3 A.M. For Feminism: Clinton dead-enders and the crisis in the women's movement (TNR)

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3 A.M. For Feminism: Clinton dead-enders and the crisis in the women's movement (TNR)

Edited on Sat Jun-07-08 09:06 AM by sfam

3 A.M. For Feminism: Clinton dead-enders and the crisis in the women's movement.
by Michelle Goldberg
The New Republic, Post Date Friday, June 06, 2008

This is a pretty solid, well thought out article that details the dynamic of some of Hillary's most fervent supporters, and what it means to Obama as he moves forward.

Amy Siskind, a 42-year-old mother of two from Westchester, stood in a Washington, D.C., park on the last day in May, telling a few hundred cheering people that she would not, under any circumstances, vote for Barack Obama. She was a lifelong Democrat, she said, a donor and a volunteer for the party. But, watching the race with a "mixture of shock, disgrace, and disgust," she was appalled at the leadership's failure to defend Hillary Clinton from the sexism that she believes bolstered Barack Obama's campaign. "Now I have a message for Howard Dean and the DNC," she said into a microphone, acid in her voice. "I'm not your sweetie!"

Siskind was one of the speakers at a rally that brought busloads of people, overwhelmingly women, to demonstrate near the Democratic National Committee (DNC) meeting that would decide the status of the Florida and Michigan delegations. The states had been stripped of their delegates--a decision Clinton endorsed--because they had broken party rules in holding their primaries early. But, as Clinton lost steam, seating them in full became crucial to her argument for the nomination, and thus, to her supporters, a matter of high democratic principle. Oaths to oppose Obama proliferated, often among longtime female fund-raisers. "You have betrayed us, our children, and our future," Siskind proclaimed during her speech, "and you will learn the new meaning of stay-at-home moms!"

Hillary Clinton has lost the nomination, but some of her most ardent female backers seem unwilling to accept it. A strange narrative has developed, abetted by Clinton and some of the mainstream feminist organizations. In it, the will of the voters was thwarted by chauvinistic party leaders in concert with a servile media, and Obama's victory represents a repeat of George W. Bush's in 2000. It's a story in which Obama becomes every arrogant young man who has ever edged out a more deserving middle-aged woman, and Clinton, hanging on until the bitter end, is not a spoiler but a feminist martyr.

This conviction, that sexism cost Clinton the nomination, is likely to be one of the more toxic legacies of this primary season. It is leaving her supporters feeling not just disappointed but victimized, many convinced that Obama's win is illegitimate. Taylor Marsh, a blogger and radio host whose website has become a hub for Clinton fans, says she gets hundreds of e-mails from angry Democrats pledging not to vote for Obama. She's started running posts from such readers under the headline DEMOCRATIC STORM WARNINGS. "I'm not saying that this is a huge voting bloc," she says. "I'm just saying that there is a huge amount of talk and I'm convinced it's a reality that needs to be addressed."

Surely some of this political nihilism will fade by November. Right now, it's hard to quantify; Internet forums and political protests exist, in part, to magnify the passions of a few into an illusory groundswell. In exit polls from Indiana and North Carolina, at least half of Clinton supporters said they wouldn't vote for Obama, but there's no way to calculate the role of gender in their disaffection.

In the months to come, feminist leaders and Clinton herself will urge women back into the Democratic fold. Still, the bitterness is intense. Kate Michelman, the Obama-supporting former head of NARAL, has heard enough of it to get worried. "It does feel to me, just recently, like we're on a death mission," she says. "here is a danger where we set a course for failure in November."

It didn't start out this way. In February of 2007, Gloria Steinem pushed back against the mushrooming discussion of identity politics, publishing an op-ed in The New York Times titled "Right Candidates, Wrong Question." She argued that queries about whether Americans were more prepared to elect a woman or a black man were "dumb and destructive." "ost Americans are smart enough to figure out that a member of a group may or may not represent its interests," she wrote. "This time, we . . . could double our chances by working for one of these candidates, not against the other." When reporters asked if she was supporting Clinton or Obama, she said, "I just say yes."

Eleven months later, her position, and that of many feminists, had grown more rigid. Taking to the Times op-ed page once again, she argued, "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." When the time came to choose a candidate, it turned out identity politics mattered. "We have to be able to say: 'I'm supporting her,' " she concluded, " 'because she'll be a great president and because she's a woman.' "

More at:
http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=2c2ec3a8-e813-4d4e-b566-510e0f19eced

Interestingly, Goldberg believes that Obama should consider giving a speech on feminism, similar to his speech on race. She also thinks Webb might be a bad choice for VP based on this dynamic among some Hillary supporters:

For a start, that probably means Obama shouldn't nominate a vice president like Jim Webb, who has a number of attractive attributes but a notably bad record on women's issues. He also needs to stop calling women he doesn't know "sweetie." Beyond that, both feminists who support Obama and those who support Clinton suggest he give a speech about women's issues similar to the one he made about race. One of the things Obama is best at is making people feel that he understands their grievances and anxieties, even if he disagrees with them about remedies. If he can reach out to working-class whites offended by affirmative action, surely he can do the same for the middle-aged women who feel wronged by their surrogate's defeat.