Gagged

I haven't had a lot to say.

Every day we wake up to a new horror. America is in the firm and maniacal grip of a callous and dangerous madness, the madness of nationalism and deceit, of vanity and the vainglorious, of hatred, of cruelty, of ignorance. And the horror is compounded again and again by the knowledge that it will all get so much worse. Today, we hear the words of this country's demise through executive orders. Tomorrow, these usurping tyrants go to work.

Every promise will be fulfilled.

I don't know what to say. I scroll through my Facebook feed, through twitter, and I read powerful statements of protest alongside the shocking actions of our Republican administration. Resistance is present, through marches, through protests, through discord and disagreement, and I sit, comfortable in my home, and observe.

I've always carefully curated my online presence, revealing mostly the mundane and the pleasant on Facebook. Recipes, snapshots, evidence of contentment. I've been a bit more honest here, but Facebook has been the land of the smiling Alice, the nice Alice, the Alice with very few ugly things to say. I've felt it to be an exercise in propriety, almost - a new kind of facade which shows some, but not all, as if I allow a flash of ankle under long skirts but no more.

Niceness. I fight myself, I hold back all the things which I could say. Sometimes that is wise - but now, more than ever, it is a shallow and selfish lie.

Niceness is feminine. Niceness is proper. Niceness is polite.

When millions of women across the world marched on January 21st, they were criticized for abandoning the rituals of niceness. Nice faces turned away from what they perceived as vulgarity. Reproductive organs, and any reference to them, have been criminalized, codified as disgusting or inappropriate, constrained by law and by the common American tongue. To say, pussy, is to betray our national niceness. To grab it is celebrated and rewarded.

When a woman owns her body she is shamed. When a man assaults it, he is made president.

Niceness. I have a few friends who openly support this president, and I may have others who voted for him but stay silent. Most of my friends and family number among the majority of the country who bravely say, resist. I've been struggling against my self-imposed but socially sanctioned rules of propriety, trying to find a way to stay true to myself but avoid offence. What of those friends who voted in a monster? How can I keep them?

Or were they never my friends at all?

Do I want friends like that?

Do I want to be friendly with people who would imprison the children in my neighborhood, as Donald Trump wishes to do with immigrants? Do I want to maintain my smile, my affection, as my closest friends and family are denied equal rights? How valuable is niceness in the face of climate change and the very real possibility that we are past the point of no return? Will one or two friendships outweigh the loss of everything this country is supposed to be about? Will quiet chats and quick waves justify knowing that these people, these friends, are willing to hand our country over to a sexual predator?

Am I still supposed to be nice?

Niceness is a convenient tool. It is a gag. It binds us - it binds women most of all. We are told to be pleasant, to be neat, to be quiet and calm and dignified. We are told to smile. And if we step out of line, if we curse, if we name our body parts, if we yell in the street and demand representation, we are labeled as vulgar, crass, unladylike, nasty. Society brands us as hysterical, again and again.

Niceness is not in any way what we need right now. Gentility and reserve are the costumes for afternoon tea, not for rebellion. I'm scared to rip the layers of niceness from my online and real life persona, because everything I feel right now is so, so not nice. I am angry and bitter and restless. I cry and yell and curse. I find myself contemplating a volcanic release of the defiance I have stored within my body and brain. What destruction will I unleash? What bridges will I burn? How many nice people will I enrage?

To remain nice is to take the coward's way out. I have the luxury of a safe home, a stable life, and I could sit here for the next four years and be nice. I could make tea and be silent. I could be ladylike. It would be easy.

But that life is for someone else.

To hell with niceness. I am relieved, I am grateful, and I am determined to be nasty.