Her Golden Moment
“Vote in your own self-interest. It’s what men have been doing for years.”
Those are the most succinct, timely, poetic, powerful—and sadly, polarizing—words I’ve heard in years. Leaving me asking—as the glorious Michelle Williams finished her acceptance speech at Sunday’s Golden Globe Awards—“Did she just say what I think she said?”
It was shockingly refreshing to hear the 39-year old Williams cut to the chase. Speaking not for a few pampered actresses or the east-coast elite—but for every working mother. Every female. Reminding them that they need to start thinking of themselves first, after a history of thinking of others.
While brief, the quote here seems to speak to many things: Politics mired in greed and self-preservation, with no concern for the greater good; The continuing inequities of our patriarchal society (despite women being the majority); The need for women to fight for their own health—and very lives—when they have no guarantee anyone else will. How on earth could anyone—especially another woman—find fault with that? Well, Trump’s legal advisor, Jenna Ellis, did, tweeting that Williams, “thinks she’s woke but is lecturing the public to vote for baby killing so she can win more little awards.”
Little surprises me in politics. But another woman so recklessly reimagining Williams' words to suit her own agenda still shocks. Did anyone else hear a baby-killing lecture? While I say Williams’ words spoke to many issues, she herself spoke of nothing but gratitude, responsible parenting, and putting one’s children first.
Ellis has every right to forego an abortion if her religion dictates, but no right to cherry pick the rights of others according to folly or faith. Would she defend men eager to take away her right to vote? Or give up her right to practice law? Would she approve of being barred from holding a government job simply because her husband had one? Or her law firm refusing her employment because she had preschool kids. These limits on women’s choices were ALL law in the last century.
“The decision whether or not to bear a child is central to a woman’s life, to her well-being and dignity, says Ginsberg
“Trying to live a life of my own making and not just a series of events that happened to me," Williams continued, “[would not have been possible] without employing a woman's right to choose.” It’s an argument very much in keeping with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, who has always believed it to be an equal rights issue. “When government controls that decision,” Ginsberg says, “she is being treated as less than a fully adult human [with the right to be] responsible for her own choices.” There’s no equality in women having to continually defend a right that is automatically afforded men simply because they don’t bear children.
"Michelle Williams drops truth!" tweeted Jamie Lee Curtis after the speech. And that truth squelched any notion that being in the majority would automatically secure this right for women go-forward. Only voting will.