Ever since I learned about the Supreme Court’s leaked decision to gut Roe v. Wade, I have had some trouble concentrating. It’s generally accepted—at least if you have empathy—that it’s a lot to expect of anyone to make them work while they’re grieving. Well, now we have the vast majority of women and people who can get pregnant in our country grieving the loss of their right to their own bodies. And yet, most workplaces are not giving us the proper space to deal with that grief. Desi Lydic, a correspondent on The Daily Show, offered an excellent solution: all women should get the rest of the week off.
Lydic offered her half-joke after a viscerally cathartic monologue, in which she expressed her anger over how we got here. “Women do still have the right to choose: we can choose who to blame for this motherfucking shitshow of a travesty.” After taking aim at Trump, Susan Collins, and Mitch McConnell, Lydic continued, “You know what? I’m even choosing to blame the Democrats for not being aggressive enough, for not codifying Roe when they had the power to!” A-fucking-men to that.
Later in her segment, Lydic quips, “There’s so much blame to go around, it’s like a Raging Blame Gauntlet. Or ‘RBG’ for short.” Lydic brings up excellent points: there’s the media, for how they’ve portrayed this battle; there’s how society has made this a “woman’s problem”; there’s the fact that for some reason we have gym teachers leading up sex-ed classes; etc etc.
Personally, I’m particularly furious with every Democratic representative whose sole response to this still completely avoidable outcome has been to tell their base, “You have to vote this year!” Yes, we should all vote, but by that time, it will be too late, you lazy pushover! What the hell did we elect you to do?! I’m intimately familiar with what it’s like living in an alcoholic household. Living in America itself has started to feel … similar. For many reasons. But in this case, I can tell you this feels very much like the kind of blame-scapegoating typical of a dysfunctional community. I’m exhausted of always being told that everything is “up to me!” while the people I acted and volunteered my precious goddamn time to help elect throw their hands up and don’t get anything done. Amber Ruffin and Jenny Hagel dig in more to that frustration in their segment during Seth Meyers’ show. While playing a Democratic official, Ruffin exclaims, “Everyone take out your phone and text ‘We’re Fucked’ to 02024, and then throw your phone out the window!”
In the meantime, as Lydic continues, “We can choose not to accept this. We can choose to put pressure on our lawmakers. We can choose to donate to donate to abortion rights groups.” The fight is real and so, so, so important. At the same time, I am unspeakably exhausted, and I feel as if I’ve been run over by an emotional steamroller of toxic bullshit. What the hell was all that hand-wringing about burnout for during The Great Resignation if we can’t realize a huge portion of the workforce maybe isn’t at 100% capacity right now? We all deserve some time off to recalibrate. I, personally, am about to go eat pizza and play video games.
(Image credit: Comedy Central)
