Adele Stan makes it in The Washington Post.
« Kahl vs. O'Hanlon | Main | Four More Years »
The Feminist Case for Obama
17 Mar 2008 10:38 am
Comments (22)
Feminism seems troubled by an either/or conception of gender vs. race that leads to antagonism more often that alliance or coalition.
I have a post up on this topic--"Feminism's Race Problem"--at www.radicalnegative.blogspot.com, if anyone's interested.
This article makes the case for her voting for who she wants but it doesn't discount those who stand in the booth as feminists and vote for Hillary. She says that symbols do matter. She says that she stood in the booth as a feminist and thought of her grandneice just as I stood at the booth in my state with my daughter and thought of her and the 4th grade students I teach.
This article says that she does not discount those who do stand in or at the booth and vote for Hillary.
Blake I think you're right. I saw the most absurd conflicts while working at a Women's center between the "women of Color", ""The Lesbians", and any other group that cared to coalesce around some sort of identity. It was all about who deserved more attention and it literally shut the center down. After that I pretty much shied away from identity politics. I can't really believe that someone's genitals determines their domestic policy. Unless, like Bush, they think from that end.
Michael C. excellent point, and it runs directly counter to how many feminists who support Clinton feel.
In fact, this article is in direct response to the Clinton supporters who feel if a woman votes for Obama they are betraying the feminist cause.
If this were Clinton vs. Edwards, I could understand the need for a "feminist defense" of Edwards. As it is, which ever one wins the nomination does so as a first - it's an historic outcome either way. Please just vote for the candidate you think will do a better job.
I agree with her. I'm so tired of professional feminists telling me what kind of woman I have to be.
A good article, except for maybe the end, where she asks for, essentially, a token female VP candidate (Ferraro, anybody?) Perhaps it was a tongue-in-cheek comment.
Honestly, I don't understand the feminist attraction to Clinton. She capitalized on Samantha Power's comments - a woman all people, not just femininists, should admire. She stayed married to the man who now personifies parsed language and political lying, merely to advance her own political career.
Isn't that the sort of thing feminists were against originally? You know... the idea that women shouldn't feel compelled to stay with chauvinistic husbands in order to guarantee a livelihood?
Oh please socctty. Like Senator Clinton would have left her husband but then she wouldn't have been able to feed herself. STFU.
WHAT MEDIA IS NOT REPORTING: RE: TRINITY CHURCH!
Rev. Thomas (Pastor of Mainly White Congreation of UCC) denounces e-mail smear campaign against UCC’s largest congregation - Written by J. Bennett Guess, Jan. 11, 2008
Obama, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for president, has been a member of Trinity UCC for 20 years." "Trinity UCC is rooted in and proud of its Afrocentric heritage," Thomas said. "This is no different than the hundreds of UCC churches from the German Evangelical and Reformed stream that continue to own and celebrate their German heritage, insisting on annual sausage and sauerkraut dinners and singing Stille Nacht on Christmas Eve. ." While Trinity UCC is predominately African American, it does include and welcome non-Black members. The Rev. Jane Fisler-Hoffman, Illinois Conference Minister, who is white, has been a member of the congregation for years.
"Trinity is a destination church for many members of the UCC, a multi-racial, multi-cultural denomination that is largely Caucasian," Thomas pointed out. "When in Chicago, many UCC members flock to Trinity to share in and learn from its vibrant ministries, dynamic worship and justice-minded membership. Contrary to the claims made in these hateful emails, UCC members know Trinity to be one of the most welcoming, hospitable and generous congregations in our denomination." [...]
Rev. Steve] Gray, a member of First Congregational UCC in Indianapolis (mainly caucasian), has worshiped several times at Trinity UCC and is most impressed by the overflowing sense of welcome it extends to visitors. "When you're Euro-American, (White) the people [at Trinity UCC] are so exceedingly gracious, warm and welcoming. They hug you and say, 'Welcome to our church!'"
This ramped-up smear campaign against the UCC's largest congregation and U.S. Sen. Barack Obama's home church — Trinity UCC in Chicago — has raised the ire of the Rev. John H. Thomas, the UCC's general minister and president, who called the e-mail-driven claims "absurd, mean-spirited and politically motivated."
The Main Stream Media has been filled with images and video of Rev. Jeremiah Wright's controversial statements for the past four days, 24/7, which Obama has strongly condemned. My concern, however, relates to equal time. When Senator Obama, who, after all , is actually the Candidate, gave a speech in Indiana, addressing his faith, diversity, and unity, and Invoking Robert Kennedy, it has gotten such a tiny percentage of coverage in comparison to Rev. Wright's controversial statements shown every hour in the hour. The main stream media has asked the questions how is Obama to deal with this controversy and when he does they give very little air time to his Answer, which he spells out beautifully in this Indiana Speech. This is just not Right.
Here is the link to the transcript/video of Obama's speech. Let's urge our friends in the blogosphere, and in every level of media, to Air this and to tell the whole picture, not just a part of it, regarding The Trinity Church which Obama belongs to.
Barbar - That's exactly my point. She didn't need to stay with him, especially after the embarassment he put her through and his chronic infidelity. Yet she did anyway...
Barbar, socctty and everyone else who feels free to comment on the Clinton's marriage: please stop. No one outside of any marriage really knows what's going on unless we’re talking about a couple you share a house with. I'm an Obama supporter, but every time I hear someone make grand pronouncements on what kind of marriage the Clintons have I could puke. You don't know what their marriage is like and frankly it's irrelevant. Vote for Sen. Clinton if you think she will do the best job leading the country. If not, don't vote for her. It's real simple.
Adele concludes, in part:
The feminist rationale for an Obama vote is really quite simple: My grand-niece. Your daughter, if you have one. All the little girls who are growing up at a rather grim hour in American history.
Does she mean the "female" rationale or the "feminist" rationale?
A nit, but my problem with all these articles is they somehow presume all women are feminists and are motivated by feminist ideals.
This cuts to the core of the generational divide. Women from my generation don't view all issues from a gender-based perspective.
And I'm getting a little sick and tired of being lumped-in.
I'd like to hear from a woman who identifies with Hillary. I'm not accusing you of anything or telling you that you're wrong, but do you willingly turn a blind eye to things like the uproar over Power, lying about Reagan comments/MI and FL delegates/NAFTA/etc., the "as far as I know" bit, and other things? Because I wouldn't want my daughter to be that kind of a person. Or do you just not see it that way?
I'm so tired of professional feminists telling me what kind of woman I have to be.
Ditto that, and I'm even more tired & bewildered by the unfounded assumption that HRC will actually be willing and able to enact the policies she presents. There's certainly little in her Senate record that would indicate a strong, principled desire to create substantive changes, and of course Bill's presidency was mostly a list of barely- achieved half measures and inoffensively nitpicky micropolicies to please swing voters (thanks to Mark Penn's slice-and-dice polling). Now I can't remember the thread, but one commenter at Kevin Drum's place noted (correctly, IMO) that the Clintons really only bothered to fight when they were already cornered & therefore couldn't accomplish much anyway, and that they fell into a sort of smug detachment on the rare occasions they weren't under direct attack. That seemed like a pretty accurate assessment to me, one explaining the overall lack of progressive accomplishment.
And I mostly agree with Bob wrt commenting on the Clinton marriage; while I find it impossible to evaluate either one politically without seeing what appears to be the dynamic of their relationship (narcissist & controller, each with some serious problems solo), I really don't care about his straying or her staying. People get and stay married for lots of reasons that are no one else's business.
Sigh. There is nothing feminist about this article other than its author calling herself a feminist. Her grand-niece could have just as easily been her grand-nephew, or her niece's or nephew's pet dog for that matter.
Did you even read the article before linking?
This is either careless or just plain stupid on your part.
"Ditto that, and I'm even more tired & bewildered by the unfounded assumption that HRC will actually be willing and able to enact the policies she presents. There's certainly little in her Senate record that would indicate a strong, principled desire to create substantive changes"
Very true. Every time that I hear older feminists say that they're voting for Clinton because she will fight for women, I want to scream. If I thought that was true, I wouldn't be dreading having her in the race still. It might be generational, but I don't see where he feminist bona fides are supposed to come from. I find it hard to consider someone a feminist when they gain political fame through marriage, achieve nothing while First Lady (unlike Eleanor Roosevelt) and then back an illegal war, which of course meant that events like Abu Ghraib (the Pentagon admits to having photographic evidence of male-on-female rape there) would take place.
the nation will first have to survive. The Constitution will need to be restored. Tasks such as these require the gifts of a brilliant orator more than the skills of a policy genius.
That's it? That's the case? He speaks well and is inspiring while she just happens to have every policy particular at her fingertips?
So, a hurricane blows into town, wrecks my house, strews my shit everywhere. I call in a couple of contractors. One has a brilliant spiel of how we'll rebuild my house better than it ever was with gold plated faucets and a hot tub and a pony -- because haven't you always wanted a pony?
The other shows me some blueprints, talks plainly about building materials, housing codes, insurance deductibles, current materials versus the materials with which my 100 year old house was built, really demonstrates a solid grasp of the nuts and bolts of construction.
Heck, folks, I'm going for eloquence! I'm living in mah metaphors, taking a bath in similes. Hawt dog.
Methinks she doesn't make much of a case at all.
Now, this is no knock against Obama, but where is the case she makes? Where is it?
I guess I went over the line in making assumptions about their marriage. But I still will cast a skeptical eye towards the whole scenario; I will just refrain from making grandiose statements.
I hold the feminist ideals of equality under the law and equal, fair compensation and the like, and I'm a guy. A 23 year old guy. So I guess I can relate to women of my generation who say that they don't view things from a gender perspective. I suppose that's a tribute to feminists of the past. Again, I'll say that I don't understand the automatic alignment of some feminists, particularly the more active and visible ones, to Hillary Clinton. It can't be as easy as "She's a woman!"... most feminists are smarter than that. I mean, feminists wouldn't be tripping over themselves to elect Barbara Bush, would they?
Reality Man - you are usually sharper than that comment.
don't see where he feminist bona fides are supposed to come from and achieved nothing while First Lady C'mon. Metaphorically speaking, you need to 'check the website.'
There is a reason you compared her to Roosevelt instead of Reagan, Bush, Carter, et al.
Apparently you don't remember the 'stay home and bake cookies' flap.
There are many reasons not to vote for Clinton but her lack of feminist bona fides is not one of them.
I'm an Obama supporter, but this article left me scratching my head. She voted for Obama because he's a great orator? Okay. But claiming this is a "feminist case for Obama"? That's lame.
My case: Reverend J.A. Wright didn’t preach anything that professors all over America haven't taught for decades. Ward Churchill ring any bells? But talk is cheap, Hillary Clinton has had entire books written about her “spiritual life,” and even founded her own college – at which Ward Churchill did speak, and at taxpayer expense – but neither she nor Bill Clinton attend church. Barack Obama puts forth that both the Rev. Wright, and Geraldine Ferraro’s ideologies were shaped by the 1960s – as were, I might add, the Clintons. Barack Obama threatens to drag the Democratic Party, kicking and screaming into the 21st Century. And, some dems don’t like it: http://theseedsof9-11.com
Comments closed March 31, 2008.
| 
Heads in the Sand
It's a great start, but it still leaves intact the myth that Clinton better represents working-class women, give or take their share of the war or the costs of global warming. It still leaves Obama as about getting people to dream. I don't know if we can alter the meme; the pundits from the right to Matt Bai eat it up. But we still have to fight it.
Except for health care (and even there others disagree with me), he's made more substantive and progressive statements on economic policy. As for voting records, just which working-class women benefited from Clinton's caving on the bankruptcy bill or her bucking her own party on extending workfare requirements to a full work week?
When it comes down to it, Obama's elitism has a base as shallow as Edwards's. It's not about his haircut, but about his having a brain. The GOP has used that cultural definition of elitism a long time now. It gave David Brooks a career, and it still works. But it's craven all the same.
Posted by John Haber | March 17, 2008 11:31 AM