Women Who Enable Radical Men: What of the Scarves?
I think daily about women who influence change.
I appreciate that women like Stacey Abrams make the news, on both social media and news media. We look at her accomplishments, perseverance, intelligence, and genuinely good demeanor as epitome of a modern woman. However, she is not alone. I remember that women were rarely just two decades ago given national airtime, much less women of color, unless she was a notable entertainer who kept a low political profile. Although media is finally willing to give voice and credit to a successful Black woman, thousands of women have contributed to Abrams’ triumphs but have unheralded stories. Many more thousands of American women work tirelessly and selflessly in public service, for their communities and causes that help all our lives. Many more millions of American women work more quietly but steadily to nurture our young, to carve paths in male-dominated industries, to create art, to establish homes and small businesses. Without whom our communities and nation would be lost. They are builders.
But what of the women who have chosen to use their voices and talents to disassemble and demolish?
Dr. Deborah L Birx is in headlines this week. Unlike Dr. Fauci who also worked with the Trump Administration on the Covid-19 pandemic team, Dr. Birx used her voice to praise the president. In several 2020 television interviews, Dr. Birx lies about the president and the actions of his allies on the opprobrious Covid Task Force, covering and appeasing instead of speaking truth. Both doctors’ voices and contributions were, as we learned recently, diminished and in some cases outright disregarded. Dr. Fauci spoke to this as publicly as he could without causing his dismissal from the work. But we are all witnesses to Dr. Birx’ silence when the former president stood at the podium and told a national audience that bleach and UV light could attack the virus once it enters the human body. On multiple occasions, Dr. Birx made herself subservient to the authoritarians in the White House, weakened her ability to expertly advise, reiterated the administration’s public position, and allowed the administration’s dangerous lies to go unopposed.
There were others like Dr. Birx on the 2020 Covid Task Force who sinned as she did. But Birx stood with and for the administration in public and media to a much greater degree than all others, including Dr. Fauci. Hers was a very public face. At first, Birx had the power to do good. Then something changed. But Birx’ accountability cannot be covered with beautiful scarves. She is responsible for her inaction, and much more so for her willingness to enable the lies, the incompetent handling, the purposeful bungling of the national response to a pandemic.
The Enablement of a corrupt project or leader is a Willful Empowerment of the Corruption.
Several traits describe women whose Enablement of base men leads to men’s Radicalization. For example, a mother who enables the first signs of her partner’s abuse soon experiences the escalation of violence in their home. When we experience little or no pushback on our faulty and harmful behaviors, our human tendency is to continue in the direction we are on. When women, in whom many men place at least minimal importance in the realm of family and sex, ignore men’s base behaviors, men assume that their silence is approval. While the silence continues, the reprehensible behaviors continue. If silence is broken but consequences do not sufficiently back their protests, many women resort to placation and manipulation wherein their men reveal some improvement in behaviors. Many other women give up in the reality of men’s cruelty. Many others become willing partners in depravity. I speak of those women who remain in close company, in close collaboration even, of men whose corruption and criminality, or mere(?) cruelty, is known. If the women remain, the men maintain.
What traits identify women who enable base men?
- They are Eager for Approval. Whether the fault lies in poor parenting or in extended trauma, girls and young women who zealously seek men’s approval do so to their own detriment. It is true in the entertainment industry or in the religion industry. It is true in both working and intimate relationships. A woman who has not learned by the time she is a teenager to find solace from injury and value for accomplishment somewhere in her own brain is a vulnerable person. It starts out as the girl who learns early how to manipulate the boys and men in her life to get her way or the girl whose mother and female role models withhold their approval—or the girl who is invisible, or the girl who is bullied. Without the mind-altering interventions of good role models and early rewarding experiences sans male assistance, young women who lack self-approving means become the women who fall for the machinations of Strongmen who lather phony approval in return for loyalty.
- They exhibit Low Self Respect. A woman short on self -respect is often depleted of motivation and strong in self-loathing. She might exceed her own expectations and excel in scholastic work. She might focus on a path where competition is minimal. In any case, the woman with low self-respect will cover herself. But all the scarves and degrees or plastic surgeries and babies in the world will not hide her self-loathing from Strongmen who prey on that vulnerability. It’s no surprise that religious teachings cause some confusion here. They often confuse the most devoted religious scholars. Obfuscation. So, for clarity: Meekness is not continual self-flagellation nor is a humble attitude the same as unquestioning subservience. A meek and humble attitude in the appropriate situation is how one rights a wrong or heals a hurting relationship. Fundamental to a good life is empathy for others based on understanding and loving oneself. On one hand, men and women do not believe in their supremacy over other races or ethnicities or genders because the facts support their beliefs; they believe it because their idols dictate it. On the other hand, men and women who worship idols believe—albeit they might hold this belief close and secret-- themselves to be incomplete, unworthy, left out, undeserving, or out of favor. These women see their Strongman adoringly but themselves disapprovingly. In turn, this worship empowers despicable men.
- They exhibit Fixed Mindset and Low Emotional Maturity. Women with fixed mindset seek comfort, familiarity, life without fuss or criticism, and men who play the role of Strongman. Why? Challenges, especially direct challenges to their ideas or status, mean struggle or displacement. She will become the loud, obnoxious hypocrite and liar that we have seen in women like Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Kellyanne Conway, defending the indefensible with a passion they condemn in other women. Why? They are nothing if not ridiculously useless women without the men they protect and serve. They gladly stage their anger, thinking it hides their inabilities and inner struggles, dramatizing every situation so their powerful men do not have to. Or, and more likely without financial and familial backing, she will become the woman who scoffs at women who struggle and sacrifice to learn skills and earn degrees, who help pay the church bills and tend the church nursery, who stand by humbly when their husbands admit infidelities, who remain quiet in the background and earn salaries so that their conservative men can rant at progress and incite insurrection, who send money to fearmongering televangelists and political pundits, who help pay for their men’s weapon stockpiles in exchange for nice jewelry and showy vacation homes. Did not we learn at some time in our lives that every decision involves give and take? Well, the women who are repulsed by struggle, confrontation, challenges, critique and change gladly exchange personal growth for acceptance in their familiar circle. And the only circle of men who value these women are already base and becoming radicalized.
- They support Religious Fanaticism. Where would the powerful men and women in the white evangelical-fundamentalist Hall of Fame be without the women who enable their religious fanaticism? Nowhere. The televangelists and religious book publishers and mega-size church preachers rely on their followers’ gifts and sacrifices. From the older widowed woman who sends in her tithe to the women who play instruments and sing and the women who fill the congregation seating, every religious shyster owes his livelihood and popularity to his female following. And because we can credibly add white evangelical-fundamentalism to the list of agents who systematically radicalize white conservative men, these women who support the movement also support the radicalization. They support with their dollars, their time and physical efforts, as well as with their denial of the movement’s encroachment on women’s health and freedoms. Faith and spiritual development are true, wonderful aspects of a whole life. However, faith and spiritual exercise amount to nothing other than willful ignorance and cruel exercise when they are service to politically powerful men. White conservative men are being systematically radicalized, and the January 6 insurrection that resulted in lives and livelihoods lost is but one exhibit of the radical right wing. Women enable this radicalization. Women who support religious absolutists are supporters of authoritarians, insurrectionists, militia thugs, mass killers, and police brutality.
- Or More than One of the Above. It makes perfect sense that women who self-loathe and believe that intellect and talents are fixed at birth are also the most susceptible among all of us to fearmongering and prejudice and conspiracy theories. And to Strongmen who prey on their fears and vulnerabilities. And to the meds that help them sleep at night.
Solutions are many. Women who will have the courage to stand up to radicalized, angry, dangerous white conservative men are many. Even if only by vote, our nation relies on women to shut the radical movement down. Our communities rely on women to demand that city planners, school boards, and local politicians put workers and families first. Radicalized conservative men will not do that. They are hell bent on mayhem and devastation. Solutions are many but, only one gender will prevail in this fight for a liberal democratic republic, for families, for children, for healthcare and education. Women. We are the majority. We are not Dr. Deborah Birx or Kellyanne Conway. We are Stacey Abrams and Hillary R Clinton.