“Take Joseph and Mary. Mary was a teenager and Joseph was an adult carpenter. They became parents of Jesus.” – Alabama state auditor Jim Zeigler in defense of Roy Moore
In November 2017, Alabama Republican senate candidate Roy Moore was accused by nine women of sexual misconduct in the late 1970s. Three of these allegations included outright sexual assault; in one incident, Moore was 31 and the accuser was 16, and in another, Moore was 32 and the accuser 14. Despite these serious accusations, Moore was endorsed by both the Republican national committee and President Trump himself. Ultimately, however, it was opponent Doug Jones who narrowly prevailed. By a margin of 20,715 votes, his election marks the first Democratic win in an Alabama US senate election since 1986.
Being a young woman in Alabama can be tricky business; having grown up here, I know this firsthand. Living in a deep red, devoutly Christian state often comes with expectations about what a woman should say, do, and be. Moreover, the rest of the world also clings to an increasingly obsolete idea about what a Southerner is, especially in an atmosphere of political extremes. The reality is much is much more nuanced, however, and the rules are changing rapidly in the face of a shifting political landscape and Trump’s America. While visiting for the holidays, I talked to young female millennials about the recent senate election and their feelings as both Alabamians and women.
1. Sydney
“I don’t think that intelligence is the issue. I think education has definitely increased here over the years and people are being taught more and more, especially when it comes to politics. But because we’re being told this is right from wrong, there’s not enough intention within education in questioning that. There’s a kind but stubborn reality to the south where knowledge is earned more with time. It’s a mentality I see of people not wanting to question because there’s so much built up on tradition and respecting elders, and we’re constantly looking back on history. You know, make America great again. We still have civil war reenactments and monuments and I feel like the south is very past-oriented when it comes to culture and respect. It’s like how what the elders say goes, and don’t you disrespect grandma! But really, grandma’s been racist for 50 years now. We should probably question her.”
2. Andrea and Charlotte
Andrea: “When Trump got elected, I cried. It was terrifying. He was threatening to abolish same sex marriage, and at that point we had been engaged for about two months. We had initially decided that we’d have a small wedding in the spring with friends, or a giant reception. But when Trump won the election, we panicked and said let’s just get this down on paper so, worst-case scenario, we can say that we were married if it gets revoked.”
Charlotte: “I remember so vividly when Roy Moore was a judge. The fact that he has been taken out of office twice and he was trying to run again… there was a fear that the older generation of Southerners that do actually vote would elect him. But even some of the older generations were starting to see who he was, especially after the sex scandals came out. And seeing the younger generations go vote and actually stand up for what they believed in… it brings a new light and a new hope that you didn’t see before in Alabama. I actually married a woman in the state of Alabama and it is legally recognized. When it became legal and people in the offices were refusing [to perform gay marriages], my father got licensed. Before work, we got our license from the courthouse, put it in the mail, and my father signed it.”
3. Alex
“I fall politically conservative republican and I am okay with that. I’m not gonna hate on anything that could be remotely liberal, but I typically statistically fall there. My big thing with this election, and with the presidential election, is that I am 100% pro life. However, what differs me from a lot of conservative republicans is that I am pro life from conception to death. I’m pro life for a fetus inside of a woman. I’m pro life for that woman. I’m pro life for a homeless man and I’m pro life for a teenage girl who is being sexually harassed or molested. For me, it wasn’t just that [Doug Jones] is pro-choice and that’s bad. If we say yes to pro-life as far as babies but we choose Roy Moore, we’re saying no to the lives of women who have been taken advantage of and abused.”
4. Zoe
“I have friends that believe the same things I do, but they don’t feel like they can vote or talk to anyone or post on Facebook about it because their parents are so against it. I had a friend that I literally offered to drive to another city to vote in the last election and she said, ‘if my parents ever found out I didn’t vote for Roy Moore…’ and then didn’t say anything after that. My mom is more liberal than me, but my dad is a registered republican and he has been his whole life. With the most recent stuff, everything has just moved to where the family is in the same spot. Now all you need to put you in the same side is not thinking a Democrat is worse than a child molester. I know people I interact with have trouble with their parents watching Fox News exclusively and to me, that’s wild.”
5. Kailey
“I got married at 23, which in this day and age is young, but I’m actually the oldest in my family to get married. So I got married old according to my family but young according to society right now. I don’t understand when people come to me and they’re like, “wow! You’re married at such a young age!” It’s like, well, I found the person that I love. My upbringing was really conservative, but I’m conservative on a lot of things. I’m fine with being home schooled and I think that a lot of the oppression that home-schooling has vibes of, in the Christian sense… I think it’s a lot of misinterpretation of the Bible. I was in public school til 7th grade, but a lot of things happened and then I was begging to be home schooled. Now all my siblings are home schooled and my parents see it as the best thing. My mom sees it as her call and I think it’s beautiful. My mom who a degree in psychology, and my dad tells her all the time that if she wants she can go get her masters any time… but my mom is like, no. I want to be a homemaker and I want to home school my children. I think that carried over to me a lot. I want to get my MFA but also, I want to home school my kids! Professor in the afternoon, home school mom in the morning.”
6. Jasmyne
“A couple of months ago, my friend went on a mission trip to New York to assist with a church, and the pastor they were going around the city with was African American. Her dad asked him, being genuinely inquisitive, “what is it like being an African American man in America?” He told him, and it wasn’t a happy answer. So she posed the same question to me. I essentially told her it’s hard. It’s getting called the n-word under someone’s breath when you accidentally bump into them in the gas station. It’s getting followed around stores. It’s dirty looks. It’s stereotyping. But at the same time, at least for me, it fuels my inner fire. If you seriously think that I’m less than you, or that you’re somehow better than me because you lack pigmentation in your skin, let me show you something. Let me show you how important I am. Let me show you how much I can do. Let me show you how dedicated I am to my discipline. And then you can come for me- only if I send for you.”
7. Molly
“At first I was kind of willing to open an ear to Doug Jones but then I figured out that, for me, what he promoted were things I disagree with, like nationalized healthcare and him being pretty open religiously but also in the sense of free-for-all to an extreme. As for Moore, I hate what he says about homosexuality. Forbidding even civil unions? That’s too far for me. But what got me was that the accusations against Moore was like the Salem witch trials. The problem is you can fabricate eyewitnesses. If there’s enough similar situations, you can turn it from allegations into circumstantial evidence, and okay. There’s a reason to investigate. If these women are speaking the truth then we should, but we skipped the investigation part. It’s guilty until proven innocent, not vice versa. From both sides, people just went nuts over rumors.”
8. Roxy
“I remember growing up, when I would go to Iran, my friends would be like “are you gonna be okay?” or “are you gonna die?” Crazy things! To me, because I didn’t understand their points of view, I was like, why would anything ever happen? In high school I remember certain people making jokes about terrorism. Someone came in pretending to have a bomb strapped to his chest and going, “Allah!” Even when Obama was running for his first term, I remember people sitting in class saying he was a muslim and a terrorist and going to destroy the country. To me, that’s ridiculous, but so many kids are naive. They just know maybe what their parents have said, and people have a twisted image of different religions. Basically the majority of people here are Christian. Us, we’re not religious at all- my parents don’t follow any religion. I believe in God because I feel like it’s hard not to believe in something, but growing up I never had any religion pushed on me. Still, I have family in Iran that are muslims and it hurts when people talk like that. I grew up around both worlds and to me, it seems normal.”
9. Andrea
““The thing that gets me is what’s fed to Roy Moore supporters- why would women come out at this time if this happened to them so many years ago? This was the biggest counter- argument. To me, the reason is obvious. But with a lot of men, they don’t get it… even with women, they maybe haven’t gone through something similar, or they have and they don’t know how to face it. But to me, it’s like, if you’ve gone throughs sexual abuse or mistreatment, it’s worse, but it’s still similar to getting bullied in school. The last thing you’re gonna do is go tell your parents or friends because you’re embarrassed. You’re ashamed, you don’t understand, and you suppress it. That’s the reason we don’t talk about this. Anybody who asks those questions, they don’t believe us. We don’t talk about it because you’re sitting there saying, ‘I don’t believe you.’”
10. Claudia
“I am obviously adopted and I’m mixed. Both my parents are white and my sister is adopted from China. I grew up in a very open-minded family… Huntsville’s a little bit different, but in Alabama as a whole it’s not the norm, so growing up I already kinda felt different. I didn’t realize I was growing up in a liberal household; we were just taught to accept everybody. I was taught that just because you grew up one way doesn’t mean you need to impose your thoughts on everyone else. When I got to high school it’s when I started realizing that people think a lot differently. It was hard because I think a lot of conservative beliefs just want to impose their views. I’m not speaking for everybody, but there’s a lot of people that think just because they’re Christian, everybody should have Christian ideals. I don’t think that’s true. I think that even if you are not okay with abortion, that doesn’t mean someone else isn’t in a different place. You shouldn’t make decisions for other people. ”
11. Tanya
“As of right now, because [Roy Moore] hasn’t technically conceded, I have a great swell of pity for him. I actually applaud him because he thinks that he’s a savior, I’m sure of it. I’m sure he thinks he’s doing what’s right by him and the people around him. But I think it’s also fair to say that he doesn’t understand that there’s a danger in what he offers. It’s irresponsible for him to not recognize that. I believe in critical info-literacy so I can’t say he did or did not, but I think it’s been very reckless of him to not acknowledge his actions. And what that also says to men and women who have suffered at the hands of others. Who do we value in this world? Do we truly value justice, do we truly value equality? Right now people like him put that at risk. I don’t wish him harm but I wish that men like him- men and women- I wish they would acknowledge what that says to other people. It’s not just you; there’s a wide world and the circle of influence is super open there.”
12. Raisa
“I feel like [feminism] didn’t play as big as a role as I thought it would, and I expected a lot of women to be more against Roy Moore. Looking at the demographics, black women and women with kids under 18 voted against him, which makes sense. But given everything coming up over the past few years about feminism, I expected women in general to be more supportive of Doug Jones. Nut I think a lot of them want things for themselves, and so they weren’t as willing to look to a whole cause, like “this vote is for my gender” and stuff like that. Roy Moore supports very Christian ideals but also very pro-white ideals, and I also think a lot of white women in Alabama identify with their ethnicity more than their gender.”
13. Darby
“One thing I like people to know about me is that I’m very passionate about people. I suffer from four chronic illnesses, I was adopted, and both my siblings are special needs so I’ve had a lot of adversity in my life. It’s important to me that people know that they’re cared about. I’m interested in going into public policy administration, and I’m hoping long-term I can become a person that has that bleeding heart and an economic mindset and can find happy medium. I got an internship with Senator Marco Rubio in 2016 and I got really involved in the political realm after that. I got back to Alabama and I helped with his campaign for senate after he dropped out of the presidential campaign. A few months passed, the senate campaign for Alabama started up, and I was on Mo Brook’s campaign and ended up becoming the director of the Tuscaloosa region. When he lost, I hopped onto the Roy Moore campaign. Then the GOP recruited me and I worked with the GOP on Roy Moore’s campaign as well.”
14. Charmella
“I went to a bookstore and I have these two old geezers next to me and they’re talking about Trump and they’re talking about how they don’t understand why everyone hates him so much. In my mind I’m thinking, I can give you a list of reasons, but I stay to myself. And then they start talking about black people and how they’re ignorant and intolerant. It didn’t make me mad, I didn’t go off, because they were like 70 years old. To me it was funny because it shows the divide in the generations between the old south and the new south. The election of Doug Jones shows that… well, you know how people say the south will rise again? I think the south will rise again but it’ll be the new south. It’ll be the south that’s not hateful towards people who are different or black or gay or female or just outspoken in general. I think people are going to start seeing a different view of the south in the next 20 to 30 years when our generation is old enough to be in power and change some things.”
