Gloria Steinem nails it in today's New York Times. A skillful dissection of the strands of gender and race that underlie this primary fight. White woman? Black man? Does any of that matter?
I've posted here that I think having a female President will be a radical act with transforming ripples around the globe. Not any female President, mind you. One who holds progressive views, of course, and actually will fight for women around the world and at home.
Steinem analyzes the context in which a female candidacy develops, against the backdrop of resistance which makes a female a candidate of gender, while the male is not. That original sin already puts her candidacy into a frenzy of psychodramatic analysis and spin which often reveal more about the commenter than the candidate. Angry. Bitch. Weepy. Cold. Sentimental. Human. Human??????
http://www.nytimes.com/...
Can Hillary and her supporters positively cite gender progress without playing the gender card?
What worries me is that she is accused of "playing the gender card" when citing the old boys’ club, while he is seen as unifying by citing civil rights confrontations.
What worries me is that male Iowa voters were seen as gender-free when supporting their own, while female voters were seen as biased if they did and disloyal if they didn’t.
And Iowa's result was not so radical:
That’s why the Iowa primary was following our historical pattern of making change. Black men were given the vote a half-century before women of any race were allowed to mark a ballot, and generally have ascended to positions of power, from the military to the boardroom, before any women (with the possible exception of obedient family members in the latter).
Steinem's essential point is that women start out on a "hill" - with a steep upward climb. My thesis is that part of the Hillary slide is that Hillary's imminent wins and nomination triggered a revolt against a powerful woman - both from some men and some women. And certainly from the press.
Hillary actually had to accure enough imminent power to become a proxy for the revolt against the angry, domineering mother. This is a psychotheater that most recognize.
She was more palatable when less powerful. This explains the hysteria that developed against her near-grasp on the nomination.
If not hysteria, then a puzzling indifference:
What worries me is that some women, perhaps especially younger ones, hope to deny or escape the sexual caste system; thus Iowa women over 50 and 60, who disproportionately supported Senator Clinton, proved once again that women are the one group that grows more radical with age.
The younger boomer women and GenX women can be motivated by generation and turnover in supporting Obama. I get that. But I hope that these very women - who take politics seriously - are not so casual in letting the possibility of gender change escape this historical moment.
It's not a surprise that it took this long to get a serious female contender for the White House. One fact that is relevant to where Presidents come from: Hillary could not have gone to Yale as an undergraduate, because they did not admit women at that time. Hillary's possibilities and life trajectory mirror the very recent - and incomplete - integration of women into American political life. That's why the first serious female contender is likely to be older in 2008 than any serious male rival. And unlike male candidates who compete to be an updated version of JFK, MLK or RFK, what female antecedents pave the way for a candidate like Hillary? Can anyone here define the legacy of American female leadership into which current women would fit?
I am a Hillary supporter, and let me put that up front. But beyond her particularly moment and candidacy - I think that the problems that we face in the 21st century are centrally problems of gender derangement. The mobilization of men into armed states and terrorist cells is a disordered masculinity that threatens us all, boys and girls. Beyond organized violence, women live in a world with a physical danger that men do not. The rampant persecution of women and girls around the globe has not even begun to seriously enter our political concerns back home. And that's more than half of the human race.
Yes, gender has liberating possibilites for us - while also explaining our current crop of candidates and their potential. It's no surprise to me that we can end up with one more male nominee. For many, and perhaps here, you believe yourself to live in a post-gender world. But that's not accurate. I hope to live in a post-masculine world - where men are neither threats nor saviors - and where the restoration of gender balance heals a planet gone mad with brutality and force.
When women can walk in the world without fear - I mean really own the public streets and squares the way that men do - then we can talk about post-gender thinking. That's not today - and the possibility of radical gender transformation by a female Presidency demands serious attention.