Disbelief, anger, rage, action.
Don’t you just love how a day in politics can be like a lifetime in other areas of endeavour? I was just settling down to the fight between two old men and, low and behold, one of them does the right thing and buckles to pressure and the good of the nation. Now, I have a whole new paradigm to focus on, a fight to the gladiatorial death between a white man and a coloured woman.
Who would have picked this? Well, maybe a few commentators and political gurus, but still I am amazed at how quickly things change and then how bizarre the turn of events are. Truth is so often stranger than fiction and produces situations that no self-respecting fiction writer would ever dream of creating.
Now, I am confronted with one of those even stranger than fiction comments that beggars belief.
Flabbergasted
J. D. Vance, the running mate of Donald Trump, was said to have described the Democratic Party in America, as led by many “childless cat ladies who are miserable in their own lives and the choices they have made, and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too”. I was at first totally flabbergasted at the comment, then my anger and bile rose, as did I imagine the reactions of millions of women around the world. Not just women in America.
I have been fortunate to have children, four of them in fact. I am a very lucky female. But having children is not always a choice, it is a matter of circumstance. If you don’t find the right mate or they suddenly leave you in your fertile years and you can’t find a replacement, or you tried IVF and it failed or you just focused on your career and forgot the biological clock ticking, then having children just does not always happen. Throw in a few miscarriages and stillbirths, and it is a wonder women even attempt to have children. So many things can go wrong in the process. And infertility can strike men as much as women.
The trope about being a single female and owning a cat is well known, though, of course, derogatory to the gender and makes assumptions that such females are lonely, possible men haters and misfits in society. To have it used and to see it as a vote-catching meme, perpetuated by a possible vice-president of America, is to show what an appalling choice of candidate he is and what low-level tactics are about to be displayed to the world. Such is the depth parties descend to in order to win votes and gain power. What other demeaning comments can we look forward to?
Misogynistic
Australia is not exempt from this display of misogynistic behaviour. Even our first woman prime minister, Julia Gillard, was often hounded and criticised for her childless state, a barb that is never thrown at male politicians. Even if she might have had children, she would then potentially have been criticised for not being at home looking after them, neglecting her true role.
Women cannot win, even in today’s so-called enlightened modern world. You are still either the whore or the virginal Mother Mary, the woman who screws around and doesn’t care for the life in the ’burbs producing children for the good of the nation, or the woman who toes the line and gives up her career, and dare I say life, to produce the next generation – for little real thanks.
No men have their bodies altered, their fannies ripped apart and their sense of themselves changed to produce children. A mere few seconds of orgasmic pleasure is all that a man need provide to produce children.
Don’t let men, who can’t bear children, put you down.
Also read: Girl maths – outrage from a feminist
Spare us from the lefty crap this woman writes!
I expect you don’t have cats and are a right-winger. Astounding how we cat ladies are supposed to be the miserable ones when it seems the whining, misogynistic, racist bigots (is that redundant? I always wonder) right-leaning (mostly men who are scared of any vagina-bearing creature having her own opinions) that seem to be terribly miserable. As your guru would say: ‘Sad!”
I hope your life gets better and that you find joy in all things, Tood, while leaving everyone else to live their lives free of your vitriol.
Sometimes you have to recognize where these comments come from & pity these poor “mere” males
Thank goodness Biden is standing aside as I expected he would because Trump had a real chance of being re-elected until now.
Kamala has reinvigorated the Democrats and I expect the GOP to be annhilated in a few months time with the convicted criminal Donald and the dimwitted JD leading the GOP to a landslide defeat.
Donny will not have Uncle Rudy or the old team to help out this time around as they are all discredited liars and bankrupt after being successfully sued for defamation of polling workers and others.
Oh, poor Tood. It must be sad to have an outlook on life like yours. I am sure your mother would be or would have been ashamed to read what you have just spread around the country as your outlook. I have cats and numerous other animals, great family, numerous friends and I am highly respected within my own community. Your negative outlook on everything must be a dreadful handicap and I’m sorry that your life appears to be so dismal if that is your current way of thinking. Most people are decent, civilised, tolerant and happy to share the world with people of a different outlook. Maybe you should try to embrace all the positive things that abound. You may get a pleasant surprise.
From this comment by JD Vance, I understand that he was trying to highlight the fact that there are women who do not really have a true family life, engaged in politics and trying to dictate terms to poor families like that of JD when/where he was growing up.
He did not mean to be critical. But had to use this languiage to get the point across.
This is POLITICS, if people want to take offence of each word or even a letter of a word, they are free to do so.
Oh dear, such confected outrage. JD Vance did not make the comment in relation to any political campaign but over three years ago. He was not trying to gain either votes or support. It is a very humerous observation. The reactions are coming from the left of politics as they show a lack of understanding of human and social nature.
It is a sentiment that my mother and her sisters would all agree with. Have a look at how so many people do have “thoughts above their station”. If you don’t understand that, go back and re-read the full set of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy books.