When I was a UCLA undergrad, I used to drive home to San Diego on weekends to visit my parents, where they would be promptly subjected to my hour-long soliloquies on the hypocrisy of the American Dream. After my Women's Studies, African-American Politics and Public Policy in Minority Communities courses, I was positively engaged in our nation's equality principles and absolutely negative about my generation's capacity for civic responsibility. Were we non-voters always going to gripe for hours in the dorm hallways, bitterly re-hashing the concepts of "privilege" and the "hegemony" before blowing it all off to hit Pauley Pavillion and get drunk and rowdy at the next men's hoops game?
Years have passed since I was on the floor of that storied gymnasium watching Baron Davis dribble circles around the Stanford defenders to pound a slam dunk. As the daughter of a football coach, there's nothing I love more than a good sports analogy, and on Superbowl Sunday -- with Oprah, Caroline Kennedy, Michelle Obama and Maria Shriver exuding poise and commanding authority from center stage -- I noted that this Empowered Woman Dream Team had actually managed to outshine even the championship performances of the great John Wooden himself.
Spitting passion in pretty dresses and polished lips, these women were regal knockouts. In the election that should have represented our comeuppance, Hillary finally rewarded for the sacrifice to raise Chelsea and support a (dashingly handsome, illogically loveable, brilliant) cheating husband, I was unnerved when I realized I was crying because the women-behind-the-men had shaken my heart. For an Obama die-hard, I have unbearable HRC guilt. But when Oprah asserted that we are now officially free, jointly celebrating the victory of the Womens and Civil Rights movements, she enumerated the many reasons why I believe Barack is the right person for the job.
Besides, can you really argue that these fiery femmes are behind their husbands?
As a confused member of the generation of women who inherited our mother's You-Can-Have-It-All feminism and watching the speakers own their various matron-professional-wife identities, I was compelled to feel that the Great Lie was in fact real and attainable. On stage you can't see the nervous breakdowns, Blackberries, nannies, housekeepers, therapists and friendship networks it takes to keep it all together. You just see the badass woman, and you can only hope she's not a blurry oasis in the desert.
Every wine-spilling Wednesday night with my girlfriends ends in nearly teary-eyed frustration, asking each other: Can an ambitious woman really achieve a career, family and supportive, loving partnership? And lately, if we let Hillary pass us by, have we conceded to that unyielding "good" female quality of compromise? If men come first and roll over, will it ever be our turn?
Michelle Obama stood about 50 yards in front of me, oozing Jackie Kennedy and physically shaking with the ferocity of her message. My mind flashed to a moment on the campaign trail in Iowa that had made me smile, when Barack joked about how he couldn't succeed without her and then he referred to her as "The Closer." Maybe this truly is the post-inequality era Oprah declared and it's time to embrace it. Maybe we got it wrong the first time around and we are really just now electing the nation's first legitimate Power Couple.
The crowd's chants of "Yes We Can!" drowning in my ears seemed like an inherent answer.
I think you mean "dispute," not "argue."
My generation of women did not get it quite right.
The fact is that no one can "have it all." Everyone has to make choices and choices have consequences. Some of mine consisted of supporting my husband's ambitions; many involved opting for what I perceived as my child's best interests. I don't regret any of my choices or pretend that they were not mine or confuse such factors as economic and demographic forces with sexism.
Hilary Clinton made choices in her life. Women of our generation may not have fully recognized what the consequences of our early choices, such as marriage and child-bearing, would be, but that does not excuse us from owning those choices. It is clear to me is that Michelle Obabma is very aware of the consequences of the choices she has made. But because the causes and ambitions of the Obamas are very different from those of the Clintons, I suspect that in the long run, her choices will prove to be the better model for women still struggling with these issues, and that she will have fewer regrets at the end of day than Senator Clinton, regardless of how her choices play out over her lifetime.
I don't let celebrities decide for me. The hype is way over the top.
Time to settle down and start thinking on your own.
Oprah markets - don't you see that? Why do you think she has celebrities come to the opening of her school in Africa. Why is it that everything she does is pumped up. Why do you think she's so rich - marketing folks - she's good at it. The overkill and the suckers that fall for it.
Frightenging.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foZ0p8Wzegw
To this I say, "Congratulations, you're free to be a woman, but that doesn't make you FREE." There are a great many forces arrayed to prevent PEOPLE, regardless of race and gender, from succeeding, as well as hindering people BECAUSE of their race and gender. But these are two different things.
Now, at this point, feeling guilty for not voting for Hillary Clinton but not feeling guilty for not voting for a better candidate four years ago in Carol Moseley Braun isn't about betrayal, it kind of reeks of acquiescence to nepotism.
Why are all these women fighting for universal health care suddenly bailing- now it's a bad idea? Rockstar pep rallies are nice, but at the end of the day, it means little. Let's not delude ourselves that this hype-filled politicking masked as inspiration is anything other than the usual.
http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/03/all-you-need-is-hate/index.html?ref=opinion
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