Tag Archives: Hillary Clinton

Bitch is the New Black? Ain’t So New Really.

Posted on by Ann

In response to my lament about Hillary Clinton’s souring bid for the Democratic nomination for the Presidency, a fellow blogger reminded me that this is not the first time women have been asked to step aside and let black men go first. When it became clear to the women working feverishly for the Abolitionist cause in the mid-1800’s that women were equally disenfranchised in their own country, and they wanted to link their cause with that of the slaves, Horace Greeley had this to say to them, “Remember that this is the Negro hour and your first duty is to go through the state and plead his claims.” Wow. Even before there were buses women were already sitting in the back, doing our duty. Greeley might as well have said “the Negro man’s hour” because he surely didn’t mean black women any more than he thought about the rights of white ones.

 

Newsweek devoted much of its current issue (March 17th) to the fact that it was/is women who are keeping Sen. Clinton’s presidential hopes alive. They called it a “backlash”. If it is, and I don’t doubt that, it won’t be enough because it is mainly older women who are indignant. Young women foolishly buy into the  “you’ve come a long way baby” myth. Apparently all it takes to satisfy a twenty-something female is her right to dress provocatively without being called into question by her peers and the illusion that the playing field has been beaten into submission even though very little has changed since I was in high school in terms of women in the workplace or the household or in intimate relationships. We are still very much doing our duty in all the aforementioned areas. So it’s not much of a surprise that they truly see another man in office as change just because he is black. Mostly, I think, they are just used to being told that it is. They are a generation raised to be superficial and as instantly gratified as possible and conduct most of their relationships from a distance thanks to Al Gore and Steven Jobs. People like this aren’t going to find a grandma as president as exciting as a good-looking middle-aged black man.

 

As a matter of explanation for their magazine’s stance, the Newsweek’s Editor, John Meachem, wrote a piece explaining how he reached the decision to devote so much print to the idea that sexism is one of the real reasons Clinton is struggling. He was reminded by a number of female staffers that the Senator is being treated by the press and her two main opponents, Obama and McCain, in a way that would not be tolerated if she were a black or Jewish man. Obama has accused Clinton of being on the attack when she “is feeling down” as though calling your opponent on issues is something that only female politicians do when they are suffering from PMS. McCain was asked how he planned to “beat the bitch” and instead of calling the questioner on the pejorative, this father of four girls let that little word go. Because “bitch is the new black” according to SNL’s Tina Fey, and she’s right. Women who don’t stay in their God designated spot in the back of the bus and let the men do whatever it is men do when they are questing for power and self-acclamation and following their destinies, these women are bitches. Right? If someone were to sling the “N” word at Obama, it would make the front page of every paper in the world, but men in New Hampshire can catcall Clinton at a rally with “Iron my shirts” and the press ignores it. They ignore the fact that Clinton has to prove she is strong and by doing so she is calculating and unlikable, but Obama and McCain had the testosterone things covered at conception, so they can be charismatic and feisty.

 

So it is once again the black man’s turn. The man’s turn. Because if you think Michelle would have even been given the chance her husband was, think again. Or better yet, watch a rap video and really listen to the lyrics if you can do that at the same time your mind is reeling from the misogynistic images being seared so deeply on your mind’s eyeball that you’ll need a large spork to dig them out.

 

Anna Quindlen has an excellent essay on the whole “second” thing. Only in America can a woman as vice-president be seen a victory by young women and men. The former because they are so easily placated with tokenism, and the latter because with luck they can breathe easy for another eight years.

 

If Clinton weren’t a capable candidate, I could go along with the party line on Obama even though he is mild and status quo and nakedly ambitious. He learned nothing in the Senate except how to play the game from the ultimate insiders but he couldn’t do worse the current administration. But she is capable. She is experienced. She would do a good job. And the fact that she represents me, a woman, is more than icing on the cake. It is ice cream too. I want my cake with ice cream, and I’ll be sitting in the front of the bus while I eat it. 

Women Deserve the White House as Much as Blacks Do

Posted on by Ann

 

There is an article on MSNBC discussing Hillary Clinton‘s recent resurgence in Texas and Ohio. The author talks about her main base of supporters being Boomer women with the typical being a 50 year old white woman who is jazzed about the fact that as a gender we are SO close to putting one of our own in the Oval Office. Despite the fact that my husband insists that I am pretty much within spitting distance of being this “typical” Hillarite woman (and I am so not by the way as not quite 45 is hardly 50 at all), I am equally psyched about the prospect of having a woman president. So psyched in fact that my dislike for Sen. Obama is probably at times simply driven by not much other than his “Y”-ness. Though his serious lack of anything resembling a plan for this country and his lightweight Senate rep is not helping him score any points either.  Then there is the issue of his glowing aura. Charisma, a Jesus Christ Superstar-like halo, and a fawning media are grounds for immediate suspicion, in my opinion. Nothing good ever comes of even one of those things and all three could be harbingers of the Apocalypse for all I know.  But like most other old women, I can read a hand-written wall. Messiahs are male and really cool. 

 

Having been accused of being merely a bigot for preferring a female in the White House and having been told that voting for a woman because she is a woman is merely proof that women should never have been given the vote in the first place, I must say that if Sen. Clinton was just offering me “change” and “hope” without any clear idea of how to accomplish something that might actually be “change” and provide real “hope” I would scoff and dismiss her out of hand, much as I have done with Obama. I am too old to be drawn in by style (which the media is quick to point out that Sen. Clinton doesn’t have in comparison to the Chosen One). I want substance with my president too. I want someone who knows that being the president is damn hard work and has a proven track record of being someone who works hard. Well, isn’t that a bit simplistic, you might think? How like a girl to believe that the highest office in the land is achieved by qualifications and elbow grease and not the hand of destiny plucking the worthy from the unwashed. But I don’t believe that such an important job should go to the most popular kid in the class.  Didn’t we all suffer through enough of that in high school?

 

The reason that older women like Hillary Clinton is that she is one of us. She came up through the ranks and, thanks to the shortsightedness of the early feminists, had to do it all whether she wanted to or not. Be the mom. Work the full-time job. Do it better and faster and without a net. And for all that, still be dismissed as just a woman, or wife or daughter or sister.  Somehow in the wake of the Obama tsunami, it’s been lost that a woman being elected president is just as great a victory for civil rights as an Obama win would be. It would be an equal stomping of the White Male American way of thinking and doing. More, in a way, because women are still the near daily victims of the rampant and ugly sexism that dominates not just America but the world.

 

Women in the U.S., it could be/is argued, are on equal footing with men, but we are granted only the superficial freedoms. They keep so many of us - younger women especially - blind and mollified that it might be better if American men were as open with their disregard and contempt for us as men are in other less “enlightened” places in the world.  At least then we would know for sure and be able to point it out. That’s Obama’s advantage over Clinton in this race. Racism can’t hide but sexism in the West is subtle and so easily denied that women have begun to doubt its existence. Pay no attention to that old man behind the curtain, little ladies. Just listen to what the big head is telling you the truth is.

 

And the truth is that it is no more a black man’s turn at the White House than it is a woman’s. 

Obama will not be the First Woman President

Posted on by Ann

I was reading an article in Newsweek that put forth the idea that Barack Obama will be the first female president of the United States much as Bill Clinton was the first black president. The idea that Clinton was “black” in a spiritual sense of the word was first put forth by the author Toni Morrison. I can’t speak to the “blackness” of anything, including the former president, but I can talk about what it takes to be a woman and Obama can have the “woman’s touch” in his leadership style ‘til the cows come home but at the end of the day he still has a “Y” chromosome and a dick and that makes him a man.

 

I am not sure why I am supposed to be just as thrilled that a black man is going to be our next president instead of a woman. It is as though black and woman were interchangeable on the minority hierarchy. As though the level of discrimination against each group was the same. As though the prejudice against being female that has been built into civilization since time began, and still exists in many forms – covert and overtly, will be wiped out by a black man in The White House. A man is a man. Black, brown or white. Being male is an advantage according to the rules by which the world is governed everywhere on our planet. Always has been. Still is.

 

Perhaps it is merely the blinkered view of Western culture that ignores the fact that while racism is not well-tolerated and called out, even in situations where it doesn’t exist at all; sexism is alive and well and so deeply entrenched that most women don’t even recognize it for what it is.

 

Women are still second-class. Look at nearly any billboard or commercial, and it is the open promotion of the female as sex object that sells the best and the most. Young women and teenage girls have been convinced that dressing scantily and being promiscuous and predatory sexually gives them power when the truth is that it is birth control that gives us power and freedom from male oppression. Without the ability to control when and if we have babies, we are chattel; and the insidious assault on our rightful access to things like the pill and abortion is slowly ensuring that someday we will once again be imprisoned by our offspring. Giving birth is the single most important factor in determining if a woman will end up living in poverty. Women with children, and without mates because the upside of the sexual revolution only benefited our brother who can eat cake without having to throw a wedding reception to get it, are more often than not are unable to “do it all”. It is difficult enough to work full-time, parent and be the domestic goddess with even the part-time assistance of a male. Despite the idea of men being more useful in the home and with the children, the majority of women still do the lion’s share of housework and childcare.

 

Women are half the population of the world, but one would never know it judging from the lack of political representation in governments all over the world. Even in the United States, the birthplace of democracy, women are vastly underrepresented in all levels of government. The world/men would have us believe that it is our own fault. We don’t participate. We don’t stand for elections. But the rules are different for us when we do. We can’t play power games by being as smart and as tough. We must still maintain an acceptable level of femininity or be branded suspect. Obama is said to be able to play the game like a woman. How ironic is that? That a man can be a woman and be praised for it whereas a woman would be deemed too weak.

 

Women are at the mercy of those who run the world. And it is men who run the world. They do not need to cater to their reproductive needs as women do therefore they deem it unnecessary to factor such things as survival of the species into the workplace. It is women who stall out on career ladders because of children. It is women who lose jobs because of pregnancy. It is women who are penalized by the Social Security system when they retire because they didn’t have the time to put in the time necessary to ensure receiving a benefit payment a person could live off of. Childbirth and child rearing are not skills, and therefore are not important because men don’t have to do it.

 

 

What does this have to do with Barack Obama being the next president? He is a man, and it will be another great snow-jobbing of women if the majority of them can be convinced that his smooth oratory and charisma is an equal substitute for finally being represented in the highest office in our land.  He can’t know however what it is like to struggle in a society that deems you less because of your gender anymore than Bill Clinton knew what it was like to sit at the back of the bus because he didn’t have another choice. It is apples and oranges. Another man is likely going to be the next president of the United States of America? What else is new?