On the day before the Alabama election, I found myself explaining that I needed to get to work despite the bombing at my subway station because there were women coming in to talk about having been sexually assaulted by the president.
Really, we live in interesting times.
The bombing — in which no one was seriously hurt but the bomber — has already faded from the memory of New York’s hardened mass transit riders. But the rest of the story is reverberating. We’re in the middle of a women’s uprising that really does feel like a new wave, maybe the one that could actually get the country within shouting distance of power equality.
Think about it. This week Roy Moore got skunked in Alabama, thanks in great part to female voters who went for the Democratic candidate instead. Then the U.S. Senate got ready for another woman member — Minnesota Lt. Gov. Tina Smith is going to replace Al Franken, who is resigning in the sexual harassment scandal.
We have a revolt against sexual harassment that’s running through the political, entertainment, restaurant and communications worlds. And we’re finally trying to focus on the Donald Trump sleaziness sagas that the nation didn’t deal with in 2016. Trump is really behind everything — his election jarred and frightened women so much that there was nothing to do but rebel and try to change the world.
“I think it’s very much because of President Trump,” said Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York. “For me the Women’s March was still the most extraordinary political moment of my lifetime.” Gillibrand is a leader of the antiharassment campaign in Congress. This week, as some of the women who had stories about Trump’s own hands-on history were talking to the media, she called on the president to resign.
Trump responded — as only he can — with a Twitter attack, calling Gillibrand a political “lightweight” who used to come to him “begging” for campaign contributions, “and would do anything for them.”
“I think it was intended to be a sexist smear, and it was intended to silence me and every woman who challenges him,” Gillibrand said in a phone interview.
The White House retorted that only a person whose mind was “in the gutter” would think the president was talking about anything but the way political fund-raising means “special interests control our government.”
What do you think, people? Perhaps we could just do a calculation on how much time Trump has spent in his public life discussing girl-grabbing versus campaign finance reform.
Also, no one in Washington seems to have missed the fact that when the president tweeted, Gillibrand was at a congressional Bible study meeting.
It’s for sure that when Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton it triggered a visceral response in masses of American women, and that trauma may be turning into a political uprising more powerful than the Tea Party. Women voters delivered Alabama for Democrat Doug Jones — 57 percent came down on his side. The critical mass actually came from the African-American community, where women vote more faithfully than men, and virtually all of them went for Jones. (Hard to know what triggered their outpouring — Roy Moore’s creepy sexual history or his enthusiasm for the good old days of strong families and slavery.)
“I see black women as the heart of the Democratic Party,” said Gillibrand.
Other women aren’t exactly standing still. A new Monmouth University poll has Trump’s job approval rating down to another new historic low, 32 percent. The decline, Monmouth said, came mostly from Republican and independent women. All in all, women gave the president thumbs-up only 24 percent of the time. He’s their political equivalent of overcooked broccoli.
We truly could be seeing a new wave of feminist reform. The United States has had moments when it looked as if women were finally taking their rightful place in the public world. But things had a way of stalling. After suffrage wars, politicians were worried about pleasing their new female constituents. But they then concluded that women were going to pretty much vote like their male relatives, and lost interest. The “Year of the Woman” in 1992 added four more U.S. senators to the pair of women who were already there. But now, in the 21st century, the Senate still has only 21.
There could be a lot more if this revolution continues. And while we have no earthly idea who the Democratic presidential candidate will be in 2020, it’s likely that a bunch of women are going to be in the mix — Gillibrand probably among them.
Think about it. The only Democratic woman who’s ever been a top-of-the-pack presidential contender was Hillary Clinton, a former first lady. And I can remember being around when it was a big deal that Margaret Chase Smith got her name put into nomination at the Republican convention after a campaign dominated by dissection of her muffin recipe.
It’s not necessarily bad when the times get interesting.
<
GAIL COLLINS>
댓글 안에 당신의 성숙함도 담아 주세요.
'오늘의 한마디'는 기사에 대하여 자신의 생각을 말하고 남의 생각을 들으며 서로 다양한 의견을 나누는 공간입니다. 그러나 간혹 불건전한 내용을 올리시는 분들이 계셔서 건전한 인터넷문화 정착을 위해 아래와 같은 운영원칙을 적용합니다.
자체 모니터링을 통해 아래에 해당하는 내용이 포함된 댓글이 발견되면 예고없이 삭제 조치를 하겠습니다.
불건전한 댓글을 올리거나, 이름에 비속어 및 상대방의 불쾌감을 주는 단어를 사용, 유명인 또는 특정 일반인을 사칭하는 경우 이용에 대한 차단 제재를 받을 수 있습니다. 차단될 경우, 일주일간 댓글을 달수 없게 됩니다.
명예훼손, 개인정보 유출, 욕설 등 법률에 위반되는 댓글은 관계 법령에 의거 민형사상 처벌을 받을 수 있으니 이용에 주의를 부탁드립니다.
Close
x