Dear Men, The women in your life are not okay right now

We're really not

New York, NY, 2017 ©Deborah Copaken

It’s 3:45 am as I’m sitting down to write this. The headline in the paper of record reads, “Trump on Verge of Victory with Swing State Wins.” Words are my stock-in-trade, and fighting for equity in women’s health is my north star, but I am at a loss right now as to how to a) wield a keyboard or b) contain my rage. How to explain the mixture of hopelessness, shock, and white hot fury I and so many women—but clearly not enough to put one of our own in the White House—feel right now?

Yes, the race is still too early to call as I type these words, but no matter the outcome, the misogyny, racism, and sexism in this country have spoken. Once again. Out loud and seemingly unrelentingly. All of us born with two X chromosomes have lost out on jobs to men far less qualified than we were, but this is next level.

Kamala Harris ran an admirable campaign, the best I’ve ever seen in my 58 years, but we, as a country, have decided that running a perfect campaign dedicated to bringing a divided country together and curing what really ails us—off the top of my head, the cost of childcare, healthcare, caregiving, and housing; keeping government out of our uteri; saving the environment; making the rich pay their fair share in taxes; maintaining a viable middle class; promoting public education, science, and literacy, not shutting down the departments dedicated to doing those things; studying female bodies, etc., etc.—is not enough if you happen to be born female and brown.

We, as a country, have decided it’s okay for women to die of sepsis because doctors’ hands are now tied when it comes to our bodies. (You think I’m exaggerating? Watch Zurawski v. Texas.)

We, as a country, have decided that a hate-filled narcissist, clearly and visibly suffering from dementia and its concomitant disinhibitions, who has been following Hitler’s playbook step-by-step, kowtows to dictators, chose a white supremacist owned by a billionaire as his running mate, has been convicted by a jury of his peers of sexual assault, can’t string a coherent sentence together, did a shitty job the first time around, has secret calls with Putin, steals classified documents and stores them in his bathroom, called his opponent a whore, threatened to murder Liz Cheney, and incited an insurrection that nearly killed his vice president when things didn’t go his way is better qualified to hold the highest office in this land.

It boggles the mind. It boggles my mind.

Over the next few weeks, the pundits will tell you why this happened. They will dig deep into the minutiae of this election. They will provide maps, receipts, history, theories, and endless talk. Frankly, right now, in the dark morning hours of November 6th, I don’t give a shit. I’m exhausted by toxic masculinity and misogyny. I’m wondering if it’s worth re-upping my ACA health insurance if the orange clown plans to do away with it anyway. I’m wondering if I should apply for asylum elsewhere. I’m wondering how to move forward under a government that hates me, my sisters, my daughter, my mother, my friends. I’m wondering how my adult children and future grandchildren will survive under fascism. I’m wondering if I’ll ever vote again. I’m wondering if this ache in my heart will ever go away.

Yes yes yes, soon enough, we women will dust ourselves off, like we always do, and begin the next round of fighting for our rights in a country in which our rights were never on the table to begin with. But for now, let me say this, because it’s the only thing that makes sense on too little sleep, too much stress, and waning hope: It’s okay to mourn. It’s okay to cry. And it’s okay to ask the men in our orbit not only to understand why we’re mourning and crying but to mourn and cry with us. Four years from now, if democracy survives this next assault on its norms and tenets, we’re going to need you to join us on the barricades. To help us fight this ongoing and unrelenting war against women. But today? Right now? We just need your compassion.