I'm 51, I live in Hollywood, and I voted for Barack Obama. So did my partner, Lynn, who's 48.
On our block are Sue, who is 71, and Jane, ditto.
Both voted for Hillary. I was curious all through the primary season what they were thinking at every step. I never tried to persuade them to vote differently---that would really be patronizing of me, twenty years their junior.
(A couple of times I vented here, but never with them.)
(BTW, these two women look, act and work as though they're---well, at max 51, because they both look, act, and work much better than me.)
This past week, I've run into both of them on the street. I have asked both of them:
"Are you OK with Obama?"
And then just listened. Because that's all I can do.
And I think that that's all anyone can do. These women need to be listened to, and certainly not argued with.
Both women on my block pointed to Hillary being treated unfairly. Both were enormously disappointed. But one said she locked in her vote for Obama just this morning, and the other said of course she was voting for him.
To the one who was most disappointed, I said the following:
"I think Hillary lost a nomination that was hers for the taking more because of male bias in the United States Senate than in the media. I think the Clintons as a family alienated a lot of Senators in Bill's term of office and it just hasn't worn off; maybe it never will."
Whatever I said, I think it's important to know that---speaking as a man over 50---you should really guess again if you think you are going to persuade a woman over 50 what she should do with her vote.
It's important for anyone under 50 to remember that an American Democratic woman born in 1958 or earlier...
...saw no female astronaut visit the moon or even orbit it.
...watched for decades as Republican women joined both Democratic and Republican men to block the Equal Rights Amendment in key states.
...nodded knowingly as Anita Hill testified under oath before the Senate against Clarence Thomas regarding a sexual harassment matter.
...saw sports figure after sports figure mocked and derided because of sexual orientation.
...witnessed the government issue some of its most useless coinage ever to "celebrate" women, and saw that coinage mocked.
...cringed to observe some of America's best known Democratic political figures, including in the Senate, become known as some of America's worst womanizers.
...watched Republican men turn their very bodies against them for twenty-five years in mobilizing the hypocritical, false, knowingly-hopeless anti-choice movement.
...needed to work for special laws just to bring even the ordinary enlightened academic world in line with regards to promoting women's athletics.
...needed to work for special laws just to keep a job during a pregnancy leave.
...looked to a Senate with NO women in it as recently as 1976, a year by which every single woman in America presently over 50 could vote.
...are painfully aware of how many of the women in Congress succeeded their husbands in gaining their office (46 through 2008).
Yes, these women, over 50, have seen a lot of change in their lives. When I hear that Hillary won siginificant margins ONLY in the "women over 50", I now try to think of Democratic women in particular I know in that group. And what I'm going to do between now and November is not so much try to persuade, but simply listen---and with an ear to action.
