Robin Morgan on Double Standards

I took the time to read this rant by Robin this morning and was delighted at how eloquently she spoke to the issue of women in leadership - and the double standards each one of us has to some degree. I recommend you take the time to read this - it is not only a validation of women as leaders, it is a checklist of why more of us are not vying for jobs such as President of the United States.

GOODBYE TO ALL THAT (#2) Feb.2, 2008 Robin Morgan "Goodbye To All That" was my (in)famous 1970 essay breaking free from apolitics of accommodation especially affecting women (for an online version,see http://blog.fair-use.org/category/chicago/). During my decades in civil-rights, anti-war, and contemporary women'smovements, I've avoided writing another specific "Goodbye . . .". But notsince the suffrage struggle have two communities--joint conscience-keepersof this country--been so set in competition, as the contest between HillaryRodham Clinton (HRC) and Barack Obama (BO) unfurls. So. Goodbye to the double standard . . . --Hillary is too ballsy but too womanly, a Snow Maiden who's emotional, andso much a politician as to be unfit for politics. --She's "ambitious" but he shows "fire in the belly." (Ever had laborpains? ) --When a sexist idiot screamed "Iron my shirt!" at HRC, it was consideredamusing; if a racist idiot shouted "Shine my shoes!" at BO, it would'veinspired hours of airtime and pages of newsprint analyzing our nationaldishonor. --Young political Kennedys--Kathleen, Kerry, and Bobby Jr.--all endorsedHillary. Sen Ted, age 76, endorsed Obama. If the situation were reversed,pundits would snort "See? Ted and establishment types back her, but theforward-looking generation backs him." (Personally, I'm unimpressed withCaroline's longing for the Return of the Fathers. Unlike the rest of theworld, Americans have short memories. Me, I still recall Marilyn Monroe'ssuicide, and a dead girl named Mary Jo Kopechne in Chappaquiddick.) Goodbye to the toxic viciousness . . . Carl Bernstein's disgust at Hillary's "thick ankles." Nixon-trickster RogerStone's new Hillary-hating 527 group, "Citizens United Not Timid" (check thecapital letters). John McCain answering "How do we beat the bitch?" with"Excellent question!" Would he have dared reply similarly to "How do we beatthe black bastard?" For shame. Goodbye to the HRC nutcracker with metal spikes between splayed thighs. Ifit was a tap-dancing blackface doll, we would be righteously outraged-andthey would not be selling it in airports. Shame. Goodbye to the most intimately violent T-shirts in election history,including one with the murderous slogan "If Only Hillary had married O.J.Instead!" Shame. Goodbye to Comedy Central's "Southpark" featuring a storyline in whichterrorists secrete a bomb in HRC's vagina. I refuse to wrench my brain downinto the gutter far enough to find a race-based comparison. For shame. Goodbye to the sick, malicious idea that this is funny. This is not"Clinton hating," not "Hillary hating." This is sociopathic woman-hating. Ifit were about Jews, we would recognize it instantly as anti-Semiticpropaganda; if about race, as KKK poison. Hell, PETA would go ballistic ifsuch vomitous spew were directed at animals. Where is our sense ofoutrage-as citizens, voters, Americans? Goodbye to the news-coverage target-practice . . . The women's movement and Media Matters wrung an apology from MSNBC's ChrisMatthews for relentless misogynistic comments (www.womensmediacenter.com).But what about NBC's Tim Russert's continual sexist asides and hisall-white-male panels pontificating on race and gender? Or CNN's TonyHarris chuckling at "the chromosome thing" while interviewing a woman fromThe White House Project? And that's not even mentioning Fox News. Goodbye to pretending the black community is entirely male and all womenare white . . . Surprise! Women exist in all opinions, pigmentations, ethnicities,abilities, sexual preferences, and ages--not only African American andEuropean American but Latina and Native American, Asian American and PacificIslanders, Arab American and-hey, every group, because a group wouldn'texist if we hadn't given birth to it. A few non-racist countries mayexist--but sexism is everywhere. No matter how many ways a woman breaks freefrom other discriminations, she remains a female human being in a worldstill so patriarchal that it's the "norm." So why should all women not be as justly proud of our womanhood and thecenturies, even millennia, of struggle that got us this far, as blackAmericans, women and men, are justly proud of their struggles? Goodbye to a campaign where he has to pass as white (whichwhites-especially wealthy ones--adore), while she has to pass as male (whichboth men and women demanded of her, and then found unforgivable). If shewere black or he were female we wouldn't be having such problems, and I forone would be in heaven. But at present such a candidate wouldn't stand achance-even if she shared Condi Rice's Bush-defending politics. I was celebrating the pivotal power at last focused on African Americanwomen deciding on which of two candidates to bestow their vote--until anumber of Hillary-supporting black feminists told me they're being called"race traitors." So goodbye to conversations about this nation's deepest scar-slavery-whichfail to acknowledge that labor- and sexual-slavery exist today in the US andelsewhere on this planet, and the majority of those enslaved are women. Women have endured sex/race/ethnic/religious hatred, rape and battery,invasion of spirit and flesh, forced pregnancy; being the majority of thepoor, the illiterate, the disabled, of refugees, caregivers, the HIV/AIDSafflicted, the powerless. We have survived invisibility, ridicule, religiousfundamentalisms, polygamy, teargas, forced feedings, jails, asylums, sati,purdah, female genital mutilation, witch burnings, stonings, and attemptedgynocides. We have tried reason, persuasion, reassurances, and beingextra-qualified, only to learn it never was about qualifications after all.We know that at this historical moment women experience the worlddifferently from men--though not all the same as one another--and can governdifferently, from Elizabeth Tudor to Michele Bachelet and Ellen JohnsonSirleaf. We remember when Shirley Chisholm and Patricia Schroeder ran for this highoffice and barely got past the gate-they showed too much passion, raised toolittle cash, were joke fodder. Goodbye to all that. (And goodbye to somefeminists so famished for a female president they were even willing toabandon women's rights in backing Elizabeth Dole.) Goodbye, goodbye to . . . --blaming anything Bill Clinton does on Hillary (even including hiswomanizing like the Kennedy guys--though unlike them, he got reported on).Let's get real. If he hadn't campaigned strongly for her everyone wouldcluck over what that meant. Enough of Bill and Teddy Kennedy locking theiralpha male horns while Hillary pays for it. --an era when parts of the populace feel so disaffected by politics that acomparative lack of knowledge, experience, and skill is actually seen asattractive, when celebrity-culture mania now infects our elections so thatit's "cooler" to glow with marquee charisma than to understand the vastglobal complexities of power on a nuclear, wounded planet. --the notion that it's fun to elect a handsome, cocky president who feelshe can learn on the job, goodbye to George W. Bush and the destructionbrought by his inexperience, ignorance, and arrogance. Goodbye to the accusation that HRC acts "entitled" when she's workedintensely at everything she's done-including being a nose-to-the-grindstone,first-rate senator from my state. Goodbye to her being exploited as a Rorschach test by women who reduce herto a blank screen on which they project their own fears, failures,fantasies. Goodbye to the phrase "polarizing figure" to describe someone who embodiesthe transitions women have made in the last century and are poised to makein this one. It was the women's movement that quipped, "We are becoming themen we wanted to marry." She heard us, and she has. Goodbye to some women letting history pass by while wringing their hands,because Hillary isn't as "likeable" as they've been warned they must be, orbecause she didn't leave him, couldn't "control" him, kept her familytogether and raised a smart, sane daughter. (Think of the blame if Chelseahad ever acted in the alcoholic, neurotic manner of the Bush twins!) Goodbyeto some women pouting because she didn't bake cookies or she did, snipingbecause she learned the rules and then bent or broke them. Grow the hell up.She is not running for Ms.-perfect-pure-queen-icon of the feministmovement. She's running to be President of the United States. Goodbye to the shocking American ignorance of our own and other countries'history. Margaret Thatcher and Golda Meir rose through party ranks and war,positioning themselves as proto-male leaders. Almost all other female headsof government so far have been related to men of power-granddaughters,daughters, sisters, wives, widows: Gandhi, Bandaranike, Bhutto, Aquino,Chamorro, Wazed, Macapagal-Arroyo, Johnson Sirleaf, Bachelet, Kirchner, andmore. Even in our "land of opportunity," it's mostly the first pathway "in"permitted to women: Reps. Doris Matsui and Mary Bono and Sala Burton; Sen.Jean Carnahan . . . far too many to list here. Goodbye to a misrepresented generational divide . . . Goodbye to the so-called spontaneous "Obama Girl" flaunting her bikin-cladass online-then confessing Oh yeah it wasn't her idea after all, some guysgot her to do it and dictated the clothes, which she said "made me feel likea dork." Goodbye to some young women eager to win male approval by showing they'renot feminists (at least not the kind who actually threaten the status quo),who can't identify with a woman candidate because she actually is unafraidof eeueweeeu yucky power, who fear their boyfriends might look at them funnyif they say something good about her. Goodbye to women of any age againfeeling unworthy, sulking "what if she's not electable?" or "maybe it'spost-feminism and whoooosh we're already free." Let a statement by themagnificent Harriet Tubman stand as reply. When asked how she managed tosave hundreds of enslaved African Americans via the Underground Railroadduring the Civil War, she replied bitterly, "I could have saved thousands-ifonly I'd been able to convince them they were slaves." I'd rather say a joyful Hello to all the glorious young women who doidentify with Hillary, and all the brave, smart men-of all ethnicities andany age--who get that it's in their self-interest, too. She's betterqualified. (D'uh.) She's a high-profile candidate with an enormous grasp offoreign- and domestic-policy nuance, dedication to detail, ability to absorbstaggering insult and personal pain while retaining dignity, resolve, evenhumor, and keep on keeping on. (Also, yes, dammit, let's hear it for herconnections and funding and party-building background, too. Obama wasawfully glad about those when she raised dough and campaigned for him to getto the Senate in the first place.) I'd rather look forward to what a good president he might make in eightyears, when his vision and spirit are seasoned by practical know-how--andhe'll be all of 54. Meanwhile, goodbye to turning him into a shining knightwhen actually he's an astute, smooth pol with speechwriters who've workedwith the Kennedys' own speechwriter-courtier Ted Sorenson. If it's onlyabout ringing rhetoric, let speechwriters run. But isn't it about gettingthe policies we want enacted? And goodbye to the ageism . . How dare anyone unilaterally decide when to turn the page on history,papering over real inequities and suffering constituencies in the promise ofa feel-good campaign. How dare anyone claim to unify while dividing, orthink that to rouse US youth from torpor it's useful to triage the singlelargest demographic in this country's history: the boomer generation--themajority of which is female? . Old women are the one group that doesn't grow more conservative withage-and we are the generation of radicals who said "Well-behaved womenseldom make history." Goodbye to going gently into any goodnight any manprescribes for us. We are the women who changed the reality of the UnitedStates. And though we never went away, brace yourselves: we're back! We are the women who brought this country equal credit, better pay,affirmative action, the concept of a family-focused workplace; the women whoestablished rape-crisis centers and battery shelters, marital-rape anddate-rape laws; the women who defended lesbian custody rights, who foughtfor prison reform, founded the peace and environmental movements; whoinsisted that medical research include female anatomy, who inspired men tobecome more nurturing parents, who created women's studies and Title IX sowe all could cheer the WNBA stars and Mia Hamm. We are the women whoreclaimed sexuality from violent pornography, who put child care on thenational agenda, who transformed demographics, artistic expression, languageitself. We are the women who forged a worldwide movement. We are the proudsuccessors of women who, though it took more than 50 years, won us the vote. We are the women who now comprise the majority of US voters. Hillary said she found her own voice in New Hampshire. There's not a womanalive who, if she's honest, doesn't recognize what she means. Then HRC gotdrowned out by campaign experts, Bill, and media's obsession with everythingBill. So listen to her voice: "For too long, the history of women has been a history of silence. Eventoday, there are those who are trying to silence our words. "It is a violation of human rights when babies are denied food, or drowned,or suffocated, or their spines broken, simply because they are born girls.It is a violation of human rights when woman and girls are sold into theslavery of prostitution. It is a violation of human rights when women aredoused with gasoline, set on fire and burned to death because their marriagedowries are deemed too small. It is a violation of human rights whenindividual women are raped in their own communities and when thousands ofwomen are subjected to rape as a tactic or prize of war. It is a violationof human rights when a leading cause of death worldwide along women ages 14to 44 is the violence they are subjected to in their own homes. It is aviolation of human rights when women are denied the right to plan their ownfamilies, and that includes being forced to have abortions or beingsterilized against their will. "Women's rights are human rights. Among those rights are the right to speakfreely--and the right to be heard." That was Hillary Rodham Clinton defying the US State Department and theChinese Government at the 1995 UN World Conference on Women in Beijing (thefull, stunning speech:http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/hillaryclintonbeijingspeech.htm). And this voice, age 22, in "Commencement Remarks of Hillary D. Rodham,President of Wellesley College Government Association, Class of 1969" (fullspeech: http://www.wellesley.edu/PublicAffairs/Commencement/ 1969/053169hillary.html "We are, all of us, exploring a world none of us understands. . . .searching for a more immediate, ecstatic, and penetrating mode of living. .. . [for the] integrity, the courage to be whole, living in relation to oneanother in the full poetry of existence. The struggle for an integrated lifeexisting in an atmosphere of communal trust and respect is one withdesperately important political and social consequences. . . . Fear isalways with us, but we just don't have time for it." She ended with the commitment "to practice, with all the skill of ourbeing: the art of making possible." And for decades, she's been learning how. So goodbye to Hillary's second-guessing herself. The real question isdeeper than her re-finding her voice. Can we women find ours? Can we do thisfor ourselves? "Our President, Ourselves!" Time is short and the contest tightening. We need to rise in furiousenergy--as we did when Anita Hill was so vilely treated in the US Senate, aswe did when Rosie Jiminez was butchered by an illegal abortion, as we didand do for women globally who are condemned for trying to break through. Weneed to win, this time. Goodbye to supporting HRC tepidly, with ambivalentcaveats and apologetic smiles. Time to volunteer, make phone calls, sendemails, donate money, argue, rally, march, shout, vote. Me? I support Hillary Rodham because she's the best qualified of allcandidates running in both parties. I support her because she's refreshinglythoughtful, and I'm bloodied from eight years of a jolly "uniter" withejaculatory politics. I needn't agree with her on every point. I agree withthe 97 percent of her positions that are identical with Obama's-and the fewwhere hers are both more practical and to the left of his (like healthcare). I support her because she's already smashed the first-lady stereotypeand made history as a fine senator, because I believe she will continue tomake history not only as the first US woman president, but as a great USpresident. As for the "woman thing"? Me, I'm voting for Hillary not because she's a woman--but because I am. www.robinmorgan.us