Welcome to Cheaper Than Therapy, a healing newsletter for 80s babies by Shani Silver. This newsletter does not publish free content, but if you’d like to read it you can subscribe here. Thank you for enjoying the work of independent writers.
But Shani, this newsletter isn’t political. Honey, Trump is on the ballot damn near everything is political until he’s not, mkay? While politics will not become a habit around here, and believe me I’d much rather be writing about dismantling the limiting beliefs impacting my generation, I am going to pause that for a moment and try to use my voice to stress the importance of voting. Specifically, voting for Kamala Harris and Democratic candidates all the way down the ticket.
In the spirit of us all finding things we can do, actually do to support the election of the first female President of the United States and stop a cult-driven dictatorship at the same time, today I’m going to lay out a few reasons why I am personally voting for Kamala Harris as a single woman. I want to say none of these should be surprising, but as someone who’s been alive since 2016 what does the word “surprising” mean anymore? Single or partnered, we are all human, and it is not a dramatization to say we’re voting for our own humanity this time.
Reason #1: I have a uterus! While I’m far from the most intelligent voice on this topic, I do know what it’s like to feel as though I have no ability to make my own reproductive choices, all the scarier when I know for certain that I don’t want kids. Following the resignation of Supreme Court Justice Kennedy in 2018, which I knew was the first open door the Trump administration needed to get rid of Roe and they did, I had my first IUD inserted. It hurt. A lot. I made this choice because I no longer trusted my ability to have access to monthly birth control pills, and I was looking for something that couldn’t be taken away from me. Room for error became zero. Two summers ago I had my old IUD removed and my second and final IUD inserted, this time it’s a copper IUD and will last me through the end of my fertility, it won’t come out until I’m 50. Since that procedure, the far right has further regulated the pill I took to slightly ease the pain of a device being inserted past my cervix because there is no part of women’s healthcare they won’t come for. I have a uterus, something that should be considered a part of my body. Instead, it is considered a part of a revoltingly confining and controlling agenda. I’m voting for Harris because I have taken every step I can to avoid an unwanted pregnancy and I’m still terrified of one. I’m terrified for anyone who lives with the possibility of unwanted pregnancy, from all walks of life, particularly those less privileged than my own.
Reason #2: This “trad wife” shit genuinely scares me. First of all “traditional” for who? Next, if what you want is a trad wife, you don’t want a partner, you want to kidnap a woman and confine her for your service. And yet, in the single and dating space, where I spend a lot of my professional life, these “expectations” of devoted, obedient service from women are growing more common and more vocalized. Single men are operating in the dating space as though wanting a “trad wife” is normal. In a Trump presidency, men will not think twice about outlining their domestic requirements from women as well as their desire to control women physically and financially and there will be no consequences for their actions or education on why they’re wrong. Single MAGA men are way too comfortable moving among single women with twisted, disturbing, abusive motivations. I’m voting for Harris because this wasn’t a dating trend before Trump. (Please, please read the book I recommend below prior to this election, and when you’re done give it to a friend.)
Reason #3: Being single can feel isolating and scary in normal times. It’s detrimental to my health in the worst of them, and the worst of them happened during the first Trump presidency. I lived through it once on my own, I have no desire to experience it again. Especially not without the company and support of a partner. How many times can I scream “this is insane!” to an empty house and sit on my couch in fear and frustration completely alone and uncomforted? I’ve done this once already. I’m not doing it again, I’m not going back, I’m voting for Harris.
Reason #4: Paying for everything alone as a single person is hard enough without a Trump administration rolling back the student debt relief I’ve just been mercifully given access to after twenty years of living in terror just because I went to law school. There are a lot of things we won’t go back to, but I personally will never go back to living as though I’m being choked by the cost of my education. My married friends have paid off their loans. I have never even been able to afford the payments. That’s the fucking truth. I’m voting for Harris because I want more solutions for the unaffordable costs of living, not greater increases in costs to serve corporate greed.
Reason #5: Not sure if you’ve noticed, but the Trump cult isn’t offering single women much validity or dignity these days. Instead, they’re trying to shame us into settling for and serving men. They’re referring to us as little more than incubators while we’re fertile and caregivers for children once we’re not. This is not a fucking game, and this is not a fucking joke. They aren’t advocating for their “values” let us be so for real. It is because they fear our independence because it doesn’t serve them, and they fear the power we have when we vote for our interests. They are not a party of “values.” They are a cult of control over women, and single women are the most dangerous kind in their eyes. I’m voting for Harris because not doing so is the truly dangerous choice.
Before we go, here are my “three things” I’m doing to support Kamala Harris in this election, though none of us should feel cozy stopping at three. In the words of Michelle Obama, do something. We have 26 days.
Donating: And y’all, I am by no means a “donor” type of person, I don’t have that income bracket. But I can give what I can give, and the beautiful part about crowd-funding is that when all of us give what we can together, it genuinely does add up.
Registration Reminders: This is not bragging, but I don’t have the smallest social media following in the world. I’ve already posted and will continue to post registration reminders, both to register in general and confirm your registration—equally as important!! I’ll also be posting the deadlines as those approach, but go ahead and check yours now. Even better if you share it, as we’ve all got more followers where we live than where we don’t.
This Newsletter: Whatever size box you have to stand on, get up there.
Things I Recommend To People Our Age Right Now
A Well-Trained Wife by Tia Levings
This is probably the most necessary book I’ve ever read in my life. Tia Levings’ firsthand account of living through, escaping, and surviving a fundamentalist Christian marriage should be required reading for every adult in this country. It was a terrifying, disturbing, and maddening read—these words are hard to absorb—but cult-driven, organized abuse of women under the guise of religion must be brought further into the light, because what’s happening in the shadows will continue and worsen otherwise. This is my #1 pre-election book recommendation.
Get it here (not sponsored, yes affiliate)
Somewhere in a drawer, tucked out of regular view because it makes me sad, there’s a Hillary Clinton campaign t-shirt and campaign bandana. I will be glad I own them for the rest of my life. Not long after the Harris candidacy announcement, I went ahead and bought this mug just so I have something to treasure, and something to pass onto my niece one day so that she can impress her friends and if she doesn’t want it someone else is going to be VERY excited at my estate sale. It’ll remind me of this moment in our history every day until then.
Entire Harris Store, here (not sponsored, no affiliate)
I love the femininity of this because it’s a kind I can identify with. I also find it particularly calming when my nervous system needs stop vibrating for a moment.
xo
Shani
Your thoughts about the IUD in the wake of Trump are spot on. When my provider asked me why I wanted to get mine inserted, I said something like "because I'm afraid if Trump gets re-elected, they will make pills illegal. I want something that's in my body." she nodded and made some comments along the line of "there was a 200% increase in IUD requests" either after Roe fell or after Trump got elected the last time (I forget which horrific event it was that spurred it). There's a story in there somewhere about the things that women do and consider (birth control methods, women's healthcare, periods, pregnancy, miscarriage, what men are "safe" and what men should you never be alone with) that exists outside of men. There's an entire galaxy of women's behavior and motivations that men don't know exists. It's in the same universe as these right-wing sweaty-minded nutjobs who want to make any and all abortion illegal. I always wonder "don't the women in those families pull them aside and tell them about miscarriages? Do they know about the miscarriage of mom/grandma/aunt/cousin? And she would have been put in jail for that under this law? Guess not?"
They are not treating us with dignity. That’s exactly it. I just want to be treated with the same respect and dignity white men know they’re entitled to. It’s as if they recognize how differently they treat everyone else and are afraid to be on the receiving end of it.