Typically politics are something I tend to stay away from. No matter who you are talking to, someone ends up getting upset or hurt over a comment made and it never seems to be worth it. However, the insanity that is the 2016 presidential election has made me want to address how absurd this election truly is, especially if you're a woman who is voting.
Personally, this is the first election I can vote in and I could not be dreading it more. Being a woman caught in between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump is enough to cause stress in the slightest bit. While I don't personally agree with Clinton on many accounts, I could never bring myself to vote for Trump and here's why.
1. Women are now objects and not people?
As much as he claimed to respect all woman in the last debate, anyone with half a brain is aware of at least some of the things he's said. He hinted towards getting with his daughter if he wasn't happily married or her father, because she's a beauty. Not to mention his idea of "locker room talk" that several athletes from around the country have disregarded to be true. It's the 21st century in a country that claims to be progressive beyond any of its competitors, so why are women still degraded and treated as property or objects? Let's face it, women have to watch their backs much more than men do because there seems to be a constant threat towards us. Anyone remember the Brock Turner case and how he was put in jail for 3 months for "10 minutes of action"? Can you imagine how many more incidents like that we will see if Donald Trump is elected president? We deserve better than that.
2. The state is going to tell me what I can and can't do with my body? I'd like to see them try.
Religion and preferences aside, women and men alike have the right to say what they want to do to their bodies. End of story. If you are pregnant and cannot keep that baby for some reason, whether it has to do with your health or personal preference, then by all means you should be allowed to choose what to do in that scenario. Nothing infuriates me more than hearing or seeing stories of people who had to fight with the state in order to "earn" their right to choose what to do with their bodies. It's ludacris. The state doesn't tell me if I can get tattoos or piercings, so why should they have a say when it comes to something being pregnant or not? The principle of body ownership still stands no matter what your personal view on this issue is.
3. I can't get paid because I had a baby?
Alright we get it. We have to take a few months off to take care of our infants and ensure that our families are on track before we go back to our "normal" lives, but you really won't pay me for those couple of months? Oh and if one of my parents are dying or my child is in the hospital, you still won't pay me for that time off? Let's take a journey back to the 1950's when women were the sole homemakers according to American Suburbia. While the stereotype of a stay at home mom has drastically changed over the past few decades, the expectations of a mom, or a women in a household for that matter, still remain. If a child is sick, inevitably he will cry for his mom to be at his side. Honestly, I'm 19 years old and when the stomach flu rolls around I'm still looking for my mom to comfort me. There were times growing up where my mom was a vital part in ensuring both our physical and mental health would prosper, but for any time she had to take off she was not guaranteed pay. Believe it or not, those few days or couple months taken off without pay to take care of your family could be the difference between being employed and being unemployed. If that's the case, I'm not sure future generations will foster families in the same way previous generations have.
4. Planned Parenthood only provides abortions so their funding should be cut, right?
WRONG. The services Planned Parenthood provides to both men and women are innumerable in the grand scheme of life. Between providing birth control, cancer screenings, and even routine physicals; Planned Parenthood has saved many more lives than it has taken away. Personally, I know people who turned to this institute for means of birth control or other things simply because of their confidentiality policy and the fact that those people's parents weren't in tune with their lives and couldn't help them in the ways they needed. Just because Planned Parenthood hasn't impacted your life directly, doesn't mean it hasn't impacted your best friend or someone else that you know just because they haven't told you.
So for all you women voting in this election, please think about these issues that are going to be changed no matter who is elected into office. It doesn't matter whether you consider yourself a liberal or conservative, what matters are the issues at hand and what is truly at stake if you're a woman in America. Making America great again may sound great, but is it going to be great for men and women?
