15 November, 2007 | Leave a Comment
I have not really been following the 2008 presidential race. The election seems like such a long way off, though I guess the primaries are looming. Even though I haven’t been following the coverage closely, if I had to pick the person I’d choose to represent the Democrats, I’d choose Hillary Clinton. Why? Because she’s a woman.
Gasp!
Yes, I know that’s not the “correct” thing to say. Most women I know trip all over themselves to declare that they would never (never!) vote for a woman because she’s a woman, that a candidate’s gender does not influence them at all.
My question is, why the hell not?
I will [most likely] vote for a Democrat for president. Hillary Clinton is qualified to be president — she’s a senator and has a long history in politics. So I prefer her over the other candidates because she is a woman. I’m not ashamed to admit it. I’m sure people will ask me why I just don’t vote for the most qualified person. This question annoys me in many ways. Implicit in this question is the idea that female candidates are less likely to be qualified than men. Secondly, I am not an idiot. I would not vote for someone who is not qualified and who does not believe in values that are important to me. What I am saying is that gender is a factor that I will consider. In a circumstance such as this Democratic primary, it can sway my vote.
Women are woefully under-represented in American politics at every level. The World Economic Forum’s just-released annual rankings of gender equality around the world has the United States slipping to 31st place — just above Kazakhstan. The report states: “The percentage of female legislators, senior officials and managers fell from 46% to 42% and the scores received on wage equality for similar work fell from 0.68 to 0.64.” This is a disgrace. It is vital that we get more women elected. It’s not good enough to elect men who are sympathetic to women’s causes. We do not need men to speak for us — we can speak for ourselves.
Having a female head of state is very important symbolically too. Latin America now has a couple female presidents (hurrah!). Even a country like Pakistan — hardly a hotbed of women’s rights — has had a woman at the helm. It’s well past the time that the United States takes this step.
The white male power structure in the United States is terrified that women (at over half the population) will use our power in numbers to vote as a block. This has yet to happen, but perhaps one day it will. As such, the notion is floated that female voters are expected to be “gender blind.” If you acknowledge that gender has influenced you, you are made to feel that your vote is not based on valid reasons, that you are an uneducated voter, that you’re just voting on a whim, as if you’re picking the candidate based on who has the nicest smile. I think many women are indoctrinated in this way of thinking.
Well, as I have already demonstrated, I have strong reasons for letting gender influence my vote. And do you think male voters are “gender blind”? Of course not. If they were, there’d be a lot more women in elected office. On the contrary, I think it’s acceptable on some level to not vote for a woman because she’s a woman. We see polls in the media all the time asking voters if they would be willing to vote for a woman for president. Why are there no polls asking if we’re willing to vote for another white dude as president — the current one is doing such a great job, after all.
This is not to imply that it is only men who would refuse to vote for a woman candidate on the basis of gender. There are plenty of self-loathing women out there who would never vote for a woman even if she shared all of their views. One of my grandmothers would most likely never vote for a woman (unless a man told her to). Women in positions of real power are very threatening to many people; to many, it seems “unnatural.”
Hillary Clinton knows this all too well. The Republicans hate her with a kind of venom that is scary. And in their quest to destroy her by any means, they have never hesitated to resort to misogyny in the past and that is where they will turn now with increasing frequency. A particularly sickening example came recently at a John McCain rally when a self-loathing woman stood up and asked McCain: “How do we beat the bitch?” John McCain, Vietnam War hero extraordinaire, began to laugh with glee. Then some pig from the audience shouted “I thought she was talking about my ex-wife!” And John McCain began to laugh even more. Then he told the woman from the audience that she asked a good question. [Watch the video here.] By the way, the questioner never mentioned Hillary Clinton by name.
If this same moron in the audience had asked: “How will you beat that asshole Barack Obama,” or “How will you beat that motherf—-er John Edwards,” I wonder if McCain would have just laughed? I don’t think he would have, since such public discourse is normally considered to be undignified. What a real man you are, John McCain. You should feel proud.
This is just a small taste of the ugliness that is to come. These incidents just strengthen my view that we need a woman president. This is one person who’s supporting the bitch. Go Hillary go.
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but how is voting *for* someone based on their gender any better than voting *against* someone because of their gender? i fail to see the difference, except in the direction of bias. and if i don’t want people voting *against* a woman because she’s a woman, then am i not just reinforcing that bias which i want to eliminate, that which says that gender is even relevant to the question of who is best to run the country?
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in other words, if i vote based on gender, i am not only acknowledging that gender bias exists (because of course it does), but also validating it by giving it more merit than other, much more important factors.
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We are starting from a place of gross inequality. Women lack full representation in the government. Thus, I think the question of gender is highly relevant.
If one believes that gender is not relevant, then one must also believe that the current male-dominated government operates from a place that is gender-neutral. I don’t believe this to be the case. Rather, I think that the US government acts from a place that is hostile to women (and children). To redress this, there must be more women elected. This won’t happen unless we champion strong women candidates because they are women. I don’t think a gender balance will magically happen on its own.
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I agree with Jen’s point.
I do agree with you that McCain’s behaviour was disgusting.
For me, she is just too middle/to the right so I can’t support her at this stage. . . but I am a big pinko. I also wasn’t a enourmous fan of Bill either.
If she gets the nomination, I will vote for her but until then I am leaning toward Obama. By no means a perfect canidate, but he is more alligned to me.
I do need to sit down and really pour over the news however because I haven’t been a political junkie like I have been in past years.
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[...] … These incidents just strengthen my view that we need a woman president…. source: how do we beat the bitch?, [...]
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Rebecca Says:
November 15th, 2007 at 11:31 pmI just want to add in:
I am from Arizona. Do not vote for McCain. Don’t let your pets vote for McCain, and don’t let your crazy Aunt Claire vote for McCain.
Friends don’t let friends vote for McCain.
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Anita Says:
November 16th, 2007 at 1:44 amOh dear. I’m black and a woman. What to do?
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Anna Says:
November 16th, 2007 at 2:04 amThis reminds me of a rerun of Will and Grace I saw on TV recently. Not exactly quality television, but hey– I’m a student, can’t afford cable, so it was either that or another episode of Dirty Jobs.
Anyway, the characters all choose different candidates for city council elections based on their minority status; the Jew, the woman, the black man, the homosexual. And it’s a mad-cap romp through how ridiculous lending your blind allegiance can be when you don’t know all the facts.
I think it’s clear that you’re not Debra Messing here. But I think that there ARE certainly some female voters in our country who don’t know much else about Clinton other than her reproductive organs and will be awfully surprised if she’s elected…
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I’ve seen that episode of Will & Grace, which is one of my favorite sitcoms. They didn’t know anything about their candidates besides that they were female, gay, black, etc. Hillary Clinton has been in the national spotlight for over 15 years, so I know plenty about her. We know where she stands. Can the same be said for Obama? No. Can the same be said for Edwards? No. They are not tested candidates. They’ve yet to really prove what they can do.
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I’ve been thinking about this and would like to share a few more things:
1) We only talk about gender when the candidate is a woman. Thereby, we assume that men operate from a genderless place. They do not. They operate as men.
2) Sort of related to #1, this famous study shows that congressmen with daughters vote differently on issues concerning women than do congressmen with only sons. This proves (as if proof were needed) that the gender of a politician plays a central role in how that politician thinks and votes. Thus, we need more women candidates because they are women. Oh, BTW, congresswomen weren’t included in this study because there are not enough of them to provide a big enough sample. NATCH.
2) I think I know what the problem is for many women:
Women want to be nice.
Women are trained to be nice since birth. It’s almost as if we have this attitude that we don’t want to cause trouble because assertiveness makes us “masculine.” So like good girls, we’ll never consider the gender of a politician, since we’ve been instructed not to. And thus, we’ll continue to screw ourselves over.
Well, what I have to say to that is: politics is not for nice people. Politics is a vicious, nasty, dirty, bloody war. Those who have power will never give it up without a fight. Those who want to win at politics must fight in this war. There is no place for niceness. Why should women always be expected to take the moral high-ground?
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Gregory Says:
November 16th, 2007 at 11:19 am“If you acknowledge that gender has influenced you, you are made to feel that your vote is not based on valid reasons, that you are an uneducated voter, that you’re just voting on a whim, as if you’re picking the candidate based on who has the nicest smile.”
The abandonment of enhanced programs for female canditature by some political parties was driven by females who were over the first hurdle and who shut the gate on other fast-track candidates.
It could be argued that the de facto position for male voters in most parts of the world is to vote for male parties because that is what they are wanting & getting and that culture doesn’t vary by region really.
Sinn Fein in Ireland, during the Anglo-Irish war, endorsed female canditature because they just did, they were moving towards war with the British Empire and in for a penny and in for a pound. They could afford to be radical.
Countess Markiewicz was sentenced to death, for her part in the Easter Rising, she was however spared the fate of her male comrades, and she went on to become the first woman elected to the British House of Commons.
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Gadfleye Says:
November 16th, 2007 at 3:00 pmRegardless of gender, a vote for Hillary is a vote for more of the same that has been going on in America for the past 25 years – starving the poor, selling out the middle class, coddling the rich, and bombing countries who don’t bow to our main foreign policy goal – American global dominance. Why not vote for change candidates like Ron Paul or Dennis Kucinich who are not afraid to tell the truth? What’s the difference if you elect a female candidate if that candidate represents more of the same? If one thing is clear in America right now, it’s that maintaining the status quo is a recipe for disaster.
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It is exactly Ms. Clinton’s record that scares the absolute shit out of me. I won’t cry if she gets the nod. Just won’t drink to her either.
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Gadfleye: I appreciate your comments, but one can either choose to live in a world that is 100% idealistic or one that is based on reality. Dennis Kucinich is not going to become president. He’s not even a front-runner in the Democratic primary.
I do believe in idealism. Plenty of my beliefs are idealistic to the point that people make fun of me. But in politics, I’m a realist.
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Gadfleye Says:
November 16th, 2007 at 9:03 pmI think that’s the first time I’ve ever been called an idealist (usually it’s more along the lines of nihilist or cynic). Guess I’m going a little soft in the head in my old age
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“If one believes that gender is not relevant, then one must also believe that the current male-dominated government operates from a place that is gender-neutral. I don’t believe this to be the case.”
absolutely not.
but i don’t think you get where you want to go by pointing yourself in the wrong direction.
for myself, i will not allow myself to stoop to voting at the same level as those who vote for someone just because they have a penis. i feel it demeans my vote, demeans me.
i admit to being a starry-eyed idealist
hell, i voted for Nader! -
i would have hoped that i have given valid reasons for my decision to let gender influence my vote. i do not, in any way, see it as stooping.
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SpliceGirl Says:
November 17th, 2007 at 12:24 amI think next time you should do a post on something a little less heated. Maybe something about mandatory abortions for girls under 18 or something.
Have you noticed that people jump all over the whole “why shouldn’t women vote for Hilary just because she’s a woman?” thought process but then no one says anything when African-Americans say they are voting for Obama simply because “it’s time there was an African-American candidate.”
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SpiceGirl-
If a blog I read said they were voting for Mr. Obama simply because he was black, I would comment that I felt that was a simplistic view even though I support him.
I hope that I have gotten where I am at in my life because of my intellegence and talent.
I pray that if Ms. Clinton becomes the next President it is because of her brains and not her XX status.
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Ken Says:
November 17th, 2007 at 12:45 amAnglofille,
Just discovered your excellent site. You are right about politics in the real world. In a previous incarnation I was a political manager (for a man I helped elect Governor of our state) and power has to be seized. No one surrenders without a fight.
I admired Bill clinton’s ability to throw a punch. Hillary can throw one two. That said, I was not a big fan of those two. I will vote for her if she’s the nominee, but I am inclined to go for Chris Dodd right now.
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Poor, poor Andrew Sullivan. Hillary Clinton’s bossy screechiness drives him wild.She grates on me more with every minute I have to listen to her. And that whole passive-aggressive crap about throwing mud and Republican talking points drove me once aga…
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Madge Says:
November 18th, 2007 at 6:06 pmElizabeth Cady Stanton and the women of the movement, having split into at-odds-factions, were forced to step aside while suffrage was afforded exclusively to black *males*, (the concept of equality-for-ALL being too much to consider all-of-a-piece by the boys-club of the time in the eyes of the predecedents to the Conservative Republican Womens’ Club faction of the womens’ suffrage movement.) Apparently.
Never willing to settle for baby-steps, that’s when Stanton lost the cause she had fought for her entire adult life. Unfortunately.
Clearly in the case of presidential politics ‘08, (“a woman, a black man and a hispanic”), Clinton’s first-gentleman, former President Clinton, is using his considerable influence to see that this does not happen again. At least *not* in the case of *his* first-lady.
“You’ve come a long way baby!”
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I’m voting for Hillary!
I’m not just voting for her because she’s a woman, but it doesn’t hurt. I also think she’s the best qualified candidate.
But I admit that if I thought she were say a little less qualified than a male opponent then I would probably still vote for her because she was a woman.
I’m not stupid, either. If she was way less qualified, some trumped up grandstander running to make a point – then I wouldn’t vote for her. If I hated her politics I wouldn’t vote for her.
Go Hillary!
