I am a white woman in my mid-fifties. I was the first person in my family to go to college. I have been a feminist for a long time--I was involved in taking over a university administration building to get day care in the early seventies, fought for the existence of women's studies departments, the right for women to go to law school and medical school in equal numbers with men, the right for us to control our own bodies. My Ph.D. dissertation is on the subject of women's history.
And I am an Obama supporter.
My fight for women's rights continues now. I have raised a feminist son. I am fighting for equal marriage, which I believe is one of the foremost feminist issues of our time--after all, if two same-gendered people can get married, how can the man automatically be declared the "head of the household"?
And I am an Obama supporter.
Believe me, I would love to see a woman as President in my lifetime. But Hillary is not the one.
And every day Hillary is proving why she is not the one.
If I thought so months ago, when I became an Obama supporter, I think so even more now. John Edwards logically assessed the situation and gracefully bowed out when he knew he couldn't win. He didn't make excuses, he didn't try to change the rules, he didn't blame classism.
Hillary's refusal to accept reality and her desperate behavior may make us angry, may make us feel that we are losing time needed to fight McCain, but that is not their most dangerous consequence. With even progressive men in the media and in the Democratic party, Hillary is now being condescended to, laughed at. That is the undercurrent we as feminists must face in this final month. The meme is that she has to be handled with kid gloves--because she is mourning, because she is in denial, because, in short, a woman scorned is scary and unpredictable.
Hillary is not totally a victim of this meme. Her behavior feeds it. And this meme, more than any overt sexism, will undermine any positive results of Hillary's campaign.
Please, Hillary, for the sake of women and for the cause of feminism, be a realist. Assess your viability. And take the action that any logical, reasonable, mature feminist would.