Wednesday, May 28, 2008

"I am never again voting for a male candidate."

What (some) feminists are saying:

“This election represents a turning point for me. I am changing my registration to the Green Party. And I am never again voting for a male candidate except in the unlikely event that a male candidate meets the conditions I outline below. I will vote for pro-choice women from any party…” –V (full text below)

“No more votes for men. No more. My entire professional/public life has been about, because of, by, for, and of "men," and now I'm finished.” -TH

“Maintaining a unified party front is not my responsibility as a voter; it's the party's responsibility.” -E

“In the electoral college system my vote means nothing and I'll probably cast it for McKinney, but I'm doing what I can for Obama and/or Clinton in the purple state 20 minutes north of here.” -M

“This is the hill I am prepared to die on. I'm not voting for men anymore.” -S

“There are 16/100 women U.S. Senators.

There are 87/535 women representatives.

There are 8/50 women governors in 2008.

There have been 0/43 U.S. Presidents.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. I do not believe things cannot change. This is my attempt at changing them”. –TH

“I may change my registration to Green, too. I think you might be better off doing that as an initial move. It's going to be a lot more obvious to the Dems that women are deserting them if they start registering en masse for the greens than simply by voting green.” -A

“VP? Many think she should turn it down. Women have had to work subordinate to less qualified junior men too often. It usually isn’t a good idea, and I don’t see this situation as an exception.” –O

“I urge [those of you] who think that feminists shouldn't vote with their feet and EXIT from the Democratic Party's base to think again. This primary campaign has made it clear that the male leaders of the Democratic Party feel they are under no obligation to feminist women who make up part of the Democratic base.” -Vera

— — —

“I do not care which person is your candidate. I don't care what you think of Hillary Clinton as a potential president. What is being done in the press is akin to a pack of rabid 7th graders trying to haze the nerdy girl in school simply because they can. It has nothing to do with her qualifications -- it has to do with gender, and these lemming pundits think that it's perfectly acceptable because everyone is doing it, including women like Andrea Mitchell and Anne Kornblut.
Treat her with disrespect simply because she is female, then you are treating every woman, everywhere, with disrespect. And we are not putting up with that shit.” -- Christy Hardin Smith, Firedoglake

— — —

Deborah Tannen: The Hillary Factor – why she can’t win.

— — —

From the Washington Post interview with Hillary Clinton (2008/5/19):

Q. One of the stories that has been well documented over and over again is basically how you've been treated by the media. Can you talk about that a little bit, because I get the idea that it's really pissed off a lot of women.

A. "I think it has. I think it's been deeply offensive to millions of women.

Q. Do you think this has been a particularly racist campaign?

A. I do not. I think this has been a positive, civil campaign. I think that both gender and race have been obviously a part of it because of who we are and every poll I've seen show more people would be reluctant to vote for a woman to vote for an African American, which rarely gets reported on either. The manifestation of some of the sexism that has gone on in this campaign is somehow more respectable or at least more accepted. And I think there should be equal rejection of the sexism and the racism when and if it ever raises its ugly head. But it does seem as though the press at least is not as bothered by the incredible vitriol that has been engendered by comments and reactions of people who are nothing but misogynists.

Q. Isn't that how it's always been though.

A. Oppression of women and discrimination against women is universal. You can go to places in the world where there are no racial distinctions except everyone is joined together in their oppression of women. The treatment of women is the single biggest problem we have politically and socially in the world. If you look at the extremism and the fundamentalism, it is all about controlling women, at its base. The idea that we would have a presidential campaign in which so much of what has occurred that has been very sexist would be just shrugged off I think is a very unfortunate commentary about the lack of seriousness that should be applied to any kind of discrimination or prejudice. I have spent my entire life trying to stand up for civil rights and women's rights and human rights and I abhor wherever it is discrimination is present.

— — —

Using my vote as a protest

“[…] I'm a registered Democrat and I've never voted for a Republican. I've also sent money, every year since I could first afford it, to the Democratic Party. I've sent money to every Democratic presidential candidate for the past several elections. When I worked on Capital Hill, I worked for a Democrat. I worked in the campaigns of two Democratic candidates (male, naturally).

This election represents a turning point for me. I am changing my registration to the Green Party. And I am never again voting for a male candidate except in the unlikely event that a male candidate meets the conditions I outline below. I will vote for pro-choice women from any party.

I feel as though I've spent most of my life working for men, helping them to advance their careers and obtain promotions and raises that I seldom see. My ideas have been appropriated, I've seen twenty- and thirty-something CEOs spend their start-up's money on questionable entertainment (guess what kind), and I've reported to many men who didn't have my smarts OR my experience. When I worked for a member of the House of Representatives, I was constantly harassed, culminating in the day I was locked in a closet and told that I couldn't come out until I "showed my legs" (I always wore pants, you see). That's the main reason I left Washington, many years ago, and decided that a political career was not for me.

I thought my eyes were open. But this past year has opened my eyes wider. I had truly underestimated the amount of woman-hating that the combined media and political punditry of our culture could produce.

So here's what I expect of the party to which I have shown allegiance all these years. I expect the leaders of the Democratic Party to stand up and loudly decry and reject the misogyny we've seen in this primary campaign. Barack Obama will soon be the leader of the party. I expect him to speak out and show that he understands that misogyny is a huge problem. I expect him to serve the women of this country, especially the women who have been hurt and disappointed by this primary campaign, by pointing out sexism and misogyny whenever and wherever it shows up. I need to see some sign that he gets it.

Here are the conditions under which I'd vote for a male candidate: He must give a speech similar to Hillary Clinton's statement to the UN's fourth world conference on women, in which she proclaimed that "women's rights are human rights." He must object, loudly, publicly, and often, when some misogynist sexist media tool refers to a woman as a bitch, or compares her to a nagging ex-wife, scolding mom, or punitive schoolteacher, or comments on her clothing, hair, thighs, age, or lack of "femininity," or suggests that she's got male organs, or says she is too aggressive, too argumentative, or too ambitious. In short, I will only support a male candidate who shows me that he understands that misogyny is poisoning our political discourse.

Whatever one thinks of Hillary Clinton, she is a leader of the Democratic Party and has worked as hard or harder than anyone on its behalf. She has given up a lot to lead a public life. The nearly all-male Democratic Party leadership owes it to her to express indignation at the way she has been treated by commentators in the press, television, and Internet, and by individuals within the party and within some campaign organizations.

If the nearly all-male Democratic Party leaders do not indicate in some effective way that they understand and reject a system by which women leaders are attacked, mocked, and undermined, then they do not deserve the support they have had from feminists, and I hope that millions of women depart, en masse, from the Democratic Party.” –Vera


“I urge [those of you] who think that feminists shouldn't vote with their feet and EXIT from the Democratic Party's base to think again. This primary campaign has made it clear that the male leaders of the Democratic Party feel they are under no obligation to feminist women who make up part of the Democratic base. Feminists can always be counted on to suck it up and vote Democratic. But I think feminists have got to get angrier, make that anger visible, and become a lot more strategic.

California is a perfect place to start. Obama will carry California. He doesn't need the votes of radical women like myself to do that. I am free to use my vote for another purpose: making my EXIT from the Democratic Party. My individual action will be noticed only if it is part of a larger movement, and I suspect that it will be. I would like to be part of a movement that makes the Democratic Party leadership wake up and realize that if they want our votes, they must show us that they take us seriously.

It's not correct that third party movements are pointless and ineffective. In the U.S., a shift in the focus of a major party occurs when a third party, or some other phenomenon (such as the recent rise in identifying as Independent), becomes a vehicle for carrying away some segment of the party's base. That sort of thing makes a party straighten up its priorities. If, in California, there's an increase in women registering as Green and a commensurate decrease in women registering as Democrat, the Democratic Party may notice.

Furthermore, if enough people lend money and energy, a third party can win office on the local and state level. The Democratic Party has communicated to me that I am excluded from the political conversation taking place on the national level; I'm only needed when it's time to cast my vote for the man who's going to protect me from government-owned uterus laws. On the state and local level, however, I could help elect some Green candidates who stand on a party platform that's much more aligned with my views.

Here's a portion of the Green Party's platform: "Since the beginning of what we call civilization, when men's dominance over women was firmly established until the present day, our history has been marred with oppression of and brutality to women. The Green Party deplores this system of male domination, known as patriarchy, in all its forms, both subtle and overt - from oppression, inequality, and discrimination to domestic violence, rape, trafficking and forced slavery. The change the world is crying for cannot occur unless women's voices are heard." *

This primary election has been an incredibly painful show to watch. But up until now, I always believed that attempting to vote strategically, as a feminist, would have been tilting at windmills. Now something has happened to mobilize our anger. It's a nascent anger, and I hope at least some women will step up to nurse it along until it's big enough, and powerful enough, to be HEARD.” -Vera

— — —

I am never again voting for a male candidate. -Dawn Coyote

16 comments:

august said...

I suppose that's principled. It seems to me equally reasonable to not want to vote for candidates who support war.

There's something of a debate as to whether college graduation rates in U.S. (which are trending female) will mean more women candidates, or whether it will mean that education becomes less important in determining candidates. I tend to think the former, so I suspect the women you mention will have more people to vote for in the very near future.

May 28, 2008 8:45:00 AM
Delete

Dawn Coyote said...

I imagine many more women will pursue political careers in the future, and they'll do it, in part, out of a sense of outrage over the way Clinton was treated in the media in this election cycle. In order for that to happen, the outrage needs to be given voice.

Reading your excellent post on BOTF about Delilah, I thought this and this (without the hat and the cigarette) might be the sort of look you'd be able to pull off with suitable panache. I love scarves on men, and they're always a good thing to be wearing if you need to wipe away a few tears.

august said...

I've read a bit of the Best of the Fray stuff. I'm just not up for chiming in over there, but I think you're talking about two outcomes. One is portrayal of gender in(or, really, way gender plays out in) media, and the other is electoral success. I guess I wonder if one distressing outcome is the way that gender works out in the press, wouldn't it make more sense to boycott the relevant media outlets? And on that point, I thought alexa-blue's post was trenchant. But who made me scorekeeper? Truthfully, I'm ashamed to admit that I've barely been paying attention. Best to ignore me.

I would say, not regarding Clinton particularly, but in general, that I think criticisms of "the media" are a bit off base. There is more than enough information readily available for people to make informed choices about all manner of topics. What I appreciate most about the particular eddies of feminist theory that I have read is the tools for activist, critical engagement with received truths. I suppose I'd find the particular outrage here more engaging to me (but again -- who the fuck am I?) if I had a better sense of the background. Not the treatment of Hillary background, but the background of critical engagement that leads these women to these particular conclusions.

That's a lazy reply, and for that I apologize.

Thank you for the style suggestion. I have a green scarf that does the trick with some outfits but not others. Fashion in general is one of many things that overwhelms me with the sense that I really need to get my act together. I'm not sure impending fatherhood will do the trick, but it's good to have goals.

I've stalled with Dream Like Mine. If you want to discuss, tell me and I'll try to finish the book Friday. But it pretty much needs to happen now; otherwise, I'm going to get swamped.

Aaron said...

Poor sods. Democrats can't win for losing. No matter who wins, the Democrats lose. If Obama wins, he becomes just another man keeping women in their places. If Clinton wins, she becomes just another white person, keeping blacks down.

It will be strange if somewhere along the way, the greatest tragedy of this whole affair becomes the fact that only one person gets to be president at a time.

Somewhere along the way, people started forgetting that the electoral process doesn't give people what they deserve. It gives people what others are willing to give them.

Dawn Coyote said...

It's not exactly the portrayal of gender in media or electoral outcomes, but what underlies both: the consistent reinforcement of gender norms by just about everyone. It's the memes, sweetie.

Theory, huh? I'll see what I can scare up, but in the meantime Deborah Tannen's take link provides some insight. Or try having a look at the magazine rack at the checkout next time you're getting groceries, or glance through the tv schedule and do an mental inventory of the way women are portrayed.. Pushing the boundaries of gender norms is difficult, especially when much of the world pushes back.

The story is that women don't think big thoughts; we don't do critical analysis—we do our hair, and plan our wedding to Mr. Right. This is the recipe for a woman’s perfect happiness.

I know it's not the entirety of women's identity in our culture, but it has a huge impact on the way women see themselves and what they feel are their options.

You’re right that sufficient information on the candidates is available to the general public, but the general public will not avail itself of it. Still, it's not this that's bothering me. It really is the reinforcement of gender norms, the double bind, the story that women are no longer women when they acquire power.

For me, I'm really stuck in the gender normative stuff myself. Hillary is the first and only woman that I've been able to imagine as President, and I can't imagine a female Prime Minister in Canada, even though we had one once (very briefly, and appointed when the elected man stepped down). Why can't I imagine women in the highest offices in the land? Because women don't belong in power. Women degrade themselves by seeking power. Women in power are bitches. Women are not up to the job.

The character of Arthur in A Dream Like Mine is worth another crack at the book, but if I don’t post on it by early Friday, let’s just let it go.

Dawn Coyote said...

Hi Aaron.

I think the unfortunate side-effect of identity politics is that it leads to entitlement politics, and that's just damned unattractive.

august said...

Yeah, I don't disagree. Where I think we probably diverge is that I think there is a parallel story about race, and I've said all along that it's in nobody's interest to get into a racism vs. sexism argument. That's one reason I think alexa-blue's comment is worth thinking hard about.

(For an example of racism, here) There is a meme that black people in power deserve to die or be jailed. That this is not evident on every supermarket shelf does not mean it is less potent; I think it is probably most evident in big east coast cities, where black people are indeed getting killed and jailed at alarming rates. I'm not crazy about either candidate, but I find it frustrating that supporters on both sides have shown themselves willing to ignore hard truths about the way the other candidate has been treated. Which is all part of my general frustration that election campaigns lead people to care about winning more than they care about truth. Which I find very depressing, but which is of course not your fault. The particular truths you are trying to show here are important ones. Thanks!

I'll see if I can get to the library today. 50-50 chance.

Aaron said...

Good Morning Dawn, August.

"[...] I find it frustrating that supporters on both sides have shown themselves willing to ignore hard truths about the way the other candidate has been treated."

It's just as frustrating that both sides are willing to ignore hard truths about their candidate's shortcomings, and the other candidate's strengths. (But perhaps this is just a predictable side effect of entitlement politics, and a "There can be only one" mentality.)

But maybe the fault there lies with us? I mean, there's a reason we call them hard truths, isn't there? Should we really expect people to see these things objectively?

august said...

Aaron,

Absolutely. I'm not shocked when one of the three campaigns stretches the truth. I'm annoyed when we buy it. That's kind of what I'm trying to say about the media. The problem isn't the media; the problem is the way we consume media. I'll grant that the media invite certain readings, but there are ways to read critically and to think about what we read/view/hear.

I found another interesting link:
Gender and the 2008 Election.

What I think is useful about what Dawn points out is that it suggests ways of stepping back, thinking about the campaigns, and acting accordingly (that's not quite "theory" -- I'd call it practice). I don't agree with a number of the specific actions proposed by the people she quotes, but I think that the frustration voiced in her post should be taken seriously.

JohnMcG said...

I think where sexism still resides isn't so much about what people can do so much as what they should do.

I think few would argue that a woman can be president. But if she pursues that goal to the expense of caring for her family, then she's wrong.

For example, my suspicion is that if a womean held a job that notoriously required 100-hour weeks, and both her sons were repeatedly arrested for drug offenses, her home was described as "prett much a drug emporium," she would be subject to much harsher criticism than Philadelphia Eagles coach Andy Reid was. It would be difficult to imagine a woman is such a situation continuing to hold on to her job.

I remember when Mitt Romney got in trouble for posing next to a sign that said something like, "No to Osama Obama and Chelsea's Mama." The brouhaha was over the first insult to Obama, but the second one struck me a particularly odd avenue to criticize Clinton. I'm not a particular fan of the Clintons, but it does appear that they have managed to raise a decent, responsible young woman. But is acknowledging that consigning Clinton to be a mother first, politician second?

I think the situation we are in now is that nobody's happy. Neither sex is acknowledged to have particular gifts, but they retain their particular responsibilities.

JohnMcG said...

I think the gender-specific triggers have cut both ways for the Clinton campaign, though.

I think her campaign has been remained viable, in part because some voters are responding to sympathy they feel for a woman who is suffering. Her numbers surged after she teared up in New Hampshire, and she's done her best since it has seemed like she is done.

I am not saying that she and her campaign deliberately pushed our gender-specific buttons, but I think it would be wrong to say that gender expectations were a force that only pushed against the Clinton presidency.

But it does her almost no good, since it only helps her when people think she's on the ropes, not when it's time to actually make her president. So it is cruelly paternalistic.

----

When I used to frequent the Fray, I always got sucked in to the anti-Semitism, plagiarism controversies.

For the ones I remember, the original culprit was almost always a woman.

Was this because only women plagiarized or posted bigoted comments? Certainly not.

Was this because posters would let these things pass from a man but confront a woman about it? Possible, but I don't think so.

I think the reason is that when other posters saw a woman being "attacked" for some Fray-crime, several people instinctively came to her defense, for good reasons or bad. And that's when people like me got involved, and the whole thing explodes.

I don't have any answers on how to change these reactions.

JohnMcG said...

One more tactic that is available to male candidates that is not available to woman -- getting indignant over crticisims of one's spouse.

Though, as much as conservatives like to pounce on Michelle Obama for complaining about student loans, I think it helps his candidacy by reflecting that they're dealing with the same problem we are.

Dawn Coyote said...

august said...
Where I think we probably diverge is that I think there is a parallel story about race. There is a meme that black people in power deserve to die or be jailed. That this is not evident on every supermarket shelf does not mean it is less potent.

That Osama/Obama clip was vile. I do see your point about racism (and homophobia), and I confess that I’m not attending to those the way I attend to sexism, which I hear about in the feminist communities where I spend some of my online time.

On BOTF, if you pay attention over a period of time, you watch how topics/ideas/phrases/words move through the community. They surface and they float and sink and wash up on the shores again a week or two later, reimagined. I wonder if Hillary’s mention of RFK and Huckabee’s reference to Obama hiding from an assassin are related that way - the meme about the possibility of Obama getting killed gets out there, and it floats around in people’s subconscious until they blurt it out in unfortunate moments. Does it indicate racism? I don’t know. The sexism is more overt and intentional. I’m not denying that the racism exists, just speculating on the way people think and absorb stories from the common pool.

Iso and rundeep made a couple of good points about the racism of Clinton supporters on the BOTF thread (I only grabbed Iso’s):

“But I see really why they are voting, and it has nothing to do with feminism. It has almost entirely to do with race. And that is the most troubling thing of all -- Obama supporters say they'd vote for Clinton because they are NOT misogynists. But a lot of those people who came out for Hil in the rural areas? Don't tell me you don't think they were motivated by race.”

august said...
The problem isn't the media; the problem is the way we consume media.

We’re just like little sponges—sucking sulfur out of the deep, hot vents in the floor of our culture. Or we’re like the blind people and the elephant: we all grab a bit of the story, and we think we’ve grasped the Truth.

alexa blue: says more in fewer words than I would ever have imagined possible.

johnmcg said...
I think the gender-specific triggers have cut both ways for the Clinton campaign. […]

But it does her almost no good, since it only helps her when people think she's on the ropes, not when it's time to actually make her president. So it is cruelly paternalistic.

That’s an excellent point. Thanks.

I believe I’ve watched her struggle to not use the woman card, but I’m sure she’s slipped a few times.

You know what bugs me? It’s the “but women who get into power end up behaving just as badly as men” crap. Like, it’s a huge surprise that women, long rumoured to be particularly virtuous, are actually no better than men? And the implication is that we might as well keep the men, if the women are only going to behave just like them.

And that's when people like me got involved, and the whole thing explodes.

It was your fault? Bad boy. (Something like that kept me from getting back here as soon as I would have liked today.)

Did anyone see this:

Dawn Coyote said...

trying again: NYTimes: too white and too male?

Aaron said...

"For example, my suspicion is that if a woman held a job that notoriously required 100-hour weeks, and both her sons were repeatedly arrested for drug offenses, her home was described as "pretty much a drug emporium," she would be subject to much harsher criticism than Philadelphia Eagles coach Andy Reid was."

Your suspicion would be right. You should see the vitriol poured out against the mother of Semaj Booker (the boy who keeps attempting to run away from Washington to Texas) in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer SoundOffs. Everyone's constantly slamming her for not doing anything to corral the child, but let someone point out the fact that she'd attempted to get help with that from the authorities, and she's then slammed for not living up to her maternal obligations - which seem to be raising a perfect child alone. It got so bad that the P-I locked the SoundOff about the story.

JohnMcG said...

Stuff like this probably doesn't help.