guilt and fear

are possibly the two most motivating forces we experience in the spectrum of human emotion.  at every twist and turn in our lives we experience someone using one, or the other, or both, to sway us to their side.  i would be interested to see what the statistics are on how effective such things are…i am willing to lay down some money that they are good…

think about it.

the Christian Church has been doing it for years.  love our god or he will smite you.  do his work or face his judgment.  given the choice of continuing on with life as you know it and facing the wrath of a vengeful omnipotent being or doing whatever it takes to appease him and get a chance at eternal bliss…it seems pretty clear cut.  but it’s not.  it’s an ultimatum using those emotions to guilt you w/ fear into following them.

“dubya” did the same thing after 9/11.  he claimed that every nation in every corner of the world was either “with us, or with the terrorists”.  who wants to be known as a terrorist?  so, many countries likely jumped on the bandwagon of supporting the war mongering tendency of the current administration out of the obligation from the guilt they felt at the horrid things that happened to us here in the US.  he used the heartstrings of good nations, placed fear into their minds, and swayed them to his side.

ultimatums suck.  they are designed to play upon that fear and that guilt, and make a person choose a side that they may not otherwise make rationally.  it is really hard to respect someone who lays out the either you do “a”, or i am gonna do “b” scenario.  they often come off as desperate attempts to gain an edge where the ultimator (ha!  i made up a word!) possibly feels they no longer have it.

so when feminists lay out the “you’re either for us or anti-woman“ trope, it offends me.  i have been given enough ultimatums, made to feel guilty enough about things that other people have done to me, made to fear that possibly i didn’t know what i was talking about, and doubt my judgement.  that is not something that is going to win any favor w/ me.  it makes me angry.  

it may come as no surprise that i am a Clinton supporter.  her health care policy is sound.  her withdrawal from iraq plan makes sense, and sounds safe for the brothers and sisters i have in that quagmire now.  she has a commitment to female reproductive justice that i respect.  she is accomplished, driven, and capable.  her merits alone make it easy for me to support her.  is she perfect?  not a chance.  but when it comes down to the end of the day, she is less off base than the others.  i am not going to lay out all the details, a few glances around my blogroll will show you what i am talking about.  the point is it her merits, her accomplishments, and what she is offering up to us that make me rally behind her.  i do not need an ultimatum to tell me how to think and how to vote.

the feminist movement, in the most elementary way i can think to describe what it means to me, in addition to equality for everyone, is about trusting women.  it is about trusting us to decide what is right for our own bodies, our families, our careers, and our vote.  there is enough divide w/in our community that we don’t need to be guilting each other by laying out childish ultimatums.  we, as feminists, need to trust that we are choosing to back who we back b/c we have good reason.  if i were to vote for Obama, it isn’t b/c i am no longer championing for the female cause…but it would be b/c his policies and promises seem to me to be bettering the lot of human kind everywhere, including women.  it wouldn’t mean that i have jumped ship or have fallen off the wagon.  it would mean that i saw something in his plan that i felt would help further the feminist agenda (whatever that is).  

so let’s stop treating each other as infants.  i don’t need a guilt trip to know what i believe to be best.  i don’t need fear to drive me into the feminist camp…i am already there staking my space, and raising another feminist as i go.  all that fear and ultimatums are going to do for us is make us look bad to the outside.  it is gonna drive a wedge b/t us and the people sitting on the proverbial fence about our cause.  it makes us look petty, and like we are circling a frat party in camo in a bad movie. 

just stop.

and please, go to alternet and subscribe to the reproductive justice and gender newsletter.  it brightens my inbox every week…(does that make me jill’s shill?)