I’ve been seeing this op-ed by Gloria Steinem—where she says that she doesn’t want to create a victim Olympics about racism vs. sexism, and then proceeds to do it anyway—all over the place, and the take on it that I agree with the most is Jenn’s at Reappropriate. The op-ed was ill-advised and short-sighted. Sexism is a more powerful force than racism in America if you assume that the only expression of either is in the area of what people are willing to be blatant about on national TV during this specific Presidential campaign, sure. There’s no doubt that Hillary Clinton is getting it worse than Barack Obama, but what if it were a race between Elizabeth Dole and Jesse Jackson? Suddenly, the tone would shift and the source of more of the inexcusable comments would be racism, I suspect.
But even allowing, and I do allow this, that people are more willing to speak sexism in public than racism, that doesn’t mean that you can make sweeping generalizations. The two are wildly different issues in this sense. Sexism requires a lot more individual oppression, because men and women are two genders that live together and share everything but gender—culture, race, language, class, homes, children, whatever. The use of sexist slurs is extremely critical to the perpetuating of women’s second class status, because the belief that women are inferior needs to permeate the air in every room in society to keep women from getting uppity. Clinton especially has become the national symbol of a lot of male fears that the bitch in your kitchen is getting uppity, and isn’t satisfied to define herself through her man anymore but wants credit for being herself. It’s something of a credit to the success of feminism that so many men with power are in a full-blown panic, because they really are facing tremendous loss of privilege in the most intimate areas of their lives.
To all but the most insane white supremacists, however, the existence of a handful of black people in the corridors of power isn’t near the threat to the racist structures of society that keep black people down. Poverty, the War on (Some Classes of People Who Use) Drugs, ghettoization, and the use of stereotypes about thugs, criminals, and welfare queens (that people like Obama are held up to reinforce through “exception to the rule” thinking) all work to perpetuate a black underclass. Black people are targeted as a population; and if a few escape some of the oppression, it’s not a problem for racists so long as most do not. The use of racist slurs against Obama is kind of beside the point, because racism is entrenched in a way that sexism is not.
Steinem engages in some hackery, as Jenn points out.
She continues by implying that the race barrier has largely been resolved, because “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”…..
Steinem’s argument that women were denied the vote for a half-century after Black men were made voting citizens ignores two truths: 1) had the right for women to vote been included in the 14th and 15th Amendments, those Amendments were unlikely to have passed, and 2) despite being granted the right to vote in the Constitution, it took nearly another century before the Voting Rights Act allowed the majority of African Americans to exercise that right in the face of profoundly institutionalized racism and apartheid. But Steinem essentially argues that these details are irrelevant: because women were not granted the vote when Black men were, Black men face fewer barriers today compared to White women, and thus are less deserving of affirmative action when it comes to the highest position in the country.
I have almost nothing to add to that point. Steinem is being dodgy here; she has to know that the battle for women’s suffrage was basically won in all but a handful of enforcement battles after it became a constitutional right. But nearly a century after black people were given the right to vote, the basic struggles to give them the right to vote were still being fought. In fact, Jim Crow is still with us. Laws banning felons from having the right to vote are motivated largely by racism and aided by the selective enforcement on the War on Drugs. In the past two presidential elections, we saw blatant Jim Crow tactics aimed at disenfranchising minority voters to edge out a win for the Republicans—the long ass lines in predominantly black neighborhoods in Ohio spoke volumes about how far we have not come from the days of Jim Crow. Ann Coulter can wheeze about taking women’s right to vote because spoken sexism is more acceptable than spoken racism, but white women are not under any real life pressure not to vote in the way that black people of both sexes are.
In fact, women have voted in higher numbers than men in presidential elections since 1964.
None of this is to say that Steinem is wrong about the deplorable nature of Clinton’s treatment by the media. Sexism against Clinton is sexism against all women, regardless of racial or sexual identity; it perpetuates stereotypes that are then used to harm all of us. But there’s no need to compare sexism and racism and hurt feelings and create animosities where they don’t need to exist, especially since any comparison of the two is bound to be misleading since they function so differently. Sexism is bad on its own; it doesn’t need to be worse than racism to generate opposition. Personally, I just aim my writing more towards feminist thought because that’s what I’m good at, not because it’s somehow more or less important than any other issue.
95 Responses to “Steinem’s massive misfire”
Leave a comment
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>
Yeah, I think she was trying to conflate two different things in the article (sexism/racism re: which is more allowable in culture vs sexism/racism and which one is actually worse (some say one, some say the other, I think both are equally bad but it’s not really something that can be quantified enough to debate). She also skipped over some pretty glaring flaws in her arguments (yes black men got the vote decades before women of any color, but hello? Jim Crow laws anyone?)
For those of us that are both not white and female, her “which oppression is worse” game is a little value. Both suck, esp. in combo.
I have to admit, sometimes I get annoyed when POC complain that their issues get ignored by mainstream feminists, because I don’t often see that on the blogs that I read. And then Steinem (or another big name feminist) does something this clueless and tone-deaf right out in front of everyone and I go, “Oh, that’s what they’re talking about!”
Systematic injustices tend to be interrelated anyway, and fighting about whose struggle takes priority therefore is inherently self-defeating. Nor should anyone beat anyone else up about who is more pure. At any rate that strikes me as buying into the basic oppression game. Instead listen to the complaints people bring against oneself and reexamine one’s own conscience appropriately; do something fair and reasonable or admit it isn’t your priority at the moment and take the moral consequences, and strive for understanding. Criticise oneself fairly. And support decent causes.
I’m out of time tonight…
I wish you would have addressed some of the substantive questions raised by Steinem’s piece. Obama can get away with saying “I’m a black guy running for president named Barack Obama…I must have hope.” It’s a great line, genuinely stirring. But when one of Clinton’s supporters, an obscure union leader, says that a debate was “six guys against Hillary” (what should he have said? Six persons against Hillary?) there’s an uproar in the media about “playing the gender card.”
I agree — I found this piece wrong-headed and really troubling. No one who spends any time in universities or hospitals or law firms or corporations could possibly see the access of blacks and women in similar terms. I am not happy about sexism and I fear its resurgence with the rise of the Christian right. Bu this was a really lame card to play, and I think there is a possibility that it really made a difference in the NH outcome.
I’m going to read the post at Reappropriate, this is exactly the kind of commentary people need to engage in during this campaign! Hiding from the fact that mainstream politics often presents a referendum on structurally-entrenched prejudices isn’t going to help.
The point i think Steinem misses, by a lot, is that sexism and racism are related. I mean, *why* is it a bad idea to engage in “oppression olympiads”? Because it obscures the fact that they can both be happening at the same time. Frederick Douglass himself, when he was one of the best-known public speakers in the US, made hay out of the fact that white women wanted the right to vote at the same time that he did, but compromised. And many of the suffragists he counted as his closest allies launched their campaigns through the abolitionist movement because it gave them a platform to speak in public. What kind of a situation are we in when Steinem is still fighting Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s battles but Barack Obama is not supposed to mention the Civil Rights movement as a precedent for his success? Liberals have a lot to learn about coalition politics.
I think you’re right that we focus too much on the media and celebrity and “what people say”–not just in the campaigns but in general. The outrage against Don Imus for a racist (and sexist) comment was immediate and effective. Meanwhile, the Jena 6 still struggle with their legal woes, and the ratio of minorities given the death penalty for the exact same crime as whites continues to grow.
Why is that? Is it because we (as middle class whites) are so insulated from the sphere of criminal justice that we just can’t see it? Or is it because it’s more comfortable and safe to jump down a blowhard asshole’s throat for a racist comment than to take on the establishment itself? Maybe because we are more willing to accept that an individual person is racist that we are to accept that the system, that society as a whole is racist?
Not trying to be redundant, but both racism and sexism (in America/Europe) come from the same place: God is a white dude.
Obama can get away with saying “I’m a black guy running for president named Barack Obama…I must have hope.” It’s a great line, genuinely stirring. But when one of Clinton’s supporters, an obscure union leader, says that a debate was “six guys against Hillary” (what should he have said? Six persons against Hillary?) there’s an uproar in the media about “playing the gender card.”
Part of the issue there is that Sen. Clinton has been a media target for years. The media will go into an uproar over nothing and everything regarding her. (Did you see Maureen Dowd’s column this morning? It’s sickening.)
Looking at the presidential campaign campaign is not an accurate measure for racism, sexism, classism, anti-Semitism, religious discrimination, or any factor in our society (other than how completely broken our political process and discourse is, of course).
One thing is clear: Steinem knows nothing about multivariate analysis!
Race is not a categorical variable. The effects of racism are also highly modified by economic status, gender, ethnicity, national origin, educational attainment, access to educational resources, regional effects, etc.
The effects of sexism are similarly modified by a suite of variables, not the least of which is access to education and income.
Examples: For Colin Powell and Clarence Thomas, male gender mitigates racism. For the typical disadvantaged inner city youth of yore, the reverse may be true.
For Condi Rice, economic status has strongly mitigated the effects of race and gender, albeit not completely.
In other words, you can’t ever compare the two directly without controlling for a messy web of multiple levels of modification. There are very few here that would want to see the kind of mathematics that disentangling the various influences of social and economic variables involves, trust me. My head is already exploding part way through one statistician’s attempt to deal with exactly these issues. Even he is running up against the inability of computers to handle the load!
I take Steinem’s larger point, though. Sexism is an acceptable and blatant part of our culture, so much so that to even raise the point is to be ridiculed and mocked and labeled a whiner or a man-hater or a lesbian or whatever horrible epithet suits.
AND racism is alive and thriving, and not just among southern rednecks, as we often pretend is the case. It’s everywhere, and it’s insidious.
The fact that we still even have to discuss “who’s treated worse by the white male power structure: all women, or all non-white people?” demonstrates that no, we haven’t come all that far, and yes, the power structure will resist ceding any privilege to anyone not in the club.
Betty, Shark-Fu addresses that issue. I’m sort of amazed that Steinem, who has a pretty good history of reaching out to black feminists, blew it on that count.
Barack is getting hit with two forms of racism, not just being black but the being “Muslim”
Yeah I know he’s not But yesterday on C&L there were many rightwingers post the same crap all day long, on several different threads. Even confusing him with Keith Ellison.
It got to the point I stated that I thought this was the Republican/Fox News faxed and emailed talking point of the day.
I even posted two pages from TUCC . . . and well you know how the right wingers read black empowerment as “scary whitey will die” black power.
Tinfoil Hattie, I think that nail is going in!
If anything, this sort of nonsense only FEEDS the patriarchal beast, just like catty girl fights do. Instead of working for universal justice, Steinem is wasting time fighting with other victims over scraps.
I think the classic term is “divide and conquer”. Very sad to see.
actaully racism and bigotry
It has occurred to me that we’re certainly much longer overdue for an African-American president than a female one, based on just that chronology.
But I’m one of those annoying people that think that HRC reinforces at least as many sexist assumptions as she overturns, not least in her actual path to power, so I’ve gotten a lot of flack over the past year anyway.
My feeling is that racism is more virulent but that sexism is more pervasive, precisely because racism is almost entirely about what one group perpetrates on another group they are not related to, but sexism is conducted against more than half of humanity, by people who love them or are related to them, and is much, much more heavily participated in by the targets of oppression themselves.
Race is an in-group, out-group thing. The in-group wants all the goodies and must keep the out-group from getting them. There is some internalization by the out-group (there always is), but the vast majority of what keeps racism going is, well, white racists.
Sexism is a system that pervades *everything*, because our reproductive system is built around the difference between two sexes, which made it very easy to create distinct sex roles and then valorize one and denigrate the other. It is maintained in part by massive collaboration on the part of women. It also imparts benefits to women that racism does not impart to black people. (Just as an example, the stereotype that women are more fragile and should be kept out of danger is responsible for women not being drafted into war in Vietnam.) This is not to say that the benefits to women outweigh the disadvantages — I’d hardly be a feminist if I thought that were the case — but there *are* benefits, and they do lead many women to be anti-feminists. I cannot think of any black people who are as virulently anti-black as Phyllis Schafly is anti-woman; even black people who don’t promote rights for all blacks, such as Clarence Thomas, are not going around saying blacks are inferior to whites and should submit to them.
So they are both bad. But they work in different ways, so I don’t think it’s possible to compare their badness. I do think that a system that successfully turns 51% of the population into a “minority” *has* to be more pervasive, harder to get rid of, more built into culture and more supported by collaboration than a system that only has to suppress 13% of the population. On the other hand, no system that depends on collaboration can support the extremity of violence and suppression that has been conducted against black people.
You’re so right. It was embarrassing. Add in the “my generation is more radical than your generation” stuff, and I really just wished she’d stuck to talking about the media and Hillary Clinton. I don’t know if dna at Too Sense is in your normal blog-reading orbit, but he wrote a great post about this too.
I’ve read this blog for well over a year now, but finally feel compelled to post.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. Steinem’s op-ed was just ridiculously offensive and a text-book example of what people of color mean when they say that mainstream feminism doesn’t included them.
I think there a whole other host of issues with that piece of writing, but to blithely say that black men “were given the vote,” as though it was laid down as a gift at their feet, just slapped my across the face when I read that.
Great post, as is the post at the link to Reappropriate. The feminist blog Diary of an Anxious Black Woman is asking why Second WaAve leaders still can’t see at least an intersectionality between gender and race. And at avastfeministconspiracy it is argued that Gloria Steinem and Hillary Clinton are exporting Second Wave racism into the mainstream, pointing to pieces now asking is race or gender more significant and who is more oppressed, and pointing out that Third Wave feminists rejected this approach, that such high theory debate is divisive and masks the more overt racism that prompted such questions during the Second Wave race wars.
Great posts here and at Reappropriate, Diary of an Anxious Black Woman, and Avast Feminist Conspiracy.
I’m voting for Obama because, if Hillary loses, women will riot.
Oops, that was supposed to be, “voting for Hillary.” I am a dork. But not as big a dork as Jonah Goldberg. I hope.
“I am a dork. But not as big a dork as Jonah Goldberg. I hope.”
Gator, you and all the rest of us are safe in our relatively minor dorkiness.
Jonah Goldberg has set the bar so high, none of us could ever hope to surpass him…
Add in the “my generation is more radical than your generation” stuff, and I really just wished she’d stuck to talking about the media and Hillary Clinton.
I love it when the Baby Boomers who got a free ride to college complain about These Kids Today being so conservative for wanting to find a job after college that will allow them to pay down their massive student loan debt. I’m sure a lot of people would love to go to college and study literature if it didn’t mean they would be $40,000 in debt with no job prospects afterwards. Better to study business, get a decent job, and read in your increasingly small amount of free time.
Sorry, that’s a different rant.
Steinem’s editorial didn’t make me mad. It just made me feel like, huh, she’s right, but I’m still supporting Obama.
Racism exists in a lot of places in the world, but the way it is exists in America could specifically be helped (NOT SOLVED, NOT SOLVED, NOT SOLVED, okay — don’t misread me please!) by electing a black president: or, short of that, by having an election with a great black candidate and then seeing what kind of worms come out of the populace (I’m hoping fewer than we might think, in which case Yay America. In the contrary case, well, uh-oh, but at least we’ll have a better sense of what we are up against).
Sexism is a huge monster problem in every human society we know about, and in fact electing female presidents (Pakistan anyone?) doesn’t seem to help that much with it. I do think sexism is “more foundational” everywhere, cross-culturally, trans-historically, than is racism, and thus harder to figure out how to eradicate *anywhere*,while racism in America is, yes, deep-rooted — but in ways that electoral politics can reasonably be expected to help with.
Of course racism and sexism are alive and well. Otherwise we wouldn’t be talking about the first black president or first woman president. If there was no race or sex issue - we wouldn’t care about firsts of any kind. It would be normal to assume a woman or a black person could be president- without attaching labels.
As much as I dislike Romney (and it’s a lot), the same can be said for him. There is religious bigotry when the media keeps pointing out that he’s Morman. We should be blind to race, religion and sex in a perfect world but it’s not so we are reduced to figuring out which form of bigotry trumps the other.
Now for an observation many have ignored: What about black rappers who use sexist, misogynistic lyrics? Are they being racists and sexists? Or is it okay to demean women of your own race? Or is Dom Imus (another jerk I can’t stand) being held to the fire because he’s white and made racist and sexist comments. Shouldn’t all those committing racists and sexists acts be held to the same standard?
One other thing - the poster who talked about the multi-variants in racism is spot on.
Oprah is black and wealthy so does that make her more acceptable (subject to less racism) to middle american (white) women than say the poor black woman who lives on welfare and fits the stereotypes that are perpetuated by the media and hollywood?
That commenter had a great perspective and I’d love to read more about his/her ideas.
Kathleen, I had the conversation last night with my boyfriend about which nominee would be a bigger deal symbolically (and I think that’s far from the only reason to vote for someone–symbolic victories have to be weighed against actual policies and impacts on each group), and I came to the opposite conclusion, for largely the same reasons that Amanda did in her original post.
There’s no doubt in my mind that racism is the more brutal of the two oppressions, at least as practiced in contemporary America. But while I think there’s a lot of energy devoted to maintaining institutions that keep the vast majority of African-Americans impoverished and disenfranchised, there’s also more of a willingness to have a handful of black men and women be “exceptions”–and I think Barack Obama fits into that. Even most overtly racist people I’ve met are willing to say, “Oh, but person X is different, that’s not what I’m talking about.”
On the other hand, I think there’d be a huge political outcry if white women as a group were being incarcerated, murdered, or even skipping college in equivalent proportions to what we see for African-American men–but there’s much more of a willingness on most people’s part to engage in “soft” sexism, and to admit that they don’t think women belong in the boardroom or Senate. Or to say women aren’t as smart. There’s much less room for “exceptionalism” for women–and that’s why I think Clinton being elected would be a huge symbolic thing, because it would be forcing the issue in a way that Obama wouldn’t. We don’t talk about race in this country, and we’ve had a number of African-American men be appointed to fairly high-level positions (e.g., Colin Powell) without the same sort of handwringing about whether they’re able to actually perform on the job that we saw with, say, the first woman (Madeleine Albright).
Again, I don’t think those are best reasons to use when choosing which person to vote for in the primaries. But given the ways that racism operates, I’d be surprised if an Obama nomination didn’t create a big dialogue about racism in our country–after all, as Steinem points out, he’s seen as transcending race precisely because people can see him as the exception that proves that blacks aren’t really oppressed. It doesn’t break dominant narratives in the same way that an HRC nomination would.
Of course racism and sexism are alive and well. Otherwise we wouldn’t be talking about the first black president or first woman president. If there was no race or sex issue - we wouldn’t care about firsts of any kind. It would be normal to assume a woman or a black person could be president- without attaching labels.
As much as I dislike Romney (and it’s a lot), the same can be said for him. There is religious bigotry when the media keeps pointing out that he’s Morman. We should be blind to race, religion and sex in a perfect world but it’s not so we are reduced to figuring out which form of bigotry trumps the other.
Now for an observation many have ignored: What about black rappers who use sexist, misogynistic lyrics? Are they being racists and sexists? Or is it okay to demean women of your own race? Or is Dom Imus (another jerk I can’t stand) being held to the fire because he’s white and made racist and sexist comments. Shouldn’t all those committing racists and sexists acts be held to the same standard?
One other thing - the poster who talked about the multi-variants in racism is spot on.
Oprah is black and wealthy so does that make her more acceptable (subject to less racism) to middle american (white) women than say the poor black woman who lives on welfare and fits the stereotypes that are perpetuated by the media and hollywood?
That commenter had a great perspective and I’d love to read more about his/her ideas.
Uggh, meant to type “I’d be surprised if an Obama nomination DID create a big dialogue about racism in our country.”
Well — and I know I could get justifiably attacked from a zillion different directions for saying this — but if we are talking symbolism, Obama is a better figurehead than Clinton is. Yes, yes, people don’t find him scary because he smiles a lot and is light-skinned and not from the inner city. But he packages a lot of other race issues, too: the international dimensions of racism and white supremacy, mixed-race origins, etc. Okay, a lot of it is the happy friendly feel-good side of race. But he does it really really well. He’s got a great personal bio, and sure it’s all about having to be 10 times as good to get just as far as a white guy, but he’s got it. He personally is a natural as a politician.
While, Clinton — her husband is a huge, huge, huge part of who she is and where she is. I know, I know, it’s a feminist issue, that’s the position of a lot of women, whatever, but the symbolism would be better if her bio was more of a “10 times better to get just as far as a white guy” bio, instead of a “married the Man from Hope” bio. Is it wrong to want the first woman president NOT to be wife of a really charismatic former president?
We weren’t going to get into this, but apparently we are. But the analysis of racism vs. sexism shouldn’t obscure the point that we have a long way to go with both, nor should it create a rift in the progressive community, or the racists and sexists have won.
I am a white, male middle aged (yes that confers extra privilege the old and young don’t share) tall (ditto) thin (double ditto) physician (jackpot). I am treated with the respect that all people deserve. If I am stopped driving (unusual to begin with), my pulse does not start to race because the police always treat me well. If I tell them I’m a doctor, I get no ticket. So I do not speak from personal experience regarding the unfairness of our institutions.
Because women live with their oppressors, they share the same class and thus haven’t been subjected, to the same extent, to the poverty and lack of education that have slowed the development of the African-American community. Women may have been denied educations in the past, but was it ever against the law to educate them as it was for African-Americans in much of this country before the Civil War? So African-Americans are demonstrably far behind white women in social status and education. But living in a gilded cage is not equality.
Amanda often rightly points out that the underlying assumption that lets discrimination work is the belief that the discriminated against are not fully human. Centuries ago Europeans posited that Africans were closer to the apes than whites. We see echoes of this in books like The Bell Curve where Murray and Herrnstein try to put a scientific face on racism, or Larry Summers arguing women’s brains are somehow inferior, on the sexist side. Evidence abounds that both racism and sexism, and the dehumanization that underlie them, are still alive and kicking.
But I would suggest that, while African-Americans started deeper in poverty, that the underlying dehumanizing attitudes that form the core of racism and sexism, are more robust in the case of women than people of color. Wherever we stand now (certainly African American men have it worse, on average than white women), sexism always was, and always will be, more difficult to uproot.
Young white males, in a shocking and largely hopeful turn of events from a mere generation ago, seem eager to emulate their African-American brothers. How long before they seem as eager to take on the attributes of their sisters? We have much farther to go to change attitudes regarding sex than race. Yes, African-Americans are farther behind, but the underlying sexism is more alive than racism.
Historical perspective confirms this. There have been many African and Asian cultures in the past where women have been treated like second class citizens. It is a remarkable rarity to find a culture where women are treated as equals. So men of color have dominated their societies in the past. I would suggest racism has not always been the rule, sexism has. To think that what never has been (women treated as equal) is closer to happening than what has frequently been the case (men of color in charge) seems to be a bit of a stretch. On what basis would anyone claim this?
Sexism is much more deep seated attitudinally. It is a much more intractable problem. On an individual level, whatever her level of education and social class, a woman can be beaten by an abusive husband. The strength and violence of men leave women at a disadvantage that must be overcome with every new generation.
Those who say that racism is worse in America are basing this on the lingering effects of past racism*, and are ignoring the obvious: that it is much more acceptable to be openly sexist than racist in this society, and that the end of racism and sexism are predicated first on the changing of attitudes. Women may not be as economically impaired by our sexism, but as a culture we are much closer to acknowledging African-American men as fully human than we are women. (It’s the 21st century, are we insane?)
* Of course I don’t claim that racism isn’t a continued problem, just that MOST of the educational and economic disadvantage that African-Americans suffer is due to our cheating them in previous centuries. Essentially we played Monopoly with loaded dice for three centuries, and now the whites own all the properties, railroads, utilities, etc. Of course the racists say we should just start playing with fair dice now, and everything will be OK. Right. I can see no remedy but reparations, but I digress.
“Is it wrong to want the first woman president NOT to be wife of a really charismatic former president?”
You can want whatever you like, but Clinton is the only viable female candidate we ever had run for President and if you look at the States and the Senate, you’ll see there are damn few women in line.
We need more women in politics. If it takes nepotism to bust through this glass ceiling, I can live with it.
No. It is not wrong to WANT that. But pretty much that is the major way ANY woman has gotten into high political office, anywhere on EARTH (with the exception of the DAUGHTERS of former leaders). It sux, but there it is. I think Texas and most western states have had ONE female governor, but that woman is ALWAYS the widow of a fallen leader/former governor.
Women aren’t even allowed to APPROACH the throne unless they’ve already been granted access. How many female MAYORS are there, even?
I had four people in my “would be good as president” list
Edwards
Kucinich
Richardson
Obama
I never considered Hillary, for many reasons. NONE of those reasons were because she is a woman, except that I was constantly lambasted for being anti-feminist and kind of a self hater because I won’t vote for her. Like because of my gender she is an automatic shoe in. Some type of unthinking herd mentality was/is assumed, which I deeply abhor and resent.
I’m a boomer. There may not be another viable female candidate in my lifetime. There may not be another viable African American candidate in my lifetime either for that matter.
There are things about HIllary that I cannot “get over”
Voting for Kyle Lieberman is a big one.
Being the heir apparent to the presidency from the moment she became a senator is another.
Yes she tried to do somethng about health care, but her plan now is nothing more, imho, than what Mass now has. More than the rest of the country, less than what we as a country should have.
Murdoch paying for a funraiser for her. Which is just unscores to me how “corperated up” she is.
Her refusal to say she was wrong to vote for Iraq. We’ve already had a president who won’t admit when he was wrong. I don’t want another one.
Bill is a big drag down for her now with me. He’s attacking Obama for being untested, well he wasn’t, being a fairytale candidate, what do you think “a man from hope” was?
The 527 for “anyone but Obama” that their friends are creating. Which smacks of temper tantrums.
And this stupid hope that we are going to get Bill if we get Hill. Why? Because we subtly buy the “She has no mind of her own. Therefore will do and be easily influenced by Bill.” line?
I’ve lived with that casting doubt over a lot of the decision I’ve made over the years - “it’s got to be the influence of her husband, otherwise she’d never make such a decision.”
When in all reality he probably didn’t like the decision I made and newsflash “I HAVE A MIND OF MY OWN AND AM MY OWN PERSON!”
Who says she’s going to be anything like her husband?
And I have a boat load of issues with him; he didn’t as we hoped, remove MFN status from China, that Bush 41 gave them, he didn’t put the White House back on a “green footing” that Reagan had removed, he didn’t go back to really supporting green technology that was killed when Reagan took office, etc. etc. etc.
I was very sorry that Obama did not win for any number of reasons. But the outright mysogyny of the press reminded me so much of what it was like back in my youth when a woman studying in any traditionally male field got continually bullied about why they wanted to do a man’s job, when applying to medical school meant having serious old men ask you “weren’t you just going to go home and have babies” or musings about “maybe some of these girls would be doctors after all”. When trying to discuss patients with these bozos when wading through sexual comments. Overt, blatant, corrosive sexism was much more of a daily fact of life back then so watching Chris Matthew and the gleefully pile on Hilary opened some wounds.
The tweety effect is very real for those of us my age. It’s like PTSD.And so I can understand why the women in New Hampshire, especially the older women voted for her.
Even so, I would have voted for Obama, because I believe his politics are closer to my own.
I want to make it clear that I am not denying that Amanda is correct. It is absolutely true that the institutionalized racism in this country is severe and the systematic way racial oppression works in this country is far worse than anything I ever experienced.
So Jackson you live in NH? I ask because you keep using the past tense “I would have voted for Obama.”
I don’t live there. i meant would have voted for him if I lived there yesterday and will eventually.
Steinem was pretty clear in saying that she considered racism and sexism interrelated and multivariate. It did not seem a “whose oppression is worse” case when one re-reads the article. If you read the press reports consistently, Steinem is right on with regards to the press’s treatment of Clinton vis-a-vis Obama. Clinton consistently is held to higher, yet completely arbirtary and rapidly changing, standards and the rampant misogyny she faces is right out there. Obama tends to face little of this scrutiny — despite the fact that their records are 90% the same in the Senate. This is not the same thing as saying that Obama does not face racism, nor that oppressions are not multivariate.
Please note the following quote from the controversial Steinem piece:
“The caste systems of sex and race are interdependent and can only be uprooted together. That’s why Senators Clinton and Obama have to be careful not to let a healthy debate turn into the kind of hostility that the news media love. Both will need a coalition of outsiders to win a general election. The abolition and suffrage movements progressed when united and were damaged by division; we should remember that.”
Am I missing something, or is she not pitting racism against sexism at all?
Please note the following quote from the controversial Steinem piece:
“The caste systems of sex and race are interdependent and can only be uprooted together. That’s why Senators Clinton and Obama have to be careful not to let a healthy debate turn into the kind of hostility that the news media love. Both will need a coalition of outsiders to win a general election. The abolition and suffrage movements progressed when united and were damaged by division; we should remember that.”
Am I missing something, or is she not pitting racism against sexism at all?
Please note the following quote from the controversial Steinem piece:
“The caste systems of sex and race are interdependent and can only be uprooted together. That’s why Senators Clinton and Obama have to be careful not to let a healthy debate turn into the kind of hostility that the news media love. Both will need a coalition of outsiders to win a general election. The abolition and suffrage movements progressed when united and were damaged by division; we should remember that.”
Am I missing something, or is she not pitting racism against sexism at all?
But pretty much that is the major way ANY woman has gotten into high political office, anywhere on EARTH (with the exception of the DAUGHTERS of former leaders).
What about Margaret Thatcher (UK), Helen Clark (New Zealand), Julia Gilliard (Australia), any number of women leaders in the Scandanvian countries?
Women aren’t part of the African-American community?
zuzu:
I should have said white women. But of course African-American women are oppressed by men, white and of color, too.
Yesterday I mentioned that the majority of African-Americans are women and it derailed the conversation.
As Steinem points out, and as I took pains to say at the beginning of my rant, discussions like this should be done with care due to the risk of fracturing the progressive community.
I recognize that I am extraordinarily privileged, even for a white man, and have no intention of fueling division within the progressive community. I will shut up if my argument is perceived that way.
Yesterday I mentioned that the majority of African-Americans are women and it derailed the conversation.
What I find interesting about the statement someone made upthread that because of Jim Crow laws, the majority of African-Americans couldn’t exercise their right to vote is that the majority of African-Americans didn’t even have the right to vote between the 14th and the 19th Amendments because they were women.
And it just seems like a lot of people forget that.
Am I missing something, or is she not pitting racism against sexism at all?
She tosses that in there, but in the whole rest of the article, she’s pitting racism against sexism. It’s like those people who say: “I’m not racist, but” and then go on to say a whole bunch of racist things. Saying she’s not pitting racism against sexism doesn’t mean that’s not what she’s doing.
Steinem seems to be conveniently ignoring the fact that the 15th Amendment was intended (at least in part) to entrench Republican power in Southern states. Once Reconstruction ended, most African American men effectively lost the right to vote. It wasn’t until 1965 when they finally won the right back.
So, for all intents and purposes, women won the vote 45 years before African Americans, not 50 years after.
On a daily basis, i hear little to nothing about Obama being black anymore, & rarely about his being Muslim.
I DO hear about Clinton being a woman & how fit she is to hold the position of prez, in language that ranges sly to raw denigration of her, based solely on the fact that she’s a woman. That says it all, to me.
“But pretty much that is the major way ANY woman has gotten into high political office, anywhere on EARTH (with the exception of the DAUGHTERS of former leaders).”
What about Margaret Thatcher (UK), Helen Clark (New Zealand), Julia Gilliard (Australia), any number of women leaders in the Scandanvian countries?
I’m also thinking of Golda Meir. Can’t say I’ve ever heard of her husband or father. And in this country, Jennifer Granholm is the current governor of Michigan, an office she achieved on her own. I never heard of Ann Richard’s husband or father either.
My state’s (NV) senior Representative in the House is Shelley Berkeley; never heard of her husband or daddy. And I’m pretty sure Nancy Pelosi in the House and Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein in the Senate had their own political careers independently of their male relatives/spouses.
Sweeping generalizations are always wrong.
But if the original point is that there aren’t enough women in politics, here or globally, the point is correct. They are still a small minority wherever you look, and that makes no sense at all.
Hmmm…I think I have a different viewpoint than others here.
I think the salient point is to make the distinction that:
1) Women are a kind of accessorized property, like a fancy grandfather clock.
2) Minorities are a kind of other, sorta like wildlife or livestock.
The purposes of societal actions are reflected by what people with power need from that society. Women are there to be seen and not heard, a reflection of the status of big boss male. You dress women up, and you culture them in the arts and letters to please other big boss males. You have lots of female retainers to do all of niggly bits of daily living, like cleaning and accounting, and all that. However, the focus is this: To build up the image of the big boss male.
It is always irritating to me when people say that Ms Clinton would be a big symbol for female achievement. I say that’s bullshit. She’s not running as Hillary Rodham. She’s running as Hillary Clinton, as an extender of a dynasty headed by a man, in every sense that JFK and RFK were under the thumb of Joe Kennedy. There are a number of women who were nominal or better rulers of their domain. However, the number of seriously powerful women who had their own policy regimes as a ruler are very few, and they stand out in history…Hatshepsut, Cleopatra IV, Cixi, Catherine the Great, Maria Theresa, and maybe a couple of others. They are more the exception than the rule. There are plenty of women who had deceased spouses, or in the post colonial age, important fathers, but it had always been a large struggle to consolidate power into their own agenda, as Ms Sukarno and the late Ms Bhutto had found out when they headed their political coalitions. Most women who were truly focused on genuine power died or were shunted aside, Razhia being the classic example (She was the best of her father’s children, was independent minded–lethally so since she thought that she and her class had obligations to her country’s masses, and well, she kinda sorta fell in love with a black dude, and that just won’t do). All of the women above were rather exceptional people whether you liked them or not, and not coincidentially, they all had nice, big, bloody body counts among the ranks of the courtiers, and sometimes the country as a whole.
Hillary Clinton simply isn’t it. It’s one thing to vote for Maria Cantwell or Claire McCaskill for president. They are largely self-made women, or perhaps one of the other major left coast women senators. I have a hard time discounting the thought that the major reason that the Democratic machinery is behind Hillary Clinton so firmly is that many of the rank and file are more truly behind the idea of Bill Clinton doing the running of the country. Bill was…okay in his day, but we actually do have good alternatives to Bill Clinton this year.
Now, on the race side…well, I’m pretty annoyed with Steinem, and I do believe I’ve said before that I can be rather suspicious of white feminists, and that was a classic. At the end of the day, race is about accessing property (land or capital) and about maintaining political coalitions (making sure a firm, extra-legal underclass exists so as to undermine mass socially redistributive movements). It just doesn’t work the same way sexism works.
And for all of you saying how racism is so unique to the US, that would be very wrong. Ethnocentrism of various stripes is as pandemic as sexism. Racism in the US is unique only in the sense that it holds the country together by giving a whole bunch of culturally distinct white groups something else to focus on rather than jostle each other and making the country incoherent (and breaking up). However, economically, it works the same way in Europe, central europeans and northern africans working without generally available legal protections. In history, jews, hugenots, and other ethno-religious minorities filled the same role.
Moving onto the general driver for racism. Lots of land. No way to get things there or get things back, or to work it. Land that is worthless. Now, lots of money can be made from certain kinds of land if you could get labor to it. But it’s expensive to get people to move out into the middle of nowheres, and they tend to think such places need a bar, a church, maybe a school or two. That eats up profits in no time. What an aspiring capitalist really needs are people who can be paid shit wages and who aren’t allowed to complain and maybe garner a bad image for the capitalist. Indentured servants didn’t work–they had legal and cultural protections. Slaves did. With the mass importation of slaves, land speculation was truly viable for the masses. And so it goes from there. The more slaves in the population, the greater the value of the land you owned. Goes straight into the modern era, the more illegal workers can be used inside the US, and work sent to legally nonprivileged workers overseas, the more valuable people’s stock in national corps become.
So…of course sexism is more allowed to be open. At the end of the day, the patriarchy has to let the little guy feel good about himself somehow. There isn’t really an alternative. If sexist conduct weren’t really available to men, many of the patriarchal structures that sends power to its owners would devolve. Racism on the other hand, well…it’s okay to make explicitly racist conduct unallowable in public discourse. That wouldn’t be the issue. It’s okay to allow minorities to succeed on an individual level. There are many individually important jews, guys like Benjamin Disraeli, Franz Haber, and the Rothschilds. What was crucially important to the leaders of Europe was to keep the supply of legally disenfranchised people available. If that were to dry up, say a bunch of black people becoming relatively prosperous in Oklahoma, or Jewish people having unprecedented social and economic success in the earliest parts of the 20th century, well, a “race riot” or a “holocaust” would be such a tragic event to have happen, you know? At least those poor japanese were compensated for the theft of their land!
Jeez people, why the hell do you think they’re rattling along about “Illegal immigration”? Hint: The immigration isn’t the problem, the greater social acceptability and legal rights of hispanics IS. Which is what the guest worker program is supposed to solve…by preventing the further assimilation of the hispanic work force into progressively more legal and protected work.
So…They cool with Barak Obama, but you wanna know something? How much do you want to bet that if Gen. Shinseki or Patsy Mink were to be running, in Obama’s position, in the horse race, that there would be rather focused anti-asian rhetoric and actions well beyond what either Obama or Clinton has recieved? A large group of politically active east asians (who have little need for political ties and subordinate relationship to white power structures) would really stir up a hornet’s nest. Model Minorityship only goes so far. Hawai’i is a truly fascinating democracy in its way when one thinks about it.
35 “I think Texas and most western states have had ONE female governor, but that woman is ALWAYS the widow of a fallen leader/former governor.”
To add to 44 and 51, Ann Richards, the wonderful late Governor of Texas was not, to my knowledge, related to any man who held public office.
My, how that woman is missed. Rest in peace, Ann.
I read the Steinem column and you are wrong about it Amanda.
But before I get into that, I can’t believe ANY OF YOU SUPPORT OBAMA!
Don’t you read Paul Krugman?
more at the NYTimes
And this isn’t the only column where Krugman demonstrates that Obama is the most right-leaning of the 3 Dem frontrunners.
Holy hopping Jesus on a pogo stick, get a clue people. You’re such suckers for charisma you don’t even care how weak Obama is on the health insurance issue.
Speaking of Hawaii, Shah, for me Obama doesn’t represent a black/white issue so much as a transcending of black/white issues. I reach this conclusion because of Obama’s (and my) Hawaii upbringing. Hawaii was and is a different animal, in many ways it’s not a racial paradise (and let’s not get into native Hawaiian issues) but it is certainly a place moving toward true multiculturalism where old paradigms don’t apply.
And btw, I agree with you about the late great Patsy Mink and General Shinseki. Discrimination against Asians is still kind of ok in some circles. I was in my neighborhood bookstore the other day and the very very progressive owner started talking about how asian landlords are all the same and they’ll let the place go to hell and when you try to talk with them they act like they don’t speak english and blah blah blah. I was flabergasted.
Here’s what Steinem said:
I can’t believe that anybody is taking issue with this column. And she is completely right.
And you need look no further than the NYTimes to see how Maureen Dowd represents the absolute internalization of sexism, in a way that you don’t see anywhere nearly as often for racism.
Or is Bob Herbert constantly attacking Obama, the way that asshole Dowd attacks Clinton? Oh right - no he isn’t.
And as I said in my last post - I don’t know if it’s being moderated or just got lost - why would any leftists support Obama. He is TERRIBLE on the health care issue, as Paul Krugman has frequently demonstrated.
grumble grumble…Nancy, just check out that first paragraph…you know where it says… “sexism is as confused with nature as racism once was.” We still get the standard black people are dumb speech every 6 months or so…
grumble grumble…Bob Herbert isn’t an asshole. The person you’re thinking of is Dinesh D’Souza, who surprise suprise, does some mighty stinky writing about Obama.
Shark-fu said it better than I can, but I’m taking issue with it because as someone who’s both black and female, I didn’t buy the “I’m not advocating a competition for who has it toughest” for one minute. Steinem implied that women who call themselves feminist have an obligation to vote for Clinton because she’s a woman–and chiding younger women who voted for Obama–and yet, there’s somehow a problem with voting for Obama because he’s black. She blithely dismissed four hundred years of white privilege in this country by saying that black men were legally given the right to vote before women, and ignoring the fact that even after women got the right to vote, most black women–and black men–still couldn’t exercise that right.
Either way, it annoys me because there’s a presumption that I have to not only choose between racial and gender identity, but I have to vote based on that. Frankly, unless something changes dramatically between now and Super Tuesday, I’m voting for Kucinich, because he’s the only Democrat in the race who’s committed to both immediate withdrawal from Iraq and marriage equality.
Dinesh D’Souza isn’t black. Did you miss the part where I said “internalized”?
Steinem is referring to evolutionary psychology and she is absolutely right to mention it. Because there is no clearer cut example of the fact that sexism is more acceptable to LIBERALS than racism is.
Evolutionary psychology has two main schools of thought.
The one that self-described liberals like Steven Pinker subscribes to believes that female brains are innately inferior.
The one that conservatives like Steven Sailer and Gene Expression and American Renaissance subscribes to believes that female AND non-white brains are innately inferior.
All on a scientific basis. You’ll note that what both the liberal and the conservative schools have in common is that BOTH consider female brains inferior. Which is why Sailer, Gene Expression and American Renaissance kinda like Pinker and have said positive things about him, while criticizing his obtuseness on the issue of the natural intellectual inferiority of blacks.
Check out their web sites, it’s fascinating.
I must have missed that part. Where does she imply those things?
Dinesh is a dark skinned indian. I think that’s close enough for gubmint work.
As far as the women have it worse with fascistic assholes making shit up to prove their own superiority, give it up. We can exchange example all day…The Oppression Olympics, woman!
Are you actually suggesting that D’Souza self-identifies with African Americans and thus his criticisms of Obama are internalized racism? Do you know something about D’Souza that I don’t? I certainly don’t claim to be an authority on D’Souza.
I think John Lennon said it best over 30 years ago: woman is the nigger of the world.
Where she said:
“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.”
There’s nothing radical about Clinton. Yes, “We have to be able to say: ‘I’m supporting her because she’ll be a great president and because she’s a woman’”, but I want to be able to say, “Yes, she’s a woman, but I’m not supporting her because I don’t like her voting record and her policies”, and not have someone patting me on the head and telling me I’m just don’t get it.
Her healthcare policies ARE better than Obama’s.
If you think you’re going to see a radical who matches every one of your views in the White House any time soon, dream on.
What Steinem said before that was:
Steinem’s point is that there is a double-standard about supporting Obama v. Clinton based on race/gender. It’s considered OK to vote for Obama because he’s black, but not OK to vote for Clinton because she’s female.
As far as the media is concerned - she’s right.
And again - liberals should not support Obama until he comes up with a better position on health care.
It’s for the health care reason that I support Edwards. He’s the most consistently left on all the issues, as far as I am aware.
And talk about sensationalism: “Steinem’s Massive Misfire”
I guess “My Tiny Quibbles with Gloria” doesn’t quite have that je ne sais quoi.
I’m not? Wow, that never would have occurred to me in the 20 years I’ve been voting and the 10 years before that when I was actively paying attention to politics, that I’m much farther to the left than is acceptable in American political discourse. Who knew?
This kind of condescension is exactly why Steinem’s op-ed rubbed me the wrong way. Please don’t assume that because I disagree with you, I’m just too dumb to get it.
See, I’m trying to figure out who these people are who are voting for Obama because he’s black–the two black people in New Hampshire, maybe? It seems to me that many of Obama’s white supporters are voting for him because they think he “transcends race”. Obama’s been very careful to distance himself from the traditional civil rights establishment. He’s bland enough that white folks can feel comfortable around him. If anything, I think he proves that race is irrelevant–as long as everyone agrees to act white. And I think, again, that Steinem’s apparent inability to see that is yet another example of mainstream feminists not seeing their own white privilege.
As I said above, I don’t support Obama, or Clinton. Steinem’s op-ed read to me like she was saying that not supporting Clinton = “FEMINISM: UR DOING IT WRONG”
Now, I could just cite how D’Souza wrote “The End of Racism”, or how he is in general the Republican Party’s sockpuppet on race relationships. I also cited him because he was the most famous of these ethnic asshole who likes to trash non-white groups. I could also probably find a quote from Michelle Malkin as well. Armstrong Williams has done his little routine on Obama, and I can find others…If they aren’t famous enough, well, I can simply cite that few minorities are given the large microphone that peeps like Maureen O’Dowd has, ok?
However, Nancy, I see you being a tad trollish to others here, so I’ll leave you to your duty as a Hillary supporter, since you ain’t here to learn.
Why does this sort of stuff matter to anyone? I don’t understand what the point of any of this is other than to alienate people.
Salon ran a piece where different people weighed in with endorsements. Steinem was one of the people, and her response was basically the same as in the op-ed: Hillary is a woman, QED.
Anyone remember “Condi vs. Hillary : The Next Great Presidential Race.” For a while people were convinced that a black woman would have a good shot, which seems to contradict her central point.
I’m here to defend Gloria Steinem against unfair, sensationalist claims about her column.
And THAT makes me a TROLL???? On an allegedly pro-feminist web site?
And if you bothered to read my recent post, you would see that I said I was supporting Edwards.
You’re careless or you have a reading comprehension problem. But yeah, sure I’m the one with a learning issue.
That’s not the impression I got. At all. If anything, she was too concerned about offending people. And look how much good that did her.
And since she’s been a journalist and a leading feminist since before most of the people here (I’ll wager) were born, I’d think she would get some credit for knowing what’s what in the political sphere.
I think you’re really stretching to see condenscension. But as I said, I think Steinem should have been less concerned about offending people. There’s always going to be some people with delicate sensitivities.
And it doesn’t help that Amanda set this whole thing up as Steinem’s “massive misfire.” Talk about hyperbole.
Nancy -
I think you are spot on, keep up the good work. Steinem has paid her dues, has a very subtle understanding of the social landscape and is being obtusely misunderstood by the good folk here.
Obama is going to be a problem if he is the nominee, you don’t start from a compromise - think about any price negotiation, you start from an extreme and see how far you can get the other side to move, you don’t start with your final offer….
smoochies.
lymie
You know, I’d be much more comfortable with that Reappropriate post if it did not seem to suggest that sexism amounts to no more than occasionally being told you belong in the kitchen and not the White House.
That said, the Steinem column is embarrassingly naive and whiny when it’s not actually intellectually dishonest. You don’t get to just pile gender on top of race, class, etc. and then claim that it’s the sole determining factor. No, a female Obama probably would probably be considered “unelectable” — but not for being female; for being black and “foreign” and female.
I’m not at all sure what I think of Steinem’s piece. I certainly don’t think she keeps her promise about not playing the Oppression Olympics game. That does not, however, mean all of her points are invalid, and I think some of the issues she raises are compelling - the Clinton as divider vs. Obama as uniter point was particularly pithy.
But I think Steinem is massively overestimating how far white America’s come about race. Yes, Obama won a victory in Iowa - but I rather suspect some of that’s because there are a number of white liberals out there who feel really good about themselves when they vote for black politicians, pat themselves on the back, and tell themselves just how very colorblind they are.
There’s also pleeeenty of people who see nothing but blackness when they look at Obama. Or why the constant references to his “Muslim” background? If you think that slander’s dead, just head over to the comments page on a conservative newssite, or read a conservative blog.
Then there’s the people out there I’ve talked to who complain that Obama makes race an issue too often. This baffles me a bit, and I press them on it. Well, they say, he talks about change and transcending old inustices. And I reply, so you mean he’s talking about how he’s black? And they sort of blink at me, and it’s clear that all they can think about when they look at Obama is BLACKMANBLACKMANBLACKMAN.
So however “nice” the media’s playing right now on race issues, in part because Obama makes a good story and the media loves a good story, let’s remember how quick they were to pick up on the Madrassa bullshit. And let’s also remember that while the media may still be in fear of Imus, there’s plenty of people who will say behind closed doors - or not so closed doors - that they’d never vote for a black man - or for a woman.
I’m not at all sure what I think of Steinem’s piece. I certainly don’t think she keeps her promise about not playing the Oppression Olympics game. That does not, however, mean all of her points are invalid, and I think some of the issues she raises are compelling - the Clinton as divider vs. Obama as uniter point was particularly pithy.
But I think Steinem is massively overestimating how far white America’s come about race. Yes, Obama won a victory in Iowa - but I rather suspect some of that’s because there are a number of white liberals out there who feel really good about themselves when they vote for black politicians, pat themselves on the back, and tell themselves just how very colorblind they are.
There’s also pleeeenty of people who see nothing but blackness when they look at Obama. Or why the constant references to his “Muslim” background? If you think that slander’s dead, just head over to the comments page on a conservative newssite, or read a conservative blog.
Then there’s the people out there I’ve talked to who complain that Obama makes race an issue too often. This baffles me a bit, and I press them on it. Well, they say, he talks about change and transcending old inustices. And I reply, so you mean he’s talking about how he’s black? And they sort of blink at me, and it’s clear that all they can think about when they look at Obama is BLACKMANBLACKMANBLACKMAN.
So however “nice” the media’s playing right now on race issues, in part because Obama makes a good story and the media loves a good story, let’s remember how quick they were to pick up on the Madrassa bullshit. And let’s also remember that while the media may still be in fear of Imus, there’s plenty of people who will say behind closed doors - or not so closed doors - that they’d never vote for a black man - or for a woman.
I agree that the way oppressive systems work is very complex, and that some of us can be both oppressed and oppressors at the same time (say, one on the basis of race and one on the basis of gender), at least in theory.
I also think the in-group/out-group explanation applies to racism more directly than it applies to sexism, given the physical proximity that is required for procreation, though making someone into an outsider works within the gender discussion, too. But the difference is useful in understanding that the strategies which work in fighting racism might not work in fighting sexism.
My original reading of Steinem’s article was not the one which Amanda offers, though I’m rethinking everything in light of the discussions here and on Reappropriate.
It may have been the narrow writer’s angle which made me interpret her assertion that we allow sexist slurs when we wouldn’t allow racist slurs as a device to point out the wrongness of the sexist slurs, given that the culture appears to agree that public racist slurs are unacceptable. I didn’t view it as a request to consider sex more seriously than race, for example, or a denial of the severity of racism, though I can see that interpretation now, too.
I guess it’s too much to expect citing of examples of naivete, whininess and intellectual dishonesty.
Yes, fuck those leading figures of feminism who had to stand up to hatred and bullshit even worse than the shit of today. What the fuck do THEY know? Why should we have any respect for them, or consideration for what they say? Gloria thinks she’s so much smarter than us - who does that uppity bitch think she is?
Yes, let’s all hate on Gloria Steinem. All the best feminist web sites do. We don’t want anybody to think we’re too pro women. They’ll think we aren’t “objective” enough. And we are women, after all. Why should we stick together in a struggle for power??? There are so many more important things to do. We’ll politely wait for our turn.
I am truly revolted.
Amanda pointed out some — like the claim that black men had the vote before women did. On paper, yes. In fact, no, and that matters. And I think Steinem’s take on what a female Obama would experience is very naive — based on the assumption that a woman of colour who experiences oppression can be said to experience it ONLY because of her race or ONLY because of her sex. This is an untenable assumption. I just think it’s enormously counterproductive to argue that one or the other oppression is “worse” given their interdependence, their intersections, and the huge number of contexts in which they appear.
That said, between the assertion at Reappropriate that sexist oppression cannot “compare” to racist oppression, and the long-time commenter at Reappropriate now informing the world at large that any woman who would vote for Hillary Clinton simply because she is female does not “deserve the Nineteenth Amendment,” I’m inclined to think Gloria Steinem isn’t the only one guilty of making inappropriate statements or “competing to see who’s more oppressed.”
Amanda cited the intellectual dishonesty already; I don’t need to re-cite it
That said, it takes some serious gall for someone who claims that sexism cannot “compare” to racist oppression, and whose long-time commenter suggests that any American woman who votes for Clinton for the wrong reason does not “deserve the Nineteenth Amendment,” to call Steinem out for “competing to see who’s more oppressed.”
Apologies if this ends up double-posting. I think the spaminator ate my last comment.
“…because racism is entrenched in a way that sexism is not.”
How so? I find that a very strange, not to say utterly ridiculous statement - sorry, but I can’t put it any other way.
I guess my point is that I simply have not idea what you were trying to say with this piece, Amanda.
Nancy:
I heard he stole that line from Yoko Ono.
Amanda, quoting Jenn:
The Amendment passed enfranchising black men; had the women been included, it wouldn’t have passed, of course.
And this is evidence the country is more racist than sexist? Huh? And yes, the Voting Rights Act enfranchised more disenfranchised women than men since more blacks are women than men. Indeed the discrepancy between the number of women than men is greater in the black community.
And while it is easier to target black men at polls to deny them the vote, the discrimination against women is more individual, personal, and harder to track (thus harder to remedy), i.e., women living in abusive homes may be forbidden to vote. I know a quite a few women who feel they have to hide their political preferences from the men they live with.
Hard as it is to change racist institutions, it’s harder to change the human heart. Racism will end when the institutions supporting it are changed, sexism will end when men don’t think women are beneath them. I can see the end of racism. Sexism will have to be unlearned by every single generation of men. Every one.
To me the “elephant in the room” issue that I haven’t seen much serious discussion of is how Hillery Clinton reached to point where she could run for President. I know she is an intelligent, educated, capable person. Thus, I know that the voice in the back of my mind that whispers Evita Peron and Lurleen Wallace is not fair to her, but the paradigm of the power hungry man using his wife as a stand-in when he can not fulfill his ambition through conventional channels any longer is not unknown.
Could it be that shadow perception this brings both more sexist criticism and, paradoxically perhaps, more sympathy, to Hillary. I would very much like to see a woman President but I would prefer to see a woman who had come up on her own. I am not saying that Hillery Clinton couldn’t have done that, but she didn’t.
As a woman of color (Indian) I was very offended by the NYT op-ed. The dichotomy between race and gender applies ONLY to white women. For the rest of us, the distinction between gender and race is moot - both are a part of our daily life.
I studied gender politics in university and was amazed how often white women said they spoke for all women, but really, were relating to only white women - absolutely no sensitivity to the experiences of the rest of us!
And they never seemed to talk about the advantages white women have - if white men have it lucky, guess who gets the fall-out benefits of that - their white wives and white daughters. Not the rest of us.
I think the call to get NH white women out, was to say, “look, give in to your fears about the black man and vote for the white woman - you don’t have to feel ashamed about it, you can actually feel good as it is supporting a sister” . And all that crap about “I prefer HRC healthcare policy”…yeah right, bet if I probed into the details, all you would know is that she is for mandates….and that is such an important detail - it is key in deciding a president you know…
As a woman of color (Indian) I was very offended by the NYT op-ed. The dichotomy between race and gender applies ONLY to white women. For the rest of us, the distinction between gender and race is moot - both are a part of our daily life.
I studied gender politics in university and was amazed how often white women said they spoke for all women, but really, were relating to only white women - absolutely no sensitivity to the experiences of the rest of us!
And they never seemed to talk about the advantages white women have - if white men have it lucky, guess who gets the fall-out benefits of that - their white wives and white daughters. Not the rest of us.
I think the call to get NH white women out, was to say, “look, give in to your fears about the black man and vote for the white woman - you don’t have to feel ashamed about it, you can actually feel good as it is supporting a sister” . And all that crap about “I prefer HRC healthcare policy”…yeah right, bet if I probed into the details, all you would know is that she is for mandates….and that is such an important detail - it is key in deciding a president you know…
Vic, do you really believe that HRC has been implicitly saying that the women in NH should fear the black man, Obama? Was her appeal racist?
And I think that the fact that you’re dismissing the concerns that I’ve seen shared by many women of color as “people with delicate sensitivities” explains volumes about why many women of color remain convinced that feminism is by and for white women only.
Oh, really?
It’s not just institutional racism that’s still a problem.
Darkrose. Countess of Creme Brulee:
There have been Asian and African empires where men of color have been in charge. Do you think they were free of sexism?
Yes I can see the day racism will end.
We will have sexism when racism is a distant memory.
My, that’s a lovely straw man you’re working on there. No one’s arguing that sexism isn’t pervasive throughout human history. So is the fear/demonization of anyone perceived as “other”, which is what racism’s rooted in. If you have the secret to digging that out of human consciousness, then I wish you’d share it.
Strawman? We need a course in logical fallacies around here.
If fear of “other” is at the root of -isms, don’t you agree that men and women differ more than men of different races?
Hasn’t the demeaning of women been more consistent through history?
Haven’t black men ruled some cultures? Were women equals there?
When have women dominated and been the oppressors?
The logical error is taking the peculiarities of our particular culture and assuming that represents history.
Well, epistemology…
You *ARE* aware of the source of the name Candace, right?
Oh, you might also be aware that Africa has most of the major female regents in the pre-Sail-era? With many of the rest being in certain parts of Southeast Asia. Himiko was the first non-fictional ruler of Japan, for instance.
Not that we’re in any sort of contest about race and sex, no sirree!
for the last time, racism and sexism are different modes of oppression. I mean, I could also ask when was the last time superficial differences were used to deliniate who was who and who got what?
It’s just not worth it.
Yes, I remember Himiko. She ruled Japan about 200 years after Queen Boudica ruled England, right?
Your point was that Asian and African cultures weren’t and aren’t sexist? Not close to the truth by a long shot and I think you know it.
Black men have ruled, asian men have ruled, white men have ruled, but women have always been second class citizens. You don’t need to be a sociobiologist to understand that it derives from men being stronger and more violent. Or do you think this is just a cultural artifact?
And I support no “contest” about race and sex as you snidely put it (but pointedly not until you weigh in on one side of the “contest”), but rather an understanding of the challenges we face in ending racism and sexism. They are not the same. Sexism is more pervasive and will be much harder to eradicate.
AIDS and herpes are both viral oppressors of the human race. They have different modes of oppression. Studying one can help cure the other. But they are different, one is worse, and it does no insult to those with herpes to say that AIDS is worse and more intractable.
I mean no offense to those oppressed by racism to express my concern that sexism has always been more pervasive, and will be harder to eradicate. And I understand that due to the history of slavery in this country, black men have it worse, on average, than white women at this time.
/me applies some pressures to his sinuses…
one. Queen Boudica was the leader of a rebellion, not a queen in the regal sense. Insofar as she was a “queen”…uh no, that was just the surviving leading woman of the recently widowed and raped survivors of the roman occupation. She was simply the highest status local women in the rebellion.
two. Your statement of how black and asian men were big bad sexists were ultimately silly. Of course sexism existed, but it always did so in the local context.
three. It merely pleased me to spit out some facts about african rulers. The deeper point is that much of Africa and SE Asia was matrilineal. Not that it meant that women were dominant, but in some of these societies women had very strong social positions. Perhaps not equal to men, but sometimes better, and sometimes (especially now) worse.
four. I am snide because I have no patience for fools. Slander and goal-post moving isn’t a good way to get my respect. In any event, you don’t have the facts on your side anyways, and comparing the harms of race and sex to aids and herpes is a dubious proposition. Both racism and sexism are virulent and fatal to the men and women of the deep south as well as the women of Salem. Herpes Simplex viruses is encounted by 90%+ of people, and it kills few, mostly due to encephalitis. I’m not sure how to take your assertion, aside from the minimizer it was probably meant to be.
five (with utmost exasperation). You refuse the simple assertion that *neither* racism or sexism is solved, instead pointing to african and asian kings as if that was at all a rational debating point. Well duh, the local ruler of the people was black (as viewed by modern americans), or asians–and not Prestor John! Hallelujah!! Of course, when one looks closely, well…Egyptian politics certainly likes to trash levantines–Asiatic (immigrant) Scum was quite the oft-written language in their histories. The Japanese certainly oppressed the Ainu from the very beginning, and they *still* do. In all very large regional entities, there are ethnic minorities that get trashed. Hell, even in Boswana, in which the country is pretty homogenous, they treat bushmen poorly (tho’ not as poorly as many other country treats their minorities). But of course, it’s simpler to think of all africans as brothers and sisters of the same ethnic group to you, eh?
I gave you enough of a benefit of the doubt.
With no further ado, I abjure your (probably racist) ass…debate someone else.
Ack, the week from hell. Everyone has this upper respiratory virus here in Philadelphia’s southwestern suburbs. Coming attraction: influenza just began it’s annual trot. I pity whoever’s on call this weekend, but I did it last weekend. No fatigue can make me forget what a privilege it is to be paid to help people.
But let me reread this before dinner to see how I offended shah8.
I apologize for making the comparison of AIDS/Herpes vs. sexism/racism. I labored over an analogy, and now regret it. I recognize the scourge of racism is far closer (indeed linked) to AIDS, than the over-hyped herpes. I meant to indicate ordinal, not cardinal position.
But particularly I meant to say that we can make judgments, as we must in order to allocate resources for the fight against disease or racism, regarding relative virulence. You seem to agree when you say:
Apparently you think you can weigh the relative virulence of racism. I agree. And your points about the matrilineal cultures of Africa and Asia are well taken, and certainly to the credit of those peoples.
But my point wasn’t to compare whether Africans or Asians are as sexist as Europeans. The topic here, which I did not choose, is whether sexism or racism is worse. I stated my point clearly, that ALL men are sexist, and their sexism is rooted deeper than their racism. Even in white men like me. Though I’m neither racist nor sexist in any normal sense of the words, having the good fortune to have been born to parents who believed in a liberal education, as yours apparently did. (They are disappointed with the invective, though.)
Sexism derives from the universal experience of childhood where the rule is that bigger, stronger kids are also smarter. Sexism says: “You women stopped growing first so we must be smarter. Wait, that’s not true? Well we can still beat you up.” And we men don’t just act as if we think that being bigger makes us smarter, we had the then president of our most prestigious (and previously all male) university Harvard, Lawrence H. Summers, all but saying so publicly.
Am I wrong? Aren’t all men across the world, just like the Europeans I know best, sexist, now and in the past? Have your studies contradicted this? Has there ever been a place where the men were beaten in their homes more than the women were? Ever? Thus it has always been. Read your Ten Commandments. Rest on the Sabbath. And your children. And your slaves. Even your ox. But not your wife. It pointedly doesn’t mention the wives. Someone had to do the dishes. When the slaves and oxen rest, the women are still forced to work. Here and there. And it’s not racist to say so.
Calling it racist to claim sexism is worse than racism is a weak argument. You don’t balk at calling African men racist (e.g., in Botswana), but scream racist if I call them sexist. Could you be having trouble dealing with your own sexism?