Then I am sure you are aware of the wonderful job Jess Piper has done in Missouri, Patricia. We may see some states turn Blue that we never thought would. It’s a beautiful thing!
72 yo white male here. I have been so ashamed about so many white males voting for Trump. Then I saw the recent statistics- white males over 65 are voting for Harris 55 to 45 for Trump. It is my opinion that most of us are married to good women who have civilized us over the years. Thank you and the other good women for all you do.
I'm feeling, in my depths of male intuition, a Post Patriarchy America is in our future, our not so distant future. Because of women, with allies galore, including some good men, showing us that indeed
"we have much more in common than what separates us." Another good lesson I learned recently, came from Colin Alfred, a Post Patriarchal Male if I have ever seen one:
"We may have arrived on different ships, but we are all in the same boat now."
My commitment is to begin with my neighbors, with their trump signs and loud exhausts. We CAN have a beer or two together at our late autumn picnic, and talk about our common problems of speeding on our street ...
Colin borrowed that(with attribution!)from the late, great John Lewis. I voted for Colin last week! Now that would be a miracle if Texas rids itself(and the nation!!) of Ted Cruz.
I have been saying all along that if this country can be saved, and that is still much in doubt, it will be our women who do it. May it be so….
It will be saved. It’s a matter of how long will it take. Our babies’ and grandbabies’ lives are at stake. Have you ever crossed a mother bear? Hell hath no fury like a mother scorned! (apologies to the English playwright who wrote the original line.)
I vote blue anyway, but this year I voted blue for my daughter and 18 year old granddaughter, and also my soon to be 3 year old granddaughter. I want to protect them, especially from people who think my girls’ lives are expendable.
You are so right Jess. We Old Ladies remember the bad old days pre Roe. We remember how we couldn’t get a car loan without hubby’s co-signing it, how we had to quit our teaching job as soon as our baby bump showed ( happened to me and also Sen Elizabeth Warren who is falsely accused of lying when she talked about it). You had to get hubby’s permission for a tubal ligation. I could go on but we lived it and WE ARE NOT GOING TO LET OUR Grandaughters live it again. Yes I am pissed off. My entire family has already voted Blue- even the grandkids,
I am more than pissed off. I am enraged. For me, rage goes beyond anger. It is bone deep and it translates to action because if I don’t DO something it will eat me alive. It is clarifying and motivating and it makes me commit to making a change no matter what. I know I am not alone in this feeling and I hope it is channeled to a Harris win.
In 1970s my mom was an officer in a local women’s club which was often featured in the local paper. We were looking at the clippings the other day and every woman was identified by her husband’s name (Mrs. Robert Smith for example) even though the husbands had nothing to do with the club and as though the women didn’t have an identity of their own. One small example of why we re not going back.
They have failed again to read their audience, women aren't looking for fame, fortune, or protection. They complain that we've lost our sense of humor. I'm sorry, your demeaning jokes were never funny. I pitied you, as you didn't realize no women were laughing. You also missed our best super power, surviving. We glide through life, assessing our surroundings and possible preditors. We save our children from many dangers most people never see. So yes, your jokes, rules, comments have fallen on deaf ears. We know how to conduct our lives, what we need and who we can trust, actually trust. And no, your plan for us doesn't contain humor. How can we laugh when we realize your plan is to keep us under your control.
As a former rural pastor who now lives in a deep blue city, I have some sense about how hard your work is, which makes me even more grateful for your persistence.
Thanks and continued blessings on you and your work.
Thanks for your good efforts! Let's not be surprised if Kamala wins Missouri. Due to your good work and millions of sensible women and men in St Louis, Kansas City and Columbia.
Yes, thank you Jess! I so hope so!! I was born in St. Louis, grew up on the Johnson County, KS side of Kansas City. My son and daughter-in-law went to Mizzou. I'm in Cali now but my sister lives in KC, MO. I saw quite a few Lucas Kunce signs last time I visited, which was very encouraging! Blue WAVE!!!
I so hope Harris can take Missouri along with the other Dems on the ballot and have an OVERWHELMING YES on Amendment 3!!! The lies being said about Amendment 3 and transgender treatments for minors is so ridiculously EXTREME that I can’t believe people believe it but I guess some of them do. The National Democrats certainly do seem to have abandoned Missouri so if Harris and the others win Missouri, it’s only thanks to Jess and others like her!
It baffles me that anyone thinks women who aren’t of child-bearing age won’t care about abortion rights. First off, I thought our only job was caring for our children and grandchildren? And secondly, how about that we’re smart enough to know-and now it seems more of us know and understand-that it’s never been about abortion, it’s about control. Just as rape is not about sex, it’s about violent control.
I heard a male reporter on a major news outlet make that claim in his "analysis" last week. I'm "WHAT?" Who started this rumble, anyway? Us older women who already know what living with abortion bans is like and DO NOT WANT our daughters and granddaughters to have to go through it. Since then we have seen in graphic detail just why we feel so strongly about this issue. That is one of the big things bringing older women and younger women together: this is about OUR bodies. I've been through this boogie before and I am pissed as hell that we have to do it again. I'm grateful that my children and grandkids all live in states where care is available but we all know what these creeps will do if they get a chance. And yes, it is about control and it is most certainly about patriarchism. I will NEVER stop fighting.
Thank you, Annie, and all the other women and men who did this all the first time and are having to do it again. I am young enough to have had this right since before puberty, if not my whole lifetime, but old enough to know how hard won this and other aspects of our progress has been. I have been happy and worried that those younger than I have been able to take it for granted. In many ways, I’m sorry they’ve learned we can’t
butting in as yet another lower-middle-class 52yo white boy: I've always mentally, verbally, votingly, internet-postingly, been on the Left — but it's embarrassing how long this took to sink in: that the struggle is real, and ongoing, and demands courage, requires sacrifice of comforts.
I am perhaps a textbook case of whatever might be a clinical term for "resting-on-your-laurels syndrome"; labor and civil rights movements had (RECENTLY!) achieved "the right [as in correct] side of history" — footnotes for riots, massacres, assassinations along the way — but since "we" won and the laws on the books were pointing in the correct direction, we were all better off, at least in the long run, or at least working towards collectively being better off ... breathe a sigh of relief, why don’tcha?
In another thread here, Monica notes women's learned survival skills, which instantly reminded me of the original "Schrödinger's rapist" post which gave my empathy reflexes a whole new workout, some years ago — not too many years before Kate Harding's site had to deploy survival skills and tighten up security, following incel ragemonkey blowback.
I am thanking all of the women who are brave and/or independent enough to vote, speak, raise awareness, against the fascist creeps + gaslighting GQP, because my egoflationary gender bracket (as a janky whole) appears to be too lazy and/or easily confused/discouraged to fight — let alone 'fight fair', and fight informed and clear-eyed — or even to recognize the fight, recognize privilege, recognize cult behavior, et al.
As an older, married, childless woman living in MAGA infested Florida, I just want to say many of us are in total agreement, even though we're not voting for the rights of our own kids or grands. We're not going back! 💙🇺🇸
Out here in rural Oregon, the red part of the state, every volunteer event is full of older white women. Just sayin. This is happening all over the country. We remember the world we grew up in and we do NOT want that for our granddaughters. Or grandsons, for that matter. We have a little time, we have a lot of passion, and we are not going down without a fight. (Remember, we fought for Roe v Wade the first time around!)
I’m 77 (which continually amazes me for all the obvious reasons). Your comments and the data about older women are hugely important.
——-
With memory comes perspective. Memory is neither nostalgia nor a maudlin reconstruction of what wasn’t.
It can be that. But mostly it is a vivid recollection and reminder of how much safer, healthier, and more secure our lives are, and of how very recently many of the changes occurred.
I remember the terror of polio. I was 6.
I remember crawling under desks to duck and cover. I was 12.
I remember cat calls, whistles, and the whispers about coeds being raped and then being blamed for it. I was 18.
I remember colored-only fountains and Bull Connor’s vicious attack dogs. I was 15.
I remember Mr. Burns talking about his experience as a carrier pilot in the Pacific against the Japanese. I was 14.
AND -
I remember the day when I “got it”.
I was walking down the sidewalk behind two teens. One looked at the other and said:
“Did you know Paul McCartney was with another band before he was with Wings?”
In that moment I realized that for me, even though it had started 13-14 years earlier, Vietnam was yesterday.
And then I realized that for my parents, while I was cheering at a Kennedy rally in Newark in 1960, Hitler was YESTERDAY. And the Great Depression when people starved while farmers burned their crops was only the day before.
Autocracy was only yesterday and could be tomorrow.
Women’s permanent exile to a second class was only yesterday and could be tomorrow.
———-
Our lives depend on understanding just how contingent and fragile our freedoms are - and that indifference is fatal.
I hope you put this out everyplace you have access to. It pulls it all together. Thank you. I am about your age, and yup, that's pretty much how it went down with me, too.
Jess, your Iowa storytelling was just what I needed this morning. Thank you, you do it so well! And as an added bonus, I now know what a Scotcharoo is; I looked it up! I have a reason to believe that losing the State Rep election a few years ago, drove you to a much more important and influential position, the one you have now. Your willingness to meet the voters where they are, combined with candor, empathy and a heart of gold, makes you more valuable to these United States than you ever would have been in Jeff City. You are a big picture person, even if you live in a small town and we who listen, read and comment are so much the better for it. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Wow I live in the Chicago area. We can’t see the quiet rage in the rural areas other than what we hear through the media. I chatted with 4 female retirees last month and told them I could not see my daughters getting sick in a red state. As a male, with no proof, I said that doctors would start flowing red states and turn them into health care desserts. Your article makes me fear that I was right. Anyway I am glad for your efforts and your ability to connect the dots for everyone.
For facts and figures backing up your correct assumption, I highly recommend the newsletter "Abortion, Every Day".
OBGYNs are indeed fleeing red states, but more importantly, medical students are increasingly choosing schools in blue/purple states and residents are increasingly choosing to practice in blue/purple states.
It’s long be past time for the white male bs patriarchy to go the way of the dinosaur. I am proud to stand beside strong and smart women working together as we dismantle and rebuild something better and stronger.
Jess, if Iowa or Missouri turn Blue, they should build a statue of you to commemorate your hard work and steadfast commitment to the effort.
There are many people who have mad respect for what you and your associates have accomplished, of which I am one.
I have standing and clapping and hollering for Jess!
Definitely!💙💙💙
As am I, and I’m a former Missourian now living and voting Blue in Wisconsin.
Then I am sure you are aware of the wonderful job Jess Piper has done in Missouri, Patricia. We may see some states turn Blue that we never thought would. It’s a beautiful thing!
Isn’t that the truth!
I will pay toward building that statue. Hats off to Jess.
I agree with you, Walter.
Thanks for everything you are doing, Jess.
Me too, Walter
Agree!!!!!
72 yo white male here. I have been so ashamed about so many white males voting for Trump. Then I saw the recent statistics- white males over 65 are voting for Harris 55 to 45 for Trump. It is my opinion that most of us are married to good women who have civilized us over the years. Thank you and the other good women for all you do.
This was written by Mary Beth’s husband Robert Buffaloe.
I was wondering…
Good American men are hilarious. My husband often writes emails by mistake from my account :)
Good on ya, mate! Many, many males would never admit that they were “civilized” by their wives or their mothers!
!!! I love this. My dad is one of those.
And my husband is one of those too. <3.
I'm feeling, in my depths of male intuition, a Post Patriarchy America is in our future, our not so distant future. Because of women, with allies galore, including some good men, showing us that indeed
"we have much more in common than what separates us." Another good lesson I learned recently, came from Colin Alfred, a Post Patriarchal Male if I have ever seen one:
"We may have arrived on different ships, but we are all in the same boat now."
My commitment is to begin with my neighbors, with their trump signs and loud exhausts. We CAN have a beer or two together at our late autumn picnic, and talk about our common problems of speeding on our street ...
Thank you for your courage, Jess Piper ❤️
Colin borrowed that(with attribution!)from the late, great John Lewis. I voted for Colin last week! Now that would be a miracle if Texas rids itself(and the nation!!) of Ted Cruz.
I have been saying all along that if this country can be saved, and that is still much in doubt, it will be our women who do it. May it be so….
🙏🙏🙏🌊🌊🌊
It will be saved. It’s a matter of how long will it take. Our babies’ and grandbabies’ lives are at stake. Have you ever crossed a mother bear? Hell hath no fury like a mother scorned! (apologies to the English playwright who wrote the original line.)
I vote blue anyway, but this year I voted blue for my daughter and 18 year old granddaughter, and also my soon to be 3 year old granddaughter. I want to protect them, especially from people who think my girls’ lives are expendable.
Mother any creature including birds.
I know you are not asking for it, but thank you so much for your part in what may well become the Great Blue Wave in Iowa, 2024!
You are so right Jess. We Old Ladies remember the bad old days pre Roe. We remember how we couldn’t get a car loan without hubby’s co-signing it, how we had to quit our teaching job as soon as our baby bump showed ( happened to me and also Sen Elizabeth Warren who is falsely accused of lying when she talked about it). You had to get hubby’s permission for a tubal ligation. I could go on but we lived it and WE ARE NOT GOING TO LET OUR Grandaughters live it again. Yes I am pissed off. My entire family has already voted Blue- even the grandkids,
I am more than pissed off. I am enraged. For me, rage goes beyond anger. It is bone deep and it translates to action because if I don’t DO something it will eat me alive. It is clarifying and motivating and it makes me commit to making a change no matter what. I know I am not alone in this feeling and I hope it is channeled to a Harris win.
In 1970s my mom was an officer in a local women’s club which was often featured in the local paper. We were looking at the clippings the other day and every woman was identified by her husband’s name (Mrs. Robert Smith for example) even though the husbands had nothing to do with the club and as though the women didn’t have an identity of their own. One small example of why we re not going back.
They have failed again to read their audience, women aren't looking for fame, fortune, or protection. They complain that we've lost our sense of humor. I'm sorry, your demeaning jokes were never funny. I pitied you, as you didn't realize no women were laughing. You also missed our best super power, surviving. We glide through life, assessing our surroundings and possible preditors. We save our children from many dangers most people never see. So yes, your jokes, rules, comments have fallen on deaf ears. We know how to conduct our lives, what we need and who we can trust, actually trust. And no, your plan for us doesn't contain humor. How can we laugh when we realize your plan is to keep us under your control.
Sister speaks my mind!
lb
Protection my ass
Thanks, Jess. You inspire me.
As a former rural pastor who now lives in a deep blue city, I have some sense about how hard your work is, which makes me even more grateful for your persistence.
Thanks and continued blessings on you and your work.
Thanks for your good efforts! Let's not be surprised if Kamala wins Missouri. Due to your good work and millions of sensible women and men in St Louis, Kansas City and Columbia.
Yes, thank you Jess! I so hope so!! I was born in St. Louis, grew up on the Johnson County, KS side of Kansas City. My son and daughter-in-law went to Mizzou. I'm in Cali now but my sister lives in KC, MO. I saw quite a few Lucas Kunce signs last time I visited, which was very encouraging! Blue WAVE!!!
Hopefully my sign was one!
I so hope Harris can take Missouri along with the other Dems on the ballot and have an OVERWHELMING YES on Amendment 3!!! The lies being said about Amendment 3 and transgender treatments for minors is so ridiculously EXTREME that I can’t believe people believe it but I guess some of them do. The National Democrats certainly do seem to have abandoned Missouri so if Harris and the others win Missouri, it’s only thanks to Jess and others like her!
It baffles me that anyone thinks women who aren’t of child-bearing age won’t care about abortion rights. First off, I thought our only job was caring for our children and grandchildren? And secondly, how about that we’re smart enough to know-and now it seems more of us know and understand-that it’s never been about abortion, it’s about control. Just as rape is not about sex, it’s about violent control.
I heard a male reporter on a major news outlet make that claim in his "analysis" last week. I'm "WHAT?" Who started this rumble, anyway? Us older women who already know what living with abortion bans is like and DO NOT WANT our daughters and granddaughters to have to go through it. Since then we have seen in graphic detail just why we feel so strongly about this issue. That is one of the big things bringing older women and younger women together: this is about OUR bodies. I've been through this boogie before and I am pissed as hell that we have to do it again. I'm grateful that my children and grandkids all live in states where care is available but we all know what these creeps will do if they get a chance. And yes, it is about control and it is most certainly about patriarchism. I will NEVER stop fighting.
Thank you, Annie, and all the other women and men who did this all the first time and are having to do it again. I am young enough to have had this right since before puberty, if not my whole lifetime, but old enough to know how hard won this and other aspects of our progress has been. I have been happy and worried that those younger than I have been able to take it for granted. In many ways, I’m sorry they’ve learned we can’t
butting in as yet another lower-middle-class 52yo white boy: I've always mentally, verbally, votingly, internet-postingly, been on the Left — but it's embarrassing how long this took to sink in: that the struggle is real, and ongoing, and demands courage, requires sacrifice of comforts.
I am perhaps a textbook case of whatever might be a clinical term for "resting-on-your-laurels syndrome"; labor and civil rights movements had (RECENTLY!) achieved "the right [as in correct] side of history" — footnotes for riots, massacres, assassinations along the way — but since "we" won and the laws on the books were pointing in the correct direction, we were all better off, at least in the long run, or at least working towards collectively being better off ... breathe a sigh of relief, why don’tcha?
In another thread here, Monica notes women's learned survival skills, which instantly reminded me of the original "Schrödinger's rapist" post which gave my empathy reflexes a whole new workout, some years ago — not too many years before Kate Harding's site had to deploy survival skills and tighten up security, following incel ragemonkey blowback.
I am thanking all of the women who are brave and/or independent enough to vote, speak, raise awareness, against the fascist creeps + gaslighting GQP, because my egoflationary gender bracket (as a janky whole) appears to be too lazy and/or easily confused/discouraged to fight — let alone 'fight fair', and fight informed and clear-eyed — or even to recognize the fight, recognize privilege, recognize cult behavior, et al.
As an older, married, childless woman living in MAGA infested Florida, I just want to say many of us are in total agreement, even though we're not voting for the rights of our own kids or grands. We're not going back! 💙🇺🇸
Out here in rural Oregon, the red part of the state, every volunteer event is full of older white women. Just sayin. This is happening all over the country. We remember the world we grew up in and we do NOT want that for our granddaughters. Or grandsons, for that matter. We have a little time, we have a lot of passion, and we are not going down without a fight. (Remember, we fought for Roe v Wade the first time around!)
I love this and what you do. I’m hearing vibes that my state of Kansas could go blue. That would shock the pants off some people.
I just read a Kansas article claiming that "Harris is breathing down Trump's neck." Yessss!
Yeah!!
Delusions of grandeur and self importance are usually the pride before the fall…
I’m 77 (which continually amazes me for all the obvious reasons). Your comments and the data about older women are hugely important.
——-
With memory comes perspective. Memory is neither nostalgia nor a maudlin reconstruction of what wasn’t.
It can be that. But mostly it is a vivid recollection and reminder of how much safer, healthier, and more secure our lives are, and of how very recently many of the changes occurred.
I remember the terror of polio. I was 6.
I remember crawling under desks to duck and cover. I was 12.
I remember cat calls, whistles, and the whispers about coeds being raped and then being blamed for it. I was 18.
I remember colored-only fountains and Bull Connor’s vicious attack dogs. I was 15.
I remember Mr. Burns talking about his experience as a carrier pilot in the Pacific against the Japanese. I was 14.
AND -
I remember the day when I “got it”.
I was walking down the sidewalk behind two teens. One looked at the other and said:
“Did you know Paul McCartney was with another band before he was with Wings?”
In that moment I realized that for me, even though it had started 13-14 years earlier, Vietnam was yesterday.
And then I realized that for my parents, while I was cheering at a Kennedy rally in Newark in 1960, Hitler was YESTERDAY. And the Great Depression when people starved while farmers burned their crops was only the day before.
Autocracy was only yesterday and could be tomorrow.
Women’s permanent exile to a second class was only yesterday and could be tomorrow.
———-
Our lives depend on understanding just how contingent and fragile our freedoms are - and that indifference is fatal.
Vote.
Act.
Your lives truly do depend on it.
I hope you put this out everyplace you have access to. It pulls it all together. Thank you. I am about your age, and yup, that's pretty much how it went down with me, too.
Yep, 78 here. And that's right on.
Jess, your Iowa storytelling was just what I needed this morning. Thank you, you do it so well! And as an added bonus, I now know what a Scotcharoo is; I looked it up! I have a reason to believe that losing the State Rep election a few years ago, drove you to a much more important and influential position, the one you have now. Your willingness to meet the voters where they are, combined with candor, empathy and a heart of gold, makes you more valuable to these United States than you ever would have been in Jeff City. You are a big picture person, even if you live in a small town and we who listen, read and comment are so much the better for it. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
🙏🏻 🇺🇸 ❤️
Agree 100%
Wow I live in the Chicago area. We can’t see the quiet rage in the rural areas other than what we hear through the media. I chatted with 4 female retirees last month and told them I could not see my daughters getting sick in a red state. As a male, with no proof, I said that doctors would start flowing red states and turn them into health care desserts. Your article makes me fear that I was right. Anyway I am glad for your efforts and your ability to connect the dots for everyone.
For facts and figures backing up your correct assumption, I highly recommend the newsletter "Abortion, Every Day".
OBGYNs are indeed fleeing red states, but more importantly, medical students are increasingly choosing schools in blue/purple states and residents are increasingly choosing to practice in blue/purple states.
The numbers/trends are beyond alarming.
Thank you for raising the alarm in your circles.
How sweet that would be! Its so alarming that many women buy into this Kamala bs that republicans are spewing.
While orange flatulence 45 is farting and refusing to talk policy, we see the disparities of female vs male candidates.
This is so sad. But some folks just love this l Magat club trump, FOX and other
Mainstream media idiots are espousing. Even NYT, WAPO, WSJ its such an eye-opening period of time!
I think these companies along with republicons will forever regret this allegiance….
But I could be wrong. And if that's the case, I sure hope
DJT
RIDES
IN
MORE
GARBAGE TRUCKS CUZ THAT AND THE NAZI RALLY WERE FOREVER
ETCHED
INTI THE
American
AND
INTERNATIONAL
AUDIENCES
WHI SO
DESPERATELY
WANT
MAGA
TO
END
💙🇺🇸
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It’s long be past time for the white male bs patriarchy to go the way of the dinosaur. I am proud to stand beside strong and smart women working together as we dismantle and rebuild something better and stronger.
Solidarity, friend!