Race, Gender and Class in Twenty Aught Eight

Old feminist here, contemporary of Steinem's,* and one who wishes all young women grokked how different life was for us back in the day, how much they owe the women's movement, how precarious the changes are that make their current opportunities seem givens--and permanent.

*Full disclosure: Steinem wrote a great blurb for a book of mine and I've admired her enormously for 40 years.

I'd like to believe the Gen Y rebuttals of her pro-Hillary OpEd. I'd like to believe our society is so far past gender and race prejudices that we can ignore them in this election year. But you know, all the "We're past that" pieces I've read have been by young women of the "We've made it" class.

Spending time as I do in worlds other than that one, I don't believe it for a minute. In the blue-collar world, in the world of conservative Christians, and among many of the military, "Iron my shirt" isn't an unreasonable order. It's the way things have been and ever shall be. The last four decades have only pissed them off, not changed their core beliefs.

In that other world I frequent, a man can see a daughter through long years of education to a great job she couldn't have gotten in 1970 and he can still call feminism a scourge on humanity. The human mind can make some amazingly curlicued turns.

If we stopped thinking that People Like Us, people with degrees and desk jobs and lots of books at home were the norm, we wouldn't be so shocked when 51% of the votes in an election make no sense to us.

Race and gender are not off the table when these Americans vote. Sorry, kids, it just ain't so.

That said, I've personally gone past a time when gender or race alone could determine my vote. (I have a degree, a desk job, and lots of books at home.)

I haven't been a fan of either Clinton--see reasons abounding at The Progressive Review--the cache there of Clinton gotchas are ripe for Republican oppo teams salivating for a Clinton candidacy.

And I am far too alarmed by the corporate highjacking of this country to believe Obama's Let's all be nice has a chance in hell of stopping them.

Jim Hightower has opined that Left/Right isn't the point--it's Up/Down. Despite being more up than down (I see myself as broke, not poor), I'm with Jim. The chasm between rich and poor in this country is appalling, and corporate greed is fueling the split.

The only voice I hear getting it right has a drawl and is coming out of a blue-eyed white guy. So I will take a pass this time on The First Woman President and The First Black President and keep plugging for John Edwards, because there's nothing more important right now than reinstituting controls on the mega-corporations. If Teddy Roosevelt were running I'd be for him. How retro is that?

I do have a dream candidate for Twenty Aught Eight. I'd put race and gender in as positives, add a heart the size of the world, a voice thundering against injustice, a brain that's firing on all cylinders--and there she is, a re-born Barbara Jordan, the First Black and the First Woman President of the United States, ready to kick corporate butt. Everything in one package. Perfect.

Comments

[ffvsartoris]

"Feminism" has been hijacked by lesbians like the gurls at NOW. They haven't any more a clue what "women want," than Freud. They only know what "womyn" want, and that is not the same thing.

So back to UR-Feminism? That's fine with me. And Medlock makes a great case.

How bout equal opportunity and equal rights?

Excellent.

Just no more leaving details out of comparative wage charts, OK?

[rperkins]

Another old feminist here. If we had really "made it," as the Gen Y-ers contend, Hillary Clinton would not be the only candidate routinely referred to by her first name. And don't try to tell me the media is doing this to avoid confusing her with Bill Clinton; they could use her full name if that were truly the rationale. Consistently using her first name when all other candidates are known by their last names is a way of diminishing her presence and impact.

[bglas]

Old pre-Lib male unit here thinking: as with the mind, overall human progress has made, is making, "some amazingly curlicued turns." We may be the one to get flattened when the stone rolls back a bit, but others come to put a shoulder to it. Consider: "iron my shirt" got a helluva laugh.

[NYCEconomist]

We need a rotisserie league for voters where we can promote our perfect candidates. Seriously. It's fun to think of who we would send to the White House if we didn't have to get their permission or a promise to work at it. Meanwhile we accept the lousy system we have because it's better than all the other ones that have been tried.

[RobLewis]

What is there to say except: Right On! I'll continue to pull for Edwards, while perhaps wishing that his words were coming out of the mouth of Hillary or Barack.

Someday, hopefully soon, people will wake up and anti-corporatism will become a force to be reckoned with. Some of that "reckoning" will not be pretty, but who said democracy was easy or safe?

[GerryAnglin]

Lorrie Moore’s “Last Year’s Role Model” (New York Times 13 Jan. 2008) focuses attention on an important policy issue. She argues that an Obama vote will help fix the ‘lost boy” problem by providing an important role model. Lorrie properly stresses the problems faced by “boys—especially boys of color. ” Though boys confront a problem in elementary and secondary schools, and need more male role models in the classroom setting, the key solution involves building respect for each boy’s (or student’s) individuality and autonomy—a situation left unaddressed by too many educational policies, and insidiously exacerbated by international policies that favor war rather than diplomacy. Eliminating obstacles for young men and women need not rise to a zero-sum game, nor should efforts to combat various forms of discrimination be so viewed. Senior Democratic heads need to merge the Clinton/Obama assets with a vote competition based on enlightened debate. Then policies might emerge that address the disgraceful underutilization of lost boys and women stymied by discrimination. Having filed the first Department of Education Civil Rights complaint alleging school structure constitutes systemic discrimination against males and minorities, I understand the appeal of Lorrie Moore’s argument that Obama will help address the “lost boys” issue. I laud her for forcefully directing attention to an issue altogether too neglected in this campaign, and I encourage the most careful weighing of her opinion. Ultimately democrats will display the greatest wisdom by forging a ticket that understands the range and components of issues and the way to mobilize America to produce solutions. Above all, democrats must avoid sly tactics and dialogue that debase our civic community, advantage forces opposed to equity and jeopardize this year’s opportunity to send America in a new direction.

[janicewriter]

Thanks for saying some things that needed an airing. And I'm with lizrich151 on voting for the last person standing in the Democractic race -- be they white, black, woman or whatever. Because "whatever" is better than what we got.

[jabony]

If we stopped thinking that People Like Us, people with degrees and desk jobs and lots of books at home were the norm, we wouldn't be so shocked when 51% of the votes in an election make no sense to us.

THE ABOVE VERY MUCH NEEDS SAYING....

[HeathGal]

John Edwards a reincarnate Barbara Jordan? OOOOO K, I can go there. Edwards - with his powerful advocacy for the average Joe & Jane against a mega-corporation fascist paradigm - remains a seriously formidable candidate in our degreed, desk-jobbed, book-lined household.
Still, something tells me that Barrack Obama is the candidate for this Time - for this Country - for this World. Perhaps his partnering with Edwards will give the World a powerful leadership team. (Of course, my ideal candidate forever will remain Al Gore, but that seems to be a long shot.)
Thanks Ann Medlock for a most compelling rebuttal to the rebuttals. I've been following the Steinem-associated commentaries with an open mind. I SO want to believe the young women who assert that gender/race bias has disappeared in the under-40 group, but you've convincingly reminded us that sadly is not yet a reality.
Still, there has been change for the better, or Hillary and Barrack would not be the viable front-runners that they are. Hallaluja!
Glass half empty, half full?

[lizrich151]

Good post, but I am voting for any Democrat who'se breathing. I do think this is the most exciting election season in my lifetime and that is 72 years.

[Clinton]

Ironic, isn't it? The most genuine candidate, the one most unafraid to speak truth to power, is Senator Edwards. And that is the only thing that really matters.