By Meredith O’Brien
They chose the rapist.
They empowered the serial, sexual abuser.
The one who famously values women only for how sexually attractive they are to him.
The one who hand-picked Supreme Court justices who then stole reproductive rights from American women, rights they’d previously sworn under oath were safe
The one who bragged about that revocation of reproductive rights, how he was responsible for turning the clock back fifty years.
Who selected a running mate who assesses females based on their reproductive status and their usefulness for the tasks of bearing, raising, and caring for children.
Supporters of this presidential ticket openly laughed about how their opponent – a former prosecutor-state attorney general-US senator-vice president – was a prostitute who gave blow jobs in order to get ahead, that she worked street corners.
They called their competitor stupid. A bitch. A hoe. The c-word.
They broke out into chants of “Tampon Tim” because her running mate was a governor who made sure school bathrooms in his state were equipped with menstrual products for students who couldn’t afford them.
The American people who voted for the prevailing presidential ticket went along with it all. With the rapist’s laughter, with his cruelty, with his raging misogyny, with his running mate’s reductive debasement of women based on the usefulness of their uterus.
Those who pulled the lever for the winning presidential ticket just delivered these messages to American women:
- Get in line, bitches and shut the fuck up.
- Follow the new president and his anointed leaders and attend to their concerns, as well as to the concerns of their supporters. They’re in charge now.
- Keep your knees closed unless you’re married.
- When you marry – which you should do, as soon as possible – remember to keep your husband happy, because exit polls from the 2024 presidential election have told us that men are unhappy.
- If you have a wanted pregnancy and it goes awry, praying will do the trick.
- If you have an unwanted pregnancy, think of the child, pray, and carry on.
- When you have children – which you really need to do as soon as possible in order to keep you humble and selfless – step away from your job for the sake of the kids and for those angry young men who want the job you currently have. Those young men are unhappy because you won’t just step aside.
- When you become a postmenopausal female, remember that your only purpose is to care for your grandchildren.
- Maintain your looks because no one likes ugly women.
- Come to terms with the fact that the United States is a nation for and led by men. They make the calls because they know best and will protect you, whether you like it or not.
God bless the United States of America.
Meredith O’Brien is a Boston-based writer. Her next book, Louie on the Rocks, is due out in February. You can follow her on Threads, Instagram & Twitter: @MeredithOBrien
