racism

Women Deserve the White House as Much as Blacks Do


 

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


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?