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Is there such a thing as a Women's Vote any more?
With the US election only 3 weeks away, this thought has been swimming around in my brain: where is the Women's Vote? Here is my take on Sarah Palin and the impact her nomination has made on a number of levels. What do you think?
A HARD CHOICE FOR WOMEN
How many women have been walking around in a daze these past weeks, trying to wake up from a nightmare they cannot control? These are the women who for years have been waiting for that moment when a full blooded, self aware, confident woman would enter the White House. They always knew that it would be a spectacular event, marked by great controversy but welcomed by fellow women the world over. But what these women never expected, was that the woman carrying that flag would be a pit-bull called Sarah Palin.
The Republican nomination of Sarah as Vice President – one short step away from “leadership of the free world” – has been the biggest drama of the US election, overshadowing even Obama’s nomination. Appearing like a rabbit out of a hat, Sarah surprised and confused us all: who expected McCain to come up with a female Veep to mop up after Hillary? And that she would command more attention than the messiah Obama?
But far more significant than the initial impact has been the steady revelation that if Sarah Palin is supposed to be the Woman’s candidate, then there really is no such thing as the Women’s Vote. Never before have I seen the women’s media so badly split in their response to this mother of five. Feminist author Camille Paglia welcomes her with open arms, applauding her for an “explosion of a brand new style of muscular American feminism…combining male and female qualities in ways that I have never seen before”. Oprah meantime has refused to interview her and Arianna Huffington describes her as a “Trojan Moose concealing four more years of Bush”.
An ABC/Washington Post survey recorded that an eight-point lead Obama held over his Republican rival John McCain before the arrival of Palin had turned into a 12% lead for McCain largely due to white women switching their allegiance. However, of the over 500 Palin sites that have already sprung up on Facebook, with titles like “Sarah Palin is not Hillary Clinton” and “Intelligent Women against Sarah Palin”, the vast majority are against her. As Republican women thrill to her maternal stridency, Code Pink feminist peace activists disrupt her speeches claiming she is a threat to Women’s Rights. Soon we will see women in pink bringing a whole new meaning to the phrase “Not In My Name”.
But where do the fault lines lie? On this side of the Atlantic, both Daily Mail and Guardian female writers have mocked the idea that women’s political ambitions could be answered by a token woman, rather than one who is committed to feminist ideals – which Palin is not. Says Alison Pearson “Make no mistake, Vice-President Barbie…was chosen for just one reason. To come across as youthful and female when she stands next to the old guy”.
British feminists would always choose a woman who defends women’s rights as defined by men’s rights: equal pay, equal opportunities and physical autonomy –the right to choose. Within this framework, children are not regarded as a defining influence in a woman’s life any more than they would be for a man. And when women don’t take the top jobs in business and industry, we refer to a ‘glass ceiling’ of institutional sexism as the only explanation. Those women who prefer a more traditional woman’s ‘role’ – vocational caring for the family and the home - rarely call themselves feminists.
But in the States, political feminism itself is not the only kind of activism available to women. Leslie Morgan Steiner’s book Mommy Wars for example, highlighted the ‘rights of women’ to stay at home and put their children above careers. Lisa Belkin, author of The Opt Out Revolution, wrote "Why don't women run the world? Maybe it's because they don't want to." Although many believe it to be a false war, the battle is fierce: as the Washington Post’s EJ Graff describes: “ Feminists go back and forth between depicting working mothers as heroines and as victims, conservatives go back and forth between depicting them as victims forced into the labor force by feminist bullying and high taxes, and as villains who put their personal fulfillment above their children's well-being.”
If Sarah Palin is trying to have it all ways by being a “hockey Mum” to five children as well as a credible Vice Presidential candidate, she has nevertheless opened up a very different divide amongst women. It may not have a name yet, but if the social networkers are anything to go by, it would revolve around the question “can a Woman’s candidate be moose hunting, pro-guns, pro-drilling, pro-military, pro-life (ie anti choice) and a bully or not?” This is less the “condescending liberalism” that Victor Davis Hanson describes in the San Francisco Chronicle and something more like the soft v hard divide that Obama has highlighted throughout the campaign.
Soft in political terms, is not simply kind. Soft power, as defined by Clinton adviser Joseph Nye over 20 years ago, implies a way of getting things done without the use of coercion. Diplomacy, inspirational speech, charisma, cultural exchange and modeling values are all ways of influencing the behaviour of others without force. Obama’s promise to change America’s image in the world through different behaviour is starkly different from McCain’s – or Palin’s – promise to show Russia and others who’s boss. Does this make the Democrats more ‘feminine’ than the Republicans, with or without a woman at the helm?
While Obama cannot be explicit about his soft power approach for fear of appearing weak, his emphasis on renewed global relations, withdrawal from Iraq and social inclusion, all the time using emotive terms such as hope and change have made him the more ‘feminine’ draw than the macho McCain. Even in the nomination battle with Hillary Clinton, as Michael Scherer points out, “Obama was ‘the woman’..He does not appear to worry much about posing with guns.. Instead, he sings an empowerment ballad on the stump that would make most lady folk singers proud. "The decision to go to war is not a sport," he tells crowds, rejecting the male metaphor.”
By contrast, in her first interview with ABC’s Charles Gibson, Palin, while looking surprisingly vulnerable, chose an almost trigger happy stance: ready to go to war in defense of Nato allies and ready to drill for oil at the expense of the environment. Choosing to describe herself as a pit bull, Palin’s claim for women – like Thatcher maybe - is that they can be as hard, maybe harder than men. (Only don’t confuse Sarah with Margaret: Maggie traveled). That she champions none of the softer qualities associated with women – don’t be fooled by her lipstick she says - highlights the bigger reliance on hard power within her party.
With Palin in the Veep seat, the bigger issue of the US’s global image comes into full view. Her rejection of a ‘feminine’ stance is not only significant to women, it colors the entire US election as a contest between an America keen to hold onto its superpower status and one ready for a different relationship to power and the world. For women, the choice between the more feminine Obama / Biden ticket and the more masculine McCain / Palin ticket, puts paid to the notion of a global sisterhood we once dreamed of.
A HARD CHOICE FOR WOMEN
How many women have been walking around in a daze these past weeks, trying to wake up from a nightmare they cannot control? These are the women who for years have been waiting for that moment when a full blooded, self aware, confident woman would enter the White House. They always knew that it would be a spectacular event, marked by great controversy but welcomed by fellow women the world over. But what these women never expected, was that the woman carrying that flag would be a pit-bull called Sarah Palin.
The Republican nomination of Sarah as Vice President – one short step away from “leadership of the free world” – has been the biggest drama of the US election, overshadowing even Obama’s nomination. Appearing like a rabbit out of a hat, Sarah surprised and confused us all: who expected McCain to come up with a female Veep to mop up after Hillary? And that she would command more attention than the messiah Obama?
But far more significant than the initial impact has been the steady revelation that if Sarah Palin is supposed to be the Woman’s candidate, then there really is no such thing as the Women’s Vote. Never before have I seen the women’s media so badly split in their response to this mother of five. Feminist author Camille Paglia welcomes her with open arms, applauding her for an “explosion of a brand new style of muscular American feminism…combining male and female qualities in ways that I have never seen before”. Oprah meantime has refused to interview her and Arianna Huffington describes her as a “Trojan Moose concealing four more years of Bush”.
An ABC/Washington Post survey recorded that an eight-point lead Obama held over his Republican rival John McCain before the arrival of Palin had turned into a 12% lead for McCain largely due to white women switching their allegiance. However, of the over 500 Palin sites that have already sprung up on Facebook, with titles like “Sarah Palin is not Hillary Clinton” and “Intelligent Women against Sarah Palin”, the vast majority are against her. As Republican women thrill to her maternal stridency, Code Pink feminist peace activists disrupt her speeches claiming she is a threat to Women’s Rights. Soon we will see women in pink bringing a whole new meaning to the phrase “Not In My Name”.
But where do the fault lines lie? On this side of the Atlantic, both Daily Mail and Guardian female writers have mocked the idea that women’s political ambitions could be answered by a token woman, rather than one who is committed to feminist ideals – which Palin is not. Says Alison Pearson “Make no mistake, Vice-President Barbie…was chosen for just one reason. To come across as youthful and female when she stands next to the old guy”.
British feminists would always choose a woman who defends women’s rights as defined by men’s rights: equal pay, equal opportunities and physical autonomy –the right to choose. Within this framework, children are not regarded as a defining influence in a woman’s life any more than they would be for a man. And when women don’t take the top jobs in business and industry, we refer to a ‘glass ceiling’ of institutional sexism as the only explanation. Those women who prefer a more traditional woman’s ‘role’ – vocational caring for the family and the home - rarely call themselves feminists.
But in the States, political feminism itself is not the only kind of activism available to women. Leslie Morgan Steiner’s book Mommy Wars for example, highlighted the ‘rights of women’ to stay at home and put their children above careers. Lisa Belkin, author of The Opt Out Revolution, wrote "Why don't women run the world? Maybe it's because they don't want to." Although many believe it to be a false war, the battle is fierce: as the Washington Post’s EJ Graff describes: “ Feminists go back and forth between depicting working mothers as heroines and as victims, conservatives go back and forth between depicting them as victims forced into the labor force by feminist bullying and high taxes, and as villains who put their personal fulfillment above their children's well-being.”
If Sarah Palin is trying to have it all ways by being a “hockey Mum” to five children as well as a credible Vice Presidential candidate, she has nevertheless opened up a very different divide amongst women. It may not have a name yet, but if the social networkers are anything to go by, it would revolve around the question “can a Woman’s candidate be moose hunting, pro-guns, pro-drilling, pro-military, pro-life (ie anti choice) and a bully or not?” This is less the “condescending liberalism” that Victor Davis Hanson describes in the San Francisco Chronicle and something more like the soft v hard divide that Obama has highlighted throughout the campaign.
Soft in political terms, is not simply kind. Soft power, as defined by Clinton adviser Joseph Nye over 20 years ago, implies a way of getting things done without the use of coercion. Diplomacy, inspirational speech, charisma, cultural exchange and modeling values are all ways of influencing the behaviour of others without force. Obama’s promise to change America’s image in the world through different behaviour is starkly different from McCain’s – or Palin’s – promise to show Russia and others who’s boss. Does this make the Democrats more ‘feminine’ than the Republicans, with or without a woman at the helm?
While Obama cannot be explicit about his soft power approach for fear of appearing weak, his emphasis on renewed global relations, withdrawal from Iraq and social inclusion, all the time using emotive terms such as hope and change have made him the more ‘feminine’ draw than the macho McCain. Even in the nomination battle with Hillary Clinton, as Michael Scherer points out, “Obama was ‘the woman’..He does not appear to worry much about posing with guns.. Instead, he sings an empowerment ballad on the stump that would make most lady folk singers proud. "The decision to go to war is not a sport," he tells crowds, rejecting the male metaphor.”
By contrast, in her first interview with ABC’s Charles Gibson, Palin, while looking surprisingly vulnerable, chose an almost trigger happy stance: ready to go to war in defense of Nato allies and ready to drill for oil at the expense of the environment. Choosing to describe herself as a pit bull, Palin’s claim for women – like Thatcher maybe - is that they can be as hard, maybe harder than men. (Only don’t confuse Sarah with Margaret: Maggie traveled). That she champions none of the softer qualities associated with women – don’t be fooled by her lipstick she says - highlights the bigger reliance on hard power within her party.
With Palin in the Veep seat, the bigger issue of the US’s global image comes into full view. Her rejection of a ‘feminine’ stance is not only significant to women, it colors the entire US election as a contest between an America keen to hold onto its superpower status and one ready for a different relationship to power and the world. For women, the choice between the more feminine Obama / Biden ticket and the more masculine McCain / Palin ticket, puts paid to the notion of a global sisterhood we once dreamed of.
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Aliteams on
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Oh goody - I've been waiting for something like this that we could all wet out teeth on by discussing in this forum. Great! Well done for starting the ball rolling.
I've had loads of varying feelings as the weeks roll by. My first reaction was shock and horror, everytime I think about Sarah, I see poor old McCain either resigning through ill health or popping his clogs and she is president! Oh my god - how would she behave with world leaders, like Putin. But then he has just released a new video of himself doing martial arts....................! And they did have Ronald Regan but I guess he had travelled! (tehe! I digress)
I'm now relaxing into 'whatever will be, will be' (not that there is anything I can do to influence things anyway!) and am very very curious to see what will happen, as there is so much media hoopla, we will not really know how many of the middle America is hypnotised by her. It is so fascinating that West and East coasters seem so much more wordly, I do hope that has seeped through to the bible belt. I have a NY black American adopted 'father' who says if McCain/Palin get in he's moving to Canada!
Moving onto the male/female, masculine/feminine - I rather like Lisa Belkin's "Why don't women run the world? Maybe it's because they don't want to." quote. Difficult one. Maybe rather than labelling them masculine and feminine, it's more like different jobs/positions call for a particular style/set of characteristics. So pitbulls in lipsticks are ok if that's what they want to be. I guess for me the fight worth fighting is about value and respect for all areas in the tapistry of life, be that masculine man/feminine man or masculine woman/feminine woman and all the shades of grey inbetween.
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