I have been thinking something but I have also been a bit hesitant to voice it as I was sure it would bring the wrath of Hades upon my head. Nevertheless, I'm not one to run from controversy so I decided today to speak my concerns.
What prompted me was a very interesting open letter written by a female Brown University student, Ariel Werner in yesterday's Providence Daily Dose, a local Providence Rhode Island web site.
The letter opens praising Gloria for her contribution to the feminist cause and continues with the following counterpoint to Gloria's New York Times op-ed piece.
You create a scenario in which a female version of Barack Obama (you call her Achola Obama) is unable to rise to his current position. Perhaps this is true. But this is not a defense of Hillary Clinton, whose early life sounds a lot like mine: suburban white girl leaves the nest and becomes socially-conscious at liberal arts college. What is most striking about Hillary’s rise is not the difficulty she faced while sailing through Wellesley College and Yale Law School to become the feisty politician she is now; what is striking about Hillary Clinton is what she has done with the power she has accrued. Hillary is the candidate of the machine. She represents an old, established, well-funded politics. During her Iowa concession speech, Hillary stood with Wesley Clark and Madeleine Albright over her right shoulder, and Bill Clinton over her left...an image worth one thousand words. Ultimately, your defense of Hillary Clinton comes, not with your explanation of sexual caste, but with your applause of Hillary’s experience and resume.
Barack Obama is a candidate of a different mold. He is international, interracial, and inter-party. He has captivated the minds and hearts of an incredible cross-section of Democrats, Independents, Republicans, men, women, blacks, and whites with his call for change and grassroots politics. In my lifetime, I will have lived under 1 year of Reagan, 8 years of Clinton, and 12 years of Bush before our next president takes office. Hopefully, you understand my desperation for a candidate of a different ideological and experiential breed. Hopefully you understand that women of my generation who support Barack Obama do not do so because we take sexism lightly; we do so because Hillary doesn’t fight a sexist establishment. Hillary, like Queen Elizabeth, operates under the motto "If you can’t fight ‘em, join ‘em." We do so because we are women, but we are also members of a generation hungry for hope and hungry for action.
Gloria, this is why I have been paying my own expenses to travel from Rhode Island to New Hampshire since September to walk the streets and talk to voters about Obama’s candidacy. This is why I help lead weekly meetings of some sixty Brown students dedicated to the Obama campaign (not to mention the hundreds or thousands of other Brown students who will vote for him). This is why I stood in the cold on December 8th, gathering signatures to get Obama’s name on the Rhode Island ballot. This is why I drove up to New Hampshire on January 3rd and worked the streets and the phones nonstop until the results came in last night. This is why I’m not done yet, and why I look forward to canvassing and calling the voters of nearby Feb. 5 states Massachusetts and Connecticut. This is why I’m ready for change.
I am not, as you suggest, hoping to "deny or escape the sexual caste system." I am fighting to dismantle caste, which is why I am fighting for Barack Obama, not Hillary Clinton.
I began with an expression of gratitude for all that you have done and continue to do for the cause of feminism, and I will finish with a request. Please do not pretend to speak out on behalf of my generation of women. Please do not imply that my support for Senator Obama is suggestive of my denial of the sexual caste system. Please do not forget that my generation is a new generation: we realize that to be a feminist does not simply mean to have a right to do something, it means to use that right responsibly.
What struck me most about the Gloria Steinem article is the close:
This country can no longer afford to choose our leaders from a talent pool limited by sex, race, money, powerful fathers and paper degrees. It’s time to take equal pride in breaking all the barriers. We have to be able to say: "I’m supporting her because she’ll be a great president and because she’s a woman."
Now it seems to me that the very notion that one should vote for someone because of their sex is itself the very definition of sexism. Gloria is advocating sexism so doesn't that make her a sexist? Can you imagine what would happen if the New York Times published an op-ed where someone said about Obama:
We have to be able to say: "I’m supporting him because he’ll be a great president and because he’s a man."
or perhaps:
We have to be able to say: "I’m supporting him because he’ll be a great president and because he’s black."
It seems to me that those who advocate a vote for or against a candidate because of race are acting racist. If one wants to promote feminism then one should not look at gender but at the qualities of the individual and their accomplishments that forward the feminist agenda. I believe, as Ariel does, that Barack Obama will do more for women and for blacks than Hillary Clinton will for many of the same reasons she does. Hillary is not and has never been a change agent. If she were male, there is no way that Gloria Steinem would be supporting her over Barack Obama and that, to me anyway, means that choosing her because of her gender is a sexist choice.
You don’t fight sexism by favoring one sex over another to counter existing bias. That worked in the beginning to create a level playing field in our legislation. It won’t take us all the way. We need to erase sex as a consideration rather than continually highlight sex as a reason for or against anyone.
Our first female president should be one that earns the right because of her accomplishments not because of her gender. That is what will change perceptions. There are women out there who could do this. I don’t believe that Hillary Clinton is one of them.
There is great risk in electing someone because of her gender and not because of her qualities independent of gender. If she fails she might set back the feminist cause for decades.
I am at the in-between age, a bit younger than Barack Obama but I grew up in a world created by boomers and my early education was by those who still had the hopeful perspective of the hippie generation. So I have always been optimistic about the possibilities for the world as my generation grows old enough to displace older more cynical ones. The older generations are understandably more cynical because they grew up in a world very different than the one we grew up in. This is largely because of their efforts so I do not belittle their contribution to the cause by stating this. I find the same true of those at the fore of the feminist and racial equality movements.
Those who point to the glass ceiling or race-based limits are missing one important factor. My generation, and younger generations don’t view things the same way. We are comfortable with powerful women, hell, many of us prefer them. I’ve only ever dated powerful women and I certainly married one. We are also comfortable with black men and women in power. So as our generation takes over the reins of corporate and political power, there will be change because more change is possible. We don’t see the world the same way that those who grew up in the 40s and 50s do.
To the Gloria Steinems and the Andrew Youngs of the world, I say: "Please don’t limit us to the world you can see and hope for. We have higher hopes."
Thank you Ariel for so eloquently voicing what many have been thinking.