Who could have predicted how much a presidential race in the 21st Century would damage women's progress? When Betty Friedan and I taught classes together in the mid 1990s, she'd moved beyond The Feminine Mystique to what she called "the second stage," a time when men and women would reconcile their differences so all might benefit.
Were she alive today, she'd be shocked and furious at the deplorable way in which Hillary Clinton's campaign is being used by the media as an excuse to slap women back into what my very much "steamed" 83-year-old mother-in-law, Connie, described yesterday as "our supposed place." Were Betty around now, she'd be shouting before even entering my car, asking me why my generation wasn't doing more. Why we're allowing this to happen?
Part of the problem is that Hillary is running against a very popular Barack Obama. To stand up against media demeaning of his opponent takes a level of sportsmanship by his supporters we're willing to teach our children in soccer and baseball but apparently unwilling to expect of ourselves. "I'm for Barack Obama, so I must be OK with despicable attacks on Hillary" is how too many people think. These, no doubt, are the same people who will expect a rush to Barack's side by Hillary supporters should he win the nomination. They'll be saying, "Put it behind us and let's move on. Get over it."
Not so fast. During a recent radio interview I said that were Barack to win the nomination, he'd have my vote. But with each day the Democratic Party is losing its appeal. And I'm far from the only one thinking this way. Where are senior Democrats calling for civility at least from their own members? How about a letter from them to the corporate media culprits? Where is Howard Dean? Why didn't Ted Kennedy bother to give a noticeable nod to women and their struggle to see one of their own become president before his ecstatic leap into the Obama camp? Wouldn't he have acted differently if he'd thrown his support the other way? Why does it take people outside the party and even opposed to Clinton to decry insults to her body, her face, and her every move?
I'd like to know, too, if Barack Obama really stands for change, why this Democratic race is more of the same in terms of demeaning women so men might advance. There are times when silence is assent -- and this is one of them. I'm not suggesting he come to Hillary's aid. I'm suggesting he comport himself as the agent of change he so confidently claims to be.
Barack isn't to blame for the nastiness. But he's hardly denounced it. Many of his supporters revel in it. I've written about political courage, most recently in the Harvard Business Review. And this isn't it.
Corporate owned media flinging vile attacks at Senator Clinton should elicit from Senator Obama as much disdain as corporate lobbyists do. But he gives the former a pass at great expense to women -- those who notice and those who haven't yet.
Each rung of the ladder onerously constructed and climbed by women in the past and present is being damaged by the current Democratic presidential race. I knew things weren't perfect -- that we weren't in any sense solidly in the second stage. I just didn't think vile media attacks on Hillary that resonate for all women would go largely unchallenged by the Democratic Party -- that people supposedly on the side of equal regard for all would be, by their silence, little better than those on the attack.
If a vote for the Democratic Party means condoning incivility toward women and giving the most vile in the media and ones who take their lead from them free, unchallenged reign, then the Democratic Party is a shadow of its former self -- and may indeed be deservedly so in numbers before the vicious game they've condoned is over.
Feb. 16 P. S. This blog is not about who you plan to vote for but rather about the inexcusable silence of the Democratic Party in the face of media commentators so desperate to pull our attention away from other channels that they debase themselves, one of the Democratic Party's leading candidates and the election process at the behest of their corporate owners. Hillary Clinton is the current target. You watch. They'll be after Barack Obama in vile ways if it suits their needs and we continue to deny their intentions. They have to fill 24 hours and compete with countless channels. This blog is about silence being a form of assent. It is opinion -- the great thing about blogs. Take it or leave it. But it is not about your vote -- as that is your business and your right.
Dr. Reardon blogs at bardscove.com
Also new site The Thin Pink Line