How ironic that as all-male councils around the world continue to pass laws restricting what women can and can’t do with their own uterus, a woman emerged as the leader of of the free world. Not Hillary Clinton–duh–though most of the world, Americans included, wished she were. It’s not Theresa May, either, not after she refused to condemn Donald Trump’s immigration ban targeting Muslims from the seven countries he has no business with.
The leader of the free world is a woman, and her name is Angela Merkel. The thrice-elected German chancellor with a doctorate in quantum chemistry inherits the mantle from Barack Obama, carrying, as The Independent recently put it, “the weight of Germany and Europe on her shoulders, but that of defending freedom and liberalism across the world.”
She faces a serious and daunting battle indeed, and while her manner may be more abrasive than the namaste-New Age but benevolent and principled approach of her closest contender, yoga practitioner and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, she understands the turbulent political realities the world currently finds itself in and chooses to govern out of a sense of principle and pragmatism, not pique.
The same cannot be said of the Putin-admiring wannabe autocrats–male, of course–who have risen to power in the last year.Ah, men and their fragile egos. And no man embodies all the pathetic fragility of that rapidly diminishing species, the ageing, entitled, insecure, [often white] male like Donald J. Trump. Rodrigo Duterte, representing the chest-puffing Asian bully, lags not far behind.
They are such cartoonish specimens of manhood, textbook buffoons supplying endless fodder for parody, objects of ridicule, certainly. It would be tempting to dismiss Trump and his ilk as content providers for the indefinite future for Saturday Night Live were they not so frighteningly dangerous when their egos are bruised by even the slightest of slights.
Donald Trump sees the presidency as essentially a dick contest. Unable to accept that Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Chris Christie, and the rest of his competitors in the Republican presidential primaries could possibly have–and be–bigger dicks than him, he proceeded to eviscerate them all. Unable to accept that Hillary Clinton had not just a bigger dick but more balls than he did, he attacked her abilities with savage misogyny, not to mention whopping lies, which unfortunately resonated with other men like him, ageing, entitled, insecure and white.
Unable to accept, too, that his predecessor was a bigger man than him in all the ways that matter to a man like Trump–dick, balls, brains, humor, stature, manners, public approval ratings, basketball, celebrity cred, even golf, most likely, and hands, of course–he has chosen to engage in a dick contest Obama can’t even be bothered with.
The obsession with crowd size, and the deliberate fudging of facts, to the point of shutting down the Twitter accounts of the government agencies that dared to tweet clear evidence to contradict his brazen lies, is one such example. Trump simply could not accept the fact that Obama drew more crowds at his 2009 inauguration than he did in 2017.
And trailing behind any man in size, especially a man like Obama, is just not possible for a man like Trump. And yeah, let’s not mince any words here. What makes the defeat even more unbearable for Trump, that racist, sexist, war-mongering, pussy-grabbing birther buffoon, is that Obama happens to be black. And Kenyan. And Muslim. It’s a world of alternative facts, after all.
Bill Maher called it out best last week on his show.
“There is, in just one week, a lot to be very alarmed about. But I gotta put on the top of my list the fact that the President of the United States sees multitudes that do not exist. He insisted that the crowd size at the inauguration was the biggest ever—and that aerial photography is just a theory. But we saw this! We saw these pictures. Half the mall covered in whiteness—but enough about his supporters. I mean, he can’t stand it that when it comes to the size of the crowd, Obama’s was bigger. This is about cock, right? This is about dick! This is about a guy who never brought a woman to orgasm, that’s what this is about. He probably doesn’t even think it really exists in a woman: It’s rigged. The vagina is very rigged.”
Well, thank God for vaginas, rigged or otherwise. Because those with vaginas seem to have way more balls than the XY-chromosomed beings who have been brought to heel like simpering dogs beside the man with the combed-over hair, oversized red tie and bellicose banter, salivating at the thought of being thrown bones like tax cuts for the rich enacted, Roe vs Wade abolished, environmental protection orders rescinded, and a host of civil rights trampled upon. (No different from Duterte’s three-ring circus, just replace with plaid shirts, etc.–you get the drift).
Those with vaginas defied that inhumane and unnecessary ban on Muslims, with one woman, Sally Yates, the acting Attorney General, since fired by Trump, ordering the Justice Department not to defend the ban. Those with vaginas in the US Congress–two GOP senators, Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins–announced that they would oppose the confirmation of Betsy DeVos, a person most unqualified for the position, as Trump’s education secretary. Those with vaginas in our own Congress are among the very few lawmakers to make a principled stand against the current administration’s policies and appalling sexism. Those with vaginas marched in solidarity all over the world on January 21st to demand that their very basic rights be respected and upheld by administrations that threaten to ignore them. Rights as simple as “Affordable birth control. Equal pay for equal work. Full access to health care for transgender Americans,” to quote a recent New York Times editorial.
And those with vaginas lead the free world.
B. Wiser is the author of Making Love in Spanish, a novel published earlier this year by Anvil Publishing and available in National Book Store and Powerbooks, as well as online. When not assuming her Sasha Fierce alter-ego, she takes on the role of serious journalist and media consultant.
For comments and questions, e-mail b.wiser.ph@gmail.com.
Disclaimer: The views expressed here are solely those of the author in her private capacity and do not in any way represent the views of Preen.ph, or any other entity of the Inquirer Group of Companies.
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