Hillary's Bias Problems Have Deep Cultural Roots

[Triana]

Run Date: 02/20/08
By Elizabeth L. Keathley
WeNews commentator

Hillary Clinton's campaign is pulling at the deep cultural roots of gender bias. Elizabeth Keathley says that's why the senator is so often caught in the double bind between being considered either "too feminine" or "too masculine."

Elizabeth Keathley

(WOMENSENEWS)--Earlier in the primary contest, when comedian Chris Rock quipped on "Saturday Night Live" that Barack Obama was more disadvantaged than Hillary Clinton because "everyone loves white women . . . except other white women," he might have been channelling the mid-20th century philosopher Simone de Beauvoir.

Beauvoir famously argued that women had difficulty uniting and supporting each other because their livelihood and status depended on a "good" marriage. Their competition for husbands engendered envy and hindered female bonding.

Although Chris Rock's joke sparks a laugh of recognition, we should acknowledge that white women are actually the ones showing Hillary the greatest love at the ballot box, voting for her in primary after primary.

That suggests that other women are not the enemy of Hillary nor, for that matter, of all other women. Rather, the enemy is culture and history.

The socio-economic changes of 19th-century Europe and America gave momentum to the international women's movement. Urbanization stripped unmarried women of their traditional, agrarian occupations, while numerous wars depleted the population of available husbands to support them. Women sought traditionally male occupations and civil rights, but these "first wave" feminists of the late 19th century reaped opprobrium and physical abuse for violating the ideals of domesticity, humility and deference to men.


MORE:

http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/3500/context/archive

[AX10]

1. kick

[tabatha]

2. Thanks for that - good article.

[liberalnurse]

3. I addressed some of these concern in a post last night.

I linked a great blog rant of sorts by feminist, activist,Robin Morgan. I do appreciate her bold approach to reminding all women of our plight as women. She addressed Hillary Clinton.



http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=4733854&mesg_id=4733854

Thank You for your link. We need to keep reminding women that it's okay to be equal.

[Triana]

4. I think we need to keep reminding society..

...that we're not - as much as they (even women) like to try to collectively ignore that fact. Needs to be kept front and center and we need to refuse to capitulate silently to it.

[liberalnurse]

5. You are so exactly right!

"we need to refuse to capitulate silently to it. "

Next, they will have us wearing burka's!
:yourock:

[UALRBSofL]

12. liberalnurse I wanted to address my post to you

in reference to this thread because I'm assuming your a nurse, and I am also. First I want to say I agree with everything written in this post. The OP is absolutely right about the treatment of women over the past. They were the last group to be allowed to vote. They have to be many roles for the family and the community. The loosely set standards for women are unequal to men. That said, this is the issues I have with women in the working environment. My profession is predominately filled with women. Being a nurse for many years working with women I have made personal observations that I have felt have been counterproductive for women. I don't think I'll go any further with my post because I certainly don't want to upset the women on GD-P and I don't want to alienate them from me because I enjoy discussing topics with everyone. That said, I do have ideas that could strengthen womens standing but it's just a matter of women taking control of everyday issues and not fighting each other over roles women and men play in the community. I'd be glad to discuss issues I see harming women and how I see women hurting each other in the working environment. But, I'll wait to see what kind of response I get from my post to go any further.

[Warpy]

15. Yeah, like thinking unions are sweaty guys in wife beater shirts

and not for angels in white. I saw that part too and wanted to strangle the lot of them for it.

96% of the night staff at my last job signed union cards. Day staff was under 20%, probably due to the union busters coming around and convincing them of the above.

[DeSwiss]

6. Very good!

K&R! :)

[Extend a Hand]

7. Boy she nailed it

Voices as diverse as Virginia Woolf, Barbra Streisand and punk rocker Kathleen Hanna have remarked that women and men doing the same things are judged differently--women more negatively--and that this double standard has circumscribed the range of socially acceptable behavior available to women.

When Hillary conforms to the norms of feminine vocal comportment, she is too careful. When she raises her voice in passion, she is shrill. Lectern-thumping, emotionally charged rhetoric by a female candidate would be dismissed as hysterical. How, then, is a female presidential candidate to speak?

This is so true. For most of my career I worked as a software engineer and was often times the only woman or one of two in the group. I've seen this over and over again. Someday maybe it will be different. (Sigh).

K&R

[Triana]

8. Same in IT...

...only woman of a few. Damned if you do or don't. And we get NO mentoring - we're on our own as far as figuring out/learning the technology. Since it's mostly men - they mentor each other and women are left out of that, too. THEN we get the 'women are no good at tech' meme. Pfft!

[pecwae]

9. Also the same in construction

and maintenance fields. For years I worked in administrative jobs with the Veteran's Administration. I hated those jobs and watched with envy when the Engineering guys (and they were all men) would come around to repair walls, doors, medical equipment, and so on. They always seemed to be in a good mood and enjoying what they were doing not to mention getting paid a hell of a lot more than I. I kept thinking "why not me?"

I had to apply three times, but was able to secure a job with Engineering Service doing grounds maintenance at two V.A. Hospitals, breaking the gender barrier at both. I got promoted to Carpenter after a couple of years then went on to another V.A. to break the gender barrier as an Engineering Fore(wo)man.

The engineering positions were fun, enjoyable, educational, well compensated, but I had to fight rampant sexism, contempt from both sexes and 'prove' I could do those jobs every single day. The vast majority of my coworkers (all male) hated me for no other reason than I was female and I'd had the nerve to infiltrate their ranks. When I got the foreman position another foreman told me to my face what most of the others were thinking; "That job should have gone to a man with a family." Uh, I was raising two children on my own..... What really surprised me was the attitude of a lot of the women I used to work beside in admin; they shunned me as beneath their notice or spread rumors that I got my new job(s) on my back.


Despite the everyday struggle it was worth it all to see the women who followed me. There weren't many at first, but I hope that has changed.

[Triana]

13. UNfr*ckingbelievable - the "should have gone to a man with a family" bit...

...WOMEN are most often raising a family ALONE. What they're lacking is the man - who is gone for one reason or another (won't get into that). If anything THEY need those jobs worse than men.

People claim to be oh-so-moral but when it comes to women and children in this country and their well-being and support - they're left WITHOUT any - even from other women. And certainly from the gov't, and the laws - which are still based on women always being married. And even if they ARE - they still often want or need careers - lest they be 'stuck' in a relationship based on financial dependence - and this is something our society ENCOURAGES women to do while discouraging them being independent in JUST the way you descibe above.

God bless YOU for being a trailblazer. It's a HELL of a job. But *somebody's* gotta do it! Obviously it won't be a man. ;)

[Libface]

18. Thank you pecwae.

I'm 25 and only recently (in the past few years) starting to get a clearer picture of how sexism has affected me in my life. I think when it's more subtle it's hard to recognize, especially without open discussion or education on the subject. One example is that I've been called "crazy bitch" or "psycho bitch" a few times for making some men (and boys) angry or talking about things I'm not supposed to. At the time it didn't connect for me; it just didn't make sense how what I was saying or doing at the time was in any reasonable capacity "psycho". In asking why I was a crazy bitch I was just further dismissed (by men close to me, which is why it has stayed with me I guess). It really didn't click until (at least in part) I saw Dave Chappelle talk about his experience of being dismissed as crazy for not reacting the way some thought he should to his success. He said something about how calling someone crazy is just a way to dismiss what they're saying and for some reason that was what started me thinking about my experiences in a different way. It took some time and some education and loss of my illusions but I get now how this has been used against women and where it came from in my experiences (being the type of woman who challenges conventional thinking can be dangerous).

Growing up I experienced blatant sexism of course but I think I was sort of taught that that was the only bad kind. Only a really obvious and explosive or shocking event (or statement) was real sexism. There's this level of subtle misogyny that's acceptable and "just the way things are" and I think it might even be more harmful than many obvious forms because it takes an open mind to see it. In connecting many of the dots it becomes clear to me that the reason I pretended to be stupid when I wasn't, or more "girly" than I really felt like, or curtailed my interest in certain things that weren't what I was "supposed" to be interested in, or many times I compromised my own comfort or wishes (or safety) was in large part because of the sexist messages I was seeing everywhere I turned, even if they were more subtle than "Bitches belong in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant" or whatever. So much of my energy is spent worrying about what I eat and how I look, energy I could be spending on much more fun or important things, and there's this whole industry where people are making money off of feeding into that or creating it with subtle sexist messages...

Anyway, I didn't mean to ramble, I really just wanted to say thank you (and women like you) for doing the heavy lifting.

[kikiek]

10. Thanks for the great article. Hits the nail on the head.

[pnwmom]

11. Thanks. She describes Hillary's double blind very well. Especially here:

"Because the expression of sentiment is so profoundly linked to the domestic sphere, women who refrain from such displays are heartless, yet those who do show emotion are weak and irrational. This can be seen in the media reaction to Hillary's now famous "emo moment" before the New Hampshire primary: Some saw her as more human, others saw her as unfit to be commander in chief, and others thought she was just faking emotion.

"No male candidate is required to demonstrate his humanity in similar ways. Mitt Romney's numerous misty moments have gone largely unnoticed, but Maureen Dowd's cynical Jan. 8 column in The New York Times, "Can Hillary Cry Her Way Back to the White House?" circulated internationally."

How very true. For Hillary-haters, any display of emotion is unacceptable. On the other hand, no emotion isn't acceptable either -- because then she's heartless. So basically, Hillary, as a strong woman, isn't acceptable to many people no matter what she does.

[Triana]

14. "...a strong woman, isn't acceptable to many people no matter what she does"

THERE it is.

[pnwmom]

16. We still have SO far to go. Hillary has shown us that. n/t

[One_Life_To_Give]

21. What about Thatcher?

Seems she would be called "heartless" by the standards above. Yet that didn't seem to stop her. Although it did make her appear more masculin. And historically we don't hear about how emotional Queen Elisabeth, Joan of Arc, etc. were but more how "heartless".

[Captain Hilts]

17. There are no women with comparable influence as Michael Jordan, Colin Powell, Denzel Washington, Ti-

ger Woods, etc.

Even Disney's characters are overwhelmingly male. Most lines spoken in US films are male.

WE just don't hear women's voices in the public realm.

[hendo]

19. Are you serious?

Are you really not paying attention?

[Captain Hilts]

22. In popular culture? Name them. nt

[Matthewtheogre]

20. Kinda makes sense

plausible theory.