heart from that and never surrender.
Comment to Rebecca Steven's
Is Trump taking revenge on black women?
12/7/24
I want to see this in bold as a stand-alone note (maybe minus the “take heart and never surrender” part) It’s so important to remember that even though the devil won, he had a fucking hard time doing it.
Your page or mine?
You have my permission to use it minus the take heart part.
Attribute to me please?
Will do tomorrow. Thanks!
Over the Long Haul
https://youtu.be/Dbpvla5hG-8?si=JxpOAxU0vV2GOV4I
Damn. Your "men's club" vs. "boy's club" nails it. So sick of both shitty cliques.
You can be an honorary member of my club!
Can I bring my companheira along? She's had a lifetime of that bullshit, including death threats for decades, being one of the first in her country to qualify in her surgical specialty and then foolishly providing care to people without giving a fuck how much money they had in the bank or how important their families were. If I were a fan of the patriarchy, listening to an hour of her life story would make me exclaim "caedite eos!"
Of course!
Susan, thank you for your courage to speak the truth. I’m 60 years old and it’s possible I might see a female president before I die. But, when my husband and I were having dinner with friends who are also Democrats, the man (not my husband) said he was “surprised” Kamala was “so smart.” I realized then we, as women, still have a long way to go. Admittedly, I sneered at him and asked how he thought she got to be Attorney General of California? His arrogance and entitlement angers me!