Per our discussions of gender, politics, and the politics of gender, you may find interesting the following op-ed piece, which appeared in the New York Times on Sunday, 26 October. Among other things, note the ways in which the monolith "feminism" is broken down into a more complex reading of types of feminism (i.e., feminisms) based on class, education, and so on (e.g., exceptionalism versus mediocrity). Viz "a breakthrough woman who threatened no one," you may also hear similarities between Warner's piece and Johnson's "What Is This Thing Called Patriarchy?"
No Ordinary Woman
By JUDITH WARNER
In 1977, Bella Abzug, the former congresswoman and outspoken feminist, said, “Our struggle today is not to have a female Einstein get appointed as an assistant professor. It is for a woman schlemiel to get as quickly promoted as a male schlemiel.”
In other words: women will truly have arrived when the most mediocre among us will be able to do just as well as the most mediocre of men.
By this standard, the watershed event for women this year was not Hillary Clinton’s near ascendancy to the top of the Democratic ticket, but Sarah Palin’s nomination as the Republicans’ No. 2.
For Clinton was a lifelong overachiever, a star in a generational vanguard who clearly took to heart the maxim that women “must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good,” and in so doing divorced herself from the world of the merely average. In that, she was not unlike Barack Obama — taxed by his race to be twice as reassuring, twice as un-angry, twice as presidential as any white candidate.
Mediocrity, after all, is the privilege of those who have arrived.
Palin is a woman who has risen to national prominence without, apparently, even remotely being twice as good as her male competitors. On the contrary, her claim to fame lies in her repudiation of Clinton-type exceptionalism.
She speaks no better — and no worse — than many of her crowd-pleasing male peers, dropping her g’s, banishing “who” in favor of “that,” issuing verbal blunders that linger just long enough to make their mark in the public mind before they’re winked away in staged apologies. She is a woman who is able to not only get by but also be quickly promoted on the kinds of attributes that were once the exclusive province of unremarkable white men: rapport, the right looks or connections, an easy sort of familiarity.
In the days leading up to Palin’s pick as vice-presidential nominee, according to an article in The New York Times Magazine today, Rick Davis, who is John McCain’s campaign manager, said a friend had told him how best to choose a running mate: “You get a frame of Time magazine, and you put the pictures of the people in that frame. You look at who fits that frame best — that’s your V.P.”
Donny Deutsch, the ad executive turned talk show host, put it less elegantly on CNBC right after the Republican convention. “Women want to be her, men want to mate with her,” he said, describing Palin as a “new creation that the feminist movement has not figured out in 40 years.”
And this was the crux of the Palin Phenomenon: she was a breakthrough woman who threatened no one.
The McCain crowd would have you believe that Palin is the perfect representation of the post-feminist woman, a candidate whose very existence marks the end of feminism — of the old “liberal feminist agenda,” as McCain himself has put it — and the start of a more global kind of triumph for the great mass of women.
Just as some young women in recent years have argued that appearing topless on “Girls Gone Wild” is an act of sexual liberation, putting an untested Alaskan governor on the road to the White House was spun as a sign of the arrival of real, hot-blooded women into the mainstream of power.
But the finer points of what it takes for real women to make progress in seizing power don’t seem much to trouble Palin.
“Someone called me a ‘redneck woman’ once, and you know what I said back? ‘Why, thank you,’” she told the country singer Gretchen Wilson at a recent Republican rally.
I guess Palin has never seen Wilson’s “Redneck Woman” music video, which, in addition to images of an attractive Wilson driving a variety of fuel-inefficient vehicles, features a couple of stripper-styled babes dancing in cages, one of which is made of chains.
With her five children, successful political career, $1.2 million net worth and beauty pageant looks, Sarah Palin is really not an average woman, much less the worthy schlemiel envisioned by Abzug. She’s actually, as Colin Powell carefully said, quite “distinguished” — for her looks, her grace and charm, her ability to connect with an audience, her ambition and her drive. Those are admirable, even enviable qualities. But the American public, defecting from the McCain ticket in a slow bleed, is clearly not convinced that they amount to vice-presidential qualifications.
Seems like “real America” wants something more than a wife, mother or girlfriend in a female political leader.
Maybe we’ve come a long way after all.
Judith Warner writes Domestic Disturbances, a column at nytimes.com
Showing posts with label Sarah Palin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sarah Palin. Show all posts
Monday, October 27, 2008
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
FLIRTING HER WAY TO VICTORY?
Here's a recent Guardian article on Palin's debate performance. Note the analysis of gendered body language and spoken language. Goldberg reads Palin's wink as "flirting," and writes that "had a male candidate with a similar reputation for attractive vapidity made such a brazen attempt to flirt his way into the good graces of the voting public, it would have been universally noted, discussed and mocked." But McCain winked at least once last night, during the second presidential debate, and I haven't seen any analysis of the McCain wink. What does a wink mean within the context of a political debate? Is there a difference between the rhetoric of the female wink and the rhetoric of the male wink? What does a wink mean, anyway? If anyone has any opinions about winking (male or female), or if you come across any insightful analysis of the rhetoric of winking, feel free to post to the blog. ;)
Sarah Palin's farcical debate performance lowered the standards for both female candidates and US political discourse
Michelle Goldberg
October 3 2008 guardian.co.uk
At least three times last night, Sarah Palin, the adorable, preposterous vice-presidential candidate, winked at the audience. Had a male candidate with a similar reputation for attractive vapidity made such a brazen attempt to flirt his way into the good graces of the voting public, it would have universally noted, discussed and mocked. Palin, however, has single-handedly so lowered the standards both for female candidates and American political discourse that, with her newfound ability to speak in more-or-less full sentences, she is now deemed to have performed acceptably last night.
By any normal standard, including the ones applied to male presidential candidates of either party, she did not. Early on, she made the astonishing announcement that she had no intentions of actually answering the queries put to her. "I may not answer the questions that either the moderator or you want to hear, but I'm going to talk straight to the American people and let them know my track record also," she said.
And so she preceded, with an almost surreal disregard for the subjects she was supposed to be discussing, to unleash fusillades of scripted attack lines, platitudes, lies, gibberish and grating references to her own pseudo-folksy authenticity.
It was an appalling display. The only reason it was not widely described as such is that too many American pundits don't even try to judge the truth,wisdom or reasonableness of the political rhetoric they are paid to pronounce upon. Instead, they imagine themselves as interpreters of a mythical mass of "average Americans" who they both venerate and despise.
In pronouncing upon a debate, they don't try and determine whether a candidate's responses correspond to existing reality, or whether he or she is capable of talking about subjects such as the deregulation of the financial markets or the devolution of the war in Afghanistan. The criteria are far more vaporous. In this case, it was whether Palin could avoid utterly humiliating herself for 90 minutes, and whether urbane commentators would believe that she had connected to a public that they see as ignorant and sentimental. For the Alaska governor, mission accomplished.
There is indeed something mesmerising about Palin, with her manic beaming and fulsome confidence in her own charm. The force of her personality managed to slightly obscure the insulting emptiness of her answers last night. It's worth reading the transcript of the encounter, where it becomes clearer how bizarre much of what she said was. Here, for example, is how she responded to Biden's comments about how the middle class has been short-changed during the Bush administration, and how McCain will continue Bush's policies:
"Say it ain't so, Joe, there you go again pointing backwards again. You preferenced [sic] your whole comment with the Bush administration. Now doggone it, let's look ahead and tell Americans what we have to plan to do for them in the future. You mentioned education, and I'm glad you did. I know education you are passionate about with your wife being a teacher for 30 years, and god bless her. Her reward is in heaven, right? ... My brother, who I think is the best schoolteacher in the year, and here's a shout-out to all those third graders at Gladys Wood Elementary School, you get extra credit for watching the debate. "
Evidently, Palin's pre-debate handlers judged her incapable of speaking on a fairly wide range of subjects, and so instructed to her to simply disregard questions that did not invite memori sed talking points or cutesy filibustering. They probably told her to play up her spunky average-ness, which she did to the point of shtick - and dishonesty. Asked what her achilles heel is - a question she either didn't understand or chose to ignore - she started in on how McCain chose her because of her "connection to the heartland of America. Being a mom, one very concerned about a son in the war, about a special needs child, about kids heading off to college, how
are we going to pay those tuition bills?"
None of Palin's children, it should be noted, are heading off to college. Her son is on the way to Iraq , and her pregnant 17-year-old daughter is engaged to be married to a high-school dropout and self-described "fuckin' redneck". Palin is a woman who can't even tell the truth about the most quotidian and public details of her own life, never mind about matters of major public import. In her only vice-presidential debate, she was shallow, mendacious and phoney. What kind of maverick, after all, keeps harping on what a maverick she is? That her performance was considered anything but a farce doesn't show how high Palin has risen, but how low we all have sunk.
Friday, October 3, 2008
FERRARO, PALIN
Excerpt from Bush/Ferraro V-P Debate (1984)
Excerpt from Biden/Palin V-P Debate (2008)
Excerpt from Biden/Palin V-P Debate (2008)
VISUAL LITERACY: SAMPLE ESSAYS ON GENDER AND POLITICAL CARTOONS
For a stronger grasp of rhetorical analysis of political cartoons:
Janis L. Edwards
“Drawing Politics in Blue and Pink”
Analysis of gender topoi in political cartoons (e.g., metaphors of sport, war, and conflict). This essay's particularly useful in thinking about whether the gendering of politics has changed from the (D) Mondale/Ferraro candidacy of 1984 to the (R) McCain/Palin candidacy of 2008. (See above examples.)
Analysis of gender topoi in political cartoons (e.g., metaphors of sport, war, and conflict). This essay's particularly useful in thinking about whether the gendering of politics has changed from the (D) Mondale/Ferraro candidacy of 1984 to the (R) McCain/Palin candidacy of 2008. (See above examples.)
Dori Moss
“The Animated Persuader”
Uses Kenneth Burke’s master tropes of metaphor, irony, synecdoche, and metonymy to explore persuasion in political cartoons.
Donna R. Hoffman and Alison D. Howard
Uses Kenneth Burke’s master tropes of metaphor, irony, synecdoche, and metonymy to explore persuasion in political cartoons.
Donna R. Hoffman and Alison D. Howard
“Representations of 9-11 in Editorial Cartoons”
Tracks the historical shift from memorializing to sociopolitical critique in 9-11 editorial cartoons.
Tracks the historical shift from memorializing to sociopolitical critique in 9-11 editorial cartoons.
Monday, September 29, 2008
FREE SARAH PALIN
In relation to our class discussions about gender, politics, and the media, you may find interesting CNN's Campbell Brown on what she calls the McCain campaign's sexist treatment of Gov. Sarah Palin:
PALIN, POLITICS, AND GENDER
Sexism Debate Front And Center With Palin Pick:
Experts Weigh In On How The Sex Card May Or May Not Be Played In The Election
Monday, Sept. 29, 2008
Will Englund
Sarah Palin's nomination as the Republican vice presidential candidate has put sexism front and center as an issue, and it is stirring deep and sometimes fierce emotions.
A quintet of top Republican women lambasted Palin's critics on Wednesday. One, Carly Fiorina, the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard and a McCain adviser, came close to suggesting that almost any criticism of the Alaska governor is out of bounds. "Many people have demeaned and belittled her experience," Fiorina said. "Women are sensitized and outraged."
Ellen Malcolm, head of EMILY's List, the liberal fundraising group, countered that Palin's selection was a transparent ploy that shows little respect for women. A poll that her group sponsored showed it wasn't working, she said. "It's a cynical miscalculation of women voters."
Palin clearly had the benefit of the doubt from the adoring convention crowd when she gave her acceptance speech on Wednesday night. She wowed them with her thoroughly upbeat demeanor.
Her supporters are focusing most of their pushback on those who question whether she can balance family responsibilities with the rigors of a campaign, though this question has not gotten much of an airing outside the blogosphere, and on what they called the "smears" and speculation about the pregnancy of her daughter Bristol. But, having detected sexism, some are now seeing it in almost every attack on her. (Not all, to be sure: Meg Whitman, a McCain adviser and the former chief of eBay, told Fox News that she thought the press was pursuing legitimate questions about Palin.)
If Palin takes on the traditional role of No. 2 candidate as attack dog -- and she flirted with that role in her speech -- it might seem as though she was trying to provoke sexist attacks in a culture that is still uncertain how to assess aggressive women.
It is a highly charged topic. Geraldine Ferraro, the only other woman ever to join a national ticket, ran into storms of vituperation and scorn. After her 1984 debate with George H.W. Bush, Barbara Bush was asked what she thought of her husband's opponent. "I can't say it, but it rhymes with rich," she replied.
Hillary Rodham Clinton complained of sexism in this year's Democratic primary campaign, and Republicans have been vocal in proclaiming their newfound solidarity with her.
An inescapable question is whether the Republicans are playing the sex card the way they sometimes accuse black Democratic politicians of playing the race card. The answer is no more straightforward with gender than it is with black-white relations. Some measure of outrage at what Palin is facing is clearly genuine; some measure of political calculation is just as real. The two don't have to be mutually exclusive. And an emotional charge like an accusation of sexism can be a powerful distraction in a campaign.
Deborah Tannen, a Georgetown professor whose book, "You Just Don't Understand," was a best-seller, said yesterday that on some level women can't escape their gender identity. Male politicians can be "neutral," but female politicians will always be "marked" as women in people's minds. The consequence of that, she said, is that "anything you say [as a woman or about a woman] is going to have extra meaning in it, and is going to get someone's back up."
Because the world is the way it is, there are no clear lines to guide political discourse. "Is it sexist to talk about women's clothing? Yes. But it tells us something about them. And the same with their hair."
"Obviously," said Charlotte Allen, a contributing editor at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, "there's a double standard. Conservative women are given no quarter. They're considered an outrage to their sex."
What Allen sees as "beyond the pale" sexist attacks on Palin have ironically served to overshadow legitimate issues, she said, such as the governor's controversial efforts to get her former brother-in-law fired from the state police.
As for the argument that Palin has put her family on the public stage, making them "fair game," Allen replied, "I don't understand that one bit."
She praised Barack Obama's declaration on Monday that family matters are off-limits, and his reminder to his supporters that his own mother was 18 when he was born. "Obama really showed class when he said this has got to stop," she said.
Will woman voters respond to Palin because she's a woman, or because of the attacks on her as a woman? Page Gardner, founder of Women's Voices, Women Vote, an advocacy group for unmarried women, said that people are naturally drawn to candidates who seem to have "walked in their shoes." In the end, however, issues will trump gender, she said; the fact that Palin is a woman will be interesting but not determinative.
The EMILY's List poll, conducted by Democratic pollster Geoff Garin, found that by 59 percent to 20 percent, female respondents believe that Palin was picked out of political considerations rather than because John McCain thought her qualified. Allen's response was that running mates are always chosen out of political considerations and that there's nothing cynical about that; to hold Palin to a higher standard is in itself a form of sexism.
National Journal
Experts Weigh In On How The Sex Card May Or May Not Be Played In The Election
Monday, Sept. 29, 2008
Will Englund
Sarah Palin's nomination as the Republican vice presidential candidate has put sexism front and center as an issue, and it is stirring deep and sometimes fierce emotions.
A quintet of top Republican women lambasted Palin's critics on Wednesday. One, Carly Fiorina, the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard and a McCain adviser, came close to suggesting that almost any criticism of the Alaska governor is out of bounds. "Many people have demeaned and belittled her experience," Fiorina said. "Women are sensitized and outraged."
Ellen Malcolm, head of EMILY's List, the liberal fundraising group, countered that Palin's selection was a transparent ploy that shows little respect for women. A poll that her group sponsored showed it wasn't working, she said. "It's a cynical miscalculation of women voters."
Palin clearly had the benefit of the doubt from the adoring convention crowd when she gave her acceptance speech on Wednesday night. She wowed them with her thoroughly upbeat demeanor.
Her supporters are focusing most of their pushback on those who question whether she can balance family responsibilities with the rigors of a campaign, though this question has not gotten much of an airing outside the blogosphere, and on what they called the "smears" and speculation about the pregnancy of her daughter Bristol. But, having detected sexism, some are now seeing it in almost every attack on her. (Not all, to be sure: Meg Whitman, a McCain adviser and the former chief of eBay, told Fox News that she thought the press was pursuing legitimate questions about Palin.)
If Palin takes on the traditional role of No. 2 candidate as attack dog -- and she flirted with that role in her speech -- it might seem as though she was trying to provoke sexist attacks in a culture that is still uncertain how to assess aggressive women.
It is a highly charged topic. Geraldine Ferraro, the only other woman ever to join a national ticket, ran into storms of vituperation and scorn. After her 1984 debate with George H.W. Bush, Barbara Bush was asked what she thought of her husband's opponent. "I can't say it, but it rhymes with rich," she replied.
Hillary Rodham Clinton complained of sexism in this year's Democratic primary campaign, and Republicans have been vocal in proclaiming their newfound solidarity with her.
An inescapable question is whether the Republicans are playing the sex card the way they sometimes accuse black Democratic politicians of playing the race card. The answer is no more straightforward with gender than it is with black-white relations. Some measure of outrage at what Palin is facing is clearly genuine; some measure of political calculation is just as real. The two don't have to be mutually exclusive. And an emotional charge like an accusation of sexism can be a powerful distraction in a campaign.
Deborah Tannen, a Georgetown professor whose book, "You Just Don't Understand," was a best-seller, said yesterday that on some level women can't escape their gender identity. Male politicians can be "neutral," but female politicians will always be "marked" as women in people's minds. The consequence of that, she said, is that "anything you say [as a woman or about a woman] is going to have extra meaning in it, and is going to get someone's back up."
Because the world is the way it is, there are no clear lines to guide political discourse. "Is it sexist to talk about women's clothing? Yes. But it tells us something about them. And the same with their hair."
"Obviously," said Charlotte Allen, a contributing editor at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, "there's a double standard. Conservative women are given no quarter. They're considered an outrage to their sex."
What Allen sees as "beyond the pale" sexist attacks on Palin have ironically served to overshadow legitimate issues, she said, such as the governor's controversial efforts to get her former brother-in-law fired from the state police.
As for the argument that Palin has put her family on the public stage, making them "fair game," Allen replied, "I don't understand that one bit."
She praised Barack Obama's declaration on Monday that family matters are off-limits, and his reminder to his supporters that his own mother was 18 when he was born. "Obama really showed class when he said this has got to stop," she said.
Will woman voters respond to Palin because she's a woman, or because of the attacks on her as a woman? Page Gardner, founder of Women's Voices, Women Vote, an advocacy group for unmarried women, said that people are naturally drawn to candidates who seem to have "walked in their shoes." In the end, however, issues will trump gender, she said; the fact that Palin is a woman will be interesting but not determinative.
The EMILY's List poll, conducted by Democratic pollster Geoff Garin, found that by 59 percent to 20 percent, female respondents believe that Palin was picked out of political considerations rather than because John McCain thought her qualified. Allen's response was that running mates are always chosen out of political considerations and that there's nothing cynical about that; to hold Palin to a higher standard is in itself a form of sexism.
National Journal
Friday, September 5, 2008
GENDER MATTERS
The following article appeared in last Sunday's New York Times.
August 31, 2008
Unity Deferred
Can You Cross Out ‘Hillary’ and Write ‘Sarah’?
By KATE ZERNIKE
It was an awfully complicated week to be a Hillary supporter.
Her voters headed into the Democratic National Convention in Denver with anger, with threats to reprise 1968. Then came the swelling of pride, as Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton gave what many considered the speech of her life. But, oh, the regret: if only she had campaigned with that kind of oratory!
By the time Mrs. Clinton graciously called for the convention to nominate Senator Barack Obama by acclamation, some of her supporters were working their way toward acceptance, wiping tears but nodding as she declared that the party had to unite behind him. Yet how could they not feel at least envy, watching the Obamas and the Bidens stroll out in triumph, and thinking that their candidate could have been in either role, at the top or bottom of that ticket. Not even vetted for V.P.!!
Then, of course, came Friday: “It turns out the women of America aren’t finished yet!” That was Sarah Palin, the Republican governor of Alaska, as Senator John McCain introduced her to the country as his vice-presidential nominee. “We can shatter that glass ceiling!” she proclaimed.
What’s a woman to do? Or at least, the woman who so badly wanted to see a woman in the White House?
Democrats, who make up the party that has long claimed the bigger pool of up-and-coming women, were quick to dismiss Ms. Palin as not experienced enough to be a heartbeat from the presidency. Mrs. Clinton’s supporters will never back her, they insisted, because she is against abortion rights.
Not. So. Fast.
That underestimated, or at least underappreciated, the raw feelings of many Clinton supporters, and particularly the women among them, despite the almost flawless display of harmony in Denver.
At the very least, Ms. Palin’s selection unleashes gender as a live issue again, just when Democrats thought they had it under control. (This might not be a bad time for Mr. Obama to reconsider that question of retiring Mrs. Clinton’s campaign debt.)
“This puts the issue back on center stage,” said Debbie Walsh, the director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. “There are going to be some really fascinating conversations that are going to come up around gender, in some ways that nobody expected.”
Lynn Hackney and Kim Hoover might perfectly illustrate the emotions of those whom Ms. Palin counts as “not finished yet.” They had gathered 20 equally passionate Hillary supporters at their home in Washington on Tuesday to watch Mrs. Clinton’s speech. “The Kleenex was flowing,” said Ms. Hackney, who declared the speech “brilliant.”
Thursday, when 38 million Americans watched Mr. Obama’s speech, they watched a movie, “The Squid and the Whale.”
No matter what Mrs. Clinton urged, they cannot support Mr. Obama.
“To go against Hillary is not easy for us,” Ms. Hackney said. “We don’t take that lightly. We just don’t think he has a message. We don’t think he’s good for women.”
“It’s not about being bitter for Hillary,” she said. Still, “I think the Democratic Party took women for granted in the primary, they didn’t step on sexism when they should have, and I can’t support them.”
Her phone, she said, began “burning up” when Mr. McCain announced Ms. Palin as his choice. “The fact that he went out on a limb to pick a woman, I’m very impressed by that.” She says she is not sure she can vote for a Republican, and will most likely stick to her plan to write in Mrs. Clinton. But, she said, “It’s opened my eyes to at least pay attention.”
Yes, they said, they were troubled by Ms. Palin’s opposition to abortion rights. But Ms. Hoover said she felt betrayed by pro-choice groups, and in particular politicians like Senators Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, who were helped into office by pro-choice groups like Emily’s List but came out early to support Mr. Obama over Mrs. Clinton, despite her being the first viable pro-choice woman to run for president.
Ms. Hoover has stopped giving to Emily’s List as a result. “It doesn’t make sense to me that, frankly, Emily’s List didn’t hold them accountable for having been elected on that platform but then not supporting that platform,” she said. “The setback for the pro-choice movement is almost deserved.”
Karen O’Connor, the director of the Women and Politics Institute at American University, said the convention’s constant repetition about the “18 million cracks in the glass ceiling” had left many people depressed. “If 18 million votes is not enough, what does it take in the Democratic Party to get a woman on the ticket?”
Healing may have come easier to those Clinton supporters who went to the convention, with all its women’s caucus meetings, the Emily’s List luncheon, and Mrs. Clinton’s meeting with her delegates, where she released them to vote as they pleased. It was hard to stand in a stadium of 80,000 listening to Mr. Obama and not be moved.
Lanny Davis, who was special counsel to President Bill Clinton and who came to exemplify the die-hard Hillary Clinton supporter so much that he was barely speaking to a son who supports Mr. Obama, said he was riding such a roller coaster of emotion that he finally Googled Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s five stages of grief.
“Denial, yes,” he said. “Anger, definitely. Bargaining, well, O.K. And depression, that’s definitely what I was going through.” He struggled to get to five: acceptance. “Even after we had our little Kumbaya meeting with Senator Obama I wasn’t doing well,” he said. But after the speeches, and Mr. Obama’s graceful acknowledgment of Mrs. Clinton in his speech accepting the nomination on Thursday night, Mr. Davis said, “O.K., I’m there.”
For supporters who saw the speeches only from home, said Ms. Walsh, it may have been harder, particularly with Mrs. Clinton coming off so forcefully.
“I think that makes it doubly hard for some of these women, because she really did look presidential.”
Mr. McCain’s choice, she said, “is a move for the women who weren’t at the convention.”
And even there, some women were not appeased. Ms. Walsh sat two seats away from an African-American woman who was crying during Mrs. Clinton’s speech. When the convention staff handed out “Unity” placards, the woman refused it.
The Palin nomination complicates the gender question in many ways.
Susie Tompkins-Buell, the Democratic fundraiser who declared herself the “poster child” for the “Hillary holdouts,” announced on Thursday that after her convention conversion she would transform Women Count, the organization she founded to support Mrs. Clinton in the final days of the primaries, into an organization to help protect women like Michelle Obama against misogyny.
But what will happen if the misogyny extends to Ms. Palin? There were hints of that on Friday, with Web sites showing photographs of her bare-shouldered in the days when she was runner-up for Miss Alaska, or as one caption read, “showing off her legs.” “Sarah Palin — Alaska Gov., McCain’s V.P. Pick, Kind of a Babe,” read one Internet headline.
The nomination promises to test the argument made during the primary that it wasn’t about sexism, it was about Hillary.
And, as Ruth B. Mandel, one of the founders of the Rutgers center, said, “this raises the question of when, where and how often women vote out of anger because there’s sexism.”
Republicans were stoking the gender wars before the Palin announcement.
Alex Castellanos, a Republican media strategist, revived the “Fatal Attraction” analogy in a television discussion about whether Mrs. Clinton would be able to gracefully cede the convention to her former rival.
Mr. McCain’s campaign ran an ad called “Passed Over,” highlighting the fact that she had not been seriously examined for the vice-presidential slot.
At the same time, the move is such a bald bid for the women’s vote that it might backfire. It seems likely that most Clinton supporters backed their candidate for her experience, not her gender. They may resent being reduced to the sum of their hormones.
When a Republican woman has run in the past, Ms. Mandel said, “we did not see a big benefit for her from the gender gap.” And Geraldine Ferraro did not prevent a landslide for Ronald Reagan, when she was on the ticket with Walter Mondale in 1984. But, as Ms. Mandel said, “It’s a different moment.”
The general election comes off a primary season of division, if not anger. And the country has been closely split in the last several elections.
Few people claim to understand the dynamics of the Clinton vote. In the most recent New York Times/CBS News poll, conducted Aug. 15-20, 22 percent of voters who said they had voted for Mrs. Clinton in the primaries say they now support Mr. McCain, while 61 percent back Mr. Obama. Among the women who voted for Mrs. Clinton, 17 percent say they support Mr. McCain, and 63 percent Mr. Obama. (The rest were undecided.)
“This says again, you can’t take these women for granted,” Ms. Walsh said. “There’s going to be a need to really reach out to them, to highlight the difference between John McCain and Barack Obama on the issues women care about.”
For all the emotion of the week, she said, the lesson is clear: “We matter.”
August 31, 2008
Unity Deferred
Can You Cross Out ‘Hillary’ and Write ‘Sarah’?
By KATE ZERNIKE
It was an awfully complicated week to be a Hillary supporter.
Her voters headed into the Democratic National Convention in Denver with anger, with threats to reprise 1968. Then came the swelling of pride, as Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton gave what many considered the speech of her life. But, oh, the regret: if only she had campaigned with that kind of oratory!
By the time Mrs. Clinton graciously called for the convention to nominate Senator Barack Obama by acclamation, some of her supporters were working their way toward acceptance, wiping tears but nodding as she declared that the party had to unite behind him. Yet how could they not feel at least envy, watching the Obamas and the Bidens stroll out in triumph, and thinking that their candidate could have been in either role, at the top or bottom of that ticket. Not even vetted for V.P.!!
Then, of course, came Friday: “It turns out the women of America aren’t finished yet!” That was Sarah Palin, the Republican governor of Alaska, as Senator John McCain introduced her to the country as his vice-presidential nominee. “We can shatter that glass ceiling!” she proclaimed.
What’s a woman to do? Or at least, the woman who so badly wanted to see a woman in the White House?
Democrats, who make up the party that has long claimed the bigger pool of up-and-coming women, were quick to dismiss Ms. Palin as not experienced enough to be a heartbeat from the presidency. Mrs. Clinton’s supporters will never back her, they insisted, because she is against abortion rights.
Not. So. Fast.
That underestimated, or at least underappreciated, the raw feelings of many Clinton supporters, and particularly the women among them, despite the almost flawless display of harmony in Denver.
At the very least, Ms. Palin’s selection unleashes gender as a live issue again, just when Democrats thought they had it under control. (This might not be a bad time for Mr. Obama to reconsider that question of retiring Mrs. Clinton’s campaign debt.)
“This puts the issue back on center stage,” said Debbie Walsh, the director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. “There are going to be some really fascinating conversations that are going to come up around gender, in some ways that nobody expected.”
Lynn Hackney and Kim Hoover might perfectly illustrate the emotions of those whom Ms. Palin counts as “not finished yet.” They had gathered 20 equally passionate Hillary supporters at their home in Washington on Tuesday to watch Mrs. Clinton’s speech. “The Kleenex was flowing,” said Ms. Hackney, who declared the speech “brilliant.”
Thursday, when 38 million Americans watched Mr. Obama’s speech, they watched a movie, “The Squid and the Whale.”
No matter what Mrs. Clinton urged, they cannot support Mr. Obama.
“To go against Hillary is not easy for us,” Ms. Hackney said. “We don’t take that lightly. We just don’t think he has a message. We don’t think he’s good for women.”
“It’s not about being bitter for Hillary,” she said. Still, “I think the Democratic Party took women for granted in the primary, they didn’t step on sexism when they should have, and I can’t support them.”
Her phone, she said, began “burning up” when Mr. McCain announced Ms. Palin as his choice. “The fact that he went out on a limb to pick a woman, I’m very impressed by that.” She says she is not sure she can vote for a Republican, and will most likely stick to her plan to write in Mrs. Clinton. But, she said, “It’s opened my eyes to at least pay attention.”
Yes, they said, they were troubled by Ms. Palin’s opposition to abortion rights. But Ms. Hoover said she felt betrayed by pro-choice groups, and in particular politicians like Senators Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, who were helped into office by pro-choice groups like Emily’s List but came out early to support Mr. Obama over Mrs. Clinton, despite her being the first viable pro-choice woman to run for president.
Ms. Hoover has stopped giving to Emily’s List as a result. “It doesn’t make sense to me that, frankly, Emily’s List didn’t hold them accountable for having been elected on that platform but then not supporting that platform,” she said. “The setback for the pro-choice movement is almost deserved.”
Karen O’Connor, the director of the Women and Politics Institute at American University, said the convention’s constant repetition about the “18 million cracks in the glass ceiling” had left many people depressed. “If 18 million votes is not enough, what does it take in the Democratic Party to get a woman on the ticket?”
Healing may have come easier to those Clinton supporters who went to the convention, with all its women’s caucus meetings, the Emily’s List luncheon, and Mrs. Clinton’s meeting with her delegates, where she released them to vote as they pleased. It was hard to stand in a stadium of 80,000 listening to Mr. Obama and not be moved.
Lanny Davis, who was special counsel to President Bill Clinton and who came to exemplify the die-hard Hillary Clinton supporter so much that he was barely speaking to a son who supports Mr. Obama, said he was riding such a roller coaster of emotion that he finally Googled Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s five stages of grief.
“Denial, yes,” he said. “Anger, definitely. Bargaining, well, O.K. And depression, that’s definitely what I was going through.” He struggled to get to five: acceptance. “Even after we had our little Kumbaya meeting with Senator Obama I wasn’t doing well,” he said. But after the speeches, and Mr. Obama’s graceful acknowledgment of Mrs. Clinton in his speech accepting the nomination on Thursday night, Mr. Davis said, “O.K., I’m there.”
For supporters who saw the speeches only from home, said Ms. Walsh, it may have been harder, particularly with Mrs. Clinton coming off so forcefully.
“I think that makes it doubly hard for some of these women, because she really did look presidential.”
Mr. McCain’s choice, she said, “is a move for the women who weren’t at the convention.”
And even there, some women were not appeased. Ms. Walsh sat two seats away from an African-American woman who was crying during Mrs. Clinton’s speech. When the convention staff handed out “Unity” placards, the woman refused it.
The Palin nomination complicates the gender question in many ways.
Susie Tompkins-Buell, the Democratic fundraiser who declared herself the “poster child” for the “Hillary holdouts,” announced on Thursday that after her convention conversion she would transform Women Count, the organization she founded to support Mrs. Clinton in the final days of the primaries, into an organization to help protect women like Michelle Obama against misogyny.
But what will happen if the misogyny extends to Ms. Palin? There were hints of that on Friday, with Web sites showing photographs of her bare-shouldered in the days when she was runner-up for Miss Alaska, or as one caption read, “showing off her legs.” “Sarah Palin — Alaska Gov., McCain’s V.P. Pick, Kind of a Babe,” read one Internet headline.
The nomination promises to test the argument made during the primary that it wasn’t about sexism, it was about Hillary.
And, as Ruth B. Mandel, one of the founders of the Rutgers center, said, “this raises the question of when, where and how often women vote out of anger because there’s sexism.”
Republicans were stoking the gender wars before the Palin announcement.
Alex Castellanos, a Republican media strategist, revived the “Fatal Attraction” analogy in a television discussion about whether Mrs. Clinton would be able to gracefully cede the convention to her former rival.
Mr. McCain’s campaign ran an ad called “Passed Over,” highlighting the fact that she had not been seriously examined for the vice-presidential slot.
At the same time, the move is such a bald bid for the women’s vote that it might backfire. It seems likely that most Clinton supporters backed their candidate for her experience, not her gender. They may resent being reduced to the sum of their hormones.
When a Republican woman has run in the past, Ms. Mandel said, “we did not see a big benefit for her from the gender gap.” And Geraldine Ferraro did not prevent a landslide for Ronald Reagan, when she was on the ticket with Walter Mondale in 1984. But, as Ms. Mandel said, “It’s a different moment.”
The general election comes off a primary season of division, if not anger. And the country has been closely split in the last several elections.
Few people claim to understand the dynamics of the Clinton vote. In the most recent New York Times/CBS News poll, conducted Aug. 15-20, 22 percent of voters who said they had voted for Mrs. Clinton in the primaries say they now support Mr. McCain, while 61 percent back Mr. Obama. Among the women who voted for Mrs. Clinton, 17 percent say they support Mr. McCain, and 63 percent Mr. Obama. (The rest were undecided.)
“This says again, you can’t take these women for granted,” Ms. Walsh said. “There’s going to be a need to really reach out to them, to highlight the difference between John McCain and Barack Obama on the issues women care about.”
For all the emotion of the week, she said, the lesson is clear: “We matter.”
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