In the Cafe

So, a year ago today I was in Sligo. I had to read my journal to remember what actually happened, the time is so shellacked over with a sense of sadness. Today is better for me, though I am not in Sligo but in the local café, watching a candidate for mayor work the room. I told him I favored Esther Manheimer and what could he do to talk me out of it, and he passed on.

News boils over on all sides that the State has revoked the license of the local abortion clinic. One should not be surprised by any atrocity committed by our vandal legislature, but still one is, expecting reason or compassion to enter the argument somewhere. They do not. The Republicans are naughty stupid boys who stole the keys to the clubhouse and mean to do as much damage as they can before they’re tossed out. There’s not even a sense of shame or self defense among them, they play so purely to one another, without regard to any discernible constituency. Women on Facebook blame this on The Patriarchy. I confess that I have no conception of Patriarchy, and though one may say I don’t see it because I’m part of it, my perception is that men are as baffled by this tyranny as women are. The words “the patriarchy” describe nothing real, to me, though one hardly dares to say that in public. If men are in office, it is because women voted for them. Are women really controlled by men against their wills? If that has been the case, I don’t understand why it continues to be the case. I read somewhere that no rule can continue without the consent of the people ruled, and I believed it. Were I a woman would I think otherwise? No way of telling. On the other hand, a female-devised-and-driven Nazism is inconceivable. There is something in the male mind that allows self-satisfied group decisions (I suppose it has something to do with cooperation in the hunt), without the clear impulse to distinguish between helpful group initiatives and dreadful ones. Maybe that’s the patriarchy, the male tendency (and I recognize it in me) to turn temporary consensus into inflexible and eternal rule. Oh well. If some woman passed out flaming torches and wanted to lead us to burn the State House, I would follow her.