Jill Soloway and Stacey Abrams

The articles, "Jill Soloway on Donald Trump, Locker Rooms and Toxic Masculinity", and "Stacey Abrams Didn’t Play It Safe. Neither Do These Female Candidates." talk about gender issues and the role it plays in politics. Soloway uses President Trump as an example. President Trump says he has respect for women, but will say things such as "Grab them by the p*ssy" and "You can do anything" (to the women). A lot of men will say degrading statements just like Trump. Whether it is a man you love or just a random guy on the street. When that man is with another or a whole group of men, if the topic is brought up in any way, they will reduce woman down to an object and only think of them for their body parts. Soloway then states how men will say they're only being masculine. To this, she calls their masculinity, toxic masculinity. Whenever men will say degrading things about a woman or girl to their friend, most of the time the friend will go along with it because they don't want to be thought of as "weak" or "gay" or anything else. When objectifying these women, most times men will be talking about the "bad" women. According to Soloway, the bad woman are the ones who basically don't belong to anyone. If they don't have a ring on their finger, they're fair game. This is where a divide starts between women. The "good" women (who are with someone) and the "bad" woman (who are not with someone) judge each other, and call each other names, etc. Going back to politics, Soloway states that some Republicans believe woman should be "revered". Except if this were to happen there wouldn't be any change in the divide of women. Those who are believed to be the "bad" kind of woman will still be thought of that and will not get the same respect they deserve. This connects to the article, White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack by McIntosh. Woman who have a partner, are somewhat privileged over the ones who don't. Both the articles by McIntosh and the "All Lives Matter" article also relates to the Stacy Abrams article, because she fought a hard fight to win the Democratic nomination for governor in Georgia. Not only is it a hard fight being a colored person running, but its hard being a colored female. One quote from the Soloway article that I like to tie all of these article together with is "The sooner we acknowledge the continuum on which our lives exist the sooner we’ll respect each other and embrace our glorious diversity." This quote should be something that everyone should hear, and think about. A lot of problems could be easily solved once people know how to respect one another but of course that is easier said than done.