Out Dated, But Still True.
Momma-
I have believed - and have articulated aloud - for some time now, that hillary’s gender is a greater detriment to her candidacy than is barack’s race - mostly because we Americans as a community tend truly not to realize that gender still IS a driving force in our ideological, political, familial, political make-up. As is race, fer damn sure, but we still tend to feel far more compelled to be sensitive to dialogue regarding race than we do towards gender (such sensitivity NOT being unwarranted). I think it is a PROBLEM that clinton’s public image is invariably determined by her gender. And that it absolutely speaks to lingering OVERT sexism, though it is so rarely recognized as such. As a political and socially active cause, perhaps feminism itself has hit the proverbial “glass ceiling”. I don’t for a second think that, as a womyn, I am not subjected to categorizations and diminshings based on truly nothing more than my sex organs (and I do believe that, while an individual’s sex is biologically determined through body parts, our genders are socially constructed. - though, there is a slippery scale sometimes even to the extent to which our sex is biologically pre-determined, when one considers the multitude of cases of infants born with ambiguous genitalia, and the drs and young parents who surgically make a decision for them-). To be clear- I have, even in recent weeks, been absolutely and clearly subjected to gendered assumptions about my professionalism and my maturity by a collaborator who should damn well know better.
All of this being what it is,
I support obama because of his poltical platform, NOT because of his gender NOR his race. I think it’s a damn shame that hillary’s campaign may have well been altered by the fact of her gender (note- how often is it that we refer to presidential candidates by their first names (rarely) - but, even I am more likely to refer to her as hillary than as clinton - as I do with obama and mccain), but hillary is just but a visible example of a systemic problem that has not gone away. Such questions and problems will, I believe, exist well after both clintons are long dead - and, whether hillary clinton becomes the first madame president or not, these systemic forces will journey on, and it is our responsibility to fight them on every personal, community, and national level.
Point being- I think we want to think - and some of us truly do think - that gender is no longer an active(/destructive) political force. The fact that it is NOT typically recognized as such, but does indeed play such a part, is what becomes so dangerous. We don’t even realize when we are making gendered choices or assumptions or developing gendered opinions.
Sometimes we certainly do, as with the hillary nutcracker - but it is the citizens who don’t even REALIZE that gender impacts their view of hillary who are most dangerous. As Malcolm x said (paraphrashing): give me a southern racist over a northern liberal any day of the week, because at least with the self-described southern racist, I know where I stand.
Love,
Laura :-)
