I've read and re-read the piece by Gloria Steinem in the NY Times. I've read the many critiques about the piece from women, men, and people of color. While I'm not sure that I have anything else to add to the discussion, I feel the need to get onto my feminist soapbox that I purchased with a good amount of dollars (and years) in getting a Feminist Politics degree. So bear with me as I figure out my thoughts on this whole election, race vs. gender issue, and whether or not to vote for a black man or white woman.
When I started college, I was pretty dead set on majoring in mathematics. Looking back, I'm not sure why exactly. I think it was mainly because I was good at it. I certainly wasn't passionate about math. It came easy to me. I am a logical person. Math is logical. Plug in a number, use a formula, get an answer. Very logical. Very easy for me to comprehend.
After a year and a half of taking calculus, linear mathematics, advance calculus, super-advance calculus for math majors, statistics, mathematical theory... I was so over math. Without the passion, math became a chore. I started skipping classes, even failed a couple. Not from lack of skill, but from lack of trying. Math was boring. And I was faced with a grim reality that I would be doing this for the rest of my life. And doing it for another 11 weeks to finish the quarter was already sending me into full blown depression.
On a whim, I took a general education class called Intro to Feminism. It was taught only once a year, by the very esteemed Bettina Aptheker. A couple of the women on my dormitory floor where taking it. And since it fulfilled a GE requirement, I decided to take it too.
That course changed my life.
Two weeks into the course, I called home and told my parents that I was switching my major from mathematics to Women's Studies (now called Feminist Studies). I had found my passion. I was learning about social deconstruction and reading about Gloria Steinem and the Feminist Mystique. I was taking courses taught by Angela Davis and Karen Brown, amongst other accomplished feminist scholars. I was a feminist. Not a man-hating, lesbian, kill the patriarchy feminist. I wasn't extreme. But I saw the world in a different light. And even though my feminist roots were clearly about Western Feminism and lacked much of the Third-World or Grassroots perspective, I was a feminist.
I graduated college not that long ago. In this decade. But it surprises me how women who are my age and women who just a few years younger... Women who will undoubtedly benefit from the Women's Movement of the 70s and 80s, have no idea what Feminism is. They think the playing field is level because more women now graduate from college, because their mother's work, because they can be a US Senator, because there have been a handful of female CEOs and women in high power positions. They don't understand the historical significance of women wearing pants or burning bras. They don't understand how gender and race and class are still major barriers in this country. In this world.
No. Instead they site examples of reverse discrimination. They make comments about how race doesn't matter. About how they are not going to vote for Hillary Clinton just because she is a woman. About how she cried on TV (although I didn't see any tears) or about how she is a bitch or not genuine or lacking authenticity. They say all of this with the twisted perspective that the double standard no longer exists.
And that really makes me mad. In fact, it pisses me off.
It irks me that we Americans talk about how democratic and free is this country. Yet we have never elected a woman or a minority to the highest public office. Meanwhile, many of the countries that we so publicly point out as being oppressive, corrupt, and against women's rights - those same countries have had women in power.
It kills me that there are people in this country that still believe a woman cannot be President. That a woman cannot stand at the pulpit and preach. That a woman cannot work without sacrificing the sanctity of her marriage or motherhood. It kills me that we choose to not look at the double-standard that still exists for women in the god ole USofA. That we pretend to "see" Hillary as a bitch or not authentic or whatever media buzz word is being passed around today instead of critically examining the lens in which we looking through in the first place.
I'm not saying that Clinton is the best candidate for the job. In all honesty, I haven't decided who I am going to vote for in the primary. But I am sick of the discussions about Hillary's hair, her *almost* tears, her decision to stay with her husband after his very public affair, her lack of softness. We say we want to judge a candidate by the contents of their character, but then we play childish playground politics when it comes to Hillary.
Someday, potentially this year, America will elect its first woman president. And no one can still answer why it has taken so long. It's far too obvious to me as to why Clinton is portrayed as she is in the press and with other candidates. Men don't like women in any position of authority, let alone president of the most powerful nation in the world. And from the gist of the media reports and polls, women don't either.
I am excited to potentially not only witness a historical moment of electing a minority (yes, I am including women as a minority) but to actively take part in the moment. But I'm sick of the divisive, forced choice of race or gender. You can't just play identity politics. Pick a candidate based on their platform. Based on their experience. Don't base it on the color of their skin or their gender.
