You know how people ask what your pronouns are nowadays, or include them in email signatures, as a result of nonbinary and trans people who identify as “they” even though it’s a plural? Well, we don’t have to ask many people in the news what they’re pronouns are. Let’s just assume they’re the unholy trinity of me, myself and I.
The most salient aspect of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s recent resignation speech — which was not exactly George Washington’s farewell address — was the moment when he said he was sorry he was losing the best job in the world. Not that he was sorry for the abuses of power that forced him to resign or the pain he had caused the British people. No, he was sorry for himself.
Then there was BoJo’s American Bobbsey Twin, former President Donald J. Trump, remembering the late Ivana, the ultimate first wife, in a statement that included an icon that you could click to donate money to his PAC.
But really these are just the low-hanging fruits on the tree of narcissism. Former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe’s assassin was upset that his mother lost money as a member of the Unification Church. So, of course, he had to take it out on Abe. That makes perfect sense, about as much sense as all the other disproportionately aggrieved and enraged male shooters, all of whom have women issues. And then there are all those pro-lifers who aren’t at all interested in the lives of women infected, sometimes fatally, by miscarriages that can’t be completed as long as there’s a fetal heartbeat or 10-year-olds who’ve been raped and impregnated. Nope, all that matters is the fetus that is an abstraction that they can control — as long as it’s in the womb. Once out of the womb, hmm, interest wanes. Or as publisher-author Arianna Huffington noted, the Supreme Court believes that life begins at conception and ends at mass shooting.
What all these examples have in common is narcissism: I got mine. Who cares if you get yours? What distinguishes today’s cult of narcissism is that it is laced with misogyny. Time to wake up, ladies: This is all about power — who has it, who’s trying to keep it, who wants it, who refuses to share it. As women gain socioeconomic power and dominate colleges and the professional schools while the male Y chromosome shrinks along with male prospects, it’s no surprise that the patriarchy is hitting women where they are most vulnerable — their uteruses. Look for a lot more of those to bleed — and a lot more women to die.
Women are going to have to be very careful. We’re all going to have to be very careful. We’re all going to be leading much smaller lives thanks to the abortion and thought police.
Or we can refuse to cave. We can fight arrogance. We can fight narcissism. Withhold money. Withhold sex. Vote. Educate others. And, of course, sue — for big money.
It’s fight or flight time, people. What are our pronouns? I’d say chief among them should be “we” as in we are in the fight of our lives. But if we stick together, we can win.