Seventy Thoughts on Turning Seventy

Boys suck and girls are whores

When I was in the 8th grade, a boy in my class ( yes, I'll name him for those who went to GWHS ) Steve Goodman, announced the following to my entire class:

"Marsha Rosenzweig? Of course she's a whore. Haven't you seen her on Roosevelt Boulevard with a mattress on her back yelling 'curb service' to passing cars?"

Of course it wasn't true and of course I burned inside with shame, unable to have a clever ( or any!) retort while the whole class laughed.

This moment which I had buried deep in my memory resurfaced with a vengeance in the days following trump's election. Girls were reporting the jubilation of some of their male classmates, mocking then in the hallways with cat calls of "your body, my choice" and other painful insults.

This was definitely not something I ever expected to see as the norm again in my lifetime. It is now becoming clear that our young granddaughters' lives are going to have more in common with the lives of their grandmothers than with the relative freedom and opportunities that their mothers, our daughters had growing up in the 1990's and the oughts.

My daughter, born in 1982 never lived in a country where she didn't have access to reproductive health care. trumpism has put this in jeopardy. My daughter benefited from policies which opened up educational and career advancement opportunities for women and others who had previously been systematically excluded. trumpism with its demonization of anything that threatens white male domination with attempts to level the playing field and compensate for historic discrimination will lower and fortify the glass ceiling. My daughter learned history from multiple perspectives, benefiting from the emphasis on multicultural education and critical inquiry which characterized much of the curriculum in the 1990s. trumpism is making the very teaching of the truth about our country's racist and genocidal past against the law. Today, in some states, doctors and teachers who are trying to do their work with fairness, professionalism and integrity are now threatened with prison.

It was not fun being a girl in the 1960s. It was not fun watching the boys dominate class discussion and hold all class offices. It was not fun counting on one hand the number of girls in advanced classes, especially in the sciences and math. As a 12 year old Jewish girl, it was not fun to learn that I was not permitted to read from the Torah for my Bat Mitzvah, even thought I was smarter and better prepared than most if not all of the boys is my Hebrew School class. It was not fun to go to the college counselor and hear her say, "Well dear, you have two choices, teaching or nursing." ( I became a teacher.)

And it was not fun to know that you couldn't do a damn thing about a male teacher who crossed the line with you - except be appalled or flattered - depending on if you were dumb enough to believe him when he said he was madly in love with 14 year old you. And it was not fun to know you couldn't get a credit card in your own name - it had to be in your husband's or father's which was particularly distressing to me as during that time I had neither.

And it wasn't fun to know that boys and men could touch you, kiss you, rape you, grab you by the pussy and proceed to trash YOUR reputation by bragging in the locker room about how you put out for anybody.

The memory of Steve Goodman calling me a whore when I had never even kissed anybody and didn't really know what the word meant - and the whole class pointing and laughing at me

including some girls ) hurts more in this moment than it did at the time it occurred. Because now, more than ever, I am worried about the social climate my young granddaughters, ages 6 and 9, will have to navigate as they reach adolescence and young adulthood.

I don't want my granddaughters to have male teachers like some of the ones I had --- Mr. Heller, who used to call me up to the front of the room only to "forget" what he wanted and then leer at me as i walked back to my desk in my short skirt burning with embarrassment as he make comments about my body to the class. I don't want my granddaughters to have a professor offer to give her an A for a class she wanted to drop if she "obliged' him. ( I did not take him up on that offer and dropped the class.).

And I don't want my granddaughters to be physically assaulted by four neighborhood boys she thought were her friends -- ( Gary, Eric, Marc and Jeff ) pushed down to the ground on the grass behind a friend's house taking turns mauling her burgeoning breasts to determine if she were wearing "falsies." ( I was not.). And I certainly don't want my granddaughters to be told, as I was by both the other girls and the adults, that it was my fault and I was asking for it. ( It wasn't and I was not.)

For a brief glorious moment in the 1970s, post Roe and with the availability of birth control young women of my generation, learned that we had agency over our own bodies. And the bravery of the women of my daughter's generation who spoke truth to power about their own experiences with sexual abuse during the height of the #metoomovement enabled the women of my generation to look back on our past experiences with new, empowered eyes.

That this president is an avowed sexual abuser ( "if you're a star they let you do it") and found liable for sexual assault as defined my New York state law --- he not only grabbed her by the pussy in a dressing room, he penetrated her with his little fingers against her will. Digital penetration which caused her pain and humiliation. A jury believed her. Half of America did not -- or worse, they did not see this jury decision as as a disqualifier for the highest office in the land.

This administration's cabinet picks portend a dark and telling scary future for girls and women in America. For all of their inflamed rhetoric about Democrats being pedophiles and perverts, trump has nominated his own share of rakes and abusers. For Attorney General he has nominated a man who has been credibly accused of having sex with a minor and engaging in sex trafficking. He has nominated another man to head the Department of Defense ( which oversees the experience of women in the military among other powers) who settled a sexual assault case against him with a large payment and non disclosure clause. And brain worm afflicted RFK Jr. who doesn't believe in the findings of contemporary science has been put in charge of this country's health including women and girls, has publicly apologized for assaulting a young woman who worked for him.

And of course, there are TWO justices sitting on the Supreme Court of this country with a history of inappropriate behavior against women. These men, Thomas and Kavanaugh continue to make decision that affect women's lives.

This is the cultural climate that our granddaughters will be coming into their own as women. These are the messages they are getting about what men think of them, about their responsibility for their own safety, about the expectations men have of them and their bodies, about what careers they can have, and what roles they can play in our society. Of course there are women who are elevated in trump world -- conventionally great looking young women with slim bodies, carefully carved faces and perfectly coiffed hair who are forceful and vociferous supporters of their leader and his agenda.

I also have two grandsons, ages 9 and 12. I worry too about the lessons of toxic masculinity they are getting from the "manosphere." How are they being twisted by unearned male privilege? How are they influenced by the rhetoric of white male supremacy? And most important of all, how will all of this translate into how they treat the girls in their schools and social circles in their teenage years?

When will these angry incels learn that if they want to have sex with a woman, it might be necessary to actually get to know her, treat her with care and respect, not talk badly about her in the locker rooms and social media and champion her goals and dreams as you expect her to do yours.

And not grow up to be men who take her rights away.

This may be an aside but I was suddenly reminded of an article I read the other day about how more and more women over the age of 65 who are divorced or widowed are not choosing to remarry. Many are lauding the freedom we have at this time of life -- traveling alone or with girlfriends, working or living off of our own pensions, and making decisions about where and how we live that work for us.

We are not all choosing to be full time nannies to our working children, as Vice President elect JD Vance has asserted we should be. Though I love all my grandchildren and enjoy spending time with them it's not my responsibility to solve the childcare problem. And we do care about reproductive freedom, even though we are ( thankfully!!) past the age of conception, and Senator elect Bernie Moreno has said it's "crazy"for women over fifty to care about this.

As if we stop being women after menopause.

Some of us are in shock, still after this election but it is important to remember that even though trump is claiming a mandate, as the final votes are tallied he will likely not reach 50%. This means that more than half of those voting did NOT vote for him. We can analyze why 50% plus did not vote for Kamala Harris at another time. But when we do, we should not forget the vulgar attacks on her sexuality.

Every meme, post, or conversation on talk radio which called the Vice President, former US Senator and California Attorney General a whore or accused her of sleeping her way to the top is an arrow shot into the self esteem and agency of every woman and girl in this country.

This is way too familiar. For me, what was once a long ago memory of being called a whore in 8th grade, is sadly still a reality that a woman candidate for President of the United States had to contend with and a tactic that 8th grade boys have learned ( once again) they have license to use to disempower their female peers.

We must do better.

Thoughts? Your experiences? Things that make you hopeful?

photo- 1964 -- the "whore with a mattress on her back yelling, 'curb service.