Obama wins it, but that's not my biggest disappointment

The airwaves will be full of pontification today, and I don't want to add to the ridiculousness of it all. As a Clinton supporter, of course I am disappointed at the final outcome. But let me tell you what disappoints me most about this entire Democratic primary race.

First and foremost, I am disappointed in many of my fellow Democrats, and with the Democratic leadership. I make no excuses for Hillary Clinton's defeat -- it was a very close contest, and she came close to winning. In the end, counting the Michigan voters, Clinton won the popular vote, with 17,790,119 votes to Obama's 17,495,726. Without the Michigan voters, Obama won the nomination by 0.1 percent. The popular vote is a little tricky to get a true handle on, because some states have not released their final votes tallies. Even with the best estimates, however, Obama won the popular vote by 0.2 percent. In the end, I think Barack Obama had a better marketing team and better fundraisers.

And as Hillary Clinton decides where she goes from here, so do her women supporters. You see, we all got a little beaten up during this race. I thought it would be over by now, but this morning I turned on CNN to get the final numbers, and was subjected to Obama supporter former Congressman Ben "Cooter" Jones. I wouldn't have believed if I had not heard him twice refer to Senator Clinton as "Miss Clinton."

It's the kind of subtle diminishing of our accomplishments that women have endured for our entire lives, and the kind of talk we thought was unacceptable. But in the glow of Obama's victory, not a word was said to 'ol Cooter.

Because it's still o.k. in American society to belittle and make fun of women.

You might say, well Sue J., did you just wake up to this fact? Of course not -- I've spent a lifetime competing with boys, then men. I've heard the comments around the conference room table, in the lunchroom, on the playing field. But where I hadn't heard it before was from my fellow Democrats. And that has been the biggest disappointment of this election, by far.

A while ago there was a story in the news about a man in Georgia selling t-shirts with a picture of Obama looking like the character Curious George. There was -- quite rightly -- public outcry at the racist overtones of the image. That seems to be then end of the t-shirts.

Compare that with the public reaction to the "Hillary Nutcracker." These items were proudly sold in gift shops throughout America. Because it's still o.k. in American society to belittle and make fun of women.

Many feminists have tried to co-op this language and these items, as oppressed groups often do in order to gain some control over their destiny. So, we see women buying the "Nutcracker" and declaring it to be funny. And we see the slogan "Bitch is the new black" arise as we try to take back control of language used to belittle us.

Throughout this campaign, Hillary Clinton has been subjected to (almost) unbelievably sexist comments from all angles. I won't list them all here -- Shakespeare's Sister has done a wonderful job of keeping track of the most egregious examples with the Hillary Sexism Watch, which is currently at 104. So disappointing about many of those examples is the fact that no one in the Democratic party stood up and defended this woman. Especially since the attacks often came from members of the Democratic party itself.

Of course I am proud of this country and our party for electing a man of color as the nominee. But that pride is balanced with the another truth, which -- until this year -- I naively thought was history:

It's still o.k. in American society to belittle and make fun of women.

Keep Up With the Boys...But Don't Be Better

From the incomparable Melissa McEwan over at Shakesville comes this post from which one cannot help but draw parallels to the Democratic Party nomination disaster ....

Jamie Nared, a 12-year-old girl who is six feet tall and an extremely talented basketball player, has been playing on a mixed-sex team since the second grade—but has suddenly been banned from playing with boys after parents complained. Her coach, Michael Abraham, and her parents (and, frankly, video of her game) suggest that the complaints arose because Jamie is so good and makes the boys on opposing teams look bad.

Jaime's mom, Reiko Williams, said the issue boiled over after a particular game. "She scored 30 points," Williams said. "I remember one play. She stole the ball, dribbled up court and made a behind-the-back pass to a teammate. He missed the lay-in, and she grabbed the rebound and put it in. I think it was just too much for some of those parents."

Abraham put Jaime on the boys team to match her skills and keep her with peers. He has had her play on high-school girls teams, but many travel and "her parents want her to be around kids her own age," Abraham said.

Neal Franzer, The Hoop's director of operations, said Thursday that parents were "adamant" that their complaints have nothing to do with Jaime's skills.

"They said the problem was the boys were playing differently against her because she was a girl," he said. "They'd been taught to not push a girl, so they weren't fouling her hard, and the focus had shifted from playing basketball to noticing a girl was on the floor with them."

To which Melissa keenly observes:

You'll note there are two little bits of victim-blaming there: 1. Jamie is a girl—so the boys can't help but be too easy on her; and 2. Jamie is a girl—so the boys can't help but be distracted by her. Either way: It's her fault.

And here's where I can't help but think about all of the asshats pundits who are calling for Hillary Clinton to quit the race:

There's a solution to this problem, naturally: Let Jamie play with the boys her own age, as she's been doing. But it's better to make her, and all the rest of the girls in her age group, suffer than risk emasculating boys who her team may beat. And forget about the boys on her team who are challenged and inspired by Jamie, like her teammate Joey Alfieri, who adorably says, "Her greatness, like, it, like, sprinkles off and goes onto us, and it kinda makes us better as a player, too."

Instead, it's the same old shit: Protect the boys most indoctrinated into the patriarchy (and/or their parents) and fiercely defend their privilege. Maude forbid they actually have to face the possibility that there might be a girl on the planet who's better at something than they are, or learn how to treat girls as their equals.

Meanwhile, the girls are taught one of the most important lessons of the patriarchy: The promise that if you work hard and do as well as the boys you'll be treated equally is a lie. If you do as well or—gasp!—better than the boys, you'll just be barred from competing, or segregated, or stopped however the rules allow, or demeaned until you quit.

My emphasis there, but please read the rest of the post here.

Clinton should fight for the Democratic nomination, as well as for anything else that's on the plate

Yes, I'm back from vacation and I'm all fired up again about the democratic primary. I pretty much avoided watching the news all week, just trying to stay current with the natural disasters in Myanmar and China, equal marriage legislation in California, and the weather forecast for Cape Cod. But yesterday I had a lot of time to read the newspapers , and I'm really starting to get annoyed (again) at the way Hillary Clinton is being treated by the Democratic Party.

Here's the thing: Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are very close in this contest in both total votes and delegates. Yes, she's behind. But she's close. Very close. In fact, after winning several early large contests with his stadium style rhetoric, Obama hasn't continued his pace, but has instead basically maintained the same lead, not really gaining much more.

So why should she drop out? It's not unprecedented that a candidate should take this contest all the way to the convention. In fact, one of Obama's earliest supporters, Sen. Ted Kennedy, did just this in 1980, when he tried to get Jimmy Carter's delegates released at the convention in Madison Square Garden so that he (Kennedy) would get the nomination.

No, what's unprecedented is that this time it's a woman who is challenging the authority. So when Hillary Clinton stands up and says "I'm in this for everyone who's ever been down and kept fighting," it rings true for every woman who has ever worked hard only to be shut out. Oh, it's usually quite subtle, the shutting out. When I was a kid, we didn't have organized sports for girls, so for this tomboy it just became "sorry, you can't play." In the working world it's much more subtle, with women simply not being considered for certain opportunities, and then being offered less salary for the same positions.

And before you say, "yeah, and see what happened in 1980 -- we elected Ronald Reagan!" Please remember our state of affairs in 1980. In 1980, President Jimmy Carter had horrible approval ratings, inflation was through the roof, hostages had been taken in Iran, and along came the Hollywood Actor Playing the Part of President, Ronald Reagan.

Add to this the fact that Kennedy never really supported Carter once he became the presidential candidate. Hillary Clinton has vowed many times to support the democratic candidate for president, whomever it may be.

Hillary Clinton is an incredibly smart and dedicated woman. She has worked diligently to be where she is today. She deserves a fair shot at the presidential nomination. To suggest she simply "drop out" because she's behind is to diminish all that she has done, and to diminish how far we have come as women in American society. If you doubt that she has done more than Barack Obama and has the more substantive knowledge of politics and world affairs, please read the front page story from yesterday's New York Times, The Story of Obama, Written by Obama, which examines the story behind his two best-selling books. The books deserve a close look, because that's just about all we have to go by if we want to understand who Obama is. Unfortunately, in his effort to tell a good story Obama uses devices such as composite characters and changing the chronology of events to better suit the story.

“The book is so literary,” said Arnold Rampersad, a professor of English at Stanford University who teaches autobiography and is the author of a recent biography of Ralph Ellison. “It is so full of clever tricks — inventions for literary effect — that I was taken aback, even astonished. But make no mistake, these are simply the tricks that art trades in, and out of these tricks is supposed to come our realization of truth.”

It has worked out well for the Junior Senator from Illinois.

“Barack is worth millions now,” Mr. Osnos said. “It’s almost all based on these two books, two books not based on a job of prodigious research or risking one’s life as a reporter in Iraq. He has written about himself. Being able to take your own life story and turn it into this incredibly lucrative franchise, it’s a stunning fact.”

I'm sorry if you think she's being "divisive" and not working for "the good of the party." He's only ahead by a small margin, and he's not the better candidate. I've spent my entire life watching my mother put the needs and wants of others before her own. Just once I'd like to see her take the last brownie on the plate. But she won't. We won't. Because women are taught to compromise and to take care of others.

Take the brownie, Hillary. You deserve it.

And this is why "Slate" is no longer on the blogroll

I removed Slate from my blogroll quite some time ago when it became clear the site had become just another in the long line of unabashedly pro-Obama love-fests. I mean, it's one thing to be a blogger who promotes one candidate -- I do it. But you know this is all my commentary here, and I know it's commentary when I visit another blogger who supports Obama. We are speaking with our own voices, giving our personal opinions.

But the sites of larger, "professional" organizations -- Slate, Huffington Post, Raw Story etc. -- used to have a more balanced tone. These sites have many writers on staff and on-call, and they used to publish diverse opinions on topics of the day. Because it became all one voice over there, I really haven't visited Slate in a long time. But apparently I haven't missed much. Tennessee Guerilla Women did a little survey on Slate's ... ahem ... "journalism" and reports:

Hillary Sexism Watch: Slate's Arrested Development

By now we've had our faces repeatedly rubbed in the fact that the historic bid for the presidency by the first ever viable woman is nothing more than an opportunity to wallow in cheap misogyny by the mainly male media.

The historic campaign that means so very much to girls and women all over America, as viewed by the apparent adolescents at Slate:

Hillary's "Lapse" Dance by Mickey Kaus

Hillary Clinton, Fairy Princess By Timothy Noah

The Hillary Deathwatch By Chadwick Matlin

The Hillary Deathwatch Index

The Hillary Deathwatch Widget for your blog, iGoogle, or Facebook page

Please go visit the Tennessee Guerilla Women. They do good stuff over there.

Continuing the discussion: Can a woman ever be President?

I find myself reflecting on Hillary Clinton and this campaign almost nonstop these days. I know part of me is preparing for her possible loss of the nomination, but it's beyond that. I mean, I have a long track record of supporting the underdog, so it's not like I'm not used to losing. I started out with Denis Kucinich, after all. And besides, I'm a Baltimore Orioles fan. Even the Boston Red Sox have won the World Series more recently than we have!

No, it's more about the way this potential loss is happening that's bothering me. And I know I'm not alone, because I keep finding essays by much better writers than me saying the same thing. For example, Ellen Goodman:

Something else happened along the way. If Hillary Clinton was the tough guy in the race, Barack Obama became the Oprah candidate. He was the quality circle man, the uniter-not-divider, the person who believes we can talk to anyone, even our enemies. He finely honed a language usually associated with women’s voices.

Today’s shelves are still full of titles—from “Seducing the Boys Club” to “The Girl’s Guide to Being a Boss (Without Being a Bitch)” to “Enlightened Power”—that tell us to act like a man or act like a woman. But in many ways, the transformative, inspirational, collaborative “female” style has become more attractive. Especially to a younger generation. And—here’s the rub—especially when it is modeled by a man.

We have ended up in a lopsided era of change. After all, how many of us wanted to see male leaders transformed from cowboys to conciliators? Now we see a woman running as the fighter and a man modeling a “woman’s way” of leading. We see a younger generation in particular inspired by ideas nurtured by women, as long as they are delivered in a baritone.

So, has the women’s movement made life easier? For another man?

And today that little harpie Maureen Dowd gives a perfect example of this in her New York Times OpEd:

Voters gravitate toward the presidential candidates who seem more comfortable in their skin. J.F.K. and Reagan seemed exceptionally comfortable. So did Bill Clinton and W., who both showed that comfort can be an illusion of sorts, masking deep insecurities.

The fact that Obama is exceptionally easy in his skin has made Hillary almost jump out of hers. She can’t turn on her own charm and wit because she can’t get beyond what she sees as the deep injustice of Obama not waiting his turn. Her sunshine-colored jackets on the trail hardly disguise the fact that she’s pea-green with envy.

On the one hand I feel I've written about this enough and it's time to move on to other subjects. But on the other hand, What the hell is going on with America?! We are dismissing the most qualified candidate in favor of one who has freely admitted that he's not ready to be president, because he can rock a stadium full of young people?

I feel like I'm watching a train wreck in slow motion and there's nothing I can do about it. I just want to shake America's collective shoulders and say "Wake up! Think about what you are doing!"

The smartest girl in the room

For every 'presidential' and 'charismatic' bestowed on Barack Obama, there are 10 adjectives commentators have used to put down the way Hillary Clinton dresses, talks and emotes. Call this what it is – blatant sexism.

Hello, America? Our double standards and unfair treatment of female candidates is blatantly obvious to the rest of the world. The quote above is from the Canadian Globe and Mail. Here's more:

Guess what they call powerful and strong women who support Barack Obama? Obamazons. And what about powerful women who support Hillary Clinton? In Hillaryland, they're probably too damn tired, mystified and disappointed to care all that much about cutesy names.

There are certainly legitimate reasons not to like Ms. Clinton, but that doesn't explain the very different treatment she has received in the media. While grown media men and women have swooned over Mr. Obama, confessing that he is so charismatic he gives them goosebumps, Ms. Clinton has been mocked, trivialized and denigrated in a way that should give every woman pause.

Her laugh is a “cackle.” Her daughter Chelsea is being “pimped out.” She is only there because of her husband. She is “inauthentic” and manipulative, especially that time she cried in New Hampshire (and she didn't actually cry, by the way, even though anti-Clinton forces quickly had T-shirts made that said “Cry Baby” on them.)

When Ms. Clinton wasn't very occasionally showing her soft side, she was characterized as grating and aggressive. When she demonstrated how much she knew about so many issues, she was trying too hard to be “the smartest girl in the room.”

From the Independent UK:

Obama has done himself no good with his occasional forays into sexism, like his fraternity-jock remark at the New Hampshire debate, delivered with a cocky smirk, "You're likeable enough, Hillary," or his observation at Tulane that, "You challenge the status quo, and suddenly the claws come out".

From the Herald (UK):

It remains to be seen how much two other isms, sexism and racism, matter to American voters. Officially, race and gender are irrelevant; unofficially, many believe that each will count for a lot. It would be tragic if these factors, rather than competence and leadership quality, decided one of the most crucial presidential elections in American history.

And one final thought from from the Globe and Mail:

On one particularly bad day, The New York Times's Maureen Dowd weighed in with one comedian's joke about Mr. Obama winning every recent primary: “Hillary says it's not fair, because they're being held in February, and February is Black History Month. And unfortunately for Hillary, there's no White Bitch Month.”

Well, here's a thought: Perhaps every day is white bitch month for powerful women, and every ambitious and successful woman who is honest with herself and others knows this: As she gets up each morning and slaps on her knee-highs and her pantsuit and goes into the office to prove – yet again – that she is the smartest and most capable person there, she too can quickly engender the same kind of hate that Ms. Clinton has put up with on the campaign trail. Just by being herself.

Gloria Steinem: Women Are Never Front-Runners

In an editorial in today's New York Times, Gloria Steinem says so eloquently what I have been trying to formulate in my tired brain:

Gender is probably the most restricting force in American life, whether the question is who must be in the kitchen or who could be in the White House. This country is way down the list of countries electing women and, according to one study, it polarizes gender roles more than the average democracy.

That’s why the Iowa primary was following our historical pattern of making change. Black men were given the vote a half-century before women of any race were allowed to mark a ballot, and generally have ascended to positions of power, from the military to the boardroom, before any women (with the possible exception of obedient family members in the latter).

I’m supporting Senator Clinton because like Senator Obama she has community organizing experience, but she also has more years in the Senate, an unprecedented eight years of on-the-job training in the White House, no masculinity to prove, the potential to tap a huge reservoir of this country’s talent by her example, and now even the courage to break the no-tears rule. I’m not opposing Mr. Obama; if he’s the nominee, I’ll volunteer. Indeed, if you look at votes during their two-year overlap in the Senate, they were the same more than 90 percent of the time. Besides, to clean up the mess left by President Bush, we may need two terms of President Clinton and two of President Obama.

But what worries me is that he is seen as unifying by his race while she is seen as divisive by her sex.

What worries me is that she is accused of “playing the gender card” when citing the old boys’ club, while he is seen as unifying by citing civil rights confrontations.

What worries me is that male Iowa voters were seen as gender-free when supporting their own, while female voters were seen as biased if they did and disloyal if they didn’t.

What worries me is that reporters ignore Mr. Obama’s dependence on the old — for instance, the frequent campaign comparisons to John F. Kennedy — while not challenging the slander that her progressive policies are part of the Washington status quo.

Read the rest of her excellent piece in the NYT here.

NEWSFLASH! Double standards in America: Women work harder to reach same goals

Yesterday I was part of an interesting discussion thread over at Shakespeare's Sister. The topic of discussion was, basically, whether Hillary Clinton has had the same opportunities as her male counterparts (Bill Clinton included). Most commenters agreed that, no matter what you think of Hillary's Clinton's politics, she is breaking new ground for women as the first "electable" female presidential candidate. There was, however, one commenter who was determined to yank everyone's chain. He certainly yanked mine, and I thought about the discussion for most of last evening.

In retrospect, I think Mr Negative, as I shall call him, served a purpose. He argued that Hillary Clinton, although a woman, comes from a comfortable background and was able to attend law school and work for organizations because she was a woman in the sixties. He said: "Bull@#&!, Hillary came into law and politics when political correctness was at a high point ... Look at her resume, everything she got was handed to her on a silver platter..."

Is that why some people have such a gut reaction to Hillary Clinton -- they view her as privileged? If that is the case, I am even more astonished at the double standards of this country than ever before. Compare Hillary's Clinton's resume to, oh I don't know, let's say the current president, George W. Bush.

Hillary Clinton
1947, born Chicago, Illinois, grew up in Park Ridge, Illinois, attended public schools
(father operated a small textile business, mother was a homemaker)
1965 National Merit Scholar Finalist
1969, graduated from Wellesley College with departmental honors
1973, graduated from Yale University with Law Degree
(worked on the Yale Review of Law and Social Action)

She began a year of post-graduate study on children and medicine at the Yale Child Study Center.[45] Her first scholarly paper, "Children Under the Law", was published in the Harvard Educational Review in late 1973[46] and became frequently cited in the field." wk

1973 Staff attorney for Children's Defense Fund

During 1974 she was a member of the impeachment inquiry staff in Washington, D.C., advising the House Committee on the Judiciary during the Watergate scandal.^[49][50] Under the guidance of Chief Counsel John Doar and senior member Bernard Nussbaum,^[32] Rodham helped research procedures of impeachment and the historical grounds and standards for impeachment.^[50] The committee's work culminated in the resignation of President Richard Nixon in August 1974.^{[50] wk}

1974, became faculty member at University of Arkansas, Fayetteville School of Law
1977, co-founded Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families
1977, became the first woman to be made a full partner of Rose Law Firm

George W. Bush
1946, born in New Haven Conn., grew up in Midland and Houston Texas
(grandfather was a U.S. senator from Connecticut, father oil executive in Texas, mother a homemaker)
Attended private school, Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts
1968 graduated from Yale University (his grandfather's and father's alma mater)
(was president of secret Skulls & Bones Society)
1968 accepted in Air National Guard

(despite scoring in the 25th percentile^[21][22] on the pilot's written aptitude test, which was the lowest acceptable passing grade.^{[23]) wk}

1970 applied to Univ. of Texas Law school, was rejected
1972 transfered to Alabama Air Guard to work on a Republican campaign
1973 left Texas National Guard 8 months early to attend Harvard Business School
1975 graduated Harvard with MBA
1976 arrested for DUI
1977 began career in the Texas oil industry

Compare where these two individuals came from, what they did during these crucial years in their lives, and where they are at this point in their lives. It seems clear to me who has had a privileged life and who has had to work for their successes in life. I have not heard Hillary Clinton "play the sexism card" as Mr. Negative claimed. I have only seen her working forward on social issues important to her.

Say what you will about her stands on the issues, but Hillary Rodham Clinton will probably be the first woman president of the United States of America, and she will have earned every right to that title.