Don't Cry For Me

There are two parts to this. The first part I was anticipating (and writing in my head for a week), but the second part came to me as an unexpected, unwanted reminder that I am not, as much as I might wish, the ruler of my universe.

This is Part One.

Don’t cry for me, Hillary.

Which is not to say I am not for crying. I think every human being should enjoy a snot soaked sob at least once a month. A movie can do it (Walk the Line had me hiccupping, I wailed so much), a good read can do it, my children do it to me all the time, someone else’s sorrow or joy, my own. All of these things inspire the kind of delicious boo hoo that I consider the ultimate detox. I cry in public (at school performances always; in front of friends sometimes after a particularly bad day); I cry into my pillow; I cry on my husband’s shoulder.

And I will confess this: he cries too. My dad did before him -- phone commercials always found him sniffling, always, and he still cries now. My huge mountain man husband weeped at the end of the Bridge to Terabithia. He cried when the babies were born (does any man not do that?) and he cries when they fail or succeed. He cries when I’m upset sometimes and when he lost his cousin. It’s a more quiet kind of thing for him, but he does it. I am used to men crying. Big boys do cry, after all.

But when Hilary had her sniffles, broadcast countless times, even in slo-mo, I knew something big would shift – and not in the way I wished. Her “emotional moment” flooded the dam of feminism in this election, and what a freaking shame that it took that to do it. For days the talk was about her rarely seen sensitivity, her suddenly apparent femininity (uh? wha? has no one noticed she has a vagina?), and what that meant to the voter, particularly the female voter.

She claimed it was “personal” and maybe it was for a minute there, but everything after – the way she shifted the tone of her voice seconds into her victory speech in New Hampshire (google it), the way her entire team has redirected their management and marketing of her – all of everything that resulted from that moment has been plotted, exploited, and sold.

I wish instead what was caught on a film was her in the midst of a screaming, plate-throwing tantrum. I wish we caught her sweat-dripping, head-swooning, mid-heat flash, and still talking. I wish we saw her sneaking a cop at her horoscope, while also reading the seven or eight papers she reads in day. Or plucking a split end while making a deal. Or telling her husband, once for all that “when this whole thing is said and done, you can take you and your penis and stick it somewhere else.” I wish we could see that -- that Woman.

Because that would make great TV (natch) but also spark the great feminist debate we deserve. Crying? Not so much.

Everyone cries (even politicians apparently), and don’t we know by now that tears are not the domain of women? But if the country could see a real woman, the way she really is – plate-throwing passionate, birth-giving strong, multi-tasking amazing – we might have a real idea of what the benefit of gender might mean, if it means anything at all.

For my daughters, old enough to know something is happening in government, but young enough to not understand nor care, I am buoyed by the fact that the choices for me – despite all the nonsense – are as good as they have ever been. I only wish that the first legitimate female candidate for President was not someone who made a deal with a chronically cheating man (disrespect to both she and they) to further her financial and professional gain. I wish she was not someone who now, even after having made that sacrifice, is beholden even less so to herself and more so to the pollsters and managers and voice coaches.

A politician, especially one running for the highest office has to do that, I know. But – wait: sexist remark coming – I wanted more from a woman. I expected more because of the women I know and see and live my life with everyday.

Women who cry, take shit, hurl it back, throw out cheating husbands, take care of kids and parents and grand parents while organizing fundraising walks or runs, who do the walking and the running, who can network in an hour forty people to help somebody in need, who scream and yell to make it right, who advocate for hours to deaf ears about sick kids, who make money and still make time, who make change, real change, every day in sweats or $300 jeans, it doesn’t matter. I know women who never alter the way they talk or think to do the right thing. And I know a lot of them.

Don’t cry for me, Hillary. Please.