"We are the women of this nation," declared the ad that filled a full page of the New York Times and USA Today. "Hillary is OUR voice, and she is speaking for all of us."
I had heard about this ad, but I hadn't read it until sociologist Kay Trimberger forwarded an e-mail she sent to the sponsor of that ad, WomenCount PAC, expressing her disappointment that the ad left out tens of millions of women.
Here's the complete first paragraph. See if you can identify the millions of missing women:
"We are the women of this nation. We are rich and poor, young and old, married with children, married without children, single moms, gay, straight, and widowed. We are every color. We are of every religion. We are from all political parties."The ad funded by "Women Count" counts every woman -- as long as she is married. American women who are single (there are about 50 million of them of voting age) count only if they have children, or if they once were married but are now widowed. That leaves about 28 million women invisible to the group that claims to have been created "to ensure that the 51 percent of American citizens who are women have their values, voices, and votes counted in the political process."
I wonder, are we also invisible to Hillary? Are single women -- and single men -- invisible to the other presidential candidates, too? As I explained here, I think we are.
Was it easy for you to identify the missing Americans in the ad's lead paragraph? If so, I hope that ABC or Fox or the Los Angeles Times or one of the many other media outlets that ran stories about the ad will hire you; if any of them noticed that millions of singles were excluded, they didn't say so.
I'm not pinning this tail solely on the media or on candidates running for their political lives. Academia, too, is matrimaniacal. There are journals, textbooks, conferences, classes, degree programs, professional societies, and millions of dollars of federal funding devoted to the study of marriage. The perspectives of people who are single, though, are rarely represented. There are a few exceptions. Scholars, like the leaders of the "Women Count" group, take singles seriously if they have important life experiences in common with adults in traditional nuclear families - that is, if they have children, or if they once were married.
Most disappointingly, second-wave feminism has also been negligent in its treatment of the single woman. As legal scholar Rachel Moran pointed out in her law review article,
"A great deal of attention has been paid to balancing work and family, while little effort has been made to forge strong alternative visions of life as a single woman. As a result, both married and unmarried women have paid a significant emotional price..."To a significant degree, second-wave feminism took it for granted that women would couple as well as have a career. In doing so, the women's movement forgot the single woman and damaged its own chances for political success."
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What about the millions of us who just don't want to vote for her? It's not about WOMEN, it's about THIS woman. Nnnngaaaahhhhh.
As an never-married woman of middle years, I am accustomed to being marginalized. I am the spinster of yore, a threat to married women when I was younger, a burden to the hostess trying to seat a table now that I'm older. In my home, I do the cooking, cleaning, sewing, decorating, money-making, bill-paying, decision-making about repairs and improvements, and a lot of those repairs and improvements. But because I lack a partner, or offspring, I'm a lesser member of society.
That is what "Women Count" is saying--you don't count if you're not hitched or haven't reproduced. Imagine a parallel ad that sidelined unmarried men and didn't count them in unless they'd helped create a child or signed a life contract with someone. It's unlikely at best, because men seem to be perceived as being whole on their own, at least when young. But at a certain point, they, too, are also-rans.
In a way, I can understand why we are second-class citizens. Failing to contractualize our coupling when we do pair up, and/or failing to procreate, we are failing to further society's agenda for stabilization and perpetuation. That's a big deal. But one place this stratification doesn't apply is in the voting booth, which is why the "Women Count" ad is wrong to exclude us from its list.
But it really doesn't bother me, because I'm for Obama. Everyone has a seat at his table, with or without partner and kids.
They skipped Shirley Chisholm!!!
I wasn't going to comment on the ad until I read the "shout-out" to African American heroines.
Like Fannie Lou Hamer whom Lyndon B Johnson, the man who accomplished what MLK never could, announced a press conference just so the media would stop covering Hamer and her call to seat the delegation from the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party.
And I won't mention that irony that due to Clinton's own "misstatements" she's down to merely 8% of the black vote. Oops. I mentioned it. And let me assure anyone who believes it's Obama's fault that such ugliness came from Hillary and Bill's mouths that Obama get on our uber-secret telepathic waves and con-vince us to vote for him. Don't forget, over half over voting blacks are women, many of whom would've (and some still do) supported Clinton out of female-solidarity had the Clinton campaign not gaffed it up.
If Clinton truly represented all the women in the ad, much less single women, the Obama campaign would be a distant memory. Alas, she doesn't. And I find the ad despicable.
Hillary can leave me out of her count any time! She certainly does not speak for me. Her behavior shames her, even though she doesn't seem to realize it.
Clinton is not a feminist, she's a NeoCon opportunist. Don't expect any change in the Supreme Court if she's elected, wh will pass it off as 'compromise,' and Roe will be repealed.
I'm guessing that in their desire to be specific they mistakenly left out one group. If you want to believe it's intentional, go ahead. My guess is it was an oversight. Whether it was a telling one or not is also tough to call.
However, the ad does speak as if it speaks for every American woman and I'm sure it does not. I don't think a group of black people or Hispanics, Muslims or Jews could take out an ad and claim to speak for all of their group.
But my guess is that the people who placed this ad will get little heat for claiming to be the voice of every woman.
You are obviously either a much more naive person than I or a much more forgiving person than I. Having been a single woman for my entire 50 years, I have been railing about this issue for the last 20 of them. I have no doubt whatsoever, due to years and years of experience with this issue, that singles are completely off the radar for anyone in the political process and that it is not inadvertant in any way. No one, especially female candidates of a certain age like Clinton, addresses our issues, our concerns, our place in American society, economics, and politics. We are invisible and unimportant because no one takes one second to consider what we might want or need or care about.
I have nothing but contempt for the women who ran that ad because, over the many years I have been active in politics, they have shown nothing but contempt or, even worse, indifference to me.
Well, I am married. And I wouldn't vote for Clinton if you paid me a million dollars. It really is galling, how she presumes these things--like white low income people all back her---like all married women back her! If that is Clinton's claim, that makes her a big fat LIAR.
I agree with the principles, I just don't think HRC represents them and she certainly doesn't represent me. I think her behavior as been anti-feminist.
" And I wouldn't vote for Clinton if you paid me a million dollars."
Hey, I believe in taking principled stances and not selling out as much as anybody. But if Hillary Clinton offered me a million dollars to vote for her, vote for her I would!!
Of course, I'd phone bank for Obama - working for the campaigning isn't part of the deal. That's where I draw me line!
This ad was not paid for by the Hillary Clinton Campaign, but was rather funded and posted by a grass roots movement of mostly women who feel that not counting MI and FL disenfranchises women everywhere and that the DNC's deafening silence in response to the sexist based character assasination by various media outlets of a a prominent and well-respected Democrat of Hillary's position, is detrimental and requires a strong statement condemning such rhetoric.
This has less to do about Hillary, personal feelings aside, as her run for office has only exposed what many of us knew to be very alive and well in American society, deep seated misogynism. To say she set back the women's movement because her candidacy only exposed this fact, is absurd. What will set back the women's movement is if we sit idlely by and allow it to happen to Hillary out of political convenience for our frontrunner.
Hillary was offered a compromise by the parties in both MI and FL, and turned them down. She is not concerned about the voters there, but about her own take of them.
Hillary's character assassination has been accomplished by her campaign and herself.
If Clinton has run as a woman, it'd be one thing, but she didn't. She ran as a man, or rather, a caricature of a boorish man. And that is why Hillary really has set back not the women's movement, but the place of women in very high office. Lately, she and her running mate, Bill, have levelled musings (the RFK death hopes) and tirades (quasi-conspiracy theories about her unpopularity, referring to nonexistent polling results, etc.) that seem pretty bereft of reason or common sense. It's sad and shameful, but true to form for that pair. I'm squarely in "her" demographic, but I have never seen her appeal.
Clinton is not the frontrunner because there's someone who's a better choice. He's been tested during this campaign and proven himself worthy of our confidence in his judgment, character, and intelligence. Hillary, on the other hand, has proven herself a poor judge of the country's needs, appallingly bad at handling money, a lousy businesswoman, a failure as an administrator, and completely lacking in honor. That's why she's losing, and that's why she won't be the nominee, or VP, or in any part of Obama's administration. He doesn't have people like that on board. He can't afford them. Neither can we.
Well, of course there is mysogynism in America. Did Hillary not know this when she entered the race? She has lived here all her live and encountered this as she moved up the professional ladder. Why did she expect it to disappear when she announced her candidacy for president? What was her planned course of action? She had none. People loved her husband, therefore they should love her.
Of course there is racism in America, and Obama knew this, yet he did not yell "racism" everytime he lost a primary. His campaign planned for it and incorporated the "divisions that separate and hold us back" into his campaign. You might say they worked around it, successfully.
Yes, all the whinning, blaming and complaining about the facts of life is truly a turn off.
How would she be able to understand and deal with people all around the world, if she doesn't even understand her own country?
This first paragraph is exactly my take on things. Think about her knocking back boiler makers and bragging about drinking mccain under the table. What about "testicular fortitude" which she seemed to take as a compliment. What about the unnecessary claim of going into Bosnia under sniper fire?
There are things she could have brought to this election as a woman that she decided not to.
Hey, I just made the same points as are in your second paragraph to the women counts people. I sent them a hotly worded e-mail.
What is alive and well in America today is COMMON SENSE and GOOD JUDGMENT. Those are the things I employed (and take note: I am female and over 45) to decide that Hillary Clinton is absolutely incapable of being a good president. She lacks the character, honor, organizational ability, and moral strength to lead us. A woman will be president one day, soon, but it will not be Clinton. Thank goodness COMMON SENSE and GOOD JUDGMENT are alive and well in America.
My sentiments exactly! Common sense and good judgment AND decency!
That ad wasn't paid for or endorsed by the Hillary Campaign, but was rather an ad taken out by a grass roots effort of women voters to open dialogue about how women ( a clear majority of our party) are clearly and undeniably under -represented within the DNC and their not unfounded outrage for witnessing a constant barage of sexist rhetoric aimed at a Democratic nominee who has been a loyal and leading member of the party for over 35 years. The DNC has been frightfully complacent in it's deafening silence as a full on character assasination takes place before the eyes of millions of little girls who hear loud and clear what happens if a female challenges the male dominated status quo.
Hillary has been called a bitch by pundits, renamed Shrillary, Billary, a Monster, a she-devil, IT, and her years of experience and advocacy reduced to being nothing more than an adendum to her husband's career. She has been called cold and heartless, then over emotional, as having multiple-personalities, and her foreign affairs experience reduced to "tea parties with other first ladies and wives" Any criticism of Obama becomes an attack with portrayals of her talons drawn to "claw her way to the nomination"
If Hillary were male, a set of different but still derogatory words would have been used to describe her.
It's her actions and her character that have brought on the negatives, not her gender.
I am a single women; professional, no children. I support Hillary Clinton and will do some in November, with my one write-in vote. I refuse to hold my nose, like I have done with most elections since 1970, and vote for a not so great member of the the boys' club. And make no mistake, Senator Obama is a card carrying member of the boys' club. He will do little to advance the women's agenda, whatever that happens to be.
As a single woman, I doubt anyone or should I say, very few people care about what I think, especially the married women. I doubt the ad in support of Senator Clinton was a deliberate slight; it is so hard to be inclusive, when so many identify with a subset of the general population. This type of hysteria is the one reason, Hillary has problems; everyone expects her to be PERFECT and no matter how she tries, she isn't perfect.. But, she does speak directly on the issues and answers the question as directly and tactifully as possible. That's a far cry from talking in lofty terms and not getting down to the nitty gritty as Obama is apt to do. KEEP GOING HILLARY! All the way to Denver this Summer!
I am so grateful for this post. I am single and have felt invisible for a very long time now. I've thought of this for a very long time and should have realized that there are others out there like me. Actually, the ad does address single moms so I think they exclude single women without children.
Rachel Moran is so right in saying, "A great deal of attention has been paid to balancing work and family, while little effort has been made to forge strong alternative visions of life as a single woman. As a result, both married and unmarried women have paid a significant emotional price..."To a significant degree, second-wave feminism took it for granted that women would couple as well as have a career. In doing so, the women's movement forgot the single woman and damaged its own chances for political success."
I have had no vision of alternatives to married or unmarried with children. I've had women in miserable marriages actually say that they married because they did not want to wind up like me. I made the decision to remain single and not to have children not realizing that I would become a societal pariah but that is what happened. I didn't take a stand against marriage or being part of a couple, I just never met the right person.
It was a comfort to read your post.
I am offended because Hillary is not speaking with my voice.....
not hearing my concerns...
as a married woman with children, I'd much rather be excluded from the claim that Hillary speaks for me. What a presumptuous claim to make.
I think you are not listening to what she is saying. She has put forth her plans and talks about her plans to anyone who will listen. The media prefers and shall I say, many who comment on this website to focus on her clothes, her hair, her voice quality, her husband, her daughter, her staff. . .anything, but the SUBSTANCE of what she is trying to convey. Then, there is the outright indignation from people, like yourself, who have never met the woman or even had a personal conversation with her. And you talk like you know her. You don't and neither do I. But, at least have read her statements, plans, listened to her interviews and watched her over the years, withstand withering criticism, overt sexism, hatefullness and meannes that I know I could not have endured. And many of these people call themselves Christian. What a shame; there are too many people like yourself and that's why there will not be a woman President in the nexte 25-50 years. You don't have the courage to take a risk for real change.
Most of us know exactly what Hillary's plans and policies are. We also know that she voted for Kyl-Lieberman, cluster bombs, the Iraq war, failed to vote on FISA, cosponsored a bill to criminalize flag-burning, worked on the anti-union Walmart board (part of her so-called '35 years of experience'), lies or 'misspeaks' too much to be president, and is trying to cheat her way into the Presidency by using false primaries in MI and FL (she will not succeed.)
You assume we don't support her because we don't "listen to her", but we have listened and researched and have decided that she does not speak for us.
white women voted for reagan/bush over mondale/ferraro 55 to 45. Why didn't they make their stand 24 years ago?
I find it painfully ironic that, while the ad proclaims "Women Count!", it merely underlines the reality that an awful lot of women (the Hillaristas, basically) can't do the math.
And what part of the math that women make up more than half of our party don't you understand? What part of your math assumes Florida and Michigan never happened and never will? What part of your math ignores the electoral map come November and what part of your math has Obama reached the magic number to win the nomination?
If you can committ to the argument that "in lieu of any candidate reaching the magic number of delegates needed to cinch the nominee, that the superdelegates should then default judgement and support whomever has the delegate lead at the time" without regard to the other candidate having won the popular vote, won the majority of swing states Democrats need to win the white house with polling supporting her viability in these states, then I can only respect your litmus test for the supers. I just disagree.
Obama is ahead in the popular vote by almost 600,000. Furthermore, popular vote is not tallied in some states, as it is not required by the DNC rules (Washington, Iowa, Nevada, and Maine.) This is a delegate race, by the rules of the DNC. Also, by the rules of the DNC, the MI and FL faux-primaries do not count.
MI and FL Democratic Party Leaderships have both offered a compromise to get their delegates seated, and Clinton has turned these down. Read that again until you comprehend it.
As for swing states, Clinton lost these: Iowa, Missouri, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Colorado, Virginia, Washington, and Oregon.
Obama does not just have the 'delegate lead at the time', he has won the majority of the voted (pledged) delegates. That's math that you don't seem to understand. Even if you add in the delegates from the faux-primaries of MI and FL, Obama has still won.
Clinton has NOT won the most voted (pledged) delegates, and no matter how many false metrics you try to bring up, she has not won this nomination.
Hillary lies, she says one thing one day and then another the next about Michigan and Florida
http://www.hillaryclinton.com/news/release/view/?id=3134
http://www.unionleader.com/article.aspx?headline=John+DiStaso%27s+Granite+Status%3A+Hillary+%27weaseling%27+on+pledge%3F&articleId
Posted May 24, 2008 | 05:29 AM (EST)