As a woman, I hate to think that I’m numb to gender inequalities. However, as a woman, I’d hate to see someone get elected to an office she is unworthy to hold; especially because of her gender.
Jodi Kantor’s article in yesterday’s New York Times about sexism and demographics featured a woman, 73, and her daughter, 39. One a previous woman studies professor, the other works for a feminist non-profit organization. Both are democrats.
Kantor’s article highlights the generation gap which has the older woman voting for Sen. Clinton, and the younger saying she’ll vote for Sen. Obama. She said that older women are favoring Clinton because her being elected would provide "a grand moment of validation." She furthered that younger women are "less likely to allow gender to influence their vote."
Maybe my generation doesn’t see it. We don’t understand the history of sexism and gender inequality because most of it we haven’t had to deal with on the same scale as our mothers and grandmothers. But maybe, just maybe, we’re right.
Perhaps an elected official, man or woman, should be elected biased on merit, not gender. Perhaps trying to compare a man and a woman is like comparing cement and birch wood, and comparing candidates based on their gender is just as ambiguous. If we continue to run this gender election nobody will win. We need to compare politics—that’s what matters once we’ve got our man (or woman) in the Oval Office. That’s what should mater now.
It’s tough though as liberal women to think of Sen. Clinton without her glowing woman-shield. It make’s it tougher when mainstream media judges her rising and falling based on a few tears and what some believe as a trace of female weakness to the pressures of a major political campaign. Even a progressive liberal such as Joan McCarter says things like, "I know I call her Hillary. I’ve tried Sen. Clinton. But she calls herself Hillary, and so do I."