In 2016, I wrote that, for the first time in my life, I felt that the tendrils of American politics had pushed themselves inside my body. The barrier of my skin, my bones and the Atlantic Ocean were not enough to keep this threat away. Trump’s election win in 2016 reached right inside my womb and made me question whether it would ever be safe, ever be right, to have children.
And here I am again. Only this time, I am already pregnant . Pregnant, in fact, with a baby that might well grow up to be a girl, a future woman, and someone with a pussy.
So what does it mean, as a parent, to be carrying a child at a time when misogyny is getting possibly its greatest current political representative? What does it mean to be pregnant when a man who explicitly disrespects, distrusts and exploits women has been given the power not just over women’s bodies but women’s future too? How do those of us who are going to be giving birth in a Trump era move towards our due dates? Well, firstly, by taking dominion over our bodies, to whatever extent we can. It may be true that on some mornings a squatting toad of fear and dread sits in my stomach, licking at my heart. But I also have the power to fight against that fear.
This doesn’t mean looking away but looking out. It means talking to American friends, to other parents, to religious people, to older people and particularly to men and boys about what is happening and who needs looking after. It means campaigning for the bodily autonomy a.
