I was in the process of writing an editorial about how the two sides of the divide in America share common core aspirations. I had my draft all ready to proofread and was beginning to think how the uplifting thoughts of how we share more than we might know could help us find areas where we can work together.
And then I saw Stephen Bannon was selected as the President elect’s Chief White House Strategist. I researched some of the statements that have appeared in the Brightbart News Network while Mr. Bannon was running the show there:
• “There’s No Hiring Bias Against Women in Tech: They Just Suck at Interviews.”
• “Does Feminism Make Women Ugly?”
• “In order to avoid being harassed online, women should log off.”
• “Given that men built the internet, along with the rest of modern civilization, I think it’s only fair that they get to keep it”
• “God fearing nut cases like me have long argued that birth control, like abortion (or murder of children, if you prefer), is the work of the Devil.”
• Birth control makes women fat, makes women’s voices less sexy, makes them jiggle wrong, makes women choose the wrong mate, makes women unsexy all of the time, makes women sluts, makes men unmanly, gives women cottage cheese thighs, and may have destroyed the institution of marriage.
Forget bridging the divide. This sea is too deep and the water is too wide to be crossed. Each of these statements either belittles or objectifies women. Where is it Mr. Bannon’s place to determine that a woman’s priority should be to be sexy, attractive, or demure?
Has Mr. Bannon looked in a mirror? A five-mile run a day might make him a little less paunchy. It might even increase the oxygen level in his blood stream. Imagine the calamity when those starving deprived synapse are provided oxygenated nourishment.
I am a father of a 6-year-old little girl. I have spent my adult life working to help women get elected to public office, and helping women gain training and education in what was once a man’s profession. Real men do not fear competition from women. We welcome the challenge. I will be damned if I am going to let someone like Mr. Bannon reconstruct walls around my little girl’s opportunities. She should be able to set her own limits and sail her potential as far as her talents can take her. She should decide when and if she wants to procreate, and whether or not she wants to be beautiful to Mr. Bannon’s definition of the term. She will always be beautiful to her father.
Dirty old men like Mr. Bannon who only want women around to ogle had best stay out of her way. Her father is watching, and her father is very protective of his little girl. Mr. Bannon and I share nothing in common. I want a world where everyone has the right to choose their own path, and are allowed to let their skill take them as far as their talent will allow them. Whether they are:
Black, brown, red or white;
Female or male;
Gay or straight;
Christian, Muslim, Jew, Buddhist, Hindu or Atheist;
Fat or slim;
Smart, or — not so much;
Mr. Bannon sees freedom as something he (and often he alone) has been bestowed with. I see freedom as something we each must give if we are to receive. To be free you must allow your neighbor to act differently than you. If your neighbor is not free, than neither are you.
Mr. Bannon, let our little girls be. Take your odious chains and barriers back to the nether reaches of the internet. The game is on, and I, for one, will oppose you at every turn. You have no place in this century. Power does not belong in your hands. We have come too far, and my little girl has too far to go.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton once said, “I would have girls regard themselves not as adjective, but as nouns.” Mr. Bannon, my little girl is someone not something. She will make this a better world, if you would kindly get out of her way.
Raymond Kirchner is a resident of Kailua-Kona