If you haven’t seen Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ commercial for “real women”, prepare to cringe.
As I sat down to watch the “Real Women” commercial, I was left with a whole bunch of emotions. I was mad, hurt, scared, disappointed but also confounded. It’s really weird. It almost takes on a tone that feels like satire…but it’s not satire. It’s just bizarre. I won’t get into all the other layers of weirdness, though. I want to write specifically about the idea of the “real woman” that the commercial talks about. What is a real woman?
Honestly, the most intense emotion I felt watching the video was anger. Not specifically because it’s anti-trans, although it’s really really anti-trans, and that angers me. I think there’s something actually even more sinister under the surface of that transphobia. It’s something that affects trans women and cis women alike, and that’s what makes me feel mad.
It’s deeply sexist.
Today I went out to run errands and had dinner with my friend. We laughed. We had delicious yam fries and salads. We bought supplies from a cute little Japanese store. We had a good day. Every single person we met while we were out and about called me either she/her, ma’am or ladies, when referring to my friend and I. This has been my reality for years now. To these people, from a social perspective, I am a woman in daily life.
I’m straight, so the only type of interaction I will ever have with women is at the level of social interaction. So, here’s the thing…why does it matter what sex characteristics I was born with to Sarah Huckabee Sanders? I’m not going to have sex with her, with any woman, or with any conservative men for that matter. The level at which I’ll relate to them is purely social, and completely disconnected from sex. So, why do my sex characteristics matter if my sex characteristics aren’t even a part of engaging with them in the world?
To conservatives like Sarah, it’s not personal. A real woman is a baby making machine for the system. That’s the role. Since I can’t give birth, I don’t serve the function that women are made for in her eyes. I’m absolutely useless to the patriarchal system of which I am a part of. It’s not about her engagement with me in a social sense. It’s about my engagement with the patriarchal structures that she supports, and since I don’t serve the primary function that she thinks all women are defined by, I am a fake woman. I’m ultimately fake in the eyes of patriarchy.
So, Sarah Huckabee Sanders is essentially a handmaiden of patriarchy. That’s why she excludes me. I don’t serve her master. I don’t fit into her system of oppression. That’s why I’m a fake woman to her.
Fuck the patriarchy, honestly!
We women are so much more than our reproductive function. We’re so much more than our ability to raise sons for our husbands, and to help pass on the family name. We have rich social lives. We have meaningful careers. We create art. We help co-create culture and build a better world for everyone. We’re all of that, and so so much more. To reduce us simply to our ability to give birth and be good mothers is degrading to who we are in our fullness.
I fully support women who want to be mothers. I feel like, as a society, we need to give even more credit to moms. We need to straight up celebrate them. However, I don’t think that means sliding back into regressive “shoulds”. It doesn’t mean forcing women to be mothers. It means celebrating moms as well as celebrating women for doing all the things.
Celebrate women, period.
I don’t want the world that Sarah Huckabee Sanders is creating. It’s one where women are reduced. It’s a world where we are coerced. It’s celebrating a tiny fraction of all of the multi-dimensional wonder that women are. Any world where there are “real” and “fake” women is a world where all the types of women are not seen, and each individual woman is not fully seen, and I want nothing to do with that. I want the world where women flower and bloom into the fullness of who we are, and a world where we are all celebrated for blooming in the unique way that feels right for us.
