I haven’t written about the election here because frankly, I’m tired of politics. I skipped all the political and election-related posts in my Google Reader. I muted every political hashtag on Twitter. I didn’t even log on to Facebook on election day.

And more than being tired of politics, I’m tired of being told how to feel, how to think, how to make what should be my own decision. The conservatives in my life don’t understand how I can be as socially liberal as I am. The liberals in my life don’t understand how I can be as fiscally conservative as I am. And I’m stuck in the middle, trying to make sense of my feelings to other people, when I shouldn’t have to, because those feelings make sense to me.

But what any one of us thinks or feels doesn’t matter in the bigger picture. Because progress is happening. It’s slow, but it is happening.

In 2008, I correctly predicted that Barack Obama would be the Democratic nominee for president over Hillary Clinton. Why? Because he’s a black man, and black men had the right to vote before even white women did, and history repeats itself. But how long did it take to end slavery? How long after that to extend the vote to black men? And how long after that to extend the vote to women? It may take another forty years before we see a female president, but it will happen.

What people forget about this country is that we’re the United States of America. United. Every state has their own culture, and each one has their own idea about individual policies. But we all come together to create this country. We are a community in spite of ourselves.

And communities change over time. Twenty years ago, could you imagine a black man being elected president? Because he just was, for a second time. And all those guys who talked about rape like it was a picnic on a lovely Saturday afternoon? They lost their bids for political office in 2012, even though 1992 – an age long before Twitter and Facebook would allow their gaffes to be so widely advertised – might have seen them win.

Twenty years ago, would an openly gay woman have been elected to the senate? Would three states have voted to legalize gay marriage? Would a state in the Midwest – America’s Heartland - have struck down a ban on same-sex unions?

Honestly, I don’t think so. But times have changed, and minds have changed, and we are making progress.

Whatever we are as individuals, whoever we are within ourselves, we are all part of this country, this community. Our voices are as unique as we are, and even the most extreme among us help to moderate the collective voice. This is why we keep moving forward. This is why we keep demanding better.

This is why I trust us.

This past Sunday was the 39th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision, a major milestone in women’s rights.

I know that right now, Dan (and any other conservatives who read this blog) are groaning, God, is she really going to talk about abortion again? Well, yes and no. “Yes” because I have some facts and research that will be pertinent to this post. And “no” because that’s not really what this post is about.

COURTESY OF THE GUTTMACHER INSTITUTE

Per the above graph, women’s rights have been under attack in a major way in recent years. And while abortion is a controversial topic, it, like any other medical procedure, ultimately is no one’s business except for the women undergoing the procedure and the doctors performing it.

Here’s another fact: Politicians can restrict abortion all they want – but the procedure is never going to go away, particularly since it has existed and been used since the dawn of time. In the book I’m currently reading, Forever Amber, a historical fiction novel that takes place in England in the 1660s, the main character has three abortions before the age of twenty-one. Why? Because contraceptives don’t exist yet, and sex happens.

Even after abortion was initially outlawed in the United States in the nineteenth century, abortifacients were still advertised in women’s publications, and were the go-to solution for women wanting to prevent illegitimate births and control family size and spacing of their children. And in Alfred Kinsey’s studies on human sexuality in the 1950s, he found that up to ninety-five percent of the women he interviewed still regarded abortion – regardless of its illegality – as a viable solution for unwanted pregnancy. So it’s not hard to deduce that the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision to legalize abortion was in response to the demand that already existed for the procedure.

I could go on and on, but I won’t, because that’s not the point of this post. The point of this post is that I want to do something to help. I want to further women’s rights, and specifically fight for the cause of reproductive justice. Because even though I’ve never had to make the heart-wrenching decision of whether to continue or terminate a pregnancy, it’s not my place – or any one else’s – to make that decision for someone else.

I’ve worked in education since before graduating college. And while I love the student interaction I have, I often feel like a cog in a machine. I answer questions and respond to emails, but what am I really doing to educate these students, or anyone else? How am I helping them become the people they will be when they graduate?

I think it’s time to consider a career change, because I want to be someone who makes a difference. And I’m not sure if that’s working in marketing for Planned Parenthood, or teaching a gender studies class at the local community college, or what. So now begins the research. I need to figure out what I want to do, and how to get there. It may mean another master’s degree. It may mean an obscene commute. It may mean years of volunteering before I find something that involves a paycheck. I really have no idea. But I’ll keep you guys updated.