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About Me
- Allison
- I am a ridiculously happy wife and mother. I am married to my best friend Brandon. Right now I am lucky enough to have the luxury of staying home to take care of my little boy. I love most to spend time with my family. I also am an avid reader of various genres and I fancy myself quite the movie lover.
2 comments:
This Hillary case as a test of how much our society has progressed towards or away from misogyny has been fascinating. But it is actually infinitely complicated because of the Bill factor. I voted for Clinton in the primary and now regret it: I believed she was was the strongest candidate, the most forceful liberal, but I think I was mistaking strength for take-no-prisoners political lust, (Bill) Clinton-style. Anyway, that is neither here nor there. This article is by my favorite feminist columnist, and I think it highlights a lot of the nuances of this issue:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/13/opinion/13dowd.html
That being said, I wonder how possible it is, really, for women to escape history. It will take 100 more years, I think, for men to not wince at having a woman as a boss, because of the historical momental against it. It is "emasculating" to be bossed around by someone who has historically been so beneath you. Also, because women are child bearers and caregivers and often prioritize this above their careers at some point in their life, I don't think they will ever have the professional presence or authority in the working world, so a woman president still seems to come out of thin air--women are making progress but there are by far more male CEOs, executives, and senators. So the comfort threshold for female power will remain low because of low exposure to female power.
I'm surprised that the article was so surprised... pundits of any leaning ARE frat boys. They are self-indulged men and they are chauvinistic, regardless of how liberal they yell. There is a surprise, here? This just comes down to the fact that people should NEVER get their news from TV.
But, finally, I think this is interesting. Maureen Dowd, in another article, pointed out something... It could be simplistic or naive, but it made me think. In psychology and political science, there is "masculine" and "feminine" characteristics. Masculine is of course the Alpha, has always been associated with the US, it's my way or the highway, we will attack Iraq unilaterally if we have to, get out of our way, world. Feminine is the compromising, the compassionate, etc. Dowd argues that people's support for Obama is not a vote for feminism to be sure, but could be a vote for feminine leadership (oh my!). There is definitely a camp of feminists who believe that "femininity" despite its current you-throw-ball-like-a-girl negative connotation, should actually be extolled. An thus the FEMIN-ist, women's ways are better. It could be that America is worn out from Bush's hyper-masculine Alpha leadership of the country, and see that Clinton is much closer to that style than Obama (granted, she takes more heat for being masculine because it is seen as unbecoming to a woman, and that is sexist). But, to have a male in presidency who successfully uses feminine leadership style would not be the worst thing to happen. If it did, maybe the next female contender would not have to walk such an impossible gender tightrope....
[from the article]
"But Obama is the more emotionally delicate candidate, and the one who has the more feminine consensus management style, and the not-blinded-by-testosterone ability to object to a phony war.
As first lady, Alpha Hillary’s abrasive and secretive management of health care doomed it. She voted to enable W. on Iraq so she could run as someone tough enough to command armies."
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