Update: Apparently some think this is a pro-Obama or anti-Hillary diary. It is neither. If someone doesn't think Obama will do a good job or likes Hillary Clinton better, that's not my call. But to claiming to speak on behalf all women in chastising Obama or his supporters is.
In response to a hissy fit directed at the Obama campaign and his supporters, I'd like to set the record straight on a few misconceptions on women and politics.
I find it ironic that the same supporters who complained when Barack Obama pointed out that Hillary Clinton might not win over the Independents and Republicans he's pulling in are now cheerleading a Democrat who is threatening to vote Republican if she doesn't get her way. But more importantly, I find the shallow, illogical, dangerous assumptions in the diary something that needs to be addressed.
Because as one side keeps playing up the importance of identity politics, it's an emotional appeal that real women should be rejecting. As a loud and proud feminist, please allow me to poke a few holes in the "Real Women Vote Clinton" myth.
- Real women don't need to be pandered to
- Save your ads on Lifetime. And don't come whining to me when Barack Obama starts to gain support from white males. It's not arrogance that they are responding to, it's a candidate who doesn't feel the need to divide up demographics between The View and WWE and pit them against each other in order to get votes.
- Quit telling me that I should feel sorry for a woman candidate because she has a
harder row to hoe.
- Stop telling women to vote with their vaginas instead of their brains, it's ignorant and insulting. Should I be voting for Condoleezza Rice? After all, she's had it tough, and she's a woman!
- Real women don't threaten to support a mysogynistic candidate because a vote didn't go their way.
- Saddling the rest of us with a President who will take away the right of women to choose is not rational- it's hypocritical.
- Voting for a candidate who wants to keep women
ignorant about sexual reproduction does nothing to support further generations of women who need a government to stop telling them just to say NO, and start giving them the facts about what happens if they say YES.
- Real women don't sever ties with a supporter over one political decision
- Tell
NOW that they aren't getting a dime from me ever. Throwing away years of support by a politician simply because he didn't back your candidate shows how little you care to build the movement.
- And scorned women who are threatening to withhold their vote because we "disenfranchised" them by not voting for a woman in this election, save your breath. Refusing to back the candidate who will fight for our educational system, for support for wage increases, for better child care options for working parents simply because he's not whispering in your ear about how gret you are isn't logical, and it shows how little you care about the direction of our country.
- Real women pay attention to the issues
- How could any self-respecting Democrat vote for 100 more years of
war? How could any self-respecting woman vote for a candidate who is willing to throw another mother's son or daughter into the Iraqi Meatgrinder?
- How could any self-respecting voter not look at McCain's
embrace all of policies Bush and not run to pull the Democratic lever in November?
- How can any "smart" voter just assume that after 2 years of an autocratic Republican President, a Democratic Congress can push through healthcare? Reform takes a movement, it takes a broad-based coalition. Voting in November and then waiting for someone to hand you your reforms is lazy, non-political, impratical thought. It's the type of expectations that the Republican have been pandering to for the last several years. And pandering is exactly what some Democrats apparently are still looking for.
So I'm tired of the notion that we should be backing the candidate who panders the most. I take great delight watching the decline of the Religious Right. And I'll be damned if I watch the same self-absorbed, narrow-minded special interests try to play the same games to try to hijack my party.
While some here may think it's ok to play the gender card, and then play the victim when it doesn't work, I'm here to demand that they stop using my gender as their own defense.
Real women aren't political victims, real women take their roles in our political system more seriously than that. Real woman use their brains to make an informed decision on who to vote for, not their reproductive organs. And real women don't need someone pandering to them to get their votes.
Final update: Some have said that I am ignoring the point of the other diarist's frustrations which brought about her rant and mine. Eternal Hope does an excellent job addressing those complaints here. For anyone who wants to "turn down the volume" in this debate, her diary is a much more civilized discussion.