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Note that this cartoon was originally published in 2010… although it could’ve been 1990, or 1980. Yeah, I still find it funny, because I’m old and calloused. There are so many subgroups for whom 2017 has been the year of “time to give up on sweet reason as a method of conversion”. Petula Dvorak, in the Washington Post, on “The Unexpected (and inspiring) Year of the Woman”:
… [I]t felt as though 2017 might be the year that the massive boulder women have been pushing uphill for centuries rolled back down.
But no. It turned out to be the exact opposite, and, in a way, far more powerful than any of the milestones of 2016.
The year began with what was believed to be the largest march the country has ever seen. On Jan. 21, the day after the inauguration, women and the men who support them filled the streets, plazas and squares of Washington and cities across the country, as well as around the world. It was a breathtaking mass of humanity. On the ground in the nation’s capital, it felt as though no square foot of land was empty. From the office windows and balconies of those in power, it looked as though a tide was swallowing cities whole.
It was an amazing, powerful moment full of hope. But there was no unifying message, no concrete demand, no specific goal or 10-point action plan. Now we see: There didn’t have to be.
The women’s marches ignited an energy that roiled and swelled through the rest of the year.
By the end of 2017, a seismic change in American culture began toppling dozens of sexual predators in the #MeToo movement. A surge of female candidates ran for office and won a stunning number of elections, from city mayors to the nation’s statehouses.
“Women claimed big victories” with the Nov. 7 elections “in a night that marked many firsts and could signal the start of a sea change for women in politics,” wrote Governing magazine, a publication not known for breathless declarations on culture and feminism. “The sheer volume of success for women candidates was a surprise to many, mainly because they were running against incumbents who historically win re-election 90 percent of the time. But not this year. Incumbents in Georgia, New Jersey and Virginia all lost their seats to women.”…
In one year, our nation went from a place where 46 percent of American voters didn’t mind having a commander in chief who brags about grabbing women’s genitals to a place where a celebrity chef who allegedly gropes his female employees isn’t considered fit to be in the kitchen…
And, of course, it was women of color who largely spearheaded the Women’s March and all the activism that followed. Which has led, at least sometimes, to much-needed examination of the racism that has been the root and support of far too much political power in America, in 2017 no less than in 1817.
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What’s on the agenda as we prepare for the last long weekend of this too-long year?
Saturday Morning Open Thread: Nowhere to Go But UpPost + Comments (192)