The Right Says I’m an Awful Woman, and I’m Okay With the Epithet

I’m an AWFUL woman.

AWFUL is the acronym for Affluent White Female Urban Liberal.

That is fine with me. Before, I was only a Nasty woman, so this is a step up. As long as women like me make life inconvenient for fascists, ICE, right-wing media, and other goons, I’m in good company. I’ll accept the name.

The only thing is, one or two of the letters are inaccurate when applied to some of us, although we accept the White Female Liberal aspects.

I’m clearly a white liberal female. Affluent is arguable. I can, thus far, afford to live in the U.S., although it’s a constant effort. But the top 1% would hardly consider me affluent. Even the top 25% would look down their noses at me.

I am currently urban only in that I am not rural. But my roots are rural, and my matriarchal lineage were AWFUL women, too, while not being affluent or urban. What I am, and they were, are female and liberal.

We are more than liberal

In fact, I’m a little insulted by the word liberal as a descriptor. Since the age of fourteen, I’ve been a progressive. Even my young clients, when they talk about neoliberals, hurry to reassure me, “Not you, Carol, you’re like us.”

Which is sweet, and a little amusing, since my progressiveness was in full force before they were born. Still.

In the progressive mind, moderate Democrats are neoliberals, such as many of those in Congress. Those who don’t fight hard enough against this authoritarian administration, or vigorously enough for social justice, human rights, women’s rights, voting rights, children’s rights and other things that shouldn’t be considered radical, but are. The things we AWFUL women fight for.

We are actually AWFUPs, but we’ll accept AWFUL

I accept being called an AWFUL woman, because the acronym works, and Affluent White Female Urban Progressive doesn’t work. AWFUP.

So, AWFUL it is.

Aging White Female Urban Liberals and Wine Moms

To correct the affluent part, we could substitute Aging White Female Urban Liberal, which more accurately describes a majority of us taking to the streets to protest the current madness. Fortunately for the country we’re not all aging. Otherwise, we might age out before all the madness can be ended.

Darryn DiFrancesco reminds us that the right-wing pundits are also calling white women who are protesting Wine Moms, too. Which is interesting because, while many of us do drink wine, most of us marching are now grandmothers, or old enough to be grandmothers. I’m happy to share the streets of protest with young mothers though. Mothers such as Renee Good.

When I attend protests here, I do see young mothers (and fathers) with their children in strollers and wagons. While I don’t recommend that in Minneapolis, here in Santa Fe, those little ones are welcome. So far, no babies have been gassed here, as they were recently in Minneapolis.

However, we Aging White Female Urban Liberals are outnumbering younger white women in the protests.

“White women voted for Trump in 2016, backed him again at the ballot box in 2020 and then a third time in 2024, according to exit polls. Democratic former Vice President Kamala Harris actually lost support from women overall last year as compared to 2020 across all age groups except one: those over 65.”

Protests are skewing old(er) white women, in suburban, rural and urban areas

A research team led by American University’s Dana R. Fisher surveyed the host organizers of Saturday’s events and found that “consistent with the Resistance to the Trump administration during its first term, the majority of hosts and participants were female, predominantly White, and highly educated.” What has changed since the president’s first term, Fisher told The 19th, is that “the people in the streets are older than they were back in the first administration.”

I have some thoughts on why that is. We old(er) white women have fought against these government tactics before. We protested when Kent State students were shot and killed by the National Guard in 1970. We worked for Civil Rights and Women’s Rights. We saw the slippery slope when the Patriot Act was put in place in 2001. (I was a victim of that act. The story is linked below).

We saw the dangers of government overreach when the TV series, The Good Fight, satirized the NSA spying on Diane Lockhart and her Black female colleagues. The series showed us Big Brother really is watching. Diane Lockhart’s character was the penultimate AWFUL woman. Affluent/Aging White Urban Liberal. We relate to her.

Another reason we march, is many of us are mothers and grandmothers, who fear for the future of our children and grandchildren. We are, all of us, women who have been targeted, discriminated against, and sexually harassed for much of our lives. We march for ourselves and others.

Some AWFUL women are new to protesting. One of my friends joined me in the most recent No Kings protest. It was her first time, at age 70, to march in protest in the streets. She was scared. After we marched, wearing frog-eye headbands, she was elated. She experienced the camaraderie, the passion, the commitment, of the mostly older crowd. A crowd who bonded in their youth in similar protests. She will march again. She has become an AWFUL woman.

I’m happy to be an AWFUL woman. I’m happy to hold the line until all the young, white, wine moms join us.

In fact, given what happened to Renee Good, I’m happy to hold the line for them.

. . .

Media has interviewed many AWFUL women, for whom this is their first, or hundredth protest. It won’t be their last.

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This post was previously published on Middle-Pause.

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