election 2016 | Books by Sarah Robinson

Two weeks ago, a female friend of mine was grabbed on the subway. The police officer at the next stop said there’s nothing he can do, after all, “all” the guy did was grab her ass.

A month ago, a female friend of mine was turned down for a promotion she more than deserved because the company owner’s nephew was hired for it instead, though he had zero experience in the field.

Last week, a female friend of mine was told she didn’t deserve her vacation days because “all the time she took to pump her breast milk” should be considered vacation enough.

This summer, I was told if I wanted to write in literary fiction, I should pick a gender neutral pen name so that people wouldn’t know I was a woman. I was told I would be taken more seriously as a man.

These stories are just a tiny fraction of a fraction of the stories out there about what women go through. We may want to believe we’re in a progressive society where women have equal rights to men and are valued parts of society, but the truth is, we’re not there yet.

In fact, we’re farther away than we realize.

Women are not paid equally for the same job. We work twice as hard for the recognition a man readily earns. Our sexuality is judged and used against us, when a man’s is prided and encouraged. We’re looked down on for “just” being a stay at home mom, while at the same time, working mothers are chastised for not being home with their children. We’re attacked and assaulted and the first question is what was she wearing? Did she encourage her own rape? Boys will be boys–he couldn’t help himself.

That’s our normal. The stories above are our normal. As women, we hear these stories every day and barely bat an eye. They’re not surprising anymore, and every single woman has at some point or another experienced something like these stories.

Less than a hundred years ago, women couldn’t vote at all. This year, a woman is running for president. That is progress. That matters. No matter what you think of Hillary, her campaign is a milestone we should revel in as women. (And no, this isn’t a post telling you to vote for Hillary or who to pick at all.)

A woman can be President.

We can tell our daughters to reach for the White House.

We can lead a country.

And yet, still there are women out there who are saying they won’t vote at all. (And, yes, this post is particularly for women.).

Don’t let anyone tell you your vote doesn’t matter, or that you hate the choices so you’re not making one at all. Don’t let someone tell you if you’re voting for a third party, it’s throwing your vote away. Don’t let someone tell you if you vote for Hillary, you’re just doing it because she’s a woman. Don’t let someone tell you if you vote for Trump, you must hate women.

Don’t let anyone make your decision for you.

Look up the facts. Look up the promises. Educate yourself on the truth and what resonates in your heart, with your morals, your values, and your intellect. Make a decision about what and who you believe in, or who, at the very least, you could stomach as our next President.

But either way, make a decision.

Or the stories I mentioned at the beginning of this post will keep happening. They will continue to be our normal.

And that “normal” fucking sucks.

For the sake of every mother, daughter, aunt, grandmother, baby girl, or baby-girl-to-be, change our normal.

Change our world for the next generation of daughters. Make our new normal a world where women are paid the same as men for the same job. Make our new normal a subway trip where they don’t worry about being groped that ride–or worse, and if they are, it’s taken seriously, and they are victims, not asking for it. Make our new normal a country that values motherhood, maternity leave, and doesn’t avert their eyes and cast shame at something as natural as goddamn breastfeeding.

Make that change by voting.

Don’t pick Hillary just because she’s a woman–that’s the opposite of feminism. But do vote for whoever you think is going to be the best President of the United States…for you, for your daughters, for your family, for your community, and for our country as a whole.

There was once a time we couldn’t do even that, and there’s no telling what our future holds. But at this moment in time, we as women have the power in our hands to make a choice and exercise that choice. So, make it.

Vote on November 8th.

Because, as women, we need a new normal.

And we can be that new normal.

But only if we vote.

#debatenight #vote #rockthevote