Why Some Feminists are Choosing an Old White Guy over Hillary

[eridani]

https://modeofexpression.wordpress.com/2015/12/21/why-some-feminists-are-choosing-an-old-white-guy-over-hillary/

Millennials are the ones giving their lives in this perpetual warfare state. The 18-30 group make up over 60% of EVERY division of our military, from Marines, to Coast Guard, so when jokers like Huckabee say things like we need to earn our own freedom it stings, but it also makes me mad. When Hillary gets just as hawkish as the Republicans and defends America’s interventions around the world that have hurt our economy, cost us lives, and not accomplished anything inherently useful it is a problem.

Democrats are at a crossroads. Should they continue to move to the right to score some moderates, and get more support from corporations, or should they jump in a la Beyonce, “to the left, to the left”? I say left, and here’s why. If we disagree with the republicans and we are the party for the people then we need to support policies that will benefit the people. This means an end to pretending that corporations will have everything they want. We need to support industry and entrepreneurship but not at the cost of lives. We should not subsidize the healthcare of employees when their CEO’s are living it up. America needs to stop with the rugged individualism for a bit and understand that there needs to be a give and take, and contrary to what the GOP is saying Corporations are doing all the taking, including the environment. This needs to stop. A revolution will mobilize the people as it has begun to do, but status quo politics will not. The Democratic party needs to change or get left behind. Otherwise they are at risk of making the US a three party system. Sanders is not the only politician tired of where our politicians are and in time there will be more, will the Democratic party lose in order to stay true to what exactly? It doesn’t have the best history but it claims it is for Americans, yet Dems have voted to keep refugees out, voted for CISA and more that does not and will not help America. What Bernie has touched on is bigger than this two-party system and admittedly himself. It is time for structural change and if feminists see value in that, that means feminism has grown and that is something to be proud of.

Feminists are a varied group. I will not try to speak for us all, or even the young ones, or the people of color. What I will say is that we are capable of finding out for ourselves where candidates stand and where they have moved from. On social issues the Dem side is similar but one candidate has been there longer. On economic issues, a progressive far-left “Socialist” makes sense because we have already tried socialism for the rich. It is time to try it for the working people of America, who should be called Middle Class, but because of failed policies too little qualify. Because we deserve an education, because wanting to help others with therapy, medicine, education etc is not selfish and entitled, they are just as important and necessary as a trade, which costs a lot by the way. There are many men and women at work in blue collar jobs trying to pay down that vocational diploma.

[Enthusiast]

1. But Bernie's positions are not Far Left socialsm.

If the entire developed world has a single payer health care system that makes the USA the outlier, not the rest of the developed world.

If the USA is outspending the world on a bloated, wasteful, unnecessary war machine, that makes the USA the outlier, not the rest of the world.

Bernie's positions are not FAR LEFT!

[djean111]

2. Being told I must vote for Hillary because I am a woman is NOT what feminism is/was about.

Not even close.

Voting because of gender, and not on the issues, is just stupid and uninformed. The antithesis of what the woman's movement was about. I didn't get into trouble at work insisting I not train for a secretary's duties just because I am a woman - I insisted that the other (all male) programmers ALSO train for the job. Getting or not getting something due to gender is the problem.
Equal opportunity is what we were after. Not favoritism.

I won all of those encounters. And I had some shitty female managers and some really great ones. Just like I had some shitty male managers and some really great ones.

[Doctor_J]

3. I would think that women voting for an establishment conservative like Hillary would

be pretty much the opposite of traditional feminism. Why would feminists vote against uhc, paid sick leave, paid family leave, and a living wage? Why would they vote in favor of more war?

[MisterP]

4. 'coz she's given birth? that's how the "keep-'em-out-of-our-sacred-latrines" types think

[Hell Hath No Fury]

5. An observation -

Due to some local activism, I have recently come into contact with around 20 women in their late 50s/60s who are all liberal, all feminists, and all working daily to address issues of inequality/the environment, and the arts in my town of SF. As I have gotten to "see" them via their FB pages, every single one of them is a a Bernie voter! I thought, with my Bernie pin affixed to the hat I wear everywhere I might get into some "interesting" discussions with some who potential Clinton supporters -- no worries there!

I think there is a generational thing going on among many of the feminists I know. Women who were active in the modern women's movement (Steinhem's age and older) have a serious emotional investment in having a "woman" President that I, being the very end of the Boomers, do not. Interestingly, among the people I have out with, the strongest Clinton supporters are my gay friends. Go figure.