Duca vs Carlson was 2016 in a nutshell

For those of you who may have missed it, Lauren Duca, a writer for Teen Vogue, was invited onto Tucker Carlson's show and was essentially talked over for the duration of the interview. If you watch the video on mute, which I just did trying to quickly un-mute my computer, it looks like the two people are having completely separate conversations with people off screen. Now, not shockingly, I have never been a fan of Carlson for the obvious reasons: he's whiny, arrogant and has both the attitude and the wardrobe of a cartoon-version spoiled child. I originally watched the interview because I saw it on Twitter, which I still hate but am seeing some value, and was admittedly baited by the promise of a "Carlson take-down." What I saw in the video clip was hard to watch and resulted in several moments of me looking through my fingers like I was watching a horror movie. For the record, I think Lauren Duca was a vision. She attempted to respond to Carlson's digs and his incessant nitpicking and refusal to actually listen to her responses to questions that he posed with poise and humor. This video was particularly hard to watch for me because it basically summed up my 2016: desperately trying to communicate intelligently and warmly about complex and complicated topics to people who are primarily, if not exclusively, interested in being right and insisting that I am wrong, even when the topics being discussed were too complicated and nuanced to ever be simplified into cases of right and wrong. I felt Duca's frustration in trying to find common ground and explain her position, which is far too complex to be reduced to a single tweet, as Carlson attempted to do. I felt personally insulted by Carlson's continual digging into the details and semantics of her language on Twitter while simultaneously refusing her the opportunity to address the larger issues. I think people should certainly be on the hook for things they say and write. However, Twitter is not the final word in critique and commentary and humor is not the enemy of thoughtful analysis. 

As a cisgender female interested in social critique, I have learned the hard way that my words and thoughts will be particularly picked apart by my (generally white) cisgender male peers. I have to be twice as eloquent, well-researched, calm and collected to even be heard, let alone listened to. I am also aware that my whiteness, my identity as a cisgender female, as well-educated and as heterosexual have afforded me seats at tables, or at least invitations into rooms, that are not offered to everyone. During these conversations, I have to reach across the table and try to find common ground in the discussion, continually reassure and affirm others and use humor to soften even the softest of statements to protect the conversation from being shut down by, most commonly, the white and male fragility that so quickly can end a respectful discourse. If I stray from the course for even a second, I am "aggressive" and the conversation is over. Mind you, the name-calling and threatening language used to silence me in these instances is somehow not characterized as "aggressive," but me suggesting that using the term "cunt" as a derogatory word for females is rooted in a violent history that has oppressed women and denigrated womanhood is, so there's that. Watching the interview, I felt fatigued. Duca was clearly attempting to not only respond to Carlson's questions but also to engage in a conversation that includes a disagreement. It is wholly exhausting to continually be the one reaching out, trying to engage in meaningful discourse without pointing fingers while simultaneously being affronted by a refusal to listen or engage. So why have these conversations, Julia? Great question, internet friends (hi mom and dad!). Much of the time, I am not the instigator of these conversations (and some of the time I 100% am). Up until now, I have not been willing to turn away from a conversation about topics I care deeply for based solely on the reason that the person with whom I am talking does not agree with me. I am not interested in the goal of changing people's minds because I am not arrogant enough to assume that my perspectives are without flaw. However, I am interested in encouraging and modeling respectful discourse when I can. Note: times like weddings or any event with an open bar are not times when one can or should attempt to model anything. As someone who has tried and failed and watched MULTIPLE seasons of America's Next Top Model I can doubly attest to that. That being said, I am getting tired of playing by the rules of a game that is rigged against me; a game that I am not only likely to lose but that was also designed to destroy me, to silence me and to discredit me. Why is it that women like Ms. Duca cannot write about both pop culture and politics without being invalidated when politicians rely on celebrities for endorsements and, most recently, life chats? Why is she receiving rape threats for speaking her mind and responding to the word vomit assault of her interviewer while we give people like Carlson (and, ahem, our PEOTUS) a public platform from which they can verbally (and allegedly, physically) assault women, people of color, people who identify as LGBTQ+ and essentially anyone who is not wealthy, white, cisgender, heterosexual and male? Why are women expected to beautiful and then, when they are, are not allowed to also be smart and funny and powerful and whole? Why is Ivanka Trump to be considered *just* Donald Trump's daughter for the sake of this conversation while she is also meeting with foreign leaders and taking on responsibility for her family's businesses? I know why. These questions are rhetorical.

To her point, Duca was trying to say that Ivanka Trump is *more* than just Trump's daughter. She is smart, she is powerful and, as such, should be held to a high standard and should not be written off as a Trump figurine in her father's campaign toy chest. Women who are beautiful, who seem approachable and who, in Duca's brilliant words "look like they smell like vanilla" should not be written off or given a pass from accountability simply because others can not see their power or value. In general, her position was far more thoughtful and respectful toward Ivanka than Carlson's but he was too busy flooding his own eardrums with the sound of his own voice to hear that. I was happy and proud to see Duca hold her own and keep doing the hard work. It's disheartening, though not surprising, that she is being met with threats and her retweet comebacks are comic gold. The video clip for me was a reminder that, though tiring, these conversations are important. While it is critical for my own mental health to know when a conversation is not worth having (something I want to focus on in 2017), it's also so important to not let some bow-tie with an attitude discredit or invalidate things that matter.