“Saturday Night Live” no longer airs before my bedtime and, I’m told, it’s most often no longer funny. But thanks to YouTube (and a few friends with insomnia), I’ve discovered at least a couple of pretty cutting and amusing bits of cultural commentary. Take this now famous example:
And my new personal favorite:
But as if to prove that life in the Trump Era is now completely beyond parody, we have some true to life examples of “strong and powerful” feminist women who just “can’t even.”
The first example comes from an acclaimed and accomplished progressive author, Stephanie Land, who writes that since the election of Donald Trump she has lost all desire to find love and happiness in a life partner. Although she’d been on some promising dates with a man she found interesting:
[T]wo weeks later, the election happened. Once it was clear that Donald Trump would be president instead of Hillary Clinton, I felt sick to my stomach. I wanted to gather my children in bed with me and cling to them like we would if thunder and lightning were raging outside, with winds high enough that they power might go out. The world felt that precarious to me . . .
. . .“I can’t,” I told him. “I just can’t.”
I’ve lost the desire to attempt the courtship phase. The future is uncertain. I am not the optimistic person I was on the morning of Nov. 8, wearing a T-shirt with “Nasty Woman” written inside a red heart.
In the interest of charity, I think I will just leave that there. I do not aspire to be a “Nasty Woman,” after all.
But this is nothing compared with the horrible hair malaise spreading across Metropolitan Washington, D.C. where women are now, apparently, engaged in courageous acts of spirited defiance and determined self-mutilation as an expression of their contempt for the election of Donald Trump:
That sense of malaise is spreading across D.C. As women stare up at that glass ceiling still hanging over them and contend with a pussy-grabbing kleptocrat moving into the nearby White House, they are collectively — however subconsciously — making their own statements of rebellion by challenging traditional notions of beauty. Just ask any hairstylist in the Beltway.
“When you see that much blonde hair on the floor, you know something is going on,” says Nicole Butler, creative director and master colorist at Daniel’s Salon in Dupont Circle. During the notoriously slow month of November, her salon received a startling number of bookings, with at least three women a day sitting in her chair and asking for a drastic change, like cutting off six inches, going black, or going platinum. “Usually stuff like this is planned for weeks and put on the books after several consultations, but this was very spontaneous,” Butler says. “It was like a mass declaration of independence.” Clients, especially those over 40, expressed a feeling of loss and uncertainty, says Butler. “Maybe this is some kind of compensation for not getting what we wanted in the election. By changing our hair, we can control the outcome.”
Yes, ladies. This is what it has come to. This is the proud legacy your movement of strong, independent, and articulate women can leave to your daughters. When things don’t go your way, you needn’t bother trying to engage on an intellectual or rhetorical level. Simply summon the courage to chop off your hair like a toddler playing with scissors and command all the attention your fragile little heart needs.