It made headlines recently that Trump likes the women who work for him “to dress like women,” says a source who worked on Trump’s campaign. It’s clear that appearances matter to the president, as he rates women on a scale of one to ten, while also boasting about his daughter’s beauty. This has obviously caused social media backlash and angered feminists all over.
Too often I am told that I am a humorless feminist and ball-busting shrew for pointing out misogyny. It took me a long time to realize that it was costing me more than the men involved in the situation back when I felt I had to argue on each occasion of misogyny that I encountered, while it took me even longer to understand that a system that was thousands of years old was not going to change simply due to my passionate efforts. Now I fight selectively and try to feel ok about that. After all, I have lots of allies that I keep close and I lead a relatively happy life.
Looking forward, the artists and comedians are going to be essential in the next four years. Art journalism is going to take off because there is just so much material with all the ridiculousness going on.
“I can’t tell you what art does and how it does it, but I know that art has often judged the judges, pleaded revenge to the innocent and shown to the future what the past has suffered, so that it has never been forgotten. I know too that the powerful fear art, whatever its form, when it does this, and that amongst the people such art sometimes runs like a rumour and a legend because it makes sense of what life’s brutalities cannot, a sense that unites us, for it is inseparable from a justice at last. Art, when it functions like this, becomes a meeting-place of the invisible, the irreducible, the enduring, guts and honour.” ― John Berger
Women, people of color, immigrants, members of the LGTBQ community and other groups will face intense systemic oppression in the years to come. That being said, everyone needs to be engaged and be part of the resistance. We have to hold the powerful accountable for their actions, encourage critical thought, and report facts instead of “alternative facts.” We must do our best to use what influence we have for the greater good – as media, as citizens, and as humans.