The powerful attraction that the young have to Barack Obama has been much discussed, and lately, I’ve been trying to tease out some of the thinking that underlies the devotion to the junior senator from Illinois. In the past two weeks, I’ve met with a few students and some of my old youth group kids. In my office and at Starbucks, the conversation has invariably turned to politics; virtually to a man and woman, these young folks are Obama supporters.
I’ve been asking the same single question lately: “From your perspective, whose election — Clinton’s or Obama’s — would be more likely to send the message that anyone really can grow up to be president?”
My survey is not scientific. But virtually all of the young (and by young, I mean under 25) folks I’ve chatted with lately have answered “Obama”. It isn’t just the case that race trumps gender, even though more than half of the people I’ve chatted with are young women. It’s that to those too young to remember the first space shuttle explosion, Obama’s “narrative” seems more emblematic of American possibility than does Clinton’s. On Monday, I met with an eighteen year-old former youth-grouper of mine who just voted for Obama in the primary. This young white female said she had initially liked Ron Paul until she found out he was pro-life; a registered independent with liberal/libertarian leanings, she had become increasingly captivated by Barack. And though she might consider voting for McCain if Clinton is the Democratic nominee, she’s thoroughly in the Obama camp for now. And yes, without prompting, she made the same remark that everyone else seems to be making: “If Obama can be president, then anyone can be president.”
Honestly, these conversations have made me feel old. Perhaps I’m still very much in the mindsight of second-wave feminism, even though I’m too young to remember that movement at its zenith. For me, in the end, nothing could be more revolutionary than electing a woman to the most powerful office in the country (and presumably, on earth). Hillary Clinton’s life narrative may not be as inspiring as Barack Obama’s, but when I look at Hillary (twenty years my senior), I see a familiar sort of figure: a woman who has spent her life working twice as hard to get half the credit she would receive were she a man. And though my affection for her is not rooted in her sex alone, I’m struck — as so many older feminists are struck — by the willingness of the young to see gender as entirely irrelevant.
My mother told me, when I was very young, that someday we would see a woman president. Like many of my generation and hers, I’ve believed that the moment we elect a woman as “leader of the free world” (a wince-inducing phrase, but there it is), we will have at last crossed the Rubicon of progress. In a world where women have, for so very long, been denied their full humanity, no single marker of change could be greater than to choose someone with ovaries and put her in the White House.* The USA is not the UK, or Israel, or India, or Argentina (all countries which have had women as heads of government). To the degree that I still buy into the seductive notion of American exceptionalism, I believe that there would be something uniquely revolutionary about choosing a woman as commander in chief.
As a child of five, I accompanied my mother to rallies for the late Shirley Chisholm, who ran for president in 1972. As a young man of 20, I wrote my first-ever political check to Pat Schroeder, the Colorado congresswoman who explored a run for the Democratic nomination in 1988. I’ve been waiting a long time, and others have been waiting much longer.
The young, it seems, are so confident that a woman will “someday” be president that they feel no sense of urgency to help “someday” be now. Whether or not that’s prorgress, I really don’t know.
* This is a feeling, folks, not necessarily a fact.
Hugo, I hate to be too harsh or reductive, but it sounds like you’re trying to make the argument here that gender trumps race. And it just ain’t so, just as it ain’t so that race trumps gender. Why is it automatically clear to you that electing the first woman president is a greater change than electing the first black president?
I’m struck — as so many older feminists are struck — by the willingness of the young to see gender as entirely irrelevant.
As one of the young — a third-wave feminist — I have to say this isn’t true, either. If this is what you’re seeing from your students, you’re not paying attention to them — or else there is a tremendous gap between those in their mid-20s (my age group) and folks currently in college.
Everyone I know who is considering voting in the Democratic primary is agonizing over this choice. Even those who are staunch opponents of Hillary Clinton on policy or personal grounds seem troubled by missing the opportunity to elect a woman to the presidency.
But I just don’t buy that HRC sends a stronger signal than Obama about anyone being able to be elected. As someone who grew up poor, I empathize with HRC for having to work twice as hard for half the recognition, as you say, but I also see in her a member of the ruling class of upper-middle-class and wealthy white folks who have always run this country. She was something of an outsider to the presidential hopefuls club because of her gender, but Obama is doubly so because of race and class.
Anyhow, I hope it’s clear that I do not mean this as a blanket indictment of HRC or an endorsement of anyone. Because of my ecclesiastical status I wanted to mention that — I am not contributing to this discussion because of partisan motives of any kind, and I’m not even sure who I’m voting for come May. But I think you’re putting forward a rather one-sided view of the race and simplifying your students’ motives in ways that are not helpful. You’re writing off the younger generation without really understanding what the conversation among us is like at the moment. I don’t think we’re quite the thoughtless, misguided feminists you’re accusing us of being here.
Chris T., I did not intend to write another Steinem piece (heavens forfend). And I don’t think young feminists who support Obama are betraying their commitment to gender justice. There’s lots to recommend Obama over Clinton, and I have great respect for those who have chosen to support Barack.
My point here was to note a generational divide (which all the polls have also noted) among those who believe in women’s equality. And the main point is that those of us who are older have waited longer (mathematically true), and thus might be more attached to the notion of supporting Clinton even in the face of a rising mega-star like Obama. That’s not condescension, or at least I didn’t intend it as such.
Noting different priorities is not the same as charging thoughtlessness; if in doing the former I seemed to be doing the latter, mea culpa.
Hugo, one factor may be who Hillary Clinton is, exactly. Plenty of countries with way more gender oppression than the U.S. have elected female heads of state when those females were wives or relatives of previous rulers.
That said, I think it’s more that people like Obama more than Clinton, and are just adjusting their rationales accordingly.
And the main point is that those of us who are older have waited longer (mathematically true), and thus might be more attached to the notion of supporting Clinton even in the face of a rising mega-star like Obama.
But as Chris T. said, unless gender trumps race for you, you have been waiting equally long for a black president. Whatever your intentions, your expression of bafflement about how young people don’t appreciate the significance of a woman president does give your post a strong “Steinem piece” flavor.
“Hillary Clinton’s life narrative may not be as inspiring as Barack Obama’s, but when I look at Hillary (twenty years my senior), I see a familiar sort of figure: a woman who has spent her life working twice as hard to get half the credit she would receive were she a man.”
Hillary’s life narrative is not about what she’s done -it’s all about who she married. If she never married Bill, she’d be just another lawyer. We’ll have a women president when the candidate has a track record of accomplishments of her own - not her husband’s.
STF. similar things could be said about virtually any candidate: if Reagan hadn’t already achieved fame as a B-actor and pitchman, he could never have won office; if Bush 43 hadn’t been the son of a former president, he never would have won office; if JFK hadn’t had the most ambitious, pushy, and machiavellian figure of his age for a father, he would never have made the senate so young.
Stentor, gender doesn’t trump race for me; I am struck by the way in which for some of the young, gender seems to matter little or at all. Clearly, for some like Chris, both matter — hence the agony to which he refers!
Neither matter to me.
The best candidate is to be elected, I hope, and if that means gender or race cheering is frustrated…deal.
“Reagan hadn’t already achieved fame as a B-actor and pitchman, he could never have won office; if Bush 43 hadn’t been the son of a former president, he never would have won office; if JFK hadn’t had the most ambitious, pushy, and machiavellian figure of his age for a father, he would never have made the senate so young.”
I’m in agreement on Bush 43. JFK had help too. Reagan is easy to mock, but he was a professional actor - not easy - and got elected governor all on his own. Who helped Gerald Ford become speaker? Who helped LBJ? Eisenhower?
There is no shortage of talented women of extraordinary accomplishment - Hillary is about as qualified for the presidency as Laurleen Wallace.
Hugo, I hate to beat this into the ground, but:
Noting different priorities is not the same as charging thoughtlessness; if in doing the former I seemed to be doing the latter, mea culpa.
You didn’t seem to do the latter — you did, in fact, charge thoughtlessness. I’m not sure how else one can read the charge that young feminists are willing to “see gender as meaningless”.
We do not see it as meaningless. But in the huge, complex mess of issues in this election, many of us at least reject the simple idea that electing a generic woman is more radical a change than electing a generic black man; many more have taken that into specific support for Obama, based on the issues surrounding these two specific candidates. I won’t go there — for a variety of reasons — but in any case, we are where we are because neither race nor gender comes out easily on top as a reason to vote. Not because we “see gender as meaningless” — in this election or in any other context.
Hardly. Hillary stands for the opposite principle, namely that a woman can work half as hard as a man and get four times the credit she deserves, as long as she marries the right man. Every major job he’s held from the Rose Law Firm on is politically tainted. I can scarcely think of a more un-feminist message society could send than to elect someone with Hillary Clinton’s non-credentials as our first female President. This would stand in stark contrast to, say, Margaret Thatcher or Angela Merkel, whose husbands most of us can’t even name.
X, part of the problem is that that line of thinking is exactly what feminists fight so hard against: the notion that partnership with a spouse somehow renders a woman’s individual accomplishments less impressive.
Hugo.
That would be relevant if Hillary had accomplishments.
The conservative ’sphere was hot for Condi during the first Bush 43 admin. The only question was her running for POTUS in ‘08, or veep for seasoning.
I thought it was a good idea, although I confess I also looked forward to reproaching those who opposed her as racists and sexists.
Then she went all mushy.
It’s been said that if you put Hulk Hogan as SecState, in six weeks he’d be talking about Israel making concessions for peace.
But I thought Condi was rich enough to be able to eschew Saudi $$.
As it stands now, the conservatives don’t have much of a good word to say for her.
I have to say the whole notion of the left worrying themselves over electing someone based on their genetalia or their pigmentation is most entertaining, and leads me to believe that any such decisions are shallow in the extreme; that such people would elect a Pol Pot in blackface, or a Benito Mussolini in a skirt. Forget what they stand for - elect that set of reproductive organs, elect that skintone.
It is one office. In the case of a single and singular position as POTUS, *WHAT* a candidate believes is by far more important than any status as a minority.
I wonder why this is. The backlash in the 90s or the influence Rush Limbaugh perhaps. What I’ve noticed is racism is considered a bigger problem among young people than sexism. But it’s not like racism is worse today than it was in in the 60s or 70s. I think it’s the narratives written by the media.
Huh? No one is saying that partnership with a spouse renders anyone’s individual accomplishments any less impressive than they otherwise would be. What renders Hillary’s “accomplishments” so unimpressive is that they aren’t individual accomplishments. The only reason she is a Senator now is because she is married to the guy who was President when she ran, and whom most New Yorkers would have liked to elect to a third term if they only could. Getting a position because you’re married to so-and-so is a hell of a lot less impressive than getting that same position on your own, and just happening to be married to so-and-so (or not).
Some of us have often felt that if Bill had not married Hillary, he’d be a very popular (albeit lecherous) law professor at Arkansas, noted for having been a young one-term governor. It’s entirely plausible to suggest that his achievements were as much hers as vice versa; that is the nature of marriage. Except no one ever says “Bill didn’t make it on his own merits.”
gender doesn’t trump race for me
You’re doing a good job of hiding it, then. Because I can’t see any way to read this, in the context of the current Democratic race:
In a world where women have, for so very long, been denied their full humanity, no single marker of change could be greater than to choose someone with ovaries and put her in the White House.
that doesn’t imply that it would be less of a marker of change to put a black person — who hve been denied their full humanity for a long time too — in the White House.
There’s an incredible amount of sexism and anti-Clinton bias in this thread.
I just have to state that.
This is exactly how I feel. I shouldn’t even be looking at blogs with midterms going on, but I’ve been waiting for someone to say this.
It almost feels insulting. Clinton’s been working her whole life for this in a system that’s stacked against her. She’s got the experience and the credibility. Then someone comes along that’s only had one year in the senate and no other national political experience and the media loves him because he’s new and exciting. I think youth, no matter what race or gender or whatever, largely identify with (comparable) youth before anything else. And so many of them don’t appreciate what experience means because they don’t have it themselves. I do appreciate experience.
I feel the same way about being annoyed how anyone could think we’re living in a post-sexist society. That’s almost so absurd its laughable. Then I thought anyone supporting Ron Paul was laughable…
I want to smack people sometimes because I feel like they’re so ungrateful for everything second wave feminism did for them. I’ve sat in women’s studies classes where people laugh at sex segregated want ads and marital rape being legal and they don’t understand how bad things really were. The second wave fought so incredibly hard for us and now most women say “I’m not a feminist, but…”
Grr. Back to the studies.
If Hillary had anything to do with Bill’s success, part of it would have been controlling the bimbo eruptions.
Her law jobs were a matter of being married to the governor of a the state in which the law firm in question is the largest and best-connected.
She and Obama have limited Senate experience. Her previous experience is the same as Laura Bush’s, except for the disastrous national health care task force, documents from which are still sealed.
Part of the reason she won in NY is carefully-chosen pardons to various felons of distinct voting groups. It’s not known whose idea that was but her husband was the one who granted them, being POTUS at the time.
Obama would still be in Springfield, in the state house trying to finesse a couple of traffic lights for his constitutents were it not for Jeri Ryan’s scruples. He owes her his present situation.
As a general rule, I don’t care for dems, but this is the most appalling field they’ve put up in as long as I can remember. And I’m in my early sixties.
Jenny:
“Clinton’s been working her whole life for this in a system that’s stacked against her. She’s got the experience and the credibility. Then someone comes along that’s only had one year in the senate and no other national political experience and the media loves him because he’s new and exciting.”
I’m by no means an Obama fan - but he has the merit of getting to the Senate on his own. He didn’t have the seat bestowed on him by his spouse and their political machine. Hillary “working her whole life”? When she ran for the senate, she hadn’t had a job in decades.
If Hillary has “national political experience” - so does Nancy Reagan.
Did you ever see Margaret Thatcher during Prime Minister’s question time? That is experience. That is a woman of accomplishment and experience.
Karlyn Kohrs Campbell, the world’s greatest scholar on womanly discourse and on presidential rhetoric, has conceded (to some of us at a conference recently) that Barack Obama is using feminist rhetoric. Kohrs Campbell is the one who wrote that famous “Hating Hillary” article a while back, in which she looked at the rhetorics of hate around Clinton. (I asked if she thought Toni Morrison, who endorses Obama, could fairly call him, if elected, “our first woman president.” Kohrs Campbell, who likes the idea of a true woman president sooner rather than later, replies: “yes, you could call him a ‘womanly’ presidential candidate.”)
and savvy third waver Renee Cramer guest blogs at Girl With Pen: “This Bridge Called Barak” Complements what you’ve posted here, Hugo.
I don’t support either candidate over the other (although I’ll support the eventual Dem nominee), but saying that Obama got into the Senate “on his own” doesn’t take into account that he was a total shoo-in for that Senate seat. Speaking as someone who lived in his Chicago district and at the university where he taught, there was *no way* he could have lost that seat. I’m not saying he’s not qualified, and I’m not saying that he hasn’t overcome obstacles in his life, but it seems to me that his political career has been remarkably easy so far, and if we’re going to use “effort” as a measure of deservingness we shouldn’t overlook factors that have helped either candidate.
Ms. Anon - yes, he may have been a shoo-in once he got the nomination. But there wwas years of legwork on the ground and in the state legislature just getting to that point. Hillary was a shoo-in too, once Guiliani bowed out. But there was no leg work on her part. Like Caligula, getting his horse Incitatus confirmed as consul by the Roman Senate, Bill put her in Moynihan’s seat.
I’m not using effort as the measure of accomplishment. It is someone’s ability to rise - on their own - to a position of prominence. Hillary rode to the top on Bill’s back.
I hate to dive into this, but I want to support two points previously made.
First, Hugo, I think Stentor has won the argument with this quote: no single marker of change could be greater than to choose someone with ovaries and put her in the White House. That is precisely and literally saying that gender trumps race. To say that you’re not saying that is to take back a large part of your post. If you’re doing that, fine, but I think you should be up front about it.
Second, on the “spent her life working twice as hard to get half the credit she would receive were she a man” front, I think you need to be specific. What do you mean working twice as hard? Taking just the most relevant and recent part of Clinton’s record — her Senatorial career — I personally think she’s been a bad Senator, although I say that for reasons unrelated to hard work either way (the chief issue for me is the immoral war she voted for and continued to enable). Hilzoy at Obsidian Wings has been rounding up Obama & Clinton’s legislative accomplishments, and I think Obama looks pretty good in contrast. — This is to say that I think you’re doing a (common) thing and accepting Clinton’s “35-years-experience” campaign narrative without examining it. The truth is she hasn’t had a very distinguished career. (For that matter, it’s been pointed out that John McCain too has had very few legislative accomplishments, particularly given the length of his Senatorial career, and the chief one, campaign finance, is one he’s running away from.)
Now, I personally don’t think experience is a very relevant category for who would make the best President. (Anyone who really thinks so will presumably be voting for McCain over either of the Democrats; anyone who will be supporting a Democrat this fall thereby shows that experience is, at the least, not a trump card.) But in your line about “spent her life working twice as hard to get half the credit”, you seem to be endorsing Clinton’s experience narrative. So I want to ask you: what experience do you mean? What has she done, specifically, that is so impressive? If you can’t answer that, then I ask you to consider that you are buying a campaign narrative without much reason to do so. I think her specific life, looked at closely, won’t support that line (although obviously the lives of many women in her generation will).
(Disclaimer: I’m supporting Obama, as you probably guessed; for me the most compelling reason is the war, although there are many others.)
Sweating.
“legwork”?
Luck. When Sen. Ryan wanted his wife to do the dirty in a club, she objected publicly. That meant he was out on his ear.
Obama was on the spot, lucky for him.
Had Sen. Ryan been a bit less kinky, Obama would be still be a “who?”
“Obama was on the spot” It took years to get to that spot, competing against hundreds of other politicians who would have loved to get to that spot too.
I’m not holding up Obama as some heroic individual, and I’m not saying his experience level qualifies him for the presidency. All I am saying is the fact that he rose to the position of Senator on his own (and, granted luck is always a huge part of any political career) means he has some hands-on experience of local and state level politics. And contrasting that with Hillary, who married her way to the top. Anything she “accomplished” was solely because of her husband’s connections.
To Sweating:
I guess this whole idea goes back to women’s work being “invisible”. Its very invisibility means that it’s hard for people outside that life to figure out how much of it there is. So, for example, the traditional idea of a political power spouse is one who works very hard to further the other spouse’s career–not just the formal out-there campaigning that Bill Clinton and Michelle Obama are doing, but someone who works doing fundraising, social networking, acquiring contacts, planning parties, organizing schedules etc.–as well as (sometimes) running the household/childcare work so that the political spouse has their time freed up for political work.
The problem again with Hillary is that this “typical” political work is generally unknown to people not involved in the family or campaign, so we don’t know and can’t say how much time and effort she put into Bill’s political career–for example there’s the question of whether being First Lady counts as “real experience”, and if so, what aspects of that job?
I think one of the things that freaked people out about Hillary’s healthcare plan is that women are allowed to be “powers behind the throne” *as long as no one knows about it*–if it’s out in the open, then the person on the throne looks bad for being influenced, and the influencer looks sneaky.
So I guess the whole question is, if the Clintons work as a team–and maybe you don’t believe that they did work as a team–who gets the credit?
I would also take issue with Hillary “marrying her way to the top.” If Bill had already been President when she married him, that might be different, but I think they were both just starting out when they got married. I could be wrong though.
Sweating.
WRT Hillary. I agree.
But the point ref Obama is that we will–if he’s elected–get a state house hack because Jeri Ryan wouldn’t play stinky games in a club.
There has to be a better kind of luck for the rest of us.
They all work hard. Obama happened to be the one to be in a position to run for the seat of the disgraced Ryan.
Obama didn’t do anything the other pols haven’t done, which is plan to work his way to the top. Hell, the guy he replaced didn’t get himself assassinated, or die trying to save a drowning kid, or have a heart attack in his own bed.
How tawdry.
Isn’t it possible that this “generational divide” you speak of in your informal poll is due to the older generation identifying more with Clinton because of her age and the younger with Obama because of his age than with the sex of either? Not to say that this is an explanation either, and I think it is valuable to consider possible causes. However, it seems overly hasty to to conclude that it’s because younger women (or younger people in general) don’t appreciate the conditions that existed at the zenith of second-wave feminism. I believe the phrase is “Correlation does not prove causation.”
Richard Aubrey wrote;
“Obama didn’t do anything the other pols haven’t done, which is plan to work his way to the top.”
His “boots on the ground” work as a community organizer makes him a little unique.
Hugo, I already feel old-mostly from arthritis-but those comments make me feel hopeful. Gender is your whole profession, so I don’t think you are objective. Obama is more of an age that younger people might look to for a mentor who isn’t as old as their parents. At least that makes sense to me-I’m old, so what do I know?
Grupetti.
Everybody’s a little unique. I spent two summers in Mississippi in the Sixties in civil rights/education.
I was also an Infantry officer.
I spent the weekend with a friend who is a fanatical spelunker, and leads Scouts both into caves and at Philmont.
Everybody’s a little unique. That said, community organizing on the Alinksy model consists in convincing the locals that they are, 1, helpless, 2, held down by The Man, and 3, have to do what the organizer says. Not a message which impresses me.
There’s an incredible amount of sexism and anti-Clinton bias in this thread.
You know, it strikes me that it must be nice to have a built in squelch for any criticism that might be leveled at one. If you are against Clinton, you’re sexist. Against Obama, and you’re a racist.
Well, I am against Obama because he is far too vague for me. He has an enormous cult of personality, he’s long on high-sounding rhetoric, but what few specifics he proffers are cut and paste from the tax-and-spend handbook. It didn’t work before, it is not going to work if you continue to just throw money at something.
Clinton and McCain? Two peas from the same pod. Both hungry for the power of the office. I trust neither.
Huckabee? You must be kidding. He’s the poster child for “Right-Wing Liberal.” I object to a nanny state no matter who runs it.
Ron Paul? Good goals. Short on realistic plans to get there. He somehow fails to comprehend that he has to first get both houses of congress to go along with him, and even then, the lawsuits that would follow if some of his plans were implemented boggles the mind. To say that he far overestimates the power of the office is the least of the criticisms that can be leveled against him (As opposed to McCain and Clinton - Tweedledum and Tweedledummer - who are far too aware of it for my comfort.)
Put me in a booth and threaten to shoot my firstborn (Because I doubt shooting me would be sufficient motivation), though, and I would probably have to pick Clinton - not because I particularly agree with her policies and views - I do NOT - but because I believe she is such a polarizing figure that at least one of the houses of congress (Hopefully the Senate) would swing the other way and we would have four years of gridlock. (You think Hugo’s Newfound Republicanism is cynical? Heh. Raise ya, Doc.)
Since I am not going to be shot at the polls - despite hysterics from both sides, count on me submitting my quatre-annual (It’s a word NOW) protest vote for the libertarian candidate who can’t win, because the Libertarian party couldn’t auction off hundred dollar bills with the bids starting at five bucks.
I’m with Gonz. I always “waste my vote” on the libertarian candidate as being most in line with my general principles.
I think it’s common for young people to forget or not know about recent feminist history. Feminism has been continuously attacked by the mainstream media, and Hillary Clinton is a feminist. I certainly wouldn’t describe a hardworking woman who had to pay her own way through law school as part of a ruling class. Even Bill Clinton represents more of a class breatkthrough to the presidency than does the Bush family.
A poor man in the white house with a wife at home with the kids is really not much change at all. The personal is political. I believe the Clintons and their complex partnership that was public and out there (as opposed to the power behind the throne secret male approved variety) speaks volumes. Let’s get the date here. How many hours of T.V. or mainstream media coverage has there been on the feminist movement (last 100 years or so) compared to black male civil rights groups? Total hours, total words written. Let’s draw a graph or a pie chart so we get the picture, literally.
I want reporting at the end of each calendar year on the number of hours women’s stories have appeared on nightly news reports, for example. How many white men have been on Meet The Press vs. black men vs. white or black women. Then a complete breakdown on who owns the news media — number of women who own major media outlets vs. men. When we get the numbers, we will really know why people think what they think.
Is black civil rights viciously attacked in the media the way feminism is? Just go to christian talk radio, and you’ll hear white male conservative christians say they think racism is awful, but never once will you hear them say sexism is sinful or awful. Hmmm. Now why is this?
I think it is because male supremacy still is out there, and nobody wants to really admit it or reveal the data that would reveal just how truly biased the mainstream media really is. I know I have to go to feminist blogs to get a lot of news that isn’t reported. For example, when was Mitt Romney ever asked about how the Mormon church treated feminists? When were the woman hating patriarchal attitudes of this church ever brought up to Romney. Had feminists been calling the news shots now and then, you would have heard these types of questions.
Remember it’s about the date. Total hours of women, total hours of male civil rights denegrations compared to total media hours of attacks on women’s rights. When we get to the statistics, we’ll know what young people have really been exposed to, and we’ll have more idea of just how manipulated we all are about the so-called fair male centered media. Before the right wing men out there go on the attack, just deal with the data! In numbers there is truth.
Really, the bottom line is how frequently race and gender are pitted against each other, and how the rights of men of all colors actually do matter more than the rights of women of all colors.
How many documentaries are put on T.V. that describe the courage of the feminist movement? How often do we see the speeches of Audre Lorde on T.V. compared to the speeches of black male civil rights leaders? When was the last time Mary Daly’s lectures or speeches ever appeared on CNN? When was the last time the 50th anniversary of Playboy celebrations on CNN was countered by a feminist view of that woman degrading magazine? Hmmm.
The truth is, the establishment civil rights organizations were very much male dominated at the top.
If you compare Michele Obama to Hillary Clinton, you’ll kind of get what this is all about.
Young people are not exposed to the history of feminism to the degree that they are the history of black male political agency. It simply comes down to the fact that men are very afraid of feminism, because it comes into your own home. As long as men have their wives AT HOME with the kids, we really won’t have much social change at all.
Men everywhere fear this, and I think the people who are contributing record amounts of money to Obama really know this. I call it stealth patriarchy. 5000 years of male supremacy, and we should all know how clever this sytem can be. I have a dream… yeah, right.
Ms. Anon
“If Bill had already been President when she married him, that might be different, but I think they were both just starting out when they got married.”
Fair point - “married her way to the top” was excessive on my part. “Staying married to, and enabling, an adulterer and a sexual harasser for the sake of power” is closer to the mark.
“So I guess the whole question is, if the Clintons work as a team–and maybe you don’t believe that they did work as a team–who gets the credit?”
The person who is held accountable by the voters as CinC, who gets impeached for perjury, who lost Congress to the other party and who staged a fire-sale of pardons before leaving office should get credit for the good things, like a good economy and avoiding war. The “partner” should be judged on her own identifiable accomplishments. The only one that stands out is her seemingly clairvoyant (to put the best possible light on it) success at trading cattle futures. That was extraordinary.
If you need clarity, Sweating, I suggest the Travel Office clustercrunch.
Bill did indeed avoid war. So did Chamberlain.
Sometimes the tab just comes when it comes.
I’d like to point out two elephants in the room we haven’t said much about.
Many people call Iraq the worst foreign policy blunder of this generation, but some of us have also noticed how vulnerable this war has left Iraqi women. Women in war zones and women refugees run far worse risks of rape, trafficking, and every other form of abuse than women in countries at peace. When Hillary Clinton voted to give Bush “war authority”, when she chose not to fight for a peaceful resolution to the conflict over Iraq, she effectively chose to help put eleven million women and girls at risk, rather than fighting and taking real risks on their behalf. I would just like to point out to Ms. Clinton’s defenders here that you can’t defend her record without facing the effects of war, conflict, and mass refugee flows on women.
This brings us to the charges of sexism: please explain to me how equating opposition to Ms. Clinton with sexism does not imply that no woman in the United States has a better record or more impressive qualifications for the presidency than she does. Does anyone really believe that Senator Clinton, with all her flaws, has uniquely better qualifications than any of the hundred or so qualified American women? Do you really believe that none of those women had the fire and drive to make it? Do you really believe that the American feminist movement could not have united behind a talented, passionate woman who had made the right choice for the women of Iraq?
In sum: a strong feminist would have as good (or better) reasons to find Hilary Clinton’s record profoundly disappointing as anyone else, an plenty of other women in the United States have the fire and the talent to make a run for the presidency; nobody had to make the choice one of Hillary Clinton or a man.
Oops…
I left out an important word from my last post. The phrase “any of the hundred or so qualified American women” should have read “any of the hundred million or so qualified American women”.
To answer people who say Hillary would never be where she is if she hadn’t married Bill, I say she probably would have been president by now if she hadn’t married Bill.