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They want to luxuriate in the power they hold, where they never have to compromise, never have to confront their consciences or lack thereof, never have to face the consequences of their inaction. They want marginalized people to accept that the conditions of oppression are unalterable facts of life. When politicians talk about civility and public discourse, what they’re really saying is that they would prefer for people to remain silent in the face of injustice. The United States has become ungovernable not because of political differences or protest or a lack of civility but because this is a country unwilling to protect and care for its citizens - its women, its racial minorities and especially its children. If you want to talk about incivility, let us be clear about how deep those roots reach. It counted only three-fifths of the enslaved population when determining representation. The document that governs our lives effectively denied more than half of the population the right to vote. Incivility runs through the history of this country, founded on stolen land, built with the labor of stolen lives. We are told to stay calm and vote as an outlet for our anger. And if we dare to protest, if we dare to express our rage, if we dare to say enough, we are lectured about the importance of civility. All we can do is hope these bullets don’t hit our children or us. Time and again we are told, both implicitly and explicitly, that all we can do is endure this constancy of violence. These staggering numbers will not change one single thing. At least 19 children and two teachers are dead. The scale of death in Uvalde, Texas, is unfathomable. Adults, schoolchildren, concertgoers, nightclub revelers, grocery shoppers, teachers.
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And there is nothing more uncivilized than the political establishment’s inurement to the constancy of mass shootings in the United States: 60 deaths in Las Vegas, 49 deaths in Orlando, 26 deaths at Sandy Hook, 13 deaths in Columbine, 10 deaths in Buffalo. Here’s hoping we have another encounter soon.There is a cultural obsession nowadays with civility, with the idea that if everyone is mannered enough, any impasse or difference of opinion can be bridged. Reading “Bad Feminist” is like having a fascinating (one-way) conversation with an extremely smart, well-read, funny and thoughtful party guest. A handful of the essays miss the mark or seem to drag on, but they’re few and far between.
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Gay’s writing style is as refreshingly varied as her subject matter - from lists to heavily footnoted pieces. Strangely, there were no questions about the whereabouts of the father while this rape was taking place.” There were even questions about the whereabouts of the girl’s mother, given, as we all know, that a mother must be with her child at all times or whatever ill befalls the child is clearly the mother’s fault. “There was discussion of how the eleven-year-old girl, the child, dressed like a twenty-year-old, implying that there is a realm of possibility where a woman can ‘ask for it’ and that it’s somehow understandable that eighteen men would rape a child. The author “focused on how the men’s lives would be changed forever, how the town was being ripped apart, how those poor boys might never be able to return to school,” Gay writes. Gay pillories a New York Times article titled “Vicious Assault Shakes Texas Town” about the gang-rape of an 11-year-old girl. Gay points out that women still earn 77 percent of what men earn, that only 18 percent of the members of Congress are women and that only 4 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs are women.Ī later essay further drives this point home. Better is not good enough, and it’s a shame that anyone would be willing to settle for so little.”
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In an essay responding to the argument that the need for feminism is gone, Gay responds: “(L)ife has improved in measurable ways for women, but she is wrong in suggesting that better is good enough.