I'm a lipstick-wearing, red-meat-eating, Diet-Coke-drinking, heterosexual, cisgender patriotic American feminist of Sicilian and French Canadian descent who can recite both "Who's On First?" and "Little Women" in their entirety without breaking a sweat.
I don't like beer, scented candles, pie or sports, I prefer cats to dogs, and I drive a classic non-fuel-efficient convertible, which my husband of 28 years and I often take to the casino. I believe in a woman's right to choose and hope that God loves me, even though I'm not sure I believe God exists in the first place.
So what part of that made you want to throw me into the alligator moat? Was it my use of the term "cisgender"? Wearing lipstick or wanting women to have health care? The mention of God alongside a confession of wavering belief?
It was preferring cats to dogs, wasn't it?
Here's what I have to guard against doing these days: I sweep too swiftly past a cursory acknowledgment of differences between people in search of consecrating divisions. I find myself gathering up reasons to distinguish my own clan from rival ones as if I'm working a pyramid scheme in reverse. I'm an omnivore; she's a vegetarian. I'm letting our differences define us.
How can she NOT understand this point I'm making? What is WRONG with her? She, of course, is thinking the same about me. Or at least, that's what I fear — I am, I suppose, easy to judge, if you're so inclined. Not exactly a woman of mystery.
Is it surprising, then, that I hesitate to discuss significant issues with those whose viewpoints I don't think align with my own? Even when we're on the same side, we can end up yelling at each other with a level of viciousness usually reserved for drivers vying for the same parking space if one little piece of their worldview seems slightly askew.
Political discourse has become an oxymoron; nothing is off-limits; rhetoric has been replaced by rock-throwing. Everything encourages us to regard those who aren't with us as against us, and to judge them as treasonous, sinister, desperate or — dare I say? — deplorable.