I write a lot about toxicity. Normally I would find something to say about some recent environmental mishap, some injustice that has occurred in some community that shoulders a disproportionate amount of risk from the environmental hazards in our world. Contaminated water from a chemical spill, an abandoned factory. Or the tactics that are being employed to force construction of natural gas pipeline across tribal lands in North Dakota.

But sometimes, like today, I can’t ignore the fact that ‘environment’ is more than just a physical place, and that toxicity can encompass so much more than just a chemical characteristic.

In truth, I can think of nothing more acutely toxic than this last week of the election season — the degree of indecency Donald Trump and his supporters have imposed upon the American people, the virulence of his campaign to our democratic ideals. His racist rhetoric, his vulgar language, his bragging about sexual assault. But even more than that, it’s his unapologetic response to the criticism of his actions and words: Just telling it like it is, he says. And in defense of his lewd video: It’s just locker room talk.

I was in the seventh grade the first time I heard someone make a comment about my body. My oldest daughter is in the seventh grade now, and even though we’ve talked about it, I keep watching her to see if the same thing has happened to her. I’ll know it when I see it: the slouch, the rounded shoulders to try and diminish a budding chest.

In high school, I heard the sexual comments spoken about me, felt the leers as I walked by — just like so many other young women in my school. You quickly learn your currency from the feedback that you get. They get metabolized, these threads, become intricately woven into one’s self-worth.

During my junior year, some man found my phone number and called me in the evenings, posing as a researcher from Ohio State. He was studying the sexual behaviors of adolescents, he said, would I mind answering a few questions for his research survey?

I wasn’t the only one he called.

In college I worked for a man who actually told me, “If I had a body like yours, I’d walk around naked all day.” This from the man who signed my timesheet at the end of the week.

But I said nothing, did nothing to assert my humanity. God forbid someone think of me as sensitive, as emotional, as female — that would only prove that I was weak.

It’s just locker room talk, he says. Totally normal.

Except that it isn’t. Because common and normal are two completely different things.

My husband says he has this exact conversation with his patients all the time. How’s my cholesterol, Doc? It’s average — isn’t that considered normal?

And he will explain that although their cholesterol may be average for this population, that doesn’t mean it’s normal. It’s a common number to have, he’ll say. But it’s also common to die of heart disease in this country.

When I worked as an environmental regulator in Connecticut, I learned that there are portions of the state that have been so severely impacted by centuries of industrial activity, that the state has effectively rendered those ground water resources as unfit for human consumption. Places where contamination is commonplace. Permanently tainted areas with layered, co-mingled contaminant plumes from years of industrial abuse. Companies who impact ground water in these areas don’t need to clean to health-based standards. They are excused from the rigor of this work — after all, the damage has already been done.

All men talk this way in the locker room, he says.

In other words, it’s commonplace, this toxicity. I deserve to get a free pass.

Except that common ≠ normal. And I would expect the public forum surrounding our selection of the next President of the United States to be a safe place, one in which all of us can engage as equals — not a space where years of prior contamination implies permission to engage in abusive behavior and accelerate, as Republican Strategist Steve Schmidt so aptly described it, “intellectual rot.”

But let’s just take a moment and return to the contamination— the places where Trump’s rhetoric is considered “normal.” Yesterday I came across the graphic that many of you have probably already seen — two maps of the United States with predicted election results: 1) if only men voted, and 2) if only women voted.  What strikes me about these pictures is not the apparent widespread misogyny felt by thousands of men in our country, as evidenced by their support of a candidate like Donald Trump, but the acceptance of that misogyny by so many American women.

An acquaintance remarked of the map, “I live in the It’s-ok-to-grab-my-pussy-without-consent Belt” — an apt observation of the geographic distribution of female Trump supporters and its overlap with the geographic distribution of certain ultra-conservative religious sectors in this country. Which made me think: Thousands of women in this country are in an abusive relationship… with their church.

Why am I so mad?

I grew up in a home where the Bible was read every evening after dinner. For dessert, I was served words about God’s power and love and forgiveness, but I was also forced to digest words about a woman’s subservience to her husband, about her times of impurity and her relative value compared to men. Whether or not this was intended by my father is a matter for another debate — but the fact is that I listened. I listened really well.

I recently completed training to volunteer for WomenSafe, a local organization committed to ending domestic and sexual violence in our community. As part of the training, volunteers were invited to review the timeline of events and policies that have impacted the role and perception of women in our culture and society. You can bet that timeline began in Biblical times.

All of which is to say that this toxicity can take years, centuries even, to accumulate to the levels we are experiencing today. The seeds can start in our own houses, sometimes even our houses of worship. But in free, democratic societies such as ours, women aren’t things you can pollute and throw away.

photo credits:

Trump photo: Associated Press

Young woman protesting: The Forward

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2014 Siskiyou Prize Winner: Mary Heather Noble

Ashland Creek Press is pleased to announce that New York Times bestselling author Karen Joy Fowler has chosen Mary Heather Noble’s memoir, PLUMES: ON CONTAMINATION OF HOME AND HABITAT, as the winner of the 2014 Siskiyou Prize.

Of PLUMES, judge Karen Joy Fowler writes, “I was impressed from the first page with both the beautiful writing and careful intelligence of PLUMES.  This book takes on one of our most troubling issues, the increasing toxicity of our polluted world, to creative a narrative that is both personal and universal.  PLUMES neither minimizes the complexities of these issues nor overstates its conclusions, but leaves the reader with much to think about.  An exceptional book.”

Noble is joined by prize finalists Amy Hassinger for her novel, AFTER THE DAM, and Julie Christine Johnson for her novel, THE CROWS OF BEARA.

The Siskiyou Prize for New Environmental Literature honors literary works that focus on the environment, animal protection, ecology, and wildlife. The prize is named for the Klamath-Siskiyou region of northern California and southern Oregon, one of the most diverse eco-regions in the world.  The Klamath-Siskiyou has the highest concentration of Wild and Scenic Rivers in the nation, the largest area of roadless wild lands in the Pacific Northwest, and the tallest old-growth trees on earth.  Due to this large network of still-intact lands, the region is a refuge for fish and other wildlife that struggle for survival in other parts of the world.  Considered a global center of biodiversity, the Klamath-Siskiyou region is an inspiring example of the importance of preservation.

The Siskiyou Prize is open to unpublished, full-length prose manuscripts, including novels, memoirs, short story collections, and essay collections.  Winners receive a cash award of $1,000, an offer of publication from Ashland Creek Press, and a four-week residency at PLAYA.  The 2015 Siskiyou Prize will open in Spring 2015.  Please visit siskiyouprize.com for the full announcement and complete submission guidelines for next year’s contest.

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