American Girl Heartbreak

Look at the heartbroken American girl in the eye.
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Look at the heartbroken American girl in the eye.

Tell her, that unlike the President-Elect, you value her inherent worth. She deserves respect, regardless of her size. True beauty comes from character. A kind heart shines from within. Tell her that rating beauty and bragging about assaulting women is unacceptable. Promise her that you will always call out your buddies whenever they talk or act in such a manner.

Tell her, that if she is sexually harassed, assaulted, or domestically battered; she is to be believed and supported. It isn't fair that she will have to work a hundred thousand times harder than a lesser qualified man. She may lose the job because people have judged her appearance, her voice, her laugh, her age, her clothes, her hair, her everything. They will command her to smile and to be perfect. They will not care at all if he screams, scowls, and never does his homework. They will reward him for breaking up his family, they will see his collection of wives and call him a real man. They will say you are a lesser woman for keeping your family together. They would say the same thing about you if you did not. There is no way to win.

That is what they do. That is how it works.

It isn't fair. It never was.

Tell her, that one day it will be fair. You are fighting to make it so for her. Even though there are institutional mountains to climb and roadblocks built by religious hypocrites, you will help her get to her dreams. Tell her the brave stories of Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, Alice Paul, and Shirley Chisholm.

Tell her how to turn the ache and terror in her little girl heart tonight into action for the future woman she will be. You will help her persevere. Then, on her behalf, vote these values in the 2018 midterms.

Then vote them again and again and again, until she has her own voice.

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