womanhating

I do not like Michelle Obama. I hated her hypocrisy in the primary, her lies about her and Barack growing up poor and her attacks on Hillary. I disliked her convoluted discourse at the DNC Convention in which she went quite a logn way to insert the racially charged "brother" and "sister" in her speech. Dogwhistling is an art, and that wasn't particularly subtle about it.

I dislike her chanelling of Jackie O, and her very obvious submissiveness. I dislike the fact that a woman who is so proud of her race still feels the need to burn and straighten her hair in order to make it "look white" (this was pointed to me by a woman of color I used to work with- who also straightened her hair. She said " you know, I HAVE to straighten my hair, I need the job. She doesn't. She's rich. If she was so proud of her race she should have at least accept her hair". ABB, whose hypocrisy I decry since turning Obamazoid, had a long time ago a good piece of writing about the politics of black hair).

However, I do not HATE her. It was pointed to me by some people that, by virtue of looking somewhat Caucasian, I enjoy privilege she didn't have. I don't know about that- it might be. I don't know what it's like growing up black in the USA, but I'm pretty sure growing up Jewish in communist Romania is not quite what some third wavers understand by "white privilege".
Living as an immigrant who has to put up with being regarded as "not white enough to be white in the UK" might also be a bit out of their area of experience or expertise. In the USA I was labelled Latina and that was that.

But that's not the point. The point is that while I dislike her, I do not hate her.

At my blog I wrote extensively about my recently departed aunt. I remember being about 14, and one of her daughters had somekind of argument at school with another girl. said daughter manipulated the guys in her class to attack that other girl with the most vile and disgusting insults, to the point where the poor girl had to change schools to escape.

Upon finding out what was going on, my aunt gave both her daughters and me ( just by virtue of being there I guess) a speech. She had a raspy voice from smoking 3 packs of unfiltered cigarettes a day, she was tiny and her face wrinkled and she was strong like old trees are strong.

" Do you think these boys like you? Do you think you're special and you'll never be treated like that because you're cute? You're a fool. Anyone who thinks of one woman like that thinks it about ALL women. They won't tell it to you while they find you useful, but don't you ever forget that these boys hate women, and they hate you too. When you won't be useful to them you will find it out.

You're not special, and you're not even human to them. For these boys, hating women is like a drug- they tasted it once and liked it because everybody likes to feel that they are inherently better than someone else. That girl is not in your school anymore, but they will find someone else to hate, and one day that person will be you.

They don't hate ONE woman, they hate ALL women. We're nothing but cunts to them, to fuck and throw away and nothing more, or maybe if we're good enough and meek enough to clean after them and put up with them and wash their shit streaked pants and stinky socks.

What they said to that girl? That is what they think of you, and me and every other woman on the planet. And they're gonna think that until the day they die, because that's how life is. "

The women who indulge in hating Sarah Palin the way Michelle indulged in hating and attacking Hillary or worse? They should know better. They are just fanning the fire that will one day burn them as well.

I don't hate Michelle Obama. She is rich and married to a guy who might just become the president of the USA. I'm a poor white collar immigrant living from paycheck to paycheck. I live in a small flat that gets so cold at night that water freezes in the ducts. Sometimes I have to make a choice between a buying a bus ticket or getting lunch.

However, I have it better than she does. I can go out and speak my mind. She did that in the primary. She isn't allowed to do that anymore. I'm not forced to look like a dead woman and act like a demure little thing to serve a man's political ambition. Also, unlike her, I didn't have to have a man accompany me to a job interview to supervise it.

I wonder if she realizes that the same people who attacked Hillary like rabid dogs- for her husband's profit- will attack her in the same manner without one second thought. I wonder if the alleged feminists who indulged in Palin and Hillary bashing understand that when they allowed and contributed to that, they smacked in the face any woman who may have considered entering politics.

I wonder whether they understand that the message they sent out- that it's OK to drag a woman through the mud if we don't like her, translates into it being OK to harass and drag through the mud any woman that someone doesn't like. Which is all women.