Susan Be Anthony

I have to reluctantly give credit to the Hillary haters from the last election,* but only if we can acknowledge what was really going on. Come on, it's not like anything could happen at this point that would end up with us rewinding the whole electoral cycle and replacing Donald Trump with Hillary Clinton. We all know that if the increasingly-thinkable happens, the next in line is Mike Pence, an absolutely real human person, no matter what you've heard. But even if Pence gets dragged into the mud and drowned in it as well, the next in line is another Republican dude. And another. And another. And another. If it goes deep enough, sure, I guess it's theoretically possible we could end up with a female president out of this, but is that what we want? I mean, really?

I would argue that, completely by accident, by leaning in to the irreducible undercurrent of misogyny of the last election (and, by exposed extension, American society at large) we've already got our first woman president.

I'd like to clear a couple of things up first: a) yes, I mean the allegedly XY-chromosomed Donald J. Trump; b) I'm not using female-ness or femininity in any way as a default insult for a man. That would be reductive and thoughtless and insulting to those who wear the label proudly, of course. Plus everyone knows if I wanted to do that, I'd be more likely to call him a homo; c) this isn't even my category. I don't see gender, I only see people. Usually when I'm trying to subtly check out their rack.

What I mean is that all the things that underpin the un-secret misogyny that capped the maximum amount of votes Hillary Clinton was ever going to get** included holdover stereotypes for what a "woman" president might be. Don't get me wrong, I'm not making the mistake of passing over the actual major issue, that anything that threatens the hegemony of the white male is to be attacked and attacked and attacked again with the withering darts of poorly constructed self-perpetuating logic loops, clumsy attempts at obvious sarcasm and an avalanche of fuckery in the form of clickbait articles announcing how Tucker Carlson or Sean Hannity DESTROYED or DECIMATED some hapless Social Justice Warrior on a very shouty segment of their televised verbal masturbation sessions. That's the clear and obvious skeleton holding all this freshly rotting flesh loosely and shaggily together.

But out there on the appendages, doing the business work of the tearing zombie fingers and shuffling zombie feet, are the worries about why a woman president would be a bad idea. She'd obviously be moody, shallow, petty, flighty, indifferent to detail, emotionally volatile, indecisive, diffident, lack intellectual rigor; she'd be distracted by decoration, overly concerned with appearance, emotionally and politically superficial; she'd be vain and solicitous of compliments, too fragile to withstand any level of sustained criticism or even advice, hold grudges for no reason, dig in and be stubborn beyond all reason, distracted by the social perks of office, spend WAY too much time on make-up and hair...

I could go on, probably. It's clearly not fair to say that Donald Trump is our first "woman" president, unless you're using the actual misogynist's standard for what a woman probably is. In the mad rush to ensure we had someone--anyone--with a penis in office, we set aside a competent, seasoned, decisive leader in favor of a pouty, fickle delicate covered up with an embarrassing amount of bronzer.

There's not much to do about it, at least not at our level. There aren't any arguments to be made to that side, as the rank and file decided well in advance, evidence or action be damned, that the Trump administration is the pudgy, fleshy hill on which they are prepared to die.

Honestly, Trump could announce tomorrow he'd be getting an abortion and they'd find a way to make that OK.

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*You remember, way back like seven months ago, on the other side of what must be a gigantic localize spatial anomaly with enough gravity to warp and stretch time into donkey's years. A black ass hole, if you will. But you don't have to.

**And I don't know what that number is, nobody does. But it is a number, a real number. If you're not sure, go read an internet comment section after an article about an action movie of TV show featuring a female in a non-supporting role, like the Ghostbusters from last year or Supergirl or the upcoming Wonder Woman or the female-lead Star Trek: Discovery. These are people who are old enough to vote, and are motivated to. Mostly by dumbness.