I'll be real. I was scared to go to movies during the 90s. 

The 80s were rough for kids' movies, not going to lie. I still remember my mother escorting me out of the dark movie theater as I shivered and wept during Willow. Even now I'm kind of stunned that a KIDS' MOVIE starts off with a woman getting dismembered by wolves as she desperately throws a newborn baby in a basket into the river, hoping the baby would be saved. How messed up is that? 

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I couldn't muster up the courage to go back to the theater again until the 90s. And that was another kettle of fish. If you mention Merchant Ivory to me even now I feel my stomach tighten in reflexive anxiety. You could be sitting in a theater next to your parents watching some safely boring costume drama and then BOOM! SEX SCENE! Helena Bonham Carter with tits out! And you just have to sit there next to your parents and ENDURE IT! I still have trauma from The Wings of the Dove. 

As the 90s proceeded and I moved from elementary school to middle school a different type of trigger developed. Books like Bridget Jones' Diary came out where women like Bridget Jones talked about how fat they were at 140 pounds. Movies like The Truth About Cats and Dogs were released which told women that if they were dark haired and ten pounds heavier than Uma Thurman, they were *possibly* still deserving of love. That is, of course, provided that they looked like Janeane Garofalo. 

Now please remember that if you are a teenage girl weighing 180 pounds and you are constantly exposed to media talking about how women are fat at 140 pounds and Janeane Garofalo is the "fat friend" in all the rom coms, you are bound to come out of the 90s with some issues. 

Even now on social media, any mention of Jeneane Garofalo will show a bunch of millennial women trauma-bonding in the comments about how badly the message of The Truth About Cats and Dogs backfired among awkward chubby teen girls. 

It was only through Camryn Manheim, a woman who was very ahead of her time when it came to fat acceptance, that there was finally some real talk about unreal body expectations among women in the media. Manheim published her memoir Wake Up, I'm Fat! in 1999 and in it she discussed auditioning for roles as a young fat actress. 

I remember I once read a script, and the description of the character was, "An extremely obese woman, about 200 pounds, walks in." Now wait a second, an extremely obese woman, about 200 pounds . . . ?! Had I had an agent, I would have told them, I refuse to audition. But since I didn’t have an agent, I was grateful for every audition I got. So I swallowed my pride and I went to do some really great fat acting.
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At the audition, I was told I wasn’t fat enough, to which I responded, I weigh a hell of a lot more than 200 pounds. You might want to reconsider the description of the character. 

I absolutely believe Manheim's story. In a world where Bridget Jones was considered "fat" at 140 pounds it was easy to see how casting directors considered 200 pound women as obese monstrosities that never leave the couch and end up with their skin welded into the upholstery.

Yes folks, that was the world of the 90s. And to this day I have PTSD about movies from the 90s. But hey, all stories have a happy ending. I love Helena Bonham Carter now, especially after she got married, had kids, and became middle-aged. I just rewatched her in Sweeney Todd with Johnny Depp. Now don't get me wrong, Sweeney Todd is rated R like The Wings of the Dove, but only for massive amounts of gushing blood. Nobody gets naked. Which is a relief! 

Straight women are on strike.

If you’re a straight liberal woman, you probably have had a lot of male allies in your mentions the last couple of weeks saying “Women need to go on a sex strike until ‘Roe’ is restored!”

Here’s the thing though. Straight women have already been on sex strike for a few years now. In fact, most straight women seem to be on a general relationship-with-men strike since at least 2017.

So why exactly?

Let’s look at the stats. Marriage rates in America suddenly dropped in 2017–2018 after being stable for decades.

US marriages were stable during the Great Recession in 2008. US marriages were stable after 9/11. US marriages had been stable during all sorts of national crisis.

Yet, in 2017–2018, marriages declined rapidly.
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Gee, I wonder why? What happened in 2016–2017–2018 to make people lose faith in marriages?

First of all, let’s look at the 2016 US presidential election. The 2016 Trump-Clinton contest was a referendum on male rage towards women. Trump, an accused sexual predator who was caught confessing to SA on tape, treated women in the most foul way imaginable. Trump channeled male rage against women effectively. He whipped up his male supporters against Hillary Clinton, who was his opponent. Hillary Clinton was the first female presidential candidate nominated by a major party in the US. Trump was able to boost male rage so well that Trump defied all odds and win the 2016 election.

Make no mistake. Trump would not have won the 2016 election if Hillary Clinton had been a man. The 2020 election proved that. Biden, if anything, had MORE baggage than Clinton. He was old, he was gaffe-prone, his son had a drug history…. but Biden won in 2020. Hillary Clinton lost in 2016.

Trump won in 2016 because of men. Pew Research breaks it down pretty well. More women voted for Clinton in 2016 than Romney in 2012. Romney lost of course, but so did Clinton. What was the difference?

The difference was men.

Men voted for Obama in 2012. Obama won.

Men voted for Trump in 2016. Trump won.

Despite Clinton making some (expected) inroads with women, Trump won because the vast majority of male voters wanted Trump. Trump won men by 11 points.

It was a stunning upset.

​I remember women everywhere, even women who hadn’t voted (don’t get me started THERE! But I digress) were horrified that Trump had won.

After the 2016 election American women turned to men and said “My God, you really do hate us, don’t you?”
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In straight culture, men and women basically have stuck together throughout all crises. There have been world wars, 9/11, recessions and depressions but we have had each other’s backs. I don’ think straight women ever REALLY lost faith in men. Not really.

Not until the 2016 election.

Marriages dived in the succeeding years, starting in 2017. Marriages are still plummeting to this day, in 2022.
Men now, in 2022, are more likely to be single than women. According to Pew Research, a record number of men are single and either living with a parent or simply living alone.

Time Magazine wrote an article on the “30-year decrease in the rate of coupling.” (It’s not just marriage, it’s “coupling” in general).

Several sociologists are interviewed about why men are more likely to be single than women now, even though studies show that men are more likely to be looking for partners than women. They discuss the usual factors like how women are graduating from college at higher rates so they have higher salaries while men are unable to attain enough financial stability to get married. Women having higher education and salaries than men in the 21st century has been mentioned before, but that explanation seems a bit weak. Women college graduates have outnumbered male college graduates since 1990. Yet marriages still continued through the nineties and the early 21st century.

So why have marriages suddenly gone down now? Who should we blame for that?

Frankly, I’m still pointing the finger at the 2016 election. And it looks like at least a couple of sociologists are slowly moving in that direction as well, according to Time Magazine.
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​University of Virginia sociology professor W. Bradford Wilcox agrees: “You get women who are relatively liberal, having gone to college, and men who are relatively conservative, still living in a working class world, and that can create a kind of political and cultural divide that makes it harder for people to connect romantically as well.”

It’s not unusual for men and women with differing political views to stay in happy marriages. Before 2016 however, people who disagreed about politics in the US just disagreed. That was it.
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​Now, in today’s political environment, conservative men have become violent. Women are right to be hesitant before they involve themselves romantically with conservative men.

Men being single is bad news.

For men. 

Any medical statistician can tell you that single men have shorter lifespans. Married men who have diabetes, heart disease or even cancer have better rates of survival than single or divorced men. Men who live alone have higher markers for inflammation and heart disease than married men (or single women).
So yeah, if you think women should protest the overturning of “Roe” by going on a sex strike…. don’t worry. It’s already happening and apparently has been happening since 2016. We women have already lost all faith in men.
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But will making men feel increasingly lonely change anything? Or will men just get more bitter? Who knows?
Frankly though, if straight men want women to have more faith in them as romantic partners…. men have to start behaving better. Period.