Obamas’ View of Gender issues – not on their radar
By LisaB on November 21, 2008 at 6:00 AM in Current Affairs
At realclearpolitics is a piece that will no doubt sink in the plethora of “post-election Palin bashing.”
It is time to stop kidding ourselves. This wasn’t a breakthrough year for American women in politics. It was a brutal one.
The glass ceiling remains firmly in place — not cracked, as Hillary Clinton insisted as she tried to claim rhetorical victory after her defeat in the Democratic nominating contest. It wasn’t even scratched with the candidacy of Sarah Palin as the Republican vice presidential nominee — unless you consider becoming an object of national ridicule to be a symbol of advancement. As divergent as these two women are ideologically and temperamentally, as different as are their resumes, they both banged their heads — hard — against the ceiling. Both were bruised. So was the goal of advancing women in political leadership.
The author goes on to talk about women “in the pipeline” noting that no real advances are evident here either. Women have not become more numerous in political office. Period.
Read the rest ->
Including incumbents and newcomers, a record number of women will be serving in Congress, but still only 17 percent of its members will be female. This is where that record places us: on a par with the legislative representation women have achieved in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. The United Nations, which tracks women’s global political advancement, says that at this rate, it will take women in the developing world 40 years to reach parity with men.
How long will it take us? We already are well into the fourth decade since the contemporary women’s movement of the 1970s spawned a generation that sought to claim an equal place in the halls of power.
Those who watched the media’s sexist hazing of both Clinton and Palin often rationalize this treatment as the result of these two candidates’ particular personalities and the legitimacy — or presumed illegitimacy — of their campaigns. But Barbara Lee, whose Boston-based family foundation has conducted extensive research of gubernatorial races involving women, routinely identifies the same undercurrents in state campaigns. Voters demand more experience of a woman candidate, and judge her competence separately from whether she is sufficiently “likable.” Male candidates typically must clear only the competence bar to be judged — as Obama indelicately put it during a primary debate — “likable enough.”
Bonnie Erbe says BO’s cabinet needs more women. Well, yeah.
Clearly there’s no way President-Elect Obama’s folks can claim the pool of qualified women is too small. That’s so 1970s. There are women eminently qualified to serve as Secretary of Defense or Treasury. A woman in either post would break new barriers for the Obama administration, as women voters helped him break the race barrier in the White House. My conservative friends spout GOP rhetoric averring that gender should not be the preeminent criterion for cabinet posts. Of course it shouldn’t! But a disproportionately small percentage of female appointees also speaks volumes about the administration’s attitude towards women.
Now is the time for women leaders to keep the administration-elect considering gender diversity in the appointment process. The warning signs are, so far, not terrific. If women leaders wait until the cabinet appointments are publicly announced, it’s too late.
Erbe also addresses how MO is packaged right now, and that is interesting. We know MO went to high-powered schools and worked as an attorney. Yet she now says she wants to be “mom-in-chief” as if there isn’t an ambitious bone in her body. Uh-huh.
When in doubt, blame the media. That used to be an overused conservative tactic. Now it’s being adopted, apparently, by the Kool-Aid imbibing Obama fans who are so blind to the Obamas’ flaws they scramble mightily to find someone other than the Obamas to blame for these flaws.
———————
As for President-elect Obama, I probably agree with him on 90 percent of his environmental agenda, 90 percent of his diversity agenda, and 20 percent of his tax-policy agenda. I am extremely disappointed so far with what I see developing as his gender agenda: his position on women’s rights.
Erbe goes on to reply to a columnist complaining that the media is “mommifying” MO. (As a mom myself, I must say that’s insulting, but who cares?)
So please, Ms. Traister, get a grip and stop foaming at least long enough to realize this is not some media conspiracy to turn Michelle Obama into Mrs. Mom but an Obama staff contrivance to tone down Michelle Obama’s negatives. After she made campaign trail comments about being proud of her country for the first time (only following her husband’s success) and disparaging Senator Clinton, the campaign had no choice but to tone her down, or the country would have turned on her husband.
It’s sad both she and Senator Obama are going along with it. It’s beginning to look as if they’re a couple much more concerned with racial than gender parity. As one who has spent her life fighting for both, it’s distressing for me to see gender parity fall by the wayside.
I think the racial calculus was always the choice. Very early in the primaries, BO signaled his willingness to use sexist language and imagery. That he now doesn’t all-of-a-sudden become a gender breakthrough politician should not surprise anyone even remotely paying attention. What also shouldn’t surprise anyone is MO had enough ambition for her husband to actually say “mom-in-chief” and to subordinate both her career and achievements to the role of political wife.
MO learned that a woman runs into trouble when appearing strong in her own right. She will get hammered for being too tough, not feminine, etc etc, ad nauseum. So, she made a calculation. Appear in the “acceptable role;” get elected, then, presumably, show your real colors. Great. We get to look forward to more “MO isn’t just a mom-in-chief – she’s well read!” stories for the forseeable future.
But I think it is also a bad beginning. While Hillary Clinton was always upfront about who she was and what she could do, earning lots of enmity for it, MO deliberately dissembles. She knows how the gender race is run – but rather than opposing the system of making women appear limited, she embraces it. For BO’s ambitions AND her own. She will have influence and power, and she knows it. So she lied or allowed others to lie about her. I suppose they expect someone else to work on gender parity in leadership before their own girls reach adulthood.
Am I angry about this? Not really. I expected no less.
by Ronald Scott
* More novels by 
* 
(
)
- You'll have access to 18 million movies, TV shows, songs, magazines, and books, as well as ultra-fast Web browsing with Amazon Silk -- faster than iPad. Full e-mail and document access and a keyboard. Fire can transmit what is on your screen onto a connected TV or monitor without an accessory. It runs Flash (iPad doesn't). 
