On the ground in South Carolina

January 23, 2008 · Filed Under Internet Media, Politics · Comment

I asked my friends Lisa and Katya to write this dispatch while they are canvassing in South Carolina:

On the Ground in South Carolina
Today, neighbor Nancy, Katya, Russian transplant and I, Lisa, canvassed Rock Hill South Carolina for Obama. Never would we have imagined that one day, on the ground in South Carolina, would illustrate the world of loyalties, values and hopes inside each of us. A world does live inside each drop of water.

The Obama office wasted little time packing us off to canvas a mixed (black - white) neighborhood off Ebenezer Road. Our mission was to knock on pre-selected doors and ask previously declared Obama supporters to volunteer for the final two days and to vote early. The loose black lab that jumped into Nancy’s Prius leaving muddy paw prints on her seats and my talk sheet did not deter us. We quickly covered 20 houses each. Most people were not home, some had just moved in or out. Just a handful of folks where home in the middle of a Wednesday to open their doors to strangers.

Katya’s passionate discussion in Russian with a carpenter from Kiev, Ukraine brought the world scene to this quiet small neighborhood in Rock Hill South Carolina. Victor, a carpenter working for a family who had recently moved in told us we were wasting our time with Democrats. He wanted to help us understand where the real action was. This was all translated to me but his fervor was not lost in the translation. Pay attention to what is really happening he said, its a clash of civilizations, good against evil, Muslims against the Christians! He may have just been flirting with Katia when he admitted that Obama had some good qualities because it was clear that he felt that only Republicans are capable of addressing the challenge of this battle. He felt that Democrats are too eager to get the troops out of Iraq and that America needs to finish the job. He was focused on his belief that Republicans are the only ones capable of ensuring that Ukraine will be able to get away from Russia’s meddling in their affairs. For Victor what mattered was that Ukraine continue its integration into NATO and be allowed to consolidate its relationship with the west.

The intimate conversations got better over lunch at the Outback Steakhouse, just off interstate 77. We knew we were in good hands. Our waitress Crystal had 20 outstanding service pins on her blouse. Three of them represented $1000.00 dollar days! Crystal grew up in a Republican family but she was discovering that her hopes and values did not mesh with her family loyalties. She told us that she really didn’t know anything about international stuff but that universal health care was her top, top priority. She totally got it that if young people just banded together they could pick the president and she was not shy to tell her husband who was not registered to vote that “you suck.”

The sweet tea flowed freely. It became obvious that the black couple in the booth next to us was listening intently to our conversation. When they hadn’t spoken to each other in over 2 minutes we held our Obama literature up in the air as an offering. The man took the brochure from us, and asked grinning, “Obama, who is that?” When Nancy and I visited the ladies room and Katia sat alone in the booth a conversation opened. Cynthia and James, from New York and South Carolina respectively are strong Hillary supporters. It would be more accurate to say, they are Clinton supporters. As James noted, “Brother Bill is going to be by her side.”

We got personal quickly. James said, “Let me ask you this….white ladies. Is your household income above $150,000.00?” We all said yes. He told us then, that when Bill Clinton went into office he made $148,000, now he makes $88,000. The Clintons understand us.

The three of us had been talking about how real leadership tempts fate. How often-great leaders are neutralized or even assassinated when they challenge entrenched belief that no longer fit reality. James was amazed that three white women were sitting in the booth next to him talking about death when that was at the heart of his fears.

South Carolina’s primary is on Saturday.

Obama’s success depends on whites who see his presidency as transformational and Blacks who can rise above the fear that Americans won’t allow a black man to be President. We have promised to call Cynthia and James or vis a versa on November 5th. We will see who is going to say, “I told you so.”

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Women I’m following during S Carolina, Nevada

January 14, 2008 · Filed Under Feminism, Internet Media, Politics · Comment

While the nation erupts in a long overdue gender race powwow, I’ll read state primary updates on:
South Carolina:
Lowcountry blogs
Check out this post from SC blogger Consuela at Afrogeekmomanddad:

It’s interesting being a black woman living in South Carolina these days. All eyes are on us, as if the press and politicians have just realized that we do in fact vote, and, more importantly, that we can’t be counted on to vote with our black brothers or white sisters.Of course this is all being played out most dramatically in the Democratic primary race between Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton. Neither the Iowa caucuses nor the New Hampshire primary contained a significant number of black voters, and each candidate’s win is being contributed to women voters choosing one over the other. With black women making up the majority of registered black voters in South Carolina, we are suddenly historically important.

Nevada:
Reno and Its Discontents
Sin City Siren
Anjeanette Damon

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Why Thirtysomething Women need Hillary Clinton, and Why She Needs Us

January 10, 2008 · Filed Under Feminism, Internet Media, Politics · Comment

I wrote a piece on BlogHer.com about my generation and Hillary Clinton. My thesis: We may not like to admit it, but Hillary and thirtysomething women both need the women’s movement. In reading responses, I sort of banged my head against the wall because I had assumed that women shared similar priorities for other women in government. Of course, all women are like me! Duh! Well, I’ve culled some responses below because they highlight just what’s wrong with our contemporary perspective on the women’s movement: like me, it assumes women share priorities. I wrote on BlogHer:
<blockquote>
In New Hampshire yesterday, 57% of voters were female, of those, 46% voted for Clinton. Hillary won among all age groups except 18-24 (which she never expected) and 30-39 year olds (36% Clinton, 42% Obama). I have not been able to find cross-tabs by age and gender, but all 30-39 year olds in N.H cannot be male. In Iowa, younger women did not vote for Hillary, and it hurt her there. And last night, although the numbers were tighter, more women 30-39 voted for Obama too.This is my age group, and much of BlogHer’s readership as well. What gives?

from cnn.com
Clinton Obama
25-29 37% 35%
30-39 36% 43%
40-49 44% 33%

Gender: Obama enjoyed a 4:1 advantage among young men, and split women with Senator Clinton.

I think it’s the way that a vote for Hillary symbolized not only a vote for old-fashioned politics, but for old-fashioned feminism (and old fashioned white feminism- see here for whattamisaid and here for Maria Niles’ amazing post). Even last night, I heard some anchor relating Hillary’s focus on children’s issues and health care, “you know, women’s issues” as key to her success with women. Not so fast. ALL voters yesterday stated the economy as their number 1 concern, but too often Hillary has pitched her career to sound like that of a liberal social worker’s in an attempt to appeal to women. To many women of my generation, do-gooder feminism leaves us cold. It’s tired, out of touch, and not nuanced enough for the everyday sexism and scary realities of our world.

As I wrote last week, the “You Go Girl” nature of many women’s political campaigns rings false to a generation more preoccupied with righting our sinking real estate investments than raising our consciousness. Feminism did a lot for women way back when, but it can’t clean up our current messes: quiet harassment, unexplained passing over for big jobs, Chris Matthews. We need to protect our hard-earned status and money, not clamor for more femaleness (check out this enlightening blog post from Eve Tahmincioglu on women in business and Hillary). Some months ago I heard Eleanor Smeal founder of Feminist Majority, the original feminist, say with exasperation to a panel, “we’ve been having this same discussion for 35 years!” and I thought, yeah, you have, maybe time to try a new topic? ‘Cause whatever you’re doing, it ain’t working as well as it should. Women still hold very few real positions of power. When I watched the election returns last night, there were no female big wigs at the anchor’s desk. Women still make 77 cents on a man’s dollar.

But when Iowa’s outcome seemed determined to force Hillary’s end, women (and men) thought, not so fast. At BlogHer.com over the past few days we have had incredible discussions about Hillary, and whether she deserves our vote. Many think she does, but not because she “cried” (that’s crying? Elisa Camahort said it: I get more teary watching some commercials), and not because Obama and Edwards “ganged up” on her at the debate Saturday night. Please, give us more credit than that.

I think many young women are coming around to Hillary because despite our hesitancy to re-join the Feminist Majority, we know it’s time. Oddly enough, I think it took a reminder from the godmother of feminism, Gloria Steinem, to wake us up. As (male) uber-blogger Markos put it: “You underestimate that sympathy at your own peril. If I found myself half-rooting for her given the crap that was being flung at her, is it any wonder that women turned out in droves to send a message that sexist double-standards were unacceptable?”

It’s time. Older women have understood that and overwhelmingly support Clinton, but younger women have been slower to support Hillary. I think, though, we are realizing that perhaps having a woman in the White House will let us breathe a little easier at work.
Rita Arens (age bucket: 30-39) put it best:

I’m voting for Hillary for the same reason I lost my virginity - holding onto it until I found the perfect guy was becoming such an elevated ideal that I was never going to find a guy perfect enough to deserve it, my purity, my lotus flower, my blooming womanhood. I was going to walk around forever, deeming every man I met not worthy, until I finally ruined myself of finding love anywhere, my expectations unrealistic. So I slept with the guy I was dating at the time. I got it over with. And then I moved on to the rest of my life.

This country needs to just go ahead and elect a woman already. It’s time. We all know it’s time, are itching to just GET IT OVER WITH, get a woman in office and put an end to the questions of whether or not her PMS is going to interfere with her foreign policy. Hey, I’m a woman, and I’m an emotional wreck, but I’m not the kind of woman who is going to run for public office. The kind of woman who runs for public office has big, brass balls of her own that she wears on a pearl strand around her neck. The kind of woman who runs for office stands next to her husband while he’s talking about whether or not he had his dick sucked by an intern and then the next year runs for Senate. Folks, Hillary isn’t going to break into tears over much. She’s a female politician, and she’s tough. Give her the job. Let’s get this over with.

As godmother of feminism Gloria Steinem wrote yesterday,

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.

So, it’s time. We need Clinton to lead the way in Washington, and she needs us to win. It’s a nice touch that Steinem, who represents original feminism, can come in now with a very timely call to action. Because even though the second wave feminist’s message feels tired, they still speak the truth. All these years later.
</blockquote>

As I’m still waiting on more numbers, I asked readers to let me know if they’re pro Hillary, why, and if they think I’m full of crap. And I learned something from their answers, something I, as a white woman, don’t think about much.

As Rikyrah wrote:

<blockquote>
GENDER is the most restrictive force in America?

Then I guess she lives in a different America, because from where I am, RACE is, and always has been, THE most restrictive force.

WOmen got the vote after Black men.

Tell that to the members of my family.

I guess she just ignored that my father, grandfather, great-grandfather, though, by law in the Constitution HAD the right to vote after the Civil War, it was that silly thing called JIM CROW that prevented Blacks from having LEGALLY FULL CITIZENSHIP UNTIL 1964, which is, what, FORTY FIVE YEARS after women got the right to vote?

If my father hadn’t of moved up north, that would have meant, that he would have been FORTY-FIVE YEARS OLD before his FULL CITIZENSHIP would have been honored….AFTER putting his life on the line and fighting for this country in WWII.

There are, what, 9 White Female Governors?

1 Black male Governor.

</blockquote>

From Fabooj:
<blockquote>

Gloria Steinem’s NYT article was clearly directed to young, white females. Of privilege. She lives in a headspace that I could never occupy, would never want to occupy. Her arguments were specious at best and all I took away from the article was that her oppression was greater than my oppression. (I’m sorry…I should stop here and mention that I read the article yesterday and got pissed. As the day wore on, I was downright livid at Steinem’s presumptions, assumptions and petty pitifulness.)…

As a female, I would love to see a woman in the WH. Hey, I thought I’d be the first female president. And if I was just any woman, I’d probably even be happy to get in line with the sheeple and vote for Sen. Clinton. But I’m not.

Background: Not only have completely entrenched myself in politics since I was 8 (I’m 35 now), but I do have a very long political memory and more important (to me at least) I am a Black woman. I’m a fierce Democrat and I hold all Democrats to the same standard: Don’t suck.
</blockquote>

And finally, from Maria Niles in a different post:
<blockquote>

I am seeing more and more of my white sisters saying that one of the reasons Hillary Clinton should be elected is because of the powerful, world changing, patriarchy smashing, awesome and beautiful message it would send. And I agree it would. But when you imply or flat out say that having a white woman in the White House is more important than having a black man there, that hurts my feelings as Hillary Clinton might say.
</blockquote>

I hear you now Maria. But I still disagree. Women are the majority: in the US, in the world. It’s time, and it’s simply fair. And Hillary’s a good choice.

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Mary Katharine Ham and me at ABC/Facebook debate

January 6, 2008 · Filed Under Feminism, Internet Media, Politics · Comment

Townhall.com’s Mary Katharine Ham and I did a video blog from the ABC/Facebook debates in New Hampshire last night.
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Looking beyond “Women for…”

January 3, 2008 · Filed Under Feminism, Internet Media, Politics · Comment

From Iowa blogger Essential Estrogen, on the day of the Iowa Caucus:

Listen to the national media long enough and you’ll soon be convinced that I’m one of the hottest commodities available in this presidential election. First, I’m a resident of Iowa. Second, I’m a woman. It is true that I was contacted by every Democratic campaign (and a couple of Republican ones as well) and asked to join their “Women for …” group. Over the summer, I spent hours in small meetings, visiting with leadership of said women’s groups. Those who participated were told that the feedback garnered from those meetings was invaluable, that the views expressed by the women involved were going to be taken back to the top of the campaign and integrated into the messaging, plans and forthcoming white papers. Some of it was. Unless the other meetings held across the state of Iowa were drastically different from the ones I attended, very little of the substance of those meetings was converted to policy.

Women who attended the meetings, even those who remain firmly committed to the candidate hosting the meeting, still sometimes wonder where that information went or if it went anywhere at all. We asked to hear about reproductive health — not just abortion, but the full gamut of reproductive health issues — and have yet to see one white paper with that title. We asked for details concerning everything from early childhood learning to veterans’ benefits to protecting family farms. We asked for a great deal. We gained very little.

Who would have guessed that the elderly woman on the Wendy’s commercial who demanded, “Where’s the beef?!” so many years ago would be so in tune with women today?

Contrary to radio entertainers who fill the day with notices of the “chickafication” of everything from the economy to the media, the best-kept secret of the women’s community is that women’s issues are human issues. We don’t just care about families, contraception, security or education.

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