Female protesters hurting their own cause
They looked tired, even weary, as they strode down Tremont Street last Sunday afternoon.
Judging by the posters dangling from their necks, bearing words like “Trump” and “unfair” and “women,” it was obvious they were coming from or heading to another protest of an imagined slight to their gender.
The younger ones looked like they could have been college students, so who knows? Maybe it was a class assignment. When you’re that age you don’t need a reason to be impetuous.
It’s called growing up, and downtown Boston is a great place to do it because you’re assured of attracting the attention you crave.
No, it was the older ones whose blank expressions seemed so joyless. Where was the bounce in their step? Where was the radiant energy synonymous with most demonstrations?
Watching them trudge along you could almost hear B.J. Thomas: “Hey, won’t you play another somebody done me wrong song?”
The guessing here is that onlookers who didn’t ignore them felt sorry for them instead. It’s the law of the harvest: Sow self-pity, and pity is what you’ll reap.
These were “sisters” of those suffragettes who gathered on the National Mall last month, ostensibly representing suppressed women, pretending not to be horrified by the filth coming their way from rally headliner Ashley Judd, who thought she’d gain admiration for women by speaking from the gutter.
The irony was mindnumbing.
The assembled women who cheered her should have been the first to condemn her, to distance themselves from her, if only for reasons having nothing to do with party leanings.
Good taste is not a philosophical concept, nor are good manners or proper decorum. Even a slob can act appropriately.
The fact is, we’re long past the time when a case has to be made for the limitless role of women in politics. Think Barbara Jordan. Think Shirley Chisholm. Think Margaret Chase Smith.
In receiving more popular votes than Donald Trump collected, Hillary Clinton conclusively answered the last remaining question regarding America’s openness to placing power in the hands of women. Look it up, ladies.
Trump? He arrived at the White House with a glowing record of placing women in positions of authority and prominence. You can look that up, too.
Yet defiant stragglers can still be found on downtown streets, tilting at windmills, aching to be mad at someone. What a waste of a lovely day.