In 2008, I was one of the young feminist whippersnappers who voted for
Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries—or as many
of my older counterparts called me at the time, a traitor. I didn’t
believe there was (as Jen Moseley, my then-colleague at Feministing, put
it) a “vagina litmus test.” I wanted to vote for the most feminist
candidate, regardless of gender.
Next time around, though, I’m voting for a woman.
Not because I believe that the female Democratic candidate (and I think
we all have a good idea who
that will be) is guaranteed to be
the most feminist, but because I’m just too fed up to do anything else.
I’ve made a full transition from youthful idealism to jaded orneriness,
and my vote will be just as angry as I am.
EMILY’s List has just launched a more optimistic appeal: “Madam
President,” a campaign to put the first woman in the White House.
Stephanie Schriock, the president of EMILY’s List, said in a statement
that enthusiasm for women’s leadership is at historically high levels:
“It is clear that this is our time.”
“Americans are not only ready for a woman president, but—this is the
best part—they see women’s leadership as a positive,” Schriock told me.
“We are in a new time, and I can feel this bubbling everywhere. We’re
seeing more women step up and run for office. And we’ve quintupled our
size in two years.”
The organization’s polling tells the same story: 90 percent of voters
in battleground states would vote for a qualified woman candidate from
their party, and 86 percent believe that America is ready to elect a
female president. At least some of that sentiment has to come from a
place of frustration with the all-male status quo—not just the
presidency, but so many places of power. The popular “
100 Percent Men”
Tumblr, for example, shines a light on those “corners of the world
where women have yet to tread”—from the list of the top twenty
highest-paid American CEOs to the all-male leadership at companies like
T-Mobile. And if the firestorm surrounding Sheryl Sandberg’s bestseller
Lean In is any indication, women aren’t just ready to see more of their gender in power—they’re champing at the bit.
Voting for a woman with the sole purpose of breaking the most
important political glass ceiling in the country—possibly the world—does
give me pause. The belief that a female politician is inherently more
woman-friendly is the same misguided notion that allowed even Sarah
Palin—who, as mayor of Wasilla, made women pay for their own rape kits
and, as governor of Alaska, cut funding for a shelter for teen moms—to
call herself a feminist. And the insistence on putting gender above all
other identities often means that white women take the lead. I’ll never
forget being told by a representative of a mainstream women’s
organization that they were looking for a panelist for an
election-related event who “wouldn’t trump race over gender.” I still
believe that my 2008 vote was the right one, and that expecting women to
vote for a female politician simply because they share the same gender
is cynical and shortsighted.
But I’m also absolutely exhausted. Why?
Because campus rapists are being “punished” by research papers, not
prison. Because the man in charge of curbing sexual assault in the Air
Force was himself charged with sexual battery. Because the leading cause
of death for pregnant women is murder by a partner. Because the Obama
administration would rather play politics than make emergency
contraception available to all women. Because “legitimate rape.”
It’s not that these intractable problems would magically disappear if
we had a woman president. But it just might make the relentless sexism
easier to bear. Maybe, despite the seemingly endless misogyny and the
daily offenses, a female president would be a hopeful reminder of
progress made. Because right now, I don’t see any.
It’s no exaggeration to say that feminists have been stuck in the
same defensive crouch for decades. We’ve been so busy trying to hold on
to the ground already won that imagining a feminist future has been a
luxury we haven’t had the time, money or energy for. Maybe the way to
kick the movement into forward motion is with a bang: the presidency.
Schriock believes that having a female president would cause
reverberations around the world, and that when it comes to the power of
role models, “sometimes you have to see it to understand.”
“Will it end sexism as we know it?” she adds. “No, but it starts changing the conversation rapidly.”
I don’t have any illusions about women’s “innate goodness” or think
that a woman president would transform the United States into a feminist
utopia. (Birkenstocks for everyone!) Like most politicians, a woman
president could be just another disappointment. So why not a female
disappointment? Equal representation of jerks is still equality.
But there is something to be said for the power of figureheads. After
Hillary Clinton became secretary of state, a record number of countries
posted female ambassadors to the US—some of whom have dubbed this “the
Hillary effect.” In 2010, Mozambique’s ambassador to the United States,
Amélia Matos Sumbana, told
The Washington Post: “Hillary
Clinton is so visible. She makes it easier for presidents to pick a
woman for Washington.” In the same way, seeing a woman serve as
president of the United States could be the proverbial game-changer.
I don’t know that my course of action is the one I’d recommend for
others—in many ways, it’s a marker of my dying idealism. But I do know
that seeing a woman hold the nation’s highest office would bring me
great joy, and that if there’s anything American women need right now,
it’s a win.
In February, Ruth Rosen took a look at how far US feminists have come in the last 100 years, and how much further they need to go.
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