Feminists Draw McCain's Ire

McCain's nomination of a woman to the second highest job does little to wipe away the dramatic difference with Democrats who are succeding in filling the pipeline and federal seats with women.  In the US Senate, women hold 11 Democratic Senate seats and 5 Republican Senate seats. Advantage Democrats 2.2 to 1. Likewise, in the US House, there are 51D and 20R plus 3D Delegates. Advantage Democrat 2.7:1. In State government, women Democrats hold 1.7 times the number of Republican seats. (Source: Center for American Women in Politics at Rutgers University. ) 

While Palin is ceaselessly fascinating, she was a silly choice because of her lack of basic understanding of Republican policy and her appeal is limited by her "us vs. them" campaigning style.  This style is not very modern or female-friendly.  Few women candidates have such large reverse gender gaps like Palin's, ie men like Palin more than women by 10% in a recent poll.

The Obama campaign needs to highlight the greater progress that Democrats deliver and pledge to work even harder to push diversity of repersentation at all levels of government, through elected and appointed positions.

From a September 9th, NYT editorial, “Women and minorities are not the novelty they once were in Congress, statehouses and legislatures, or even, starting with this election, on the presidential campaign trail. But elective office is still overwhelmingly a white male occupation. A new study suggests that may have less to do with the glass ceiling than with the pipeline: too few women and minorities are being appointed to top state jobs where they can get the experience and the public attention to establish a political career. The report was from the Center for Women in Government and Civil Society at the State University of New York at Albany,

Marya Stark is a Co-Founder and the Founding Executive Director of Emerge America, the premier training program for Democratic women who want to run for public office.  She is VP, Business Development for Allegory, Inc, a leadership and communications tra

There's more to this Barbie business than meets the eye....

http://lostandfoundinindia.blogspot.com/2008/10/bh... ( http://lostandfoundinindia.blogspot.com/2008/10/bh... )

Rgds,
Braja

OK - I can't even believe I'm about to write this but...

Sigh - eek - here goes:

As an engaged individual in this election and this country and these debates, I must acknowledge that there ARE women who believe exactly what Sarah Palin believes.

Are those beliefs against what we believe is in the best interests of women? Yes.

But they believe, some of them at least, just as fiercely, that Palin's interests are in the best interests of women.

I know I know I know - I don't see it that way and I know I never will.

BUT - there are women (and men) who do.

So I think the next question has to be, why do they believe what she believes? Why does SHE believe what she believes?  How can this be possible?

Well - to me, in some ways, it's analogous to me as a Jew saying I do not accept people proselytizing to me - I find it offensive.  But those whose faiths command them to spread the word will never agree with me, even if the constitution puts boundaries on it.

There is a direct clash.

Likewise, there is a world view, held by Sarah Palin and those who see what she sees as being in women's best interest, who are going to clash directly with our world view.

How do you change that?  I'm not sure you/we can.  Should we try? Yes.  But they have the right to try to, you know what I mean? That's why here on BlogHer we have our partisans.

I want to tell one story that to me demonstrates that there is value in continually revisiting our clashing world views:

I went to a very Catholic university and consequently had many friends who were devout Catholics - what a surprise! :)  After we graduated and before one of them was going off to seminary (he left after a couple of weeks, returned to NYC, was a Catholic school teacher for many years, came out as gay, moved to California with his partner and the partner subsequently died but my friend is still out there; the story of how he told me he was gay is another great tale, I can't even imagine what the experience has been like for him), we had a gathering of a bunch of us in NYC.  I stayed overnight at this friend's mother's home, where he was living.  Rosaries, images of Jesus, the Madonna - honestly, being Jewish - I don't even know what all - but I hope you get the idea: religious icons and symbols everywhere.

And after we had our gathering with friends and were back at the home, we both slept in his room which had two twin beds.  It's a typical row house in Staten Island - think of what Archie Bunker's neighborhood looked like in the opening shots of house after house.

So we had the following conversation until 4 or 5 in the morning, literally going around and around:

Him: Abortion is murder.

Me: No it's not.

Him: was the life of something living terminated?

Me: Yes.

Him: that's murder.

Me: No it isn't.

Him: Yes it is.

Now - this was 1984 and genetics wasn't exactly what it is now, but still, that's only 10 years after Roe.

And we went on like this during which I talk about how it is a woman's choice to make this decision about what is not yet able to exist outside the human body.  That while it is not the preferable choice for me, I have no problem with it being a choice for other women.  And that for women and families for whom the continuation of the pregnancy would create burdens that they cannot absorb and that society cannot absorb and could place them at a far worse disadvantage moving forward in life,  they needed to be allowed to make such a decision, harsh as it might be for all of us.

And he continued to say, murder is murder.  That's the end of it.

Okay - so - fast forward 1988 and this friend is getting mailing after mailing from the GOP to vote for Bush.  And he tells me that he is not going to vote for Bush.  And I ask him why not.  And he says something along the lines of the following:

Remember that conversation we had about abortion? Well, I still feel that way.  But if the pro-life people continue to refuse to fund the consequences of taking the position that abortion is murder and women must never abort an unwanted pregnancy, then I can't support them.

My friend had come to feel that and see that while it was one thing to take a position about not destroying life, he felt that there was an enormous hypocrisy and unacceptable inconsistency and harsh reality to not help all the women and children and families that face consequences of a legislating barriers to abortion.

Again - this was when the Moral Majority was on the rise and although I don't remember him mentioning them in particular, he was angry and sad and would not support the Republican party because of this disconnect.

I have no doubt that my friend continues to believe that abortion is murder and should be, if not banned, restricted as much as it possibly can be. I'm of course pleased that he can think critically enough to realize hypocrisy when it exists and vote accordingly.  But still, we do not have the same world view on this issue.

Likewise, there are people who share Sarah Palin's world view which clashes directly with ours.  I imagine that when some of them come face to face with certain harsh realities in life, they too might divurge from that view and toward the evil "feminist left." Or up the cognitive dissonance, or just accept that life is cruel and they don't have choices.  

But, playing devil's advocate, in a democracy, well - they get to vote and exist just like us. And we all get to explore how we see it and why we believe what we believe. This is what free speech - and BlogHer - is all about. Sometimes pointing out the hypocrisy is the best we can do and hope that at a minimum, that forces the approval of funding and programs necessitated by the restrictions on abortion - ok - I really have a hard time even writing that because I don't believe it should be that way.  But there it is.  At least give money for the consequences of restricting access to abortion or stop trying to legislate away a now constitutionally supported medical procedure.

Jill
Writes Like She Talks ( http://www.writeslikeshetalks.com )

Goodness! I hope that I am one of those 20!

In all seriousness, I am glad that McCain is angry that we are not just falling in line with his cynical plan. Picking a woman to advance an anti-woman agenda is not even a new strategy. We will not be fooled, and we will speak up.

Suzanne Reisman ( http://www.blogher.com/member/suzanne-reisman ), Contributing Editor - Feminism & Gender ( http://blogher.org/topic/feminism-gender )
Campaign for Unshaved Snatch (CUSS) & Other Rants ( http://cussandotherrants.com/ )

McCain thinks so little of women that he chose a woman who is not qualified by anybody's standard.  Of course we want to see women in the Big Chair, but we also want her to get there based on qualification and not on her eye-candy ability.  It is not enough to be pretty and wear nice clothes...that's Barbie!  What we want are women who know what they are doing, who know what the stakes are and are willing to champion those causes.

Love,

Babz

Dear Nordette

Of course I agree with what you say, that there is much more to feminism than simply supporting a woman candidate. And of course what this shows is how simplistic McCain's understanding of women is. I mean, Palin is his ideal woman, c'mon, now we know what he thinks of women....

My point was simply to point out the ironic and in some ways painful dilemma that the Palin thing has caused for some feminists. It forces me to say I prefer a man over a woman. As much as I understand the complexity, that the man's policies are better for women, etc, and of course that's the bigger goal, despite that, I feel a bit torn up inside about it. Because, at the end of the day, I AM counting the number of women who hold office, just as I am counting the number of women who own businesses and who are managers and who earn decent incomes and who are free and independent. i DO look at how many women are governors, and until we started to look at Palin up close, I would have counted her as a victory for women, that Alaska has a young, energetic, intellignet woman as governor. That would have been a good thing...

So it's not so simple to blithely say, let's elect the man becuase he's better for women. I feel like McCain has put women up against the wall, forced to choose between our goals. That's what I'm saying.

 In kindness,

Elana

This is really sad that Hillary does not understand our needs and McCain does. It's my understanding that feminism's ultimate goal is not to have
women only supporting women because that in and of itself is a type of
sexism.

perpetual debate: do we support the candidacy of all women, or just those we agree with?

I sure as hell wished men thought in these terms. If they did, none of this discussion would be necessary.

The fact is, I'd guess there are men out there who would never vote for a woman as president. Never. I doubt many women could make a claim of never voting for a guy for president, for a too damn obvious and ridiculous reason.  

All of New England went nuts when the Red Sox won in 2004, the first time in 86 years. Compare that reaction and that drought-without-winning to 216 years with nary a president or vice president. Not one. 216 years. Four times my life to date.

No, I'm not voting for Sarah... but there has to be *some* consideration to a woman as candidate, providing she falls into some range that begins around mildly conservative (Christine Whitman) and moves leftward.  

If we fail to think in terms of claiming a larger portion of the political spectrum instead of the narrow bandwidth we laid claim to in this election, we will have our lunch handed to us time and time again - because we will scrutinise candidates to within an inch of their lives, but men will not do this with male candidates. 

In effect, our desire for fairness helps short-circuit our actual political achievement, in terms of the two highest offices.  

If Christine Whitman ran against Obama, she would have my vote, even though ideologically he is closer to me. If I'd have had my way, the first woman to ever serve would have been Barbara Jordan, and damn it all, she would be perfect in the here and now. Such is not to be, we have what we have.

I vote for Obama over McCain/Palin, because Sarah is so damn far away from me I cannot stretch my views far enough to reach her and feel kinship. Narrow that range, and... my approach will change.

If we fail to do this, most of us will never see a woman as president.  

nelle ( http://refractivethoughts.org/ )

/

llhaesa ( http://llhaesa.org/ )

If I saw feminism in simplistic terms, I would agree with what you're saying:

... this whole turn of events negates the most fundamental feminist goal: that is, actually supporting actual women.

I think that's how McCain understands it, that any woman will do for women. For a time, some feminists promoted that all women should vote for Hillary whether they thought she was the best choice or not. Perhaps McCain read those opinion pieces.  I think that reasoning actually hurt Hillary's chances.

Is that all there is to feminism, "actually supporting actual women" no matter what the women themselves stand for? Would we vote a June Clever-like candidate into office if her platform stated that women should never work outside the home and that our bodies belonged to our husbands and the state? Clearly Palin believes women can work outside the home, but feminism is about more than that specific freedom.

It's my understanding that feminism's ultimate goal is not to have women only supporting women because that in and of itself is a type of sexism.  I've understood feminism to foremost promote the concept that we should all be treated equally, and feminism continued beyond Civil Rights because the Civil Rights movement stopped short of demanding equality for women also. We can't be treated equally if all women are not given the same opportunities as men and we will never get there if we elect people, especially women, who don't get what that's about. Palin does not support women in any meaningful way from what I can see.  She's may be a woman, but she's not a womanist.

Yes, she has been given the opportunity to become the first female Vice President of the United States of America, but that does not translate into saying anyone against Palin in particular winning that office is also against supporting women any more than it would mean that Jewish people who don't support Lieberman don't support Jewish people.

As for Hillary not being Obama's VP choice, it's good to see Hillary working to help Obama win ( http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/21/unlikely-... ). She sees the big picture, that it takes more than a womb to be pro-woman, and so she's not endorsing Palin.   She knows we don't need another eight years of the same thing, and I like her Pennsylvania quote that we will rise from the ashes of the Bushes.

Hillary faced a great deal sexism during her run but she has the sense to know electing Palin is not the answer to addressing sexism.  Palin's facing sexism too, but while the slave master may have beaten the house negro sometimes, that never meant the house negro was the field negro's friend.  Palin's no friend to feminism.

Nordette ( http://blogher.org/blog/nordette ) is a Contributing Editor with BlogHer.com whose personal blog is hosted on another site at this link ( http://bigsole.blogspot.com ). Also at Blogher, America's Dark Night of Soul ( http://www.blogher.com/americas-dark-night-soul-il... ).

( http://blogher.org/blog/nordette )

There is something almost pathetic when a man understands women's issues better than a woman.

As much as I understand Eleanor Smeal's argument that we would rather have pro-women policies than an actual woman, and as much as I agree that it is better for women to have Obama in office than McCain, this whole turn of events negates the most fundamental feminist goal: that is, actually supporting actual women. Sarah Palin is a woman, and under other circumstances, I would have said, our job as feminists is to support her, yes, because she is a woman. How sad that when the Republic party finally understood this one simple principle that women want success for women -- they completely missed the bigger picture. 

And how ironic that Obama has now become the pro-women choice. If he was really truly pro-women, he would have put Hillary on the ticket.

Elana

www.forseriousjewishwomen.com ( http://www.forseriousjewishwomen.com )

www.amyinohio.wordpress.com ( http://www.amyinohio.wordpress.com )

The feminist left "eviserates" Palin because she's not competent nor qualified to be Vice President, much less President should the need arise.

 As Gloria said this is not about one woman getting a job, it's about all women moving forward. 

If Palin was at least qualified for the position, I'd celebrate her selection, but still not give her my vote because skirt or no, we don't agree on the issues facing this nation.

I heard about McCain's comment this morning on NPR and mumbled "'The feminist left' is against Palin? Who does McCain think he's conning this time?"

People observing Palin "on both sides of the aisle" (to use a McCain phrase) woke up and realized that Palin isn't qualified to be second in command. Her struggles to develop a coherent sentence when speaking extemporaneously, for instance, is a big clue.

Considering his running mate selection, McCain showed some people, even conservatives, that he lacks good judgment. But I guess he'd prefer to blame the so-called "feminist left," whatever that means, instead rather than accept that he made a huge mistake.

I and many other women said the moment he made the announcement about Palin that he was trying to play women and clearly thinks women are all fools. We'll vote for anything in a dress seems to have been his logic.

Once Sarah Palin started speaking in public, my first impression cemented to a developed position: Palin would be a horrible VP.

There are conservative women with whom I disagree but nevertheless recognize have the intelligence and valid credentials to run a nation. Palin's not among them.

Thank you for posting on BlogHer.

Nordette ( http://blogher.org/blog/nordette ) is a Contributing Editor with BlogHer.com whose personal blog is hosted on another site at this link ( http://bigsole.blogspot.com ).  Recently she posted at BlogHer "America's Dark Night of Soul ( http://www.blogher.com/americas-dark-night-soul-il... )."

( http://blogher.org/blog/nordette )

Yes, it stumps me how anyone could continue to go on about McCain's experience and judgment.  As if life experience = good judgment...it's what you learn from your experiences that makes good judgment, not sheer time passed.

McCain's choice of Palin is just one more example of his not so good judgment.  To think of all the qualified, intelligent women he COULD have chosen. And, then to come up with Palin.  The scary part is, perhaps Palin reflects his idea of what a professional woman should be.  That they couldn't possibly be intelligent, seasoned, powerful women but that they must get by on their good looks, sheer raw ambition untempered by any humility or awareness of their abilities, and a high cutesey factor...what scares me is what this says about his overall views of women in the professional world.

Allison Allen

Bloomer-in-Chief, WomenBloom

http://www.womenbloom.com/blog/

I was a strong Hillary Clinton supporter because I felt she was both a woman and a good leader.  I want to see a woman in the White House, but it needs to be a woman with whom I agree on the issues, particularly women's issues.

McCain thought we would follow the lipstick over to Palin.  But she's not just inexperienced, she's dangerously inexperienced, as in she can't see what she's not prepared for, so she will just charge in.  Sounds like someone else I know.

I'd still like to see a woman in the White House so there can be many, many more women in the White House.  But the wrong woman will just hurt our progress, and McCain should've known better.

Surrender, Dorothy ( http://surrenderdorothy.typepad.com )- When I was your age, we just let them ride in the back window.

Rita Arens is a contributing editor for BlogHer -- Mommy & Family.

If there is one thing I'll remember about this election, at least in terms of gender equality, it is that the election exposed the latent sexism that crosses political ideology, to be found on the left and on the right.

I watched the left excoriate Hillary during the primary; I watched the left eviscerate Palin upon her nomination.

And now that McCain is on stage, he is tossing around snide comments about 'the liberal feminist agenda.' This comes on top of his earlier comments on extending the time frame for bringing lawsuits for discrimination against employers. I vaguely recall his admonishing Sarah for comments she made along the way.

While I'm pretty certain McCain does not give a shit about what I think, if there is something certain to push my buttons, to get me to take notice, he zeroed in and pushed that button.

In any case, the more I ponder the election, the more I hear 'experience' tossed around, as in Obama or Palin lacks it, I think about what really makes a good leader. It isn't someone that screams and hollars, who threatens people such that they work out of fear. That stuff works short term in certain situations; thereafter, people devote their creativity to getting you or getting around you.

We are talking about a country, and you can't threaten an entire populace, nor can you blindly threaten other countries, or even Congress. Watch what happens when threats fly towards Congress, watch how they sit on their hands, content to let a president sink.

Obama might not be experienced... but he has what counts when choosing someone to lead: he listens, he evaluates, he works with others, he makes a choice. And I'd guess he will know how to monitor and change. People will give him their best, because they wish to - he will not make others look bad in the process.

In my opinion, the polls have it right. McCaiin's temper is a huge risk I really do not care to take.

nelle ( http://refractivethoughts.org/ )

/

llhaesa ( http://llhaesa.org/ )

 Hey on the other hand it's kind of nice to be acknowledged. The feminist left(s) certainly have been speaking up.

 This guy from the Guardian, though, thinks that leftist feminists are imaginary ( http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/deadlineusa/2008/o... ). But if we did exist (all 20 of us, elusive pixies that we are) in this guy's mind Gloria Steinem is our spokeswoman. Ha! In hell! Steinem has done some good work in her day, but she sure doesn't speak for me. 

-----------------
Liz Henry ( http://www.blogher.com/haystackprofile/viewprofile... )
lizzard@bookmaniac.net ( http://liz-henry.blogspot.com/ )
Contributing Editor, World and Latin America
( http://www.blogher.com/blog/liz-henry )

And McCain's genius comment that women don't need equal pay, we need more training and education.

No doubt that "liberal feminist agenda" is code for reproductive choice, but  as Erin says above, a lot of the agenda is hard to argue with. Unless you're stuck in 1847 or whever McCain seems to be drawing his views on women.

Mom-101 ( http://mom-101.blogspot.com )
( http://coolmompicks.com )

...and laughing that he said 'liberal feminist agenda'

You're darn right there's one, and it includes protecting our children, our rights, and our earth. Long live the Liberal Feminist Agenda!

Politics & News Contributing Editor
Queen of Spain ( http://queenofspainblog.com/ )