NYT op-ed: Gloria Steinem on the wrong, divisive question about Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton

[DeepModem Mom]

Right Candidates, Wrong Question
By GLORIA STEINEM
Published: February 7, 2007

EVEN before Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton threw their exploratory committees into the ring, every reporter seemed to be asking which candidate are Americans more ready for, a white woman or a black man?

With all due respect to the journalistic dilemma of reporting two “firsts” at the same time — two viable presidential candidates who aren’t the usual white faces over collars and ties — I think this is a dumb and destructive question.

It’s dumb because most Americans are smart enough to figure out that a member of a group may or may not represent its interests. After all, many African-Americans opposed the appointment of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court in 1991 because they were aware of his record — and the views of his conservative supporters.

Similarly, most women weren’t excited about Elizabeth Dole as a presidential candidate for the 2000 election because she seemed more attached to those in power than those in need of it....The question is also destructive because it’s divisive. In fact, women of all races and men of color — who together form an underrepresented majority of this country — have often found themselves in coalition. Both opposed the wars in Vietnam and Iraq more and earlier than their white male counterparts. White women have also been more likely than white men to support pro-equality candidates of color, and people of color have been more likely to support pro-equality white women....

***

...Why compare allies and ignore the opposition? Both Senators Clinton and Obama are civil rights advocates, feminists, environmentalists and critics of the war in Iraq, though she voted early and wrong, and he spoke out early and right. Both have resisted pandering to the right, something that sets them apart from any Republican candidate, including John McCain. Both have Washington and foreign policy experience; George W. Bush did not when he first ran for president.

But the greatest reason for progressives to refuse to be drawn into an irrelevant debate about Senators Clinton and Obama is that it is destructive. We can accomplish much more if we act as a coalition....We could double our chances by working for one of these candidates, not against the other. For now, I’ve figured out how to answer reporters when they ask if I’m supporting Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama.

I just say yes.

(Gloria Steinem is co-founder of the Women’s Media Center.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/07/opinion/07steinem.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

[Captain Hilts]

1. She equates the voting patterns of women and blacks and that's not accurate.

While women lean liberal, they by no means vote as a bloc. A gender gap, is just that - a gap. It still leaves room for 40% of women to vote for Reagan or the conservative candidate. The votes of blacks are rarely so evenly split.

Conversely, blacks do vote as a bloc, much more than women, Hispanics, etc.

Sadly, one thing that women and blacks do have in common is that they consistently score lower than white men on awareness of general knowledge pertaining to public affairs.

ps. I was in polling for eight years.

[Apollo11]

6. Don't generalize

First of all - you are right to point out that many women are conservative (and vice-versa).

So you won't mind when I point out that millions of women (and African Americans) are very aware of public affairs and have a lot of knowledge about what is wrong with America.

And there are millions of "stupid white men" who don't know half as much as they like to think ...

[Captain Hilts]

7. Statistically, women and blacks do not score as high on awareness of...

basic facts on current events or representation.

I'm not making a generalization. This pattern has been evident in surveys for decades and has not really changed. For example, women under 30 are among the least likely to report reading a newspaper and women, in general, do not participate in the behaviors that reinforce political knowledge, such as discussing politics with friends, at the rate that men do.

ps. I'm female.

[Apollo11]

8. Speaking as a white guy

I am (almost) seriously offended by all your anti-women generalizations.

Did you ever stop to think that the reason young women are not discussing politics is because they have a lot more interesting things to talk about -- like what clothes to wear and how to do their make-up?

ps. Just kidding ;)

[sandnsea]

10. Life is politics for women

Is it possible that the surveys are asking questions from a male perspective. My daughter is 23 and would likely say she doesn't know anything about current politics. The truth is, almost any time I've talked to her about an important current event, she knows about it. She just doesn't learn about it from traditional political sources so she doesn't consider it political. She doesn't consider talking about school, premiums, vaccines, pay disparity, child care, parks, green household products, etc etc, as "political". It's life to her. The truth is, it is political and women talk about these things much more than men. What's missing is the legislative connection so women know when their issues are being debated in various bodies and who is advocating what. Once somebody drops that connection into women's magazines and programs like The View, women will start answering those polls much differently.

[Captain Hilts]

11. Women and blacks have lower awareness ratings for their senators, congress critters....

stuff like that, in addition to current events.

Same for history.

Until recently, it just didn't have as much relevance for women. I ask my male friends if they would read newspaper in which only women were featured. No, they wouldn't. In that case, no doubt they'd test as less aware.

[sandnsea]

12. But that's not the only criteria

To say particular groups are unaware of public issues because they don't know the name of a politician is to miss what they do know. Would a woman be unaware of child predator issues if she knew everything about various legislation except the name "Mark Foley"? How many people do you think knew he had anything to do with this legislation before his email scandal? I think the relevance in knowing names of politicians is that men wanted to know who could benefit them in business, which has absolutely nothing to do with public policy that women and minorities may know in detail but were never asked because it never occurred to power-broker type males in the first place.

[Captain Hilts]

13. Agreed. But you mix it ...

with the fact that women under 30 and minorities vote with less frequency than other groups and you have folks that are either alienated from the system or do not feel it is relevant to them.

I like to think that, like them or not, Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton, etc., will get more young women actively involved in government. Fingers crossed.

[sandnsea]

14. Right

Which may have more to do with the way political information is presented, possibly based on those polls you're talking about that indicate these groups don't care. Women's magazines regularly have human interest stories, but rarely have the connected politician or legislation. Maybe we could make a point of writing LTTE's to some of these magazines and push them to add that sort of thing to articles they're already doing. :shrug:

[beaconess]

15. Oh really? Please cite the "surveys" to which you are referring

[durrrty libby]

2. After all these years, Gloria still Rocks. Love her.

[Captain Hilts]

3. Ever read her essay "If Men had Periods."? It's a riot. nt

[Scout]

16. If Men Could Menstruate

If Men Could Menstruate
by Gloria Steinem


Living in India made me understand that a white minority of the world has spent centuries conning us into thinking a white skin makes people superior, even though the only thing it really does is make them more subject to ultraviolet rays and wrinkles.

Reading Freud made me just as skeptical about penis envy. The power of giving birth makes "womb envy" more logical, and an organ as external and unprotected as the penis makes men very vulnerable indeed.

But listening recently to a woman describe the unexpected arrival of her menstrual period (a red stain had spread on her dress as she argued heatedly on the public stage) still made me cringe with embarrassment. That is, until she explained that, when finally informed in whispers of the obvious event, she said to the all-male audience, "and you should be proud to have a menstruating woman on your stage. It's probably the first real thing that's happened to this group in years."

Laughter. Relief. She had turned a negative into a positive. Somehow her story merged with India and Freud to make me finally understand the power of positive thinking. Whatever a "superior" group has will be used to justify its superiority, and whatever and "inferior" group has will be used to justify its plight. Black me were given poorly paid jobs because they were said to be "stronger" than white men, while all women were relegated to poorly paid jobs because they were said to be "weaker." As the little boy said when asked if he wanted to be a lawyer like his mother, "Oh no, that's women's work." Logic has nothing to do with oppression.

So what would happen if suddenly, magically, men could menstruate and women could not?

Clearly, menstruation would become an enviable, worthy, masculine event:

Men would brag about how long and how much.

Young boys would talk about it as the envied beginning of manhood. Gifts, religious ceremonies, family dinners, and stag parties would mark the day.

To prevent monthly work loss among the powerful, Congress would fund a National Institute of Dysmenorrhea. Doctors would research little about heart attacks, from which men would be hormonally protected, but everything about cramps.

Sanitary supplies would be federally funded and free. Of course, some men would still pay for the prestige of such commercial brands as Paul Newman Tampons, Muhammad Ali's Rope-a-Dope Pads, John Wayne Maxi Pads, and Joe Namath Jock Shields- "For Those Light Bachelor Days."

Statistical surveys would show that men did better in sports and won more Olympic medals during their periods.

Generals, right-wing politicians, and religious fundamentalists would cite menstruation ("men-struation") as proof that only men could serve God and country in combat ("You have to give blood to take blood"), occupy high political office ("Can women be properly fierce without a monthly cycle governed by the planet Mars?"), be priests, ministers, God Himself ("He gave this blood for our sins"), or rabbis ("Without a monthly purge of impurities, women are unclean").

Male liberals and radicals, however, would insist that women are equal, just different; and that any woman could join their ranks if only she were willing to recognize the primacy of menstrual rights ("Everything else is a single issue") or self-inflict a major wound every month ("You must give blood for the revolution").

Street guys would invent slang ("He's a three-pad man") and "give fives" on the corner with some exchenge like, "Man you lookin' good!"

"Yeah, man, I'm on the rag!"

TV shows would treat the subject openly. (Happy Days: Richie and Potsie try to convince Fonzie that he is still "The Fonz," though he has missed two periods in a row. Hill Street Blues: The whole precinct hits the same cycle.) So would newspapers. (Summer Shark Scare Threatens Menstruating Men. Judge Cites Monthlies In Pardoning Rapist.) And so would movies. (Newman and Redford in Blood Brothers!)

Men would convince women that sex was more pleasurable at "that time of the month." Lesbians would be said to fear blood and therefore life itself, though all they needed was a good menstruating man.

Medical schools would limit women's entry ("they might faint at the sight of blood").

Of course, intellectuals would offer the most moral and logical arguements. Without the biological gift for measuring the cycles of the moon and planets, how could a woman master any discipline that demanded a sense of time, space, mathematics-- or the ability to measure anything at all? In philosophy and religion, how could women compensate for being disconnected from the rhythm of the universe? Or for their lack of symbolic death and resurrection every month?

Menopause would be celebrated as a positive event, the symbol that men had accumulated enough years of cyclical wisdom to need no more.

Liberal males in every field would try to be kind. The fact that "these people" have no gift for measuring life, the liberals would explain, should be punishment enough.

And how would women be trained to react? One can imagine right-wing women agreeing to all these arguements with a staunch and smiling masochism. ("The ERA would force housewives to wound themselves every month": Phyllis Schlafly)

In short, we would discover, as we should already, that logic is in the eye of the logician. (For instance, here's an idea for theorists and logicians: if women are supposed to be less rational and more emotional at the beginning of our menstrual cycle when the female hormone is at its lowest level, then why isn't it logical to say that, in those few days, women behave the most like the way men behave all month long? I leave further improvisation up to you.)

The truth is that, if men could menstruate, the power justifications would go on and on.

If we let them.

(c) Gloria Steinem, Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions. NY: NAL, 1986.

[Evergreen Emerald]

4. That is what the media is doing

pitting democrat against democrat...divide and conquer.

Love ya Gloria! I will never forget once when she was on the Phil Donahue show and a man in the audience asked her if she was a lesbian. She said, "that depends. Are you the alternative?"

[durrrty libby]

5. Bahahaa....Classic Gloria

[donsu]

9. what Gloria says sounds good to me

nt