Thanks, Mister Jender!
The 88th Anniversary: What have we forgotten? August 26, 2008
Today is the 88th anniversary of (some) women’s suffrage in the United States. Speaking to this fact, and connecting it to HIllary Clinton’s run for the White House is problematic, since both can be read as emblematic of the “whiteness” of American feminism. Nonetheless, Susan Faludi’s reflections on this and on the fact that Hillary Clinton is speaking tonight at the Democratic Convention have some important points.
In fact, there’s lots in her article that is worth remarking on, but her central point is particularly important. That is, there’s a cycle that feminists are experiencing again.
Suffrage was, like Hillary Clinton’s candidacy, not merely a cause in itself, but a symbolic rallying point, a color guard for a regiment of other ideas. But while the color guard was ushered into the palace of American law, its retinue was turned away.
In the years after the ratification of suffrage, the anticipated women’s voting bloc failed to emerge, progressive legislation championed by the women’s movement was largely thwarted, female politicians made only minor inroads into elected office, and women’s advocacy groups found themselves at loggerheads.
Among other things, the flapper succeeded the feminists, eerily like those young women today who think that the US is “post-gender.”
Today, the United States ranks 22nd among the 30 developed nations in its proportion of female federal lawmakers. The proportion of female state legislators has been stuck in the low 20 percent range for 15 years; women’s share of state elective executive offices has fallen consistently since 2000, and is now under 25 percent. The American political pipeline is 86 percent male.
Women’s real annual earnings have fallen for the last four years. Progress in narrowing the wage gap between men and women has slowed considerably since 1990, yet last year the Supreme Court established onerous restrictions on women’s ability to sue for pay discrimination. The salaries of women in managerial positions are on average lower today than in 1983.
Women’s numbers are stalled or falling in fields ranging from executive management to journalism, from computer science to the directing of major motion pictures. The 20 top occupations of women last year were the same as half a century ago: secretary, nurse, grade school teacher, sales clerk, maid, hairdresser, cook and so on. And just as Congress cut funds in 1929 for maternity education, it recently slashed child support enforcement by 20 percent, a decision expected to leave billions of dollars owed to mothers and their children uncollected.
Again, male politicians and pundits indulge in outbursts of “new masculinist” misogyny (witness Mrs. Clinton’s campaign coverage). Again, the news media showcase young women’s “feminist — new style” pseudo-liberation — the flapper is now a girl-gone-wild. Again, many daughters of a feminist generation seem pleased to proclaim themselves so “beyond gender” that they don’t need a female president.
I can’t verify all her facts, so please pitch in if you have other documented data.
Jill Biden’s “problem” doctorate August 24, 2008
Damn, I really want to like Joe Biden. And there are things to like a lot, like his writing of the Violence Against Women Act. Why does he have to keep saying stupid things? Why oh why? First there was that fabulous remark that Obama was the first “clean” and “articulate” African-American candidate. Now he says his wife is drop-dead gorgeous. And has a doctorate, which is a problem. I KNOW it’s meant to be a joke. And maybe it’s necessary to make such jokes in order to make voters comfortable with a woman with a doctorate. (But I doubt it, since Dr Rice should have them used to it by now.) But… Sigh. Why does he keep doing this shit? Legislative actions are indeed more important than utterances like these, but these do matter, and I don’t like them.
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Democratic Convention’s Past Great Moments August 23, 2008
The Times Online has an article about the ten great moments of past Democractic Conventions. Some are quite weighty in comparison to the one below, but we lost this remarkable woman, Ann Richards, very recently, and the comment was delivered in her impeccable style. You need to remember the reference is to the former President Bush, not the present one.
Don’t Let Anyone Lose Their Vote August 22, 2008
There’s a really important story up on AlterNet about ways that people may be prevented from voting in the US Presidential election, and things that we can be doing NOW to prevent that from happening. I urge you to read it and act on it, if you’re appropriately located to do so.
Who to blame for Bush’s “presidency” August 21, 2008
Tired of blaming the Supreme Court? Katherine Harris? Theresa LePore in Palm Beach County? The designer of Duval County’s caterpillar ballot? OK, so maybe you aren’t quite as obsessive as I am. But even I had overlooked one culprit: the inventor of the air conditioner.
Maureen Dowd: fiction writer? August 20, 2008
Do you get this? An supposed opinion piece in the NY Time by MD is really a short bit of fiction that contains a comspiratorial meeting between H. Clinton and McCain. They toss back vodka and congratulate themselves on have done down Obama. Georgia was part of the plot, it turns out, since Bill convinced Putin to go for it.
At the end, Jesse Jackson shows up to get reassurance that it’s over.
Now, for sheer Hillary hatred MD gets top marks with, for example,
It would have been better to put this language in the platform: “A woman who wildly mismanages and bankrupts a quarter-of-a-billion-dollar campaign operation, and then blames sexism in society, will dampen the dreams of our daughters.”
So now she’s run out of opinons in which she can invest her ire, so she’s trying fiction?
(If you want to see our discussions of MD and HRC, you could try the search engine or just start here. It is not a pretty picture.)
My bet on what is going on? I think it’s the same ‘blame the woman” trope that we saw visited on Elizabeth Edwards.
Iowa’s “Open-air prison” for women and children August 20, 2008
According to Democracy Now, an immigration raid ended up with 400 people arrested at a meat packing plant in Postville, Iowa. What happened to the families of those carted off?
And for those left behind–namely the wives and children of the men taken away–the town has been turned into what some have described as an open-air prison. Dozens of immigrant women remain in Postville without status or a means of support. Many of them are even forbidden from leaving and have been made to wear electronic monitoring bracelets.
According to the broadcast, the government helpfully supplied packets for those picked up, with scripts for them to use when entering their pleas and so on. There was a problem, though. The scripts presumed they were guilty of a series of crimes, including fraudulent use of government documents, identity theft and so on.
Why not just suppose them guilty, now that Habeas Corpus and all that no longer applies to non-citizens in the US, does it?
Let’s Blame Elizabeth Edwards August 19, 2008
Because she let John run for President. Really. (And while we’re at it, let’s throw in quite a disturbing violent fantasy about John, just because that’s always fun.)
I think Sally Quinn has identified a rich new vein to mine for woman-blaming. (Just blaming them for their husbands’ affairs is so cliched.) Iraq war? Laura Bush should never have let it happen. That guy Dick Cheney shot in the face? Why did Lynne ever let him leave the house with a gun? But let’s not stop with recent history. Surely Neville Chamberlain’s wife is one of the great unsung bumblers of history. Reader contributions much appreciated.
If contraception is abortion… August 14, 2008
then so are breastfeeding and exercise. William Saletan at Slate draws out the consequences of the proposed definition of ‘abortion’. A sample:
Thousands of people working at hospitals, lactation centers, maternity-product retailers, drug stores, and supermarkets are presently required by their employers to participate in breast-feeding, either by teaching it or by providing products that facilitate it. Those who refuse can be terminated at will. They endure this discrimination despite clear scientific evidence that breast-feeding poses the same abortifacient risk as oral contraception.
Thanks, Rachel!
Contraception is not abortion August 13, 2008
And other obvious truths. Sadly, not so obvious to the Bush administration. Go here to sign a petition reminding them.
Angie Zapata August 11, 2008
We are a bit late in responding to this trajedy. Angie Zapata was an 18 year old Latina transgender women. She was beaten to death by a man to whom she”d given oral sex.
I strongly recommend you not go to youtube to see the comments on this clip. Too many people seem to think murderous rage is a justifiable response.
From Brownfemipower:
An arrest was made in the murder of teenager Angie Zapata. Allen Ray Andrade admitted that he beat Angie with a fire hydrant after he discovered she was transgender. Allegedly, he admitted to police that after he beat Zapata, he thought he “killed it.”
One expects it was a fire extinguisher - jj.
“Majority of Americans Say Racism Against Blacks Widespread” August 10, 2008
Gallop’s headline emphasizes the agreement. One could equally well look at the differences. I worry more about bias in people who think there isn’t any.
Women in prison August 8, 2008
Also in the news today:
Ministers are also taking a new look at the system which has seen a sharp increase in women in prison in the last decade.
I found this article interesting but frustrating: the implication is that some women are getting unduly harsh sentences, the recommendation being that more community sentences rather than prison terms should be given. But one wonders: is this judgment of undue harshness because of:
a) a comparison with sentences given to men for comparable crimes (no comparative figures are given);
b) a recognition of some of the circumstances of vulnerability that has (sometimes) led women to break the law (this is briefly mentioned);
c) assumptions about women’s role in childcare (which they cannot provide if they’re in prison, and which is mentioned).
Haven’t had time to do any more digging on this, so just some thoughts…
Misogyny: Still Not OK August 8, 2008
Even if it’s directed at Cindy McCain. Even if it’s written by a woman at a progressive website. And, by the way, Cindy McCain actually would seem to be far more impressive than you’d ever know from most news reports.
Summer session finals: And an answer sheet August 5, 2008
The question and video come from The Situationist, which asks, “Do We Miss Racial Stereotypes Today that Will Be Evident Tomorrow?“ There is an informative discussion of a classic US movie that is heavily racist (”Birth of a Nation,” which appears to give the KKK a heroes’ welcome) and perhaps a transitional political ad. And then there’s the recent McCain ad:
THE FINAL EXAM
Anwer the Situation’s question with specific reference to the film above. Be sure you explain your answer.
___________________________________________
So no one has tried this one, and I can’t tell whether it was because it was too hard, too obvious or too boring. But, retiring into the professorial mode, I offer this:
With questions like this, there is often no one right answer (oh, sure). One way, however, of gaining a critical stance on the video would be to consider what you would say of yourself if, after a VERY great deal of thought and hard work, you pulled off some major accomplishment and found yourself described as, say, “appealingly flashy.” There you are, perhaps, considered the best graduate student in philosophy in one of the top ten schools and you hear someone describe you as having a lot of pizazz. That could well be at least close to a put down.
So here’s my worry: very successful African Americans can have star power of the sort sexy Hollywood stars have, but their intelligence, powers of organization and vision are not going to be part of the story for some people, since they haven’t yet gotten around to admitting that’s what non-whites are capable of. And behind this is another ugly thought that some people without vision are having: Obama is only about self promotion. Just like Paris and Brittney.
Quick Guessing Game August 5, 2008
Three Presidential debates, one Vice Presidential. Moderators: Three white men, one black woman. Who gets the Vice Presidential debate?
American Abroad? August 4, 2008
As a fellow ex-pat, I hereby implore you to request a ballot for the upcoming election. It’s easy, and you can do it here.
No to Kaine July 31, 2008
Apparently Obama is seriously considering Tim Kaine as VP. He is the Democratic Governor of Virginia, a key swing state. His views on abortion were said in 2005 to “roughly in line” with those of George W. Bush. He’s really into anti-gay dogwhistles. He has expressed rather Bushie views on the Iraq war.
We really shouldn’t have to point out to Obama why Kaine is a seriously bad idea. But if the rumours are right, we do have to do it. Here’s where to go.
Obama, McCain and Ageism July 29, 2008
Despite being an Obama supporter, I criticised him for the sexist dogwhistles he used against Clinton, as he talked about her “periodically… feeling down”. Now he’s talking about McCain being “confused” and “angry”, which arguably are ageist dogwhistles. What do you think about these? I find myself wanting to say that when McCain gets facts wrong there’s nothing problematic in calling him “confused”, or that when he acts angry it’s fine to call him “angry”. But I worry that partisan loyalties may be muddying my thinking on this.
