I have not written for some time as have been on the road.  But the Grouchy Old White Woman writes now with my reactions, not necessarily measured responses, to the US election this week. First, Americans seem to have voted resoundingly for Trump because he promised to lower prices through tariffs. Yes, prices were high around the world, in all countries, after COVID, which no Trump voter seems to have taken into account, but the current administration created more jobs and put the US economy back on track more quickly than in ANY other Western nation. Trump will derail it. Tariffs, which he has proposed, mean more cost to the American consumer, not less. All the poor folk, all the senior folk who voted for Trump should also not be surprised when he cuts back on or does entirely away with Medicare and social security payments. This, my friends, will happen. You bought into the "bread and circuses" of the Trump campaign. Second is the invocation of Christianity to support the Trump agenda. Jesus says nothing about whom to vote for; Jesus says nothing about homosexuality or abortion, for that matter. His great maxim is "love thy neighbor" which means caring for the poor, the sick, the widowed, the orphaned, the disenfranchised. This will not happen under the Trump administration. All those pastors out there who advised their flocks to vote for Trump have crossed the line of separation of church and state, one of the foundational ideals of this country, and should lose their tax-free status, in my humble opinion. We live in a country now that is governed, in part, by the so-called Christian right (i.e., a cult) who do not practice what Jesus preached. If you are in doubt about this, read your Bible. For those of us who are practicing Christians, we are trying to love you as our neighbor, but we cannot overlook your innate ignorance which was cultivated and promoted by social media. Here we had a competent, well-educated (is educated a dirty word?) woman who is articulate and intelligent running against an inarticulate convicted criminal and whose speeches have become more and more deranged. (For those of you who do not believe Trump is a criminal, try reading more widely. Explore news outlets beyond Fox and USA Today. Avoid The Wall Street Journal, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch, a right-wing Australian white man who, at 93, is even more ancient than Trump). 

As a third (fourth?) generation feminist, whose heroes include Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Sylvia Pankhurst, among others, I predicted, last summer, that no woman will become president in my lifetime. I also offered to eat my hat, if a woman did win. Not engaging in hat-eating now is small consolation. But the outcome of this election has led me to deduce that America remains a misogynist country. In other words, Americans hate women. The men hate the women; even the women hate the women. Then there are the gender-neutral folk (who are mostly women by sex) who disavow themselves as women, which is worth another entire column. Just be strong women and get out there and kick some ass! I am not advocating actual physical violence, of course, but show people (men, women who hate women) what women are made of. And that is the happier part of this post -- the Grouchy Old White Women has observed that every speech made by Kamala was admirable. She is all women should be. See her, girls and women, as a role model.  

Look to the many women in history who accomplished so much yet often remain hidden. I am thinking here randomly of Cleopatra (30 BC), Marie de France (12c), Christine de Pizan (c. 1430) Joan of Arc (1431), Teresa of Ávila (1582), Suor Juana de la Cruz (1695),  Émilie, Marquise du Châtelet (1749), Sacajawea (1812), Abigail Adams (1818), Sojourner Truth (1883), Louisa May Alcott (1888), Florence Nightingale (1910), Clara Barton (1912), Harriet Tubman (1913), Mary Cassatt (1926), Annie Oakley (1926), Jane Addams (1935), Ida Tarbell (1944), Anne Frank (1945), Eleanor Roosevelt (1962), Margaret Sanger (1966), Indira Gandhi (1984), Golda Meir (1978), Sally Ride (2012). Among the still living are Gloria Steinem, Angela Davis, Angela Merkel, Louise Erdrich, Alice Walker, and so many others. Take a little time to read about just a few of these women and be inspired. Take back your power!