A Political Manifesto

January 22, 2017

I’m not a political person. Maybe this a result of my privilege—I’ve never really worried that my way of life would be restricted, that my rights would be taken away, that I risked condemnation for the color of my skin or the people that I loved. Maybe this a result of my youth and ignorance—fresh into college, I am experiencing for the first time what it is like to live in a politically charged environment, where everyone around me feels and argues and fights for their beliefs. While it’s impossible not to get swept up into this, it’s also difficult for an uninformed, sheltered, and naïve girl like me to understand.

I have always been surrounded by strong, powerful, intelligent, and fiercely driven women—as friends, family, teachers, role models. I am particularly lucky to have grown up in this environment. It has shaped me as a person passionate about many things—books and words and storytelling and cultures and history and languages—but it also means that I’ve always thought the idea of women’s rights to be indisputable, since those around me have never disagreed.

You want to be a writer? Then go write your fucking heart out.

Although I’ve never been fed the cliché—“If you work hard enough, you can be whatever you want to be”—I’ve always believed it. And why not? From the little liberal bubble of my hometown, to the progressive and inclusive community of my high school, to a college campus that constantly promotes and encourages freedom of expression—I’ve never had reason to deny that if I want something, and I work hard, and I become good at it, then there’s a fair chance I’ll get it. At home, my parents wished nothing more than for me and my sister to find something we truly loved and to put our whole hearts into doing that thing the best we could. Female agency, female empowerment—it’s never been something I needed to fight for.

Reality is a bitch. I stood in a sock store yesterday for almost an hour, brain spinning: I will always be able to buy socks, but maybe not birth control. Are pink socks an indicator of my effeminacy? Do all guys want to wear images of sharks and bears and beer cans on their feet, or do they just do that so no one will question how masculine they are? And the overarching question: What happens when these awful, black-and-white, heteronormative ideas become the ruling mindset of our country? What happens then?

For the first time, I feel threatened: that my body will no longer be in my control, that my gender will define my choices and my reputation for the next four years. But more than that, I am afraid because I may not possess the proper means to defend myself. I don’t thrive in protests or marches or public displays of unity. I’m generally uncomfortable discussing or expressing my political beliefs because I feel myself too uninformed to productively comment on current events, even to have fully developed opinions on said events. Instead, I stay quiet. I think things through. Sometimes, I write. But I avoid mentioning names, or specific issues, or even well-known events; I hide behind allusion; I remain in my head.

This is a problem—different, I think, from a voice unheard because gender or race or socioeconomic status or religion precede someone’s humanity, but a voice unheard nonetheless. I still remember election night when my friend came into my room with the New York Times app open on his phone, updating it almost compulsively—he said to me, Trump’s going to win. And my first thought was haha, very funny, what a good joke. There’s no way that Trump can win. This country can’t be that stupid. Well, reality’s a bitch, because guess what happened.

And I remember sitting in the dorm lounge, unable to tear myself from the television screen, numb. I remember returning to my room to find a friend in tears; I remember comforting her while thinking: I don’t deserve to be upset about this. I don’t know enough about politics to be upset about this. I remember that we walked all over campus that night, the sky frigid above us, and lay on a basketball court and looked at the stars, and my mind was completely empty. Blank. Trying to come up with something to say, trying to make myself understand, so perhaps I would realize, finally, why this was an issue to cry about—it was, no doubt—so that maybe I could cry too. Could feel something besides shock. Could feel something besides the confusion and hesitation—I can’t cry about this because I don’t know enough. Because I didn’t care enough. Because I didn’t realize it could be a possibility, that Trump could win, that our country could choose that disgusting, awful man over a qualified and competent woman. There—you’ve just witnessed the most blatant and politically opinionated statement I’ve ever expressed.

It’s an echochamber in my head. I don’t think I know enough about politics, so I shy away from the entire topic. At the same time, I’ve grown up in such a liberal, nonthreatening, encouraging culture that I can’t imagine that ideas of female empowerment and equality and acceptance, learned from a young age, might not exist elsewhere. They make so much sense to me; why shouldn’t they make sense to everyone else? So now, at a point where I have to speak up, I freeze. I shut down. Thus, voiceless.

Yesterday, my social media feeds were filled with videos and pictures of protests and signs and crowds marching, yelling, demanding to be heard. I sat on the beach and stared at the ocean, rumbling with the discontent of millions of people around the world. I have never felt so small, so insignificant. For all my intelligence and privilege and relative luck in life, I spent my time sitting in the sand. Too scared to get up. Unwilling to dip my toes in the water. Silent.

But now, this freedom—to work hard and achieve my goals, to buy birth control and not fear that it will be the last time I do, to purchase pink socks—is contested. My entire worldview has been flipped upside down.

I don’t like protests or public displays. I am not vocal about my political beliefs. I prefer quieter methods of expression. Yet I don’t have the luxury of silence anymore.

You want to be a writer? Then go write your fucking heart out.

All right, then. I will.

Header image courtesy of Ignitum Today