My grandmother’s friend, for example, (a Republican) went off on a rant the other day about seeing people protest outside abortion clinics. This woman is in her 70s, and was like, ‘All those post-menopausal women who don’t have anything to worry about are annoying, but what really makes me sick is all those old men! who the hell do they think they are? They’ve never even been close to that kind if situation, it’s disgusting they should just leave those poor girls alone!” Seriously, I was like “Wuhh?” And my grandmother* just kind of sat there and didn’t disagree. Then she talked about how poor people keep having so many babies, and if they want an abortion they should be able to get one because having a kid is really expensive and they can’t afford it…so then they just end up on welfare. It’s like, one step forward and one weird pirouette back to the 1900s.

My mother, who has always been the type who doesn’t want choices because when she made the choice to marry my father, it basically ruined her life because she never really wanted kids, she just didn’t know that she was capable of not wanting kids so she just had us. And she’s always been conservative, and of the getting-a-cookie-from-the-patriarchy variety. She is a hair dresser, for example. But lately she’s been ALL OVER David Letterman and talking shit about people who like Roman Polanski. She even told me that if Sarah Palin was a man, they wouldn’t make jokes about her the way they do. I tentatively suggested that the same was true for Hilary Clinton…and she agreed! And she said that Letterman’s rape joke about Palin’s daughter was disgusting and teaching boys that it’s ok to treat women like that!

I think after decades of just acquiescing to men, they just can’t fucking take it anymore. Also I really have been trying the honey not vinegar approach to feminism with them lately. But I think it might just be that as conservative women who were never interested in feminism, but who exist in a very matriarchy-friendly family structure and church structure (even though they’re catholic, they’re the type of catholic that builds shrines to the virgin mary and almost never, ever prays to jesus, favoring st theresa (she never lets my grandmother down!) and the virgin mary over god the dad and jesus the son). And it’s like, the accrued weight of the oppression is finally so heavy they can’t ignore it anymore, and their naturally spunky personalities are approaching a “fuck this” place–the one I reached in 6th grade.

*Who, it should be noted (ohmygod she’s so nuts), sometimes thinks abortion is ok, like when my 17 year old second cousin got pregnant and my grandmother was like “she has all these liver problems her doctor told her she shouldn’t have a baby because it could make her worse, AND the father is black!” Black babies? Ok. White babies? Ok. But babies that have one black parent and one white parent? Probably even worse for your liver.

Fay Weldon and her ilk can talk until they keel over and it won’t make any real difference to anyone’s life. Not caring enough about choice to fight for it makes a huge difference to all of us.

Sure, things aren’t perfect and life is still hard for the vast majority of people, but better is better.

Dorky, I think we’re spending too much time together. I knew this might happen when you moved around the corner.

DING DING DING!

I think that’s it exactly.