race & gender (and electoral distortions)
When Women and Blacks Fight to Get First in Line They Both Suffer
By Stephanie Coontz
One of the recurring undercurrents in arguments over who deserves to win this historic Democratic Party primary race has been the question of which group needs advancement more – blacks or women. Gloria Steinem has argued that voting for a woman is critical, because sexism is still taken less seriously than racism. A female Obama supporter recently countered in Time that race must trump gender, because as long as African-Americans remain so disadvantaged in income, health care, and education, electing a black man is “a matter of life and death.”
Josiah:
This essay is a reminder of how old some of the race-gender tricks being used by today’s cynical campaign strategists really are. It reminded me of Harriet Jacobs’ slave narrative, in which these very dynamics of racial-sexual division by conquest are described in lurid detail within one slaveholding white Maryland household, dominated by a sexually rapacious but “respected” community doctor.
All of this is part of the larger dynamic of conquest by division which this culture incessantly engenders (pun very much intended), the way in which it creates and then polices false oppositions, compartmentalizes reality in the crudest Cartesian fashion, and spins webs of trivial innuendo to prevent solidarity from occurring.
We are being asked to see Obama and Hillary as symbolic race horses in an artificially constructed zero-sum game, in which the Spanaway bunny is either ending white supremacy or ending patriarchy. One down for the former is one down for the latter, and the clock is ticking, folks. Cast your bets! It’s the ultimate prize package of liberal utopia, even though we all know that white supremacy and patriarchy have the same, deep roots, and that both candidates are socialized into conformity within the grinding axes of power that place a John McCain at the top of the pyramid, and an indigenous woman from anywhere on Earth at the bottom. White woman and Black men, we are supposed to believe, MUST have opposite group interests, and fear and the protection racket of the state will solve all of these problems.
3 April 2008, 11:33 pmJosiah:
Also, has anyone read Marilyn French’s “Beyond Power: On Women, Men and Morals”? I’m reading it right now, and her (now-two-decades-old) discussion of the issues is one of the most clear-eyed and intelligent I’ve come across.
3 April 2008, 11:37 pmm.c.:
I have to admit, I can understand the appeal Hillary has to women like Gloria Steinem and others. She’s the first serious woman candidate for Pres., she’s smart & hardworking(notwithstanding failing the D.C. bar exam 30-plus years ago).
The thing is she comes(for good & bad with her own & Bill’s baggage) & I picture a midwestern Maggie Thatcher or Kim Campbell. She was on the board of Directors of WalMart and gives these answers that remind me of her serial-lying husband like, “We flew in under sniper fire and had to run to our vehicles” when her own autobiography [and I presume the videotape] has it right. Some of her top people like Mark Penn and Howard Wolfson are the toughest/non scrupulous in the biz.
At least Obama doesn’t have as much baggage yet. Michelle seems to me to be the one in that family to pick their Church & her senior thesis at Priceton about African-americans not fitting in at prestigious universities seems like an act of courage. I say let them sell out too like everyone else. That’s a Color-Blind Society imho….
4 April 2008, 1:24 pmCharles:
This is a contradiction of concern in this situation. A partial solution of the contradiction here is for C and O to share pres and vp.
The obvious group to turn to for leadership on this type of issue is BLACK WOMEN (“Ain’t I a Woman ?” – Sojourner Truth; bel hooks) They are voting overwhelmingly for Obama.
Charles
4 April 2008, 4:18 pmcarmen zayas:
I must admit I can see the attraction of African Americans to Obama – he is after all – um, half black. And to the youth? Obama holds experience, capability, and a proven track record of accomplishment in disdain – he should be president simply because he speaks well. That must truly be attractive to the younger generation – it’s the only way he can compete because he sorely lacks in all three.
some of the most intelligent, gifted and hardworking black women I know strongly support Hillary – including one of my personal heroes… Maya Angelou.
Women of all ages and colors support Hillary because she is strong, brilliant, hard working, savvy, experienced, and ready to lead on day one. she has done her homework – she knows the issues inside and out. she has depth and breadth. she has fought for women’s rights, and helped break barriers for women of all color.
Latina women of color overwhelmingly support Hillary – especially (again one of my heroes) … Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the United Farm Workers of America, and Rosa Rosales.
Not to mention of course long time feminists like Gloria Steinem (my hero!) and Ellen Degeneres.
The problem is most of the younger women weren’t alive when these great women were breaking ground … and it saddens me that after all – some that young women are voting for a younger, inexperienced male over a distinctly more qualified and proven leader like Hillary. guess times don’t change no matter how cool some of the hip young sisters think they are.
Black women are doing what they have been doing for centuries – bearing the pain and work of black men … an overwhelming number of black households are led by black women. yet when given a choice they once again vote for black men instead of a woman who has done so much for women of every color.
Hillary has done more for women of color than Obama, or than many of the leading black men.
I prefer Hillary’s overstatement of Bosnia fire over Obama’s judgment in surrounding himself with racist black men, especially farrahkan – whose Nation of Islam to this day subjugates and trivializes women, yes even black women. Or sitting in a pew for 20 years while Wright spews forth his stupid diatribes – saying “God Damn” anything in a church is a complete lack of judgment.
Oh, but wait, it wasn’t Obama’s fault – his wife picked the church. And every time Hillary points out a lie, lack of integrity or lack of knowledge, it’s because she is negative, an desperate and shrill, and somehow it is her fault not Obama’s. Wow! what a change, huh ladies? a woman being blamed for everything a man does.
You young ‘ums weren’t part of the 60s and 70s and 80s where women sat in conference rooms and board rooms (if they could get in at all) and were trivialized, their ideas stolen by men of lesser intellect and lesser work ethic – you ladies have not fought the fight.
If you had – you would see what this campaign is all about. A rock star created by a very biased media, and by Oprah’s and big business’s dollars – he talks pretty – that is about all. A man who parrots every thing Hillary says and tries to pass it off as his own thinking. yeah, right.
200 years of male leadership and electing another male president – one with zero to no experience who just speaks pretty – is a change??? Seems like same old same old to me. those qualifications sound like Bush’s credentials, and remember what he has done for this country.
My smart, experienced, seen it all but have high hopes for the future self will endorse, support and vote for Hillary. i know she is the best candidate for us.
21 April 2008, 12:05 amxenia:
I doubt that hillary has the welfare of Iraqi women close to her heart…but they don’t matter anyway, right?
in other words, hillary-shillary, obama-shobama, it’s all about the anxieties of middle class american men and women who “made it” in the 1990s and “deserve” to keep what they have. the rest of the planet should shut up and be grateful for any grain of rice or crumb of bread.
21 April 2008, 1:49 pmStan:
Hillary Clinton is what my sister calls a “political female impersonator,” one of those public women who has succeeded in the Ole Boyz Game by becoming another Ole Boy… and who can miraculously be branded a “feminist.” In this, she shares with Barack Obama the ability — via her current position — to engage in what I call “phenotype authenticity.”
Senator Clinton is seen as embodying women’s experience because she is a woman. Senator Obama is seen as embodying black experience because he is black. Yet, by virtue of their shared position as US Senators, both sharing the approval of the Democratic Party establishment, it is clear that their experience is light years from any mean, any median, any measure whatsoever, of “women’s experience” or an American “black experience.” This assumption, in short, is beyond ludicrous.
The reason the ludicrosity of this is lost on so many people is that they have no tiny clue about what it takes to become a US Senator or what it takes to get the approval of the Democratic Party and the Democratic Leadership Council. Those who have no clue, are without because they have never been exposed to (and grasped) any deeper than one-inch critique of how our power-system spawns. In the absence of the apprehension of that critique, what we are all left with is the simple propaganda of our high school civics classes, the flag-waving myths of the American meritocracy, and the epistemic conventions of the mass media (itself imbricated in that power-system).
Then there is self-delusion: Clinton’s “overstatement” (???!!!) about Bosnia! She cooked up an elaborate LIE. Not that this is the main issue…. it is not; it is simply an example of the buffonery that characterizes politics-generally. The real “issues” are precisely those than neither candidate can touch without committing political suicide.
REAL ISSUES:
Our “nation” is an entropic juggernaut that is at the top of a system which creates billions of human beings only to immiserate the vast majority of them (I note that your line of work, Carmen, refers to people as “human resources“), subjugating half at birth for merely being born female… even as that same system — which operates inertially in several dimensions beyond even the capacity of its leadership to control — is wrecking the biosphere which is the material basis of our existence.
As to Jeremiah Wright, I just posted a quote from another Jeremiah that says pretty much what Wright said, except that Wright identified the United States of America (as a system) by name. What he said was not stupid. It was true… the exact kind of truth that neither Obama nor Clinton can tell and surivivein their race to occupy the Oval Office.
If you want to hear “stupid,” I suggest all the pundits and PR hacks who continue to be employed — at high prices — by industry, the media, and the government. We said that there was a housing bubble that could drag down the economy; oh no, they said. We said the war in Iraq/Afghanistan was unwinnable: oh no, they said. We said that pumping billions of tons of carbon into the atmosphere would create havoc; oh no, they said. Oh, they catch on, by and by, when the evidence is irrefutable, and the evidence is that the barn is empty and the horse is gone.
Had my say, and I’lllet others say what needs saying about this tidbit:
Very thin ice, indeed, you are on, “carmen zayas.”
Yes, there has been progress, as Bob Jensen points out; but that was progress that heppened first and foremost outside the arena of elections, and involved a considerable amount of law-breaking.
21 April 2008, 3:47 pm