I’m 61. I was 9 when we got Roe. I grew up in rural east Texas, and I recall clearly the day I became a feminist. I was sitting in class, trying to hide from the obnoxious football players in front of me. They were talking about another girl in school who had gotten pregnant and dropped out. They all called her a filthy whore and also bragged about how they had all had sex with her. The impotent blind rage I felt at that moment has powered me for 43 and a half years. I started volunteering for Democrats in 1982 and haven’t looked back.
What I need right now, though, is some reassurance that if things go sideways again we won’t give up. That if men fail us and vote for the nightmare in large numbers that we have plans to continue the fight. (I originally typed the cliche phrase “Plan B” there and then realized that using the name of something Trump will ban would be in the worst possible taste in this context.) Will we keep it up? What are our plans for an insurgency?
I did learn this morning that the six voters in Dixville Notch split 3 3 for Harris and the Horror, but went 5 - 1 for Ayotte, the R governor candidate. The voters were 4 Republicans and 2 Independents, no Dems. If 1/4 of Republicans defect from him today. . . .
(Seriously, six people in rural New Hampshire are completely meaningless but at that point any data that helps me feel better is welcome.)
I've wondered that myself for months, because we won't be able to remove a Republican regime by any 'ordinary' political methods. I do think that if they were to do even a fraction of the things they've proposed (and why wouldn't they do them all, because they'd have completely unchecked power), they will become very unpopular, including with many of the people who voted for them. And there would be no one else to blame. I remember how much more resistance Trump generated when he was in power, compared to now. I think that dynamic would repeat.
But yeah I don't know what we would actually do about it. They can't imprison or kill all of us, but they can do that to some, so enough of the American people would have to show courage. I don't want to have to find out, but today is an earthquake either way, because if she wins a large percentage of them are going to be in open revolt, and we're going to be forced to address our entitled privileged angry white man problem. Here's hoping that's the path America sets off on today.
Either way we will have a fight on our hands. One thing I plan to do is start organizing for 2026 immediately. I’m the new Dem precinct chair in my neighborhood, and I am going to invite all our volunteers over for coffee in December. If Trump wins, we obstruct EVERYHING. He doesn’t get to make the proclamation for Mother’s Day. If Harris wins, we start to give her a solid majority in Congress and we clean the cockroaches out of the state legislature.
I've been trying my best to tell people that abortion care is connected to all kinds of women's healthcare, including the cancer treatments I've had, starting with a hysterectomy after being diagnosed with ovarian cancer - they were wrong, it was an aggressive uterine cancer, which 4 years later spread to my lymph nodes. I'm in Oregon, but one state over and I would have had to travel for healthcare. I wouldn't have access to the medication I take that keeps cancer away. But while my circle of friends on social media might connect with me personally, very few of them connect what I experienced to abortion healthcare. Even my husband was affected by what I wrote - he said he hadn't made the connection. If women are afraid to go to the doctor for a pregnancy, they go undiagnosed for a whole host of other issues. I know I don't need to tell the folks here, but this fight isn't over even if we get the people into office that we want. This is foundational - and can be tracked to limiting sex education in schools, for one. I am considering options like running for school board depending on where I land with a permanent position. I hope for the best, but even the best outcome is going to require a huge amount of work to ensure a better future where women have full rights.
you're right, callie. if kamala wins, we will still have to keep fighting. there will be a lot of pushback from the evangelical side. they are organised and have a lot of money behind them. btw, you should definitely run for school board. you'd be awesome!
All True! When there is a female backlash all we do is vote and write articles. The male backlash to this election if there is a huge gender divide will be deadly for some women. The Red Pill and Black Pill men will be very scary. And we will not be able to expect the social media bros who created all this anger to tamp it down. Even if we win, we have to keep fighting.
i'm 75 and i remember. more than one friend had an abortion. they had to go to puerto rico for that. you had to have money and, even then, the conditions weren't great. one friend got a vicious infection and was never able to have children. we won't go back!!!
I texted my daughter-in-law yesterday to encourage her to vote for the sake of her 3 year old daughter. She and my son live in a deep blue state and don't follow national politics closely. My son has become very religious and is now against abortion. I was afraid that she would follow his lead and vote the way he does. (Not sure who he voted for, but based on his main concerns - economy and immigration - I have my suspicions. I tried convincing him to vote for Kamala.)
Anyway, she said she already voted for Kamala! 💙💙💙
This election has brought up a lot of pre-Roe memories for me and for a lot of women my age(74). I really hope I can put those memories back in a deep hole when election results are final.
Thank you all for sharing. Women generally do not share their abortion stories and understandably. It is rarely a happy moment. But weirdly the first time as a child I learned about the procedure was watching Fast Times at Ridgemont High when I was ten. A teen slice of life film, mostly a comedy, had a major subplot about abortion and it all seemed...okay. The character's brother was a stand up guy and picked her up when her ass of boyfriend ditched her. And her life went on.
But in my real life, and I am in my 50s, women do not share. Abortions are quietly and privately handled. So I think it was easy to take for granted. Not anymore.
I 100% agree with all you've said. NC is seriously in play this year. (They did go for Obama in 08).
Here's my "wait, it's the 21st century" bizarre sexism story. It was in no way a danger to me, but boy howdy did it piss me off.
When I got my first grown-up, tenure track job, I got a Mini Cooper. This was 2007. A few years later, I got a small inheritance and decided to buy my car outright. YAY! So I went to do the paperwork. I took my then-bf, now husband, with me because the dealer was about 1.5 hours away, and I wanted company. I was dressed in business clothes--black slacks, blouse, suit jacket. I can't remember why--maybe I had just finished teaching and this was back when I was still like "I should dress in suits." My boyfriend, on the other hand, looked like I had picked him up on the side of the road. He was in ratty-ish shorts and a tee shirt.
Y'all can see what's coming, can't you?
The salesman literally spent a HUGE amount of time address my boyfriend and NOT ME. It got so bad that my bf said "look, she's buying the car, not me. I'm just here..." Didn't make a difference. I sent a scathing letter to the company, but it didn't make a difference, either. Seriously? In like 2011, you're going to do that?!? ARGH.
I've dealt with a lot of other sexism issues, small and large, that are nowhere near as invasive or dangerous as the anti-abortion stuff, but there is so much still out there.
I think the simple truth of the election is that women are rage-filled. Not angry. Most of us have been angry for a long time. Now it is rage. And since women are conditioned against violence, we're voting instead.
I had that same car buying experience! My husband was shocked by the dealer’s ignorance when he talked down to me and then tried to discuss the options with my husband. He told me as we left that dealership, “Thet guy has no idea what he lost. You could’ve paid cash for any car on that lot and become a repeat buyer if he wasn’t such a dick!”
Tuesday breakfast includes my elderly parents (ages 93 and 86), my daughter (age 30), grandson (age 6), granddaughter (age 2) and me (age 59). Conversation around voting is mainly about our rights as women. My mother lived through the no Roe era, I grew up with Roe rights and we both desperately need to get back those personal rights for that precious little girl and also her big brother who deserves to someday have a world where all people have agency over their bodies. My daughter had a miscarriage prior to having her daughter and is adamant about those rights because she needed abortion care to get through that miscarriage. So much love around that kitchen table of 4 generations. I voted this morning with my husband……….we voted for hope, for women, for democracy. Now we wait.
So many of my Catholic relatives spent years voting for Republicans because they were single-issue voters on abortion. And it was so weird to be in a Catholic church after Roe got overturned, because the church got exactly what they wanted. And I'm not sure anything changed for the Catholic church.
It feels really bizarre to be in a moment where that same issue that my relatives and so many Catholics were single issue voters on, is the exact issue that post-Roe so many women are voting on and might be the reason we get a really decisive victory on the Democratic side.
“Many political journalists in the state, my colleagues at the time, assured me there would never be a real abortion ban. That Republicans were just playing politics, just firing up their base. It’s easy to see why someone could be lulled into complacency. To let themselves be convinced that their rights would never be undermined. “
I remember telling younger women at work in 2016 that they would be coming after their reproductive rights and getting the side eye. After Dobbs I told them contraceptives were next and got the same doubt.
Even if I am hysterical or over dramatic- I’m only reacting to what these politicians, religious and right to life groups have said. Why are these women so willing to dismiss the people who said what they would do and then do it! But I’m the threat?
PS. I’ve been screaming about Voting Rights since Obama got elected - I’m right about that too!
A purportedly liberal, male friend of some friends -- I wouldn't have ever called him a friend, just an acquaintance -- somehow was told of my tubal ligation, done in response to Dobbs, and responded by calling it extreme. Leaving aside the part where he had no business even knowing about the procedure let alone weighing in on it ... what a fucking idiot. I might even ask the friend who spilled the beans if he's recanted that yet.
Thanks, Lyz. Great post. A reminder to readers that while many of our brothers are complete idiots, many are not and worked/contributed and voted for Harris/Walz.
You are right. We cannot win without men. I get annoyed with bro-culture. It is the new machismo. But I also know young men need ways to build their confidence. I look at Obama, Buttigeg, Walz and want to know how they became so self actualized. They are not perfect but the confidence is there. The confidence to be kind, control their anger, etc.
"If this poll result is a surprise, it is because pundits and political analysts have not fully grasped that the right to abortion is the right of women to have autonomy and to be full participants in public life."
THIS! It's not about babies. It's about crossing the line of bodily autonomy. Which is also why trans rights and reproductive rights are intertwined. Access to healthcare should not be denied because of your race, gender, class, age, disability, housing or employment status. If it is, you are a second-class citizen.
It's simple: If you have control of your body, you are a person. I want to be a person.
Honor the crones! 💙
1000%
I’m 61. I was 9 when we got Roe. I grew up in rural east Texas, and I recall clearly the day I became a feminist. I was sitting in class, trying to hide from the obnoxious football players in front of me. They were talking about another girl in school who had gotten pregnant and dropped out. They all called her a filthy whore and also bragged about how they had all had sex with her. The impotent blind rage I felt at that moment has powered me for 43 and a half years. I started volunteering for Democrats in 1982 and haven’t looked back.
What I need right now, though, is some reassurance that if things go sideways again we won’t give up. That if men fail us and vote for the nightmare in large numbers that we have plans to continue the fight. (I originally typed the cliche phrase “Plan B” there and then realized that using the name of something Trump will ban would be in the worst possible taste in this context.) Will we keep it up? What are our plans for an insurgency?
i promise you that we won't quit. we will not give up. we will strengthen one another and keep fighting.
That’s what I want to hear!!
I did learn this morning that the six voters in Dixville Notch split 3 3 for Harris and the Horror, but went 5 - 1 for Ayotte, the R governor candidate. The voters were 4 Republicans and 2 Independents, no Dems. If 1/4 of Republicans defect from him today. . . .
(Seriously, six people in rural New Hampshire are completely meaningless but at that point any data that helps me feel better is welcome.)
I've wondered that myself for months, because we won't be able to remove a Republican regime by any 'ordinary' political methods. I do think that if they were to do even a fraction of the things they've proposed (and why wouldn't they do them all, because they'd have completely unchecked power), they will become very unpopular, including with many of the people who voted for them. And there would be no one else to blame. I remember how much more resistance Trump generated when he was in power, compared to now. I think that dynamic would repeat.
But yeah I don't know what we would actually do about it. They can't imprison or kill all of us, but they can do that to some, so enough of the American people would have to show courage. I don't want to have to find out, but today is an earthquake either way, because if she wins a large percentage of them are going to be in open revolt, and we're going to be forced to address our entitled privileged angry white man problem. Here's hoping that's the path America sets off on today.
Either way we will have a fight on our hands. One thing I plan to do is start organizing for 2026 immediately. I’m the new Dem precinct chair in my neighborhood, and I am going to invite all our volunteers over for coffee in December. If Trump wins, we obstruct EVERYHING. He doesn’t get to make the proclamation for Mother’s Day. If Harris wins, we start to give her a solid majority in Congress and we clean the cockroaches out of the state legislature.
good for you!
I've been trying my best to tell people that abortion care is connected to all kinds of women's healthcare, including the cancer treatments I've had, starting with a hysterectomy after being diagnosed with ovarian cancer - they were wrong, it was an aggressive uterine cancer, which 4 years later spread to my lymph nodes. I'm in Oregon, but one state over and I would have had to travel for healthcare. I wouldn't have access to the medication I take that keeps cancer away. But while my circle of friends on social media might connect with me personally, very few of them connect what I experienced to abortion healthcare. Even my husband was affected by what I wrote - he said he hadn't made the connection. If women are afraid to go to the doctor for a pregnancy, they go undiagnosed for a whole host of other issues. I know I don't need to tell the folks here, but this fight isn't over even if we get the people into office that we want. This is foundational - and can be tracked to limiting sex education in schools, for one. I am considering options like running for school board depending on where I land with a permanent position. I hope for the best, but even the best outcome is going to require a huge amount of work to ensure a better future where women have full rights.
you're right, callie. if kamala wins, we will still have to keep fighting. there will be a lot of pushback from the evangelical side. they are organised and have a lot of money behind them. btw, you should definitely run for school board. you'd be awesome!
All True! When there is a female backlash all we do is vote and write articles. The male backlash to this election if there is a huge gender divide will be deadly for some women. The Red Pill and Black Pill men will be very scary. And we will not be able to expect the social media bros who created all this anger to tamp it down. Even if we win, we have to keep fighting.
Anger of those of us over 65 or over 80 like me is because once we have bocme invisible. So we will show you! Sit down and watch what we can do.
My mom and dad are 82 and 85 respectively. Anger is right! My mom and dad are PISSED! And voted for Harris/Walz
Amen, sister!
YES!
i'm 75 and i remember. more than one friend had an abortion. they had to go to puerto rico for that. you had to have money and, even then, the conditions weren't great. one friend got a vicious infection and was never able to have children. we won't go back!!!
Interesting that the US average life expectancy of women which is 79 years, as opposed to 73 for men might actually bite the patriarchy in the arse.
death, the ultimate GOTV ruiner
I texted my daughter-in-law yesterday to encourage her to vote for the sake of her 3 year old daughter. She and my son live in a deep blue state and don't follow national politics closely. My son has become very religious and is now against abortion. I was afraid that she would follow his lead and vote the way he does. (Not sure who he voted for, but based on his main concerns - economy and immigration - I have my suspicions. I tried convincing him to vote for Kamala.)
Anyway, she said she already voted for Kamala! 💙💙💙
This election has brought up a lot of pre-Roe memories for me and for a lot of women my age(74). I really hope I can put those memories back in a deep hole when election results are final.
Thank you all for sharing. Women generally do not share their abortion stories and understandably. It is rarely a happy moment. But weirdly the first time as a child I learned about the procedure was watching Fast Times at Ridgemont High when I was ten. A teen slice of life film, mostly a comedy, had a major subplot about abortion and it all seemed...okay. The character's brother was a stand up guy and picked her up when her ass of boyfriend ditched her. And her life went on.
But in my real life, and I am in my 50s, women do not share. Abortions are quietly and privately handled. So I think it was easy to take for granted. Not anymore.
I 100% agree with all you've said. NC is seriously in play this year. (They did go for Obama in 08).
Here's my "wait, it's the 21st century" bizarre sexism story. It was in no way a danger to me, but boy howdy did it piss me off.
When I got my first grown-up, tenure track job, I got a Mini Cooper. This was 2007. A few years later, I got a small inheritance and decided to buy my car outright. YAY! So I went to do the paperwork. I took my then-bf, now husband, with me because the dealer was about 1.5 hours away, and I wanted company. I was dressed in business clothes--black slacks, blouse, suit jacket. I can't remember why--maybe I had just finished teaching and this was back when I was still like "I should dress in suits." My boyfriend, on the other hand, looked like I had picked him up on the side of the road. He was in ratty-ish shorts and a tee shirt.
Y'all can see what's coming, can't you?
The salesman literally spent a HUGE amount of time address my boyfriend and NOT ME. It got so bad that my bf said "look, she's buying the car, not me. I'm just here..." Didn't make a difference. I sent a scathing letter to the company, but it didn't make a difference, either. Seriously? In like 2011, you're going to do that?!? ARGH.
I've dealt with a lot of other sexism issues, small and large, that are nowhere near as invasive or dangerous as the anti-abortion stuff, but there is so much still out there.
I think the simple truth of the election is that women are rage-filled. Not angry. Most of us have been angry for a long time. Now it is rage. And since women are conditioned against violence, we're voting instead.
I had that same car buying experience! My husband was shocked by the dealer’s ignorance when he talked down to me and then tried to discuss the options with my husband. He told me as we left that dealership, “Thet guy has no idea what he lost. You could’ve paid cash for any car on that lot and become a repeat buyer if he wasn’t such a dick!”
Tuesday breakfast includes my elderly parents (ages 93 and 86), my daughter (age 30), grandson (age 6), granddaughter (age 2) and me (age 59). Conversation around voting is mainly about our rights as women. My mother lived through the no Roe era, I grew up with Roe rights and we both desperately need to get back those personal rights for that precious little girl and also her big brother who deserves to someday have a world where all people have agency over their bodies. My daughter had a miscarriage prior to having her daughter and is adamant about those rights because she needed abortion care to get through that miscarriage. So much love around that kitchen table of 4 generations. I voted this morning with my husband……….we voted for hope, for women, for democracy. Now we wait.
So many of my Catholic relatives spent years voting for Republicans because they were single-issue voters on abortion. And it was so weird to be in a Catholic church after Roe got overturned, because the church got exactly what they wanted. And I'm not sure anything changed for the Catholic church.
It feels really bizarre to be in a moment where that same issue that my relatives and so many Catholics were single issue voters on, is the exact issue that post-Roe so many women are voting on and might be the reason we get a really decisive victory on the Democratic side.
So good!
“Many political journalists in the state, my colleagues at the time, assured me there would never be a real abortion ban. That Republicans were just playing politics, just firing up their base. It’s easy to see why someone could be lulled into complacency. To let themselves be convinced that their rights would never be undermined. “
I remember telling younger women at work in 2016 that they would be coming after their reproductive rights and getting the side eye. After Dobbs I told them contraceptives were next and got the same doubt.
Even if I am hysterical or over dramatic- I’m only reacting to what these politicians, religious and right to life groups have said. Why are these women so willing to dismiss the people who said what they would do and then do it! But I’m the threat?
PS. I’ve been screaming about Voting Rights since Obama got elected - I’m right about that too!
A purportedly liberal, male friend of some friends -- I wouldn't have ever called him a friend, just an acquaintance -- somehow was told of my tubal ligation, done in response to Dobbs, and responded by calling it extreme. Leaving aside the part where he had no business even knowing about the procedure let alone weighing in on it ... what a fucking idiot. I might even ask the friend who spilled the beans if he's recanted that yet.
Thanks, Lyz. Great post. A reminder to readers that while many of our brothers are complete idiots, many are not and worked/contributed and voted for Harris/Walz.
You are right. We cannot win without men. I get annoyed with bro-culture. It is the new machismo. But I also know young men need ways to build their confidence. I look at Obama, Buttigeg, Walz and want to know how they became so self actualized. They are not perfect but the confidence is there. The confidence to be kind, control their anger, etc.
"If this poll result is a surprise, it is because pundits and political analysts have not fully grasped that the right to abortion is the right of women to have autonomy and to be full participants in public life."
THIS! It's not about babies. It's about crossing the line of bodily autonomy. Which is also why trans rights and reproductive rights are intertwined. Access to healthcare should not be denied because of your race, gender, class, age, disability, housing or employment status. If it is, you are a second-class citizen.
THIS. Also I finally remembered to upgrade to a paid subscription. Yay!
Hang in there. It is going to be a LONG day....