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.
anniegirl1138 
I fall in the Jones demo myself which is not a surprise to me. I am too young to be a true boomer in the experiences and memories. Gen X is closer to my tastes but I find them too self-entitled (like the Y’s who come next but not as irritating) and not willing to work on the necessary when it is hard or boring. Still, I am not taken with Obama. He seems no different than the rest, just smoother. He still says nothing and he is status quo in new, improved packaging. I’ll vote Dem regardless. After all, I held my nose and voted for Dukakis, Clinton (the second time), Gore and Kerry. I have never seen anything in the Republican party that impressed me and still don’t. Are the Dems better? Not by much but I will take that little bit and run with it. It’s not like we in America are blessed with a plethora of choices given are system and the way presidential politics works.
This is a thought-provoking post. Relevantly, there is a growing consensus among experts, and in the media, that Obama is not a Boomer, nor an Xer, but instead is a member of Generation Jones (born 1954-1965, between the Boomers and Xers). Just in the last month or so, several top media outlets, including The New York Times, Newsweek Magazine, and NBC, have all made the argument that Obama is specifically part of Generation Jones. I also heard a panel of generations experts recently on a national radio show discussing this specific issue, and four of the five experts conlcuded that Obama is, in fact, a GenerationJoneser…that his bio and political worldview closely match the GenJones archetype.
Hey Annie,
I’m not politically savvy to enter deep discussions, but I want to say you express yourself very well. This is a great post.
At the present time I am an Obama supporter, but I will say “May the best Dem win.” Hillary will have my vote if she takes the ticket.
🙂
Stella
Until you pointed it out I wasn’t aware I did refer to it in the past tense. I do think it is an outdated term and concept of true equality probably needs revisiting and revising, and it definitely needs to be more inclusive. And, I am a bit hard on it because for all it did, it didn’t do enough for us. It has us stuck in a complacent place right now. Younger women really believe the battle is over and older ones realize the negatives are sometimes on par with the positives.
The reason I believe a female U.S. President is so important is simply because as a nation we tout equality of the sexes but we don’t visibly put our money where our mouths are.
Thanks for asking:)
hi annie – whew – it’s getting quite hot in here isn’t it?
this is a genuine question, no flaming from me ok? why do you refer to feminism in the past tense? I agree that back in the day it alienated many women who wanted to do more traditional things (including me) but now that I’m older I think it’s about providing women with choice.
regardless of how we (I certainly had negative feelings) thought about feminism then, I view it as a positive now.
what are your thoughts?
My husband sent me an interesting link. This is my blog, so I get the last word.
http://countramblings.wordpress.com/2007/11/09/for-those-on-the-blogosphere-that-are-being-harassed-by-gasdocpol/
Obama’s speech in Oct 2002 showed FORESIGHT not hindsight. You must admit that.
Like Gore and Obama I was all for the Afganistan war. We should not have been diverted to Iraq
A lot of courageous people were against the Iraq invasion: Bob Graham, Barb Boxer, Kennedy, Durban, Dean, (me and I was very vocal about it)…
Pulling out abruptly would be a mistake. Personally I like the idea of a soft or hard partition befor pulling out and have been arguing for that for a long time (Obama is fairly warm to the idea-Biden is a champion of it)
Again Obama will be careful how we leave. Iraq.
being a man may help in the mideast but it is more important that he was against the CF from the start.
Obama wasn’t in the Senate for the first vote but when he had a chance to vote for troop withdrawal and creating a timeline for it – he voted against it and sided with the Bush administration. Good judgement? If you want to run for president it is. It’s not fair to label anyone who went along with Bush in the early days of the war when everyone who spoke out or called for a more measured and thoughtful response was being accused of being a traitor to their country. That year or so following 9/11 is easy to judge in hindsight. So Obama has hindsight that doesn’t make him unique. I never favored the war in either Afghanistan (which we have basically abandoned to the Canadians – who don’t appreciate that much) or Iraq. Maybe I should run for president? Ifs his stand on Iraq (which was easy since he didn’t have to put his money where his mouth was) the only reason to vote for the guy? What about NAFTA? What the health care insurance crisis? What about the recession? U.S. addiction to foreign oil? The home foreclosure nightmare? Immigration? Education (merit pay is too pat a solution for something that is basically a failure of family). What about equal rights for Gay Americans? Is the guy going to carry a token woman V.P. (my guess is yes)? What about the Bush tax cuts? What about the horrid and expense Medicare D? What about SS?
Oh, I forgot. Hope and Change. Or is that hope things change?
But yes, Obama will have an easier time dealing the Middle East nations simply because he is a man. They are backward thinking nations who subscribe to the whole woman as property thing.
Experience alone means NOTHING. Experience is only one of the determinants in being able to make the right decision . Do you agree that the latter is the bottom line.( I call that judgement )
Whatever the reason Obama got it right, I claim that he had better judgement.
Since Obama got it right despite fewer years of “experience” i must conclude that obama was either smarter or had more common sense or reasoning ability.
Obama predicted the clusterfuck. Hillary voted for it.
Obama was right when he articulated that we need to be more careful in getting out than we were when we went in.
Obama will have more credibility with other countries including Arabs since he was against the war from the start. unlike Hillary , He will not need to put any lipstick on that pig.
So, your age and having lived around the world trumps me? Yet Clinton’s age and her experiences are equal to Obama’s? Even though she is almost old enough to be his mother, has seen far more of the world and has more political experience? Hmmmm. Interesting.
And on Iraq. No one will get that “right”. It’s a clusterfuck and has been since the beginning. We screwed up and we need to leave.
(I left home at 18 and went through college and medical school with no financial help from my family.
I was a physician for 33 years as well as a merchant marine officer for 7 years, lived in Europe 7 years and have seen much of trhe world.)
Obama had enough knowledge, experience and common sense to get the Iraq war right. As president he would have the personality and communication skills to unite the country far better than Hillary.
I would admit that Hillary has considerable ability and would be a huge improvement over GW Bush and a better choice than McCain.
Her statement that only she and McCain have proven ability to be commander -in-chief scares me on many levels.
No, I am not confused. And as to “being out in the world”, I have been nothing but in the world since I left home at 18 and worked my way through university and then taught in public school for the twenty years. I have been married, widowed and given birth. I have been around the block, so to speak. My own father gives me more credit for brains than you just did and he’s got a decade + on you.
Obama did nothing in the Senate aside from the ethics bill and he made a point of having as bland a voting record as he possibly could get away so no one could point to anything of merit when he made his run for the presidency. He stand for nothing but “change” and he hasn’t even defined that really. And for the record, he actively followed Clinton’s first year senate model his own first year. He is against health care reform. He is against troop withdrawal from Iraq (one of the few things he is on the Senate record for), he hasn’t paid the tiniest bit of attention to the economy, his foreign policy ideas are naive. His being black helped him stand out in a crowd of bland Dem men and it doesn’t hurt him at all in the under 35 demographics because they aren’t color conscious. It shouldn’t define him but he is using it to keep the media and his opponents from legitimately engaging him. He is the one who keeps playing the race card.
Ferrero was comparing her VP run to his. Read the whole quote. She was being honest and Obama’s people twisted it – like they did with the Lyndon Johnson thing during the Carolina primary.
I don’t vote for charisma. It doesn’t count.
annie
You confuse experience with judgement. Those of us have been out in the real world long enough know that there is a difference between 20 years of experience and one year of experience 20 times.
It is good judgement that counts, not years of experience. it is my considered opinion that Obama has better jugement than Hillary.
Yes obama is black . That has probably hurt him more than it helped him overall. In any case it does not define him in my eyes.
Ferrero’s reason for bringing up the matter was to hurt him because she wants Hillary to win.
Myra, feminism was never about all women or all the possible choices. It was about what some women wanted without regard to the fact that others would still chose/want more “traditional” things.
Gas, Ferraro was right. Obama wouldn’t be in the position he is in without being black because he doesn’t have the experience, so yes – being black has something to do with it just as Ferraro being a woman had everything to do with her being a VP nominee way back when.
Obama is black but that has nothing to do with the fact that I see him as far and away our best choice to be President.
I do not subscribe to the notion that being the first black or the first woman president should be a major priority in anyones choice. (I happen to be a 69 year old white male).
hey Annie, I’m surprised that you don’t align yourself with feminists. what is your definition of the word?
i can’t really comment on american politics, I haven’t been doing more than giving them a cursory once over. I hope the best person for the job gets it
Amen. ;o)
TGLB, I had forgotten about the abolitionists and the early suffrage movement. Yes, I agree. Things don’t change. Women’s rights and their equality has never been a front burner issue for men – of any color. And I think I have stated before that I don’t think if Clinton lived next door to me we’d be friends, but I think she would be a good president. It’s a job after all – not a canonization.
I agree with your points, Annie. I think it’s worth noting that women were at the vanguard of the abolitionist movement, and were told even then (and were rightly frustrated even then) that they’d have to wait their turn behind black men, but they should be glad for having done a good thing. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
I am a feminist, and as a feminist, I reserve the right to vote my conscious, not my gender. I voted for Bill Clinton. I would vote for him again. I like Obama, but cannot deny he’s selling hope, and the details are sketchy. At this point, though, I’m willing to take a chance; you keep doing what you’re doing you’ll keep getting what you’re getting. I’m not excited about Clinton la femme for many reasons, but I cannot deny that she is capable, extremely intelligent, and knowledgeable. She is other things, too, that I’m not thrilled with, and those have nothing to do with her ovaries or her husband.
However, I think she’s gotten a raw deal from the get-go because she is intelligent, able, and ambitious. She is, in a word, unladylike, and the amount of venom that has been spewed her way reflects more than a little misogyny. People hate her, and have for a long time. Hate is pretty strong. It’s not like she’s spent the last 7 years earning that hate like SOME politicians. ;o)
I am not a feminist. And I don’t base my opinion of someone’s ability to be president on my personal views of his or her marriage – as many of my fellow women seem to do.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/120073
I am 59, worked my way through Ivy schools as single mom, and know sexism well- and see Hillary as the worst thing to come down the pike. We have a brilliant man who could be there were it not for this manipulating , bigoted woman with a sense of entitlement who rode in on the coattails of a manipulative prick who can’t keep it in his pants. She demonized his women and is climbing over their backs to claw her way to the top. She paid no attention to her own campaign and it was mismanaged to the max, she lies about Obama and brings us nothing but old back room experience we don’t need. Tax returns, babe? And I don’t mean this years. Go away, Hillary, a woman like you is just what we don’t need. NOT THIS WOMAN – she refused to meet with poor welfare mothers. They don’t donate…just problems she didn’t need. And they don’t need her. NOT THIS TIME. GO AWAY HILLARY, you don’t deserve the prize just because of your reproductive system. And shame, shame on women who call themselves feminists and slobber over this sleeze of the Hill and Bil show.
Americans deserve the best possible President .
Whether that person is black, white, male or female is beside the point.
great entry! i agree…