Seeing Sexism
It's not easy to see sexism. It's such a part of our lives it seems invisible. It's in us and outside us. We want not to believe in it---until something---like men making fun of Hillary Clinton, like women making fun of Hillary Clinton---stirs it up. And then something inside our heads shouts: "THERE IT IS AGAIN! I thought--I truly hoped we were past this."
The truth is, we want sexism to be passé. We don't want to keep fighting it. It's so uncool to fight it. We sound so shrill, so whining, so strident, so piercing, so shrewish, so female. For these are all coded adjectives for women you hate. We hate them ourselves. We don't want to be shrill, shrewish, strident, whining, piercing. We want to be cool. We want to hold our own, we want not to waver, not to be high-pitched, not to betray our femaleness, our weakness. And yet our voices are higher than men's and we are less listened to in the agora. We are always tokens.
On most charitable boards I sit, on every prize committee I deliberate, on most writers' panels, I am a token. One woman and seven men, two women and fourteen men, three women and twenty-one men. I hate being a token. I wish it were otherwise. Unlike those nasty women of yesteryear--Clare Boothe Luce, Ilka Chase--the women who inspired The Women--I have no stake in being queen bee. I want a 50--50 world. But the world is not that way. So tedious, old-time feminism must rear its shrieking Medusa head again.
The Greeks got it. Medusa's snaky head, the sex-strike in Lysistrata, Medea's fury in Greek myth and tragedy.
The truth is we have been trying to assert women's rights (and wrongs) for a long time. Too, too long, in fact. No wonder everyone is turned off. From Mary Wollstonecraft to Susan B. Anthony to Eleanor Roosevelt to Germaine Greer to Gloria Steinem is at least two and a half centuries. And before that, Mary Magdalene was smeared by the damned disciples, Cleopatra by Shakespeare, Hatshepsut by all those Egyptian dudes and doubtless even the Sumerian earth goddess. Too fat, too shrill, too monomaniacal, say the cool men. And the cool women echo it.
What? Life begins in the womb? Women are the life force? How unfair! Didn't Samuel Johnson--that old bore, say: "Nature has given women so much power that the law wisely gives her little" The Greek tragedians smeared a lot of women too, but they were shrewder observers of life than our present day guy writers. At least they had the myths to set them straight. So they knew women were fierce from being raped so often and they knew the rapists (usually men) deserved everything they got.
So now we have the cool dudes saying Hillary is dead, the fall of the house of Clinton is here, baby-boomers are so over, don't trust those wrinklies (British for your parents' generation), youth is roaring again, hope is the watchword, Obama has a feminist wife and two cute little girls, he'll fight for us. And the cool chicks echo it: Hillary is over, we have our rights, we have the pill, we have the patch, we have the IUD, we have the vote, we have nannies for our kids, so what about the retrenchment on Roe, so what about the Right to Lifers, so what about my mother's battles? Over and done. Passe. Youth has come in the person of Barack. Male? Not really. Think of his wife. Two for the price of one--like Billary in 1992. But will Ms. Obama be the prez? Not really. Power behind the throne. Same old, same old. We seem to have forgotten that we did this all before.
But it's different this time, say the women of my daughter's generation. We've won the battle. We don't need the White House. Say what? We don't need it? We're past it? We have all heard that before, too. It's an old, old story. Hillary is the establishment? Hillary stole the vote in New Hampshire? Hillary is passé. Hillary is too close to Bill. Hillary is not close enough to Bill. Hillary is calculating. Hillary is cold. Hillary cried. (Actually, she didn't cry -- as Jon Stewart and I pointed out). She just looked human. She showed a teeny bit of vulnerability. UNFAIR! They scream. FEMININE WILES! They scream. The heart of being a woman is to be always in the wrong.
Let's be honest here. We don't know how a female President would act. But we could look around. I know America is a provincial country, but we could look at Germany, Ireland, England, Pakistan, India, Argentina, and Finland--to name a few. We could ask why the USA, out of all the so-called "civilized" countries, is so damned afraid of a woman leader.
We could look at the invisible sexism--as Gloria Steinem has been asking us to do for nearly half a century. We could acknowledge that a multiracial male president with a fierce feminist wife would be great for America, but maybe we should break the invisible gender barrier first. Yes, blacks have been hideously oppressed, but so have women--and black women know this better than white women do. We have been tokens for so long that most of us just take it for granted. The flaying of Hillary Clinton shows us we can take nothing for granted. We need to break that tough, annealed, glass ceiling with the barbed wire over it. And we need to break it now.
If this is the politics of gender, so be it. We need a politics of gender in this country. Obama is a good man who will only get better. Youth is on his side. Perhaps Hillary will appoint him to the Supreme Court where he can counter that embarrassing Clarence Thomas. Perhaps he will be President in 2016 or perhaps, even better, Michelle Obama will be. They have nothing but time.
Hillary's time has come.
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Just to keep the discussion going. I heard Clinton say "I'm your girl" which is a bit debasing but not really offensive. I never heard Obama say "I'm your" anything. In fact, he talked about working together etc. What does that mean?
Lots of voters will vote for H.Clinton because she is a woman ....or against her for the same reason. Same goes for Obama supporters - detractors.
Hopefully it will break 50-50 and people like me who will support the PERSON we feel best to lead ALL of us will prevail. . In the meanwhile I'll laugh at the pathetic folks on both sides of that coin , and hope they all cancel each other out.
I observe that intelligent and wealthy people who use this man vs women, black vs white tactic usually have some economic intrest in keeping it going or at least exagerating it.
The old wrinkled, maybe bo toxed feminists are coming out of the woodwork. I don't think they are relevant to today's world., Sorry, it 's dredging up old stuff, like goind back in time rather than going forward.
Rice, Jong--all in their late sixties. Err, come on. They are looking for the glory of a come back and in the same way as Hillary wants to go back to the nineties, they want to go back to their glory days of yore. As if it is relevant now. It ain't. Not with today's young women.
There are bright, younger women out there, who are not stuck in the age of feminism that has long gone past.
So we should all vote for Ann Coulter?!
The logic here eludes me. I'm being asked to look past gender to vote for a woman, but being told I'm sexist if I look past gender to NOT vote for this specific woman? What about those pesky little details called "issues" and "positions" and "voting record?" Am I meant to look past those too?
I'd be happy to vote for the RIGHT woman. Unfortunately, Hillary just isn't that person.
I hope Hillary becomes the president. - Doug
Mr. Steinem just gets it completely wrong when she attempts to suggest that the obstacles faced by a Caucasian female candidate are somehow far greater than those faced by an African American in the American electoral system.
A simple look at the composition of the United States Senate would give her a rather rapid reality check. Currently, there are sixteen female Senators representing a rather broad range of ideology and a diverse mix of states. One African American currently serves in the Senate.
Obviously, a ratio of 16 to 1 is not exactly demonstrative of African American men "ascend[ing] to positions of power . . . before any women."
Indeed, when one remembers that voters have elected only 3 African Americans to the Senate in the entire history of the republic and compares that number to the 16 female Senators in this Congress alone, Ms. Steinem's complaint becomes almost ridiculous.
Nor is the disparity limited to positions viewed by voters as legislative rather than executive. Currently, there are 8 Caucasian females and 1 African American male serving as governors of their states. And again, the 8 females serving today greatly outnumber the 2 African American males elected since Reconstruction.
Racism and sexism both exist in our society to a far greater degree than is acceptable. Yet Ms. Steinem's attempt to paint Senator Clinton as the victim of the more powerful evil is contrary to any quantifiable measure.
I understand and almost admire the chutzpah of her political tactic of portraying Senator Clinton as the plucky underdog facing monolithic odds due to unfounded stereotypes (much of America does love an underdog). It is her bad luck, however, that Senator Clinton faces a candidate who has had a far steeper hill to climb and faces far more pervasive and lasting discriminatory attitudes.
In attempting to come to the aid of her friend with the premise that sexism trumps racism, Steinem does a real disservice -- both to honesty and the cause of feminism.
The "sexism" I see at work is not sexism but discrimination against motherhood. The women who don't have children or who have grown up children do quite well.
Damn straight it's sexism.
If you vote or don't vote for HRC simply because she is a woman, you practice sexism.
This whole "tear" moment, whether real or manufactured, was exploited by both apologists and detractors in a sexist manner.
The whining from the Clinton camp regarding the way HRC has been treated is sexist.
The perception of the media, condeming Edwards for a "snarky" attack on HRC was sexist. Had he been confronting a male candidate for representing special interests, most would have declared it a strong moment for Edwards rather than attacking him for it.
What pisses me off the most is the suggestion that many of the people (women) who ended up voting for Hilary did so NOT because they felt she was the best candidate to lead this country, but because they felt the media was picking on her.
Are voters so shallow that they would actually choose a candidate based on how they feel he or she is being treated by Chris Matthews fer chrissakes?
What a way to pick the leader of our nation. How pathetic.
Bravo to Erica Jong for identifying our need as a gender to ride the Hillary train all the way to the end. It IS her time. I'm a Gen X'er that just turned 45, and I'm not sure I understand the women that are a couple of years younger than I am who don't feel the urgency of getting a woman in the White House NOW, not later. Maybe they have the same train of thought that your typical, Kool-Aid drinking Obama follower has--all they hear is the word 'change', they see a guy about my age who wears a suit well, but if they had him as a U.S. Senator, they'd be singing a different song. His record as a State Senator is less than stellar, and what he's managed to accomplish as a U.S. Senator for us here in Illinois is MINIMAL to say the least. He has abandoned us. He got bored with us. I guess moving on to bigger and better things while leaving his constituents high and dry, and not living up to his campaign promises here is HIS idea of change. Never again. GO HILLARY!!
Unfortunately, that is the line they are using to raise Obama to the top. He's just like Martin Luther King although he never protested anything, never struggled for anything, never really gought for anything except the Presidency. He can "talk the talk", but his voting record does not show him standing up for anything. His "present" votes on women's reproductive rights in Illinois were convenient. His campaigning with Donnie McClurkin, the ex-gay, anti-gay zealot, really bothers me. That was just last October. He's using his preacher voice which says nothing except "lift your spirit". Where are his true beliefs thats he's willing to stand up for? When he's not preaching, he's got an arrogant manner.
Once again for the slow section: As some other people have pointed out, it is not about being against the idea of a woman as President. It is about being against *this* woman as President.
There have been wonderful strong leaders in other countries. Women like Maggie Thatcher and Benazir Bhutto have proven that women can be truly great leaders. The problem is that there are people out there planning to vote for Hillary Clinton for no other reason than because of her gender. That is not a reason to choose a leader. To chose a woman just because she is a woman is every bit as sexist as to not chose a woman because she is a woman.
This is absurd. What happened to just choosing the most qualified candidate?
Hillary Clinton is not who I would want representing my gender. I'm more than happy to wait to have a woman in the White House until someone who is actually fit to lead decides to run. She couldn't control the White House kitchen staff and people expect her to control the country?
Maybe we should vote based on how we feel about the issues. What if I agree with Barack Obama and not Hillary Clinton? Does that make me a bad woman? Fine. I'm a sexist pig. This is why feminism leaves me behind. I'm genuinely angry about the way people characterized Hillary Clinton's minor show of emotion. She was clearly exhausted and frustrated and who wouldn't be? But I still feel that Barack Obama is the right choice. Because he's black? No. I am infinitely sick of this first black/woman president b.s. Vote for a candidate based on a combination of their qualifications and whether you agree with their political positions. End of frickin' story.
"Obama is a good man who will only get better. Youth is on his side..."
What's up with the Clinton, Clinton surrogates and Clintonites obsessed with referring to Obama's "youth", in a veiled attempt to make him out to be juvenile, irreponsible, immature and drugged out "young man".
Enough already.
You're pretending to show him a complement by parroting CNN legal analyst Jefferey Toobin's wonderful suggestion
But why group that in with "youth is on his side"? Uh, Ms. Jong, you forgot, that political experience is on his side (having served as an elected politician longer than Hillary), intellegence is on his side (having been a longtime constitutional law professor), policy knowledge is on his side (having sponsored over 800 bills in the Illinois State Senate http://www
And most of all Ms. Jong, professionalism is on his side, having responded measuredly and gracefully to every single nasty, condescending attack from the Clintons and their Clintonites.
When you talk to Hillary next time, ask Hillary why she, her runnng mate Bill Clinton, in particular, are obsessed with making Senator Obama out to be " a young man", when he is one year older than Bill Clinton when he was elected in 1992.
Your "youth" strategy Ms. Jong is obvious to everyone but you and the candidate you are supporting. And its utterly insulting.
Right on! Wake up America.
If Barack were a woman everyone would call him ridiculously unqualified, and he'd never get away with his angry tone (why so mad? Goldman/Sachs cut your allowance?)
Hillary is the most qualified Democrat still in the race and the most admired woman in America.
50% of the human race has been pushed aside and slapped around for too long.
Hillary has my heart... and my vote!
I am afraid that I tend to disregard the is she tuff enough is he touchy feely enough nonsense in favor of actual facts. While Hillary was in my opinion unfairly characterized in the debate and the questionable tears incident by the media morons her campaign was outright lying about the record of Obama. It is the lies that make her unfit not gender.
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