Some see this as only chance to get a female president
Los Angeles Times
Two sides face off
This sentiment is being expressed around the country — in testy dinner-party conversations, around the water cooler and in the public square. As Clinton’s shot at the nomination boils down to two March 4 contests — in the delegate-rich states of Texas and Ohio, where she is running neck and neck with Obama — many women who support the New York senator are angry and saddened by their sisters’ desertion.Old-school feminists have lined up against one another. Some chapters of the National Organization for Women are supporting Clinton, others are for Obama. There have been unseemly arguments about which candidate is more of an abortion rights supporter. Some women experience the rise of Obama as they might the ripping open of a persistent wound: An older, more experienced woman is pushed aside to make way for a younger male colleague.
One of the most passionate “cris de coeur” came from the feminist poet and novelist Robin Morgan, 67, in an essay that became something of a cyberspace sensation after she posted it Feb. 5 on the Women’s Media Center Web site. Morgan decried the casual acceptance of sexism on the campaign trail this season — from the two young men who shouted “Iron my shirt!” at Clinton to the Hillary-themed nutcrackers available in airport gift shops.
But Morgan reserved her greatest ire for women who won’t support Clinton “while wringing their hands because Hillary isn’t as likable as they’ve been warned they must be. … Grow the hell up. She is not running for Ms. Perfect-pure-queen-icon of the feminist movement.”
What the polls say
Recent polls support the suspicion of many women that they are a gender divided. Last week’s Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll found women are now evenly divided between the two Democratic candidates, although Clinton still enjoys a sizable advantage among women 65 and older, who prefer her 3-to-1 over Obama.Clinton supporter Gloria Steinem weighed in with an essay in The New York Times in which she claimed that women have a tougher time than black men.
“Gender,” wrote Steinem, “is probably the most restricting force in American life, whether the question is who must be in the kitchen or who could be in the White House. … Black men were given the vote a half-century before women of any race were allowed to mark a ballot and generally have ascended to positions of power … before any women.”
Katha Pollitt, an author and columnist for the Nation, took issue with that comparison.
“Even if it were true that white women were more oppressed than black men, that still doesn’t mean you should vote for Hillary Clinton,” said Pollitt. “It might mean you should fight for better enforcement of anti-sex discrimination rules, but it doesn’t mean you should vote for the candidate most likely to wage a war. “
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“Like many who have dreamed of seeing a woman in the Oval Office, Ewing doesn’t understand why women are drifting in ever-greater numbers away from Clinton toward her rival, Barack Obama. This trend, which has imperiled the candidacy of a woman once considered a shoo-in for her party’s nomination, infuriates the frank-talking Texan.”
Like, wow. Women are not supposed to have minds of their own. They are all supposed to walk lock-step as if they are all some sort of monolithic voting block. No, Ms. Ewing, women are not supposed to vote for a candidate just because that candidate is a woman. Getting enraged because women are not mindless sheep that can only see gender, is an insult to all thinking, reasoning women. Women in America have the right to vote for whomever they wish to support, and no one has the last say-so on the issue of who is the best candidate for the voter but the voter herself.
“They’re running to the rock star, to the momentum, to the excitement,” said Ewing, a family law attorney who chairs the Dallas County Democratic Party.”
No, they are going to the candidate they best feel serves their interests, not trying to appease people like Ms. Ewing who become incensed when women voters think for themselves.
“As Clinton’s shot at the nomination boils down to two March 4 contests — in the delegate-rich states of Texas and Ohio, where she is running neck and neck with Obama — many women who support the New York senator are angry and saddened by their sisters’ desertion.”
Desertion? As if all women signed up in some amorphous, invisible army to throw themselves on the Altar of Hillary? As if white women feminists have not used, ignored, and abandoned many women of color throughout the history of this country. As if white feminists have not disregarded the sufferings of WOC in America. As if white feminists feel that black, white, Latina, Native American, and Asian American women voters owe Hillary Clinton their vote. They do not!
As if the majority of white feminists have not done all they can in their power to turn feminism into a travesty—a joke of what it really should be for all Americans—women, children, and men.
“One of the most passionate “cris de coeur” came from the feminist poet and novelist Robin Morgan, 67, in an essay that became something of a cyberspace sensation after she posted it Feb. 5 on the Women’s Media Center Web site. Morgan decried the casual acceptance of sexism on the campaign trail this season — from the two young men who shouted “Iron my shirt!” at Clinton to the Hillary-themed nutcrackers available in airport gift shops.”
And where are her cries of racism in the mud that has been slung at Obama? Where are her cries that Obama has been accused of being a Muslim when he has not been raised a Muslim? Where are their cries when people disparage one faith (Islam) in comparison to another (Christianity)? Where were their cries that Obama’s faith or religious upbringing should not be a deciding factor against him? Where were their cries when photos of Obama in ceremonial African dress were circulated around the internet of him as if he has recently converted to the Islam faith?
Where were your cries then?
And here’s the real kicker of this article:
“Clinton supporter Gloria Steinem weighed in with an essay in The New York Times in which she claimed that women have tougher time than black men.
“Gender,” wrote Steinem, “is probably the most restricting force in American life, whether the question is who must be in the kitchen or who could be in the White House. … Black men were given the vote a half-century before women of any race were allowed to mark a ballot and generally have ascended to positions of power … before any women.” ”Black men were given the vote a half-century before women of any race were allowed to mark a ballot and generally have ascended to positions of power … before any women.”
One hundred years later, many of you white feminsts are still angry that white men gave the right to vote to black men before they gave it to white women. Some of you are still smarting from that. And some of you can never forgive your white men for giving black men the right to vote over your great-grandmothers and grandmothers.
Yes, women are still kept out of many important decisions in the high echelons of the business world, many women still are not given top-notch control of huge business empires, yes, women are still not respected for their capabilities, yes women still are not paid the same as white men in America: white women make 77 cents for every dollar a white man earns; black women make 62 cents for every dollar a white man earns. But, for this woman, Steinem, to say that women (by women, she most likely has white women in mind) have been oppressed more than black men, is to hurl grievous insults into the faces of the history of black men in America, both past and present.
With the exception of Black American and Native American women in America, white women have never been oppressed. Suppressed, yes, but never oppressed. Per Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 10TH Edition:
Suppression: to restrain from a usual course or action; to put down by authority or force; to inhibit the growth or development; to subdue; to exclude from consciouness.
Webster’s definition of oppression:
Oppression: unjust or cruel exercise of authority or power; something that oppresses, esp. in being an unjust or excessive exercise of power; a sense of being weighed down in body and mind.
Body. . . and. . .mind.
Black men (and black women) in America were oppressed. In black bodies being torn apart, raped, burned and tortured. Minds and sensibilites insulted and humiliated on a daily basis.
White women in America were suppressed.
White women were never oppressed. Not being allowed to obtain a high-paying construction job or engineering job by the white men of your race, pales in comparison to having to do menial labor that paid next to nothing to keep bread in the mouths of your (black man, black woman) family. Being oppressed, humiliated and destroyed on a daily basis, both physically, economically, socially and mentally is not the same as being suppressed from getting a job or a promotion.
With the exception of black and red American women, white women have never suffered from the viciousness of oppression in America.
Unlike black men, white women have never been drug out of their homes and tied to a tree, tortured, burned, cut apart—-piece by piece—while still alive by murderous lynch mobs. White women have never been castrated by savage lynch mobs. White women have never had body parts—genitals, ears, fingers, toes—hacked off while still alive—by sadistic lynch mobs. White women have never had to see the women of their race raped, defiled, debased, debauched and impregnated with the children of white rapists.
White women, unlike black men, have never had to suffer the humiliating insults of being called, “Nigger”, “Boy”, “Rastus”, “Pickaninny”, “Sambo”, “Jiggaboo”, or “Darky”.
White women have never had to live through segregation, where white men could just walk into their homes, and degrade the female members of their family. White women have never had to see for 9 months the belly of a mother, sister, or daughter, swell from the child put their by sexual/racist rape. White women have never had to see a white female family member struggle through the pains of childbirth, giving birth to a child of a supremacist rapist who practiced sexualized gendered racist hate.
And make no mistake about, there are white women (and white men) especially of the South, alive now, who have white male relatives who sexually abused black women during Jim Crow segregation. There are some white women (and white men) of the South right now, who have half-black brothers and half-black sisters living now because white daddy could not keep his penis out of defenseless black women. White women now all across America have better lives than millions of women of color because of the desecration of the GI Bill, the racist redlining of black neighborhoods, the gerrymandering of voter districts of cities all across Amrica; the creation of “Levitttowns”, all across America; the racist practices of the FHA loans that favored the white family over the Black and Latino family, and the cruel unjust gutting of the Social Security Act that was meant to help black domestic workers of the South and the Latino migrant farm workers of the South.
White feminists have not seen their family members attacked by Bull Connor-controlled police dogs that attacked defenseless black women and children during the Civil Rights Movement. White feminists have never seen the obliterated bodies of their little girls blown to bits by bombs thrown into their churches by monstrous white racists during the Civil Rights Movement.
White women feminists do not have that history of oppression in their history in this country.
Yes, women in America have been suppressed by white male anarchy and sexism. Yes, women have been mistreated and suppressed ever since Eve laid eyes on Adam. Yes, it is true, that all women are still suppressed in this country. But, there is a world of difference between being oppressed as opposed to being suppressed. All women do not share the same suppression, and all women are definitely not oppressed equally the same. The oppression of Black, Native, Asian, Latina women is oppression; the ending of suppression of white women wanting to be on an economic par with the white man is what the middle-, and upper-class white women of Betty Freidan and Gloria Steinem fought for—–not the INCLUSIVE feminism that sought to dismantle sexism, classism, ableism—-and most of all—RACISM.
I am still waiting on white feminists to address those issues, especially racism, which so many so-called white feminists are always so gutlessly silent on. But then since white women, unlike Black, Latina, Native American and Asian American women DO NOT face racism and sexism on a daily basis, many so-called white feminists obviously do not care to address what affects more than 75% of the other women in America, women who are not white.
A true feminist speaks for all women, not just for her own interests, and that is what many white feminists, such as Steinem, Freidan and the notoriously ignorant Susan Brownmiller have done through the decades. If it was not something that benefitted middle/upper class white feminsts, then they brought nothing constructive to the table to challenge all forms of discrimination against all women in America.
White feminists have always focused on male tyranny and ignored sexualized gendered racism that non-white women faced. White feminists, middle/upper class, have often ignored class oppression (while poor Latinas and Black women who lacked education that could give them better jobs, have taken care of white women’s children, so those white women could go to college and obtain degrees). White women middle/upper class feminists have ignored the double oppression of black and native women for centuries.
And still do.
The so-called feminists such as Steinem, Freidan, et. al. always only focus on gender. One would think that if a Martian came to this planet to seek understanding of feminism, they would go away thinking that feminism centered only on sexism as if racism, classism, etc., did not exist. White feminists, such as Steinem, all speak of sexism/gender as if that is all there is to challenge and fight in this country. White feminists have attacked black feminists who called those white feminists out on their hypocrisy and racism, because feminists like Steinem and company think only of what interests them as opposed to what is needed to be addressed in the lives of millions of other American women.
White feminists, such as Steinem, refuse to speak to, speak with, and work with, diverse groups of women because many white feminists refuse to understand fully the interrelatedness of sex, race and class oppression, and they definitely refuse to take that interrelatedness seriously, nor give respect and recognition of the different lives women of various races have faced in this country. Focusing only on gender does not provide a solid foundation on which to construct true feminist theory or true feminist action.
Gender is not the sole dominant of women’s fate in this life, in this country. There are other just as valid aspects of women’s lives–some of which affect different women moreso than others.
Gender is important.
But, then so too is race, class, heterosexism, ableism and all the other isms that so many women of various different backgrounds fight against.
White women middle/upper class feminists have been racist and classist against black feminists when black feminists sought to engage dialogue with white feminists on the issues that affect not only black women, but all women: poor white women, Black, Native, Asian and Latinas. White feminists have from day one, always wanted to have the last word on what “feminism” is. And many white feminists will not listen to non-white women’s concerns; many white feminists, such as the lik like Steinem, still care more for their own agendas, while running rough-shod over the interests and needs of other women in America.
And American white women have never suffered from ANY form of oppression in America.
White women do not share the same history of oppression that Native American and Black American women have suffered through. To say so is a damnable lie and an insult to the hells that millions of Native and Black American women have suffered through. White women have never had to go to work and work longer hours and more days because the men of their race were denied gainful employment. The vast majority of White women in America, have had the luxury of being able to chose between not having to go to work, get a part-time job, or to stay home and be with their children, because many of their white husbands held higher-paying jobs than black, brown or red men. White women have never had centuries of being in the workforce, either as slaves under slavery OR as slaves under Jane Crow segregation. Black women have never been able to decide if they could stay home and not work and be at home with their children. That is a luxury that millions of black women cannot say they or the women in their families have been able to do.
As Ms. Pollitt stated in the article:
“Katha Pollitt, an author and columnist for the Nation, took issue with that comparison.
“Even if it were true that white women were more oppressed than black men, that still doesn’t mean you should vote for Hillary Clinton,” said Pollitt. “It might mean you should fight for better enforcement of anti-sex discrimination rules, but it doesn’t mean you should vote for the candidate most likely to wage a war.”
Right you are, Ms. Pollitt
No one should be brow-beated into voting for a candidate based on gender alone. Nor on race alone. Women voters have the right to vote for whomever they please, and the hell with who ever does not like it. The last time I saw, there are no dictators in this country, well, not yet. (In the case of George Bush, Jr., he has tried his best to become a dictator, and has almost succeded with his trashing of America’s image in the eyes of the world, as well as his destroying citizen’s rights of privacy).
If white feminists such as Steinem want to see women advance in America, then fight against all forms of isms, not just some. Fight to bring down racism, classism—and sexism. Do not pick and choose what type of battle you (Steinem) will fight. What affects black women and other non-white women should no longer be ignored and callously disregarded. If feminists like Steinem want to see an end to sexism, they must also want to see an end to racism, classism, heterosexism, etc. You cannot fight one form of tyranny while ignoring all other forms of tyranny and expect one to die off while allowing all other forms of tyranny to continue to exist.
That is what must be done.
A true feminist fights the many-headed Hydra of all isms. A true feminist does not pick and choose what form of tyranny she has decide has value and worth.
If Steinem wants to see all women have better lives in America, she, like so many of her cohorts, need to learn to acknowledge all American women, not just certain groups, and not just only middle/upper-class white women.
If a woman wants to vote for Clinton, that is her right.
If a woman wants to vote for Obama, that is her right.
The United States Voting Rights Act of 1965 still protects that right, as well as does the 1st Amendment.
And on this the final part of Ms. Pollitt’s comment:
“It might mean you should fight for better enforcement of anti-sex discrimination rules, but it doesn’t mean you should vote for the candidate most likely to wage a war.”
Correct.
With all of the feminists who are mad at the women who vote with their minds, instead of voting with their uteruses, it would behoove those who are so gungho for Sen. Clinton to remember that she did vote that America wage war against Iraq.
Or have the strident supporters of Sen. Clinton so conveniently forgotton that fact?
Have they so quickly forgotten that she voted for aggression against Iraq, and now she is regretting it and trying to coast in on her “past experiences” in government?
I would rather have a candidate with so-called “little experience’ who desires to lead this country out of the hell it has been thrown into, rather than have a candidate “with experience” who rushed into foolish destruction by involving this country in a war that should never have been.
7 Comments
March 11, 2008 at 10:00+00:00Mar
It wasn’t all that long ago that women were considered by the mainstream establishment of being “in peril” of frigidity, infertility, or mental illness if they did “brainy” things… like voting and running for public office. Somehow, the very people who should remember that history (and hysteria before and afterwards) are using gender as a cudgel to keep others in line.
Instead of talking about how to increase the ranks of women within all branches of the political process, they talk about Clinton as if she is the Alpha and Omega of female politicians. I find it absolutely insulting to think that Hilary Clinton is the ONLY potential female candidate EVER to some people (OK, if it’s a 95YR old person in ill health, maybe, but the average voter?). What a big F-U to every female congressperson, every female governor or lt. governor, every female mayor, every female person contemplating a nationwide run for congress, etc. Yes, the senate is woefully gender-imbalanced, but all of our presidents (in fact a majority, I believe) have not been senators (or just senators – they’ve held other offices).
Funny, when black “leaders” call for black people to vote for a black candidate, it’s playing the race card. When female “leaders” call for women to vote for a female candidate, it’s played like the survival of the human race is at stake.
*sigh* I really, really want to see that performance art piece where a bunch of black and brown women argue with themselves in public over how to vote and who to vote for. I’d participate in that one.
March 11, 2008 at 10:00+00:00Mar
Thanks, Lyonside for stopping by.
“I really, really want to see that performance art piece where a bunch of black and brown women argue with themselves in public over how to vote and who to vote for. I’d participate in that one.”
I’d participate in that one as well!
March 12, 2008 at 10:00+00:00Mar
Thanks for providing a good ranting outlet
Did you see recently where Sinbad (of all people) has been quoted pretty much negating everything Clinton has said on the campaign trail regarding a USO visit during the Serbia/Kosovo conflict? Might have been over at Shakesville.
Sharp tailspin during liftoff – nope, no recall.
Dangerous situation – nope, no recall. It was a military base, not Tikrit.
I expect politicians to stretch the truth or not verbalize caveats (“best case scenarios” vs. “what’s most likely”), but I don’t want them to outright lie, esp. when it’s supposed to show the personal troubles they’ve been through and overcome. Concentrate on lying about the economy, M’kay?
Fake memoirs, anyone?
March 13, 2008 at 10:00+00:00Mar
Awesome rant.
Count me as one of the dreaded feminist deserters! I got a close-up-and-personal look at the Clintons’ stunts during the South Carolina primary, and I was disgusted. THEY largely made up my mind for me, as I have chronicled on my blog.
I am one of Hillary’s supposed “base”–a 50-year-old working class white woman, and I’ve had enough. Some of us are very turned off by the class element of entitlement that the Clinton campaign has unashamedly played to–it is supposedly Hillary’s “turn”–well, excuse me, but fuck that. Why is she guaranteed a turn?
And Robin Morgan has done enough to screw the women’s movement by alienating various would-be allies such as transwomen and sex workers (among others)–I wish she’d sit down and STFU instead of acting like she’s still an expert on feminism. (((puts fingers in ears, sings LA-LA-LA!)))
March 14, 2008 at 10:00+00:00Mar
This is exactly why I’m for Obama and not at all for Hillary.
This primary has really brought out some of the racism lurking in feminism, especially the second wave. I don’t remember seeing it play out so explicitly in the mass media before, but it might be that I didn’t pay close enough attention in the past.
March 18, 2008 at 10:00+00:00Mar
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