Bowing Out

As I've mentioned, I've been following the blogs of three young conservative Catholic women.   It's been quite interesting, and perhaps a little voyeuristic,  to read about the lives of women who have very different beliefs from my own.  I found myself drawn to them on a personal level, but editing out their political beliefs.

That worked until Thursday.  I was finally moved to speak up and leave a comment because one of the posts felt like a  personal attack, although this young woman doesn't know me from Adam.  But she thinks she knows my demographic: women in their sixties, "glaring" women who are supporters of Planned Parenthood, the group of women who foisted legal abortion off on the country.  She'll be glad when we've died off, she says, because younger women hate abortion, and therefore it may become illegal after we "gray-haired" people have kicked the bucket.

Readers, I could not let this pass.  It was anecdotal, it was sweeping, it was stereotyping.  I pointed out that Planned Parenthood provides all kinds of health care to women, that her information was anecdotal, that we need facts.

This provoked another of her readers to find the link to my blog and to summarize me as precisely the kind of woman the blogger doesn't like: in her sixties, white, upper-middle class, part of the gray-haired group.  (But I don't have gray hair!  At great expense, I might add.)  On top of that, I live in Berkeley.

This did not feel good.  Not just the personal attack, but the sense that the red/blue divide cannot be bridged.  My comments were mild.  I've read them to two very logical people, who agreed.  They each asked why I was bothering with this, a battle that could not be won.  What bothers me more is that it's a conversation that couldn't even get underway.

I left a comment that I'm bowing out.