Which came first, my uterus or my skin?
Lots of bloggers have been commenting on Gloria Steinem’s opinion article in the NYTimes a few days back. I can’t comment on it; I’m too angry. But the rest o’ ya’ll? Feel free. =)
1/16 edit: Looks like the politicians, amazingly, are trying to be smarter than Steinem. Dunno how I feel about “neither race nor gender should be a part of the campaign”; that strikes me as naive. It is an issue. It’s always an issue, even when the candidates are only white men. But I can see why they’d declare a truce.
-Nora
Melissa Lacewell Harris served her over this on Democracy Now: http://www.democracynow.org/2008/1/14/race_and_gender_in_presidential_politics
Ditto on Melissa Lacewell Harris…she was brilliant when I would have had a stroke.
Fist high, y’all!
‘Cause we’re sick and tired of being sick and tired…
Actually Shark-Fu, I thought your analysis was pretty brilliant. :)
Delux,
Yeah, I saw MLH’s response, and practically cheered at my desk. But I’m still pissed at GS. I don’t care about first-wave, second-wave, whatever; to mainstream America she’s still the voice of feminism, period, and for her to say stuff this moronic makes me want to mail her an envelope full of backhand slap. Actually, scratch that — it makes me wonder whose payroll she’s on, she and Robert Johnson.
I’m going to apologise here for saying what I’m going to say, because I feel very disturbed every time I think it:
But this *is* a valid analysis by Steinem, just as it was a valid analysis when it wrecked the Seneca Falls conference. But then it was easy: the white women who advocated “white women first” were unabashed racists. Most of them didn’t want Black people to have the vote at all.
This time round it’s much more uncomfortable, because for those of us who would love to see either a Black man or a White woman in the White House, watching the debate is painful, because Steinem is correct: commentators very comfortably use her sex against Clinton while they flinch from using his colour against Obama. (Even the use of her first name and his second name is a gendered attack).
re: I am white, but my ste
Sorry, that last bit should read: I am white Jewish but my step mom is Black/Irish and my brother and sister are Black/Irish/Jewish. I don’t usually declare this sort of thing, but if people are going to turn on me for what I’ve just posted above, we might as well have the right info available.
Oh wow…where to begin? She is getting elderly so…my gracious, backhanded insuts mixed in so smoothly. Bless her heart.
Full disclosure… at first glance at Steinem’s article, I didn’t understand the depth of Nora’s anger. Then I read Shark-Fu’s analysis, which clarified a lot of things for me. So that’s where I am coming from, having thought about it more since then.
Farah, I think the part of the analysis you mention does bring up a valid point, yes. I’ve seen it made a few times before:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2004041541_hillaryslurs29.html
But this is one very specific kind of example of misogyny. Let’s not forget that Barack also faces obstacles that Hillary doesn’t. Racism and sexism function in different ways, which is why a broad comparison such as Steinem makes is inappropriate.
The way hatred for Hillary is so intertwined with gender, and the way this is so acceptable to the media and to everyone in our culture, is certainly something worth examining. Why can people use gendered language and slurs against her continually and have it raise no eyebrows?
I think it’s a crucial thing to examine and that we really do need to step back and look at this about ourselves. An article in the NYT doing so would have been wonderful. The thing is, Steinem didn’t write an article analyzing the acceptability of misogyny in our culture. She wrote an article that basically pits race against gender, and comes out in favor of gender. Her article renders WoC completely invisible (as if there’s no intersection between race and sex), and gives lip service to unity while really driving a wedge between civil rights and women’s rights — the same kind of wedge that has alienated WoC for decades.
She downplays the existence of racism to make an argument that misogyny is worse. This is just the kind of gross oversimplification that shouldn’t be made in the first place because all it does is turn the presidential race into a contest for who has it worse: white women or black men (I’m not going to argue who has it worse. I don’t know enough about racism OR sexism to make a claim either way, and these sorts of comparisons are a waste of time, esp. since WoC experience both and dividing it into either/or is really stupid).
She would have spent her time much better analyzing media misogyny *without* attempting to trump race, or critiquing each of the candidates on their efforts on behalf of women’s rights.
She had the opportunity to make a really good analysis of the way misogyny has affected the presidential race. And instead… it’s a shallow sort of propaganda piece to rally (white) women, because things are so much harder in America for white women than they are for black men /sarcasm.
It’s unfortunate, because I’d really like to see some soul-searching about the way we’ve treated Hillary Clinton. This was not the piece to spark it.
Melissa Lacewell Harris served her over this on Democracy Now.
Just wishlisted her book!
I wrote about it on my blog here:
http://www.elainevigneault.com/what-should-we-remember-gloria.html
Basically, I said this:
“Gloria Steinem wrote an op-ed here that’s ruffled the feminist blogosphere’s feathers. The main criticisms are:
* Steinem pits race against sex and ignores true intersections of racism and sexism.
* Steinem infers young women don’t care about feminism unless they vote for Clinton.
If you read Steinem’s piece, you’ll see the criticisms are accurate on both counts”
…
“Steinem wrote:
“The abolition and suffrage movements progressed when united and were damaged by division; we should remember that.”
Yes, yes we should.”
i think its so interesting that all these primaries have done is pit carefully constructed “gender” vs. “race” these have all along been treated as categories which to not only box people in but have not really addressed what may be more important issues. Is the fact of the matter that having a white upper middle class woman as president or a black middle class president solve anything? Steinem (im not really surprised at all by her reaction, very middle class white woman of her) does not really discuss about why the hell we have to vote anyways. Amerikkka is a “representative” democracy. You vote for someone else to vote for you in a two party system, where the democrats and the republicans are actually two sides of the same coin. To be honest im glad im not a citizen. You know Steinem brought up the whole thing about black people getting the vote before white folks. Black people didnt take the streets to gain the right to vote as if that was the ONLY! thing! And if she even looked at historically even today black people are still disenfranchised…a little thing called Katrina and another little thing called a felony!
And another thing that gets me pissed off about this whole crap is that there are some idiots out there that are like: yea man, hilary, her husband clinton was coo..blah blah blah…clinton messed more black people up than reagan and bush put together. more black people were incarcerated under clinton than under anyone else..he took away pell grants, did away with welfare, etc…
This whole election crap coupled with the crap about celebrity life that they put on Fox news is just meant to distract people from what really the US government does!
The issue of race and gender is a heady one indeed but it’s not helping matters to have selfish,arrogant,idiotic,self-righteous,clueless,hypocritical assholes like Stupidem mucking up the situation and making matters worse. Furthermore the very NATURE of her biogted article is serving the very SAME white male hierarchy that white females like her disdain in public but revel in in private. Classic example of ‘divide and conquer’ which normally would sadden me but because the femanazi movement is so full of shit and full of themselves egotistical white woman who supposedly ‘have it so bad’ yet imitate their white male breatheren when they want a bigger piece of pie. And don’t wnat to share with ‘those people’ let’s cut the shit the femiNOTS have done everything humanly possible and beyond to make it all about them and make the feminist movement ‘white women only’. So who in the HELL does she think she’s kidding?!! She even had the nerve to write an article in Alternet,an internet news publication, that being a feminist doesn’t mean ‘backing all women’ well no SHIT BITCH!! It NEVER has unless of course you share their race,age,economic status,education,ideals,location, and hypocrisy anytime someone is confronted on their bullshit and has to stammer or backtrack you just KNOW they are full of shit case in point Steinem.
“clinton messed more black people up than reagan and bush put together. more black people were incarcerated under clinton than under anyone else..he took away pell grants,”
I’m not going to argue the general gist of this (although I don’t fully agree while also not fully disagreeing, and I love – not – how some people conveniently mention how much more horrible Clinton was for Black people and ignore how horrible Reagan and Bush were for Latinos etc.), but it would be nice if you actually had your facts straight.
In fact, it was Bush Sr. who took away Pell Grants. This was one of the last things he did while in office, and it directly affected me that very year, so I am aware of it. Of course, because he literally did this in January as he was leaving office, it appears as if it was done during the Clinton administration. It wasn’t – it was Bush’s last F-U before taking off. There are plenty of things we can lay at the feet of Clinton but let’s allow Bush and Reagan to have the responsibility for what really is theirs.
I think her point was that Clinton gets far more praise from the black community than he deserves which is true especially considering recents comments he AND Hillary have made. Noone is forgetting what a nightmare Reagan was but we shouldn’t be wearing rose-colored glasses for Clinton either.
Lmary, I certainly understand her point and don’t disagree with you. I’m not a huge fan of Clinton either. My point was that the comparison is debateable and that the “facts” pointed out are actually erroneous. As I said, “there are plenty of things we can lay at the feet of Clinton”. That shouldn’t cause us to belittle the damage done by Bush and Reagan. Or perhaps it’s because we were talking about the effect on Black people, so who cares about the effect on other Brown people? I don’t think that is what Ayele meant and I didn’t say she did.
A friend sent me the article and I must admit that my first reaction was “Gloria, with respect and love, please shut the hell up!” I still feel this way. The idea that white woman have it harder that black people is ridiculous on its face.
I liked Gloria Steinem’s article, but do think it contributes too much to the race v. gender debate when really we should be thinking race + gender. As a woman of color, I can’t say people judge me by my uterus since no, they can’t see that. But they can see my hair, my face, my breasts, my butt, etc. My womanhood and my color are inseparable, it’s not like I can take one off or the other.
In truth, I wish they’d both just join up and prove that they’re on the same side, and that would be more powerful a statement than any white Republican candidate could overcome.
I wrote about it plus added the fact that xenophobia is huge other issue. Down with domination mentality in general.
No Soup for You
http://www.rainbowfriends.net/2008/01/16/no-soup-for-you/
Isn’t it all just a bit weird that so much of the debate has been brought down to “OH MY GOD, HE’S A BLACK CANDIDATE!” and “OH MY GOD, SHE’S A FEMALE CANDIDATE!” ? I guess it’s a media thing, trying to get an angle on the candidates (let’s face it, the real issues don’t sell papers/airtime, not nearly as much as wild shouting speculation anyway). But it kinda goes against the theory of a meritocracy, I think. I’m not saying people shouldn’t vote for hillary or obams because they’re female/black, just saying they shouldn’t vote for them JUST BECAUSE they’re female/black.
Having said that, the white male oil bollionaires have screwed things up so much that any change in the status quo is good… And the idea of a “non-traditional” (not white, male, and rich) candidate being a serious threat to the establishment should fill everyone with hope.
On a personal note, I’m going for Obama. I like his ideas (will they come to fruition? In the big world of corporate intrest politics? We can only hope…)
Very belated on all of this — sorry, I’m sick this week. Anyway, will try to mass-respond to some of you…
Farah, I’m not sure what aspect of GS’s analysis is valid to you, but it’s hard for me to take any of it seriously because she tosses out such whoppers along the way. Yes, people call Hillary Hillary and Obama Obama. There are multiple reasons for that, not just her gender, and I’ve always found it disingenuous that so many people forget this. For one thing, it’s confusing to refer to Hilary as “Clinton”, when we already have a presidential Clinton running around. (Who I most commonly hear referred to as “Bill”, still avoiding the last name these days. And has anybody noticed how prominent Chelsea is lately? I suspect she’s being groomed for the next stage of the dynasty.) There’s also the fact that for years, the Democrats tried to soften her image by referring to her as Hilary themselves. Naturally this stuck. There’s also the fact that certain media elements are trying their damnedest to associate Obama with “scary foreignness” — Obama rhymes with Osama, his middle name is Hussein, he went to a madrassa as a child and is a closet Muslim, etc. It’s not necessarily a good thing that he keeps getting referred to by his last name (at least with Edwards, I frequently hear his whole name cited — it’s almost always “John Edwards”, not just “Edwards”). My point is that there are nuances and complexities to the way the media treats both, so to reduce it to simply “the media doesn’t respect gender the way it respects race! Sexism > Racism! Women are the new black(s)!!eleventy!!1!!” is an oversimplification and inaccurate at best… the old divide-and-conquer technique at worst.
Ayele and Aaminah, I agree, though I’ll leave the specific elements to the history buffs. I’m continually amazed to hear people declare Clinton (the former prez) some kind of boon for black people; on what planet? I seem to recall a little thing called welfare reform that hurt quite a few poor PoC (but evenmore poor whites, sadly), and I seem to recall that several crucial and damaging stages of bankruptcy “reform” (really just letting the credit companies rewrite the laws to suit themselves) also happened on his watch. I’m also a little miffed that he put his post-prez headquarters in Harlem, bringing the scourge of gentrification on one of our most famous and beautiful neighborhoods. Granted, I have no idea whether Obama would be any better, but to paint Clinton (the candidate) as a “friend to black people” strikes me as wildly inaccurate.
Lmary, re your Jan. 16th comment — I agree with a lot of your feelings here, but I have to take exception to how you’re expressing them. I actually winced when you used “feminazi”, because that’s just enabling Rush Limbaugh and people like him, who try to reduce complex debates to a bunch of childish, ugly soundbytes. And as pissed as I am at GS right now, I will at least grant her the courtesy of not calling her a bitch. She may very well be one, and be proud of it. I’m more inclined to call her a few other things at the moment (sellout, moron, hypocrite, I could go on), anyway. But I can’t go around calling people bitches when I keep asking brothas not to call black women that as a matter of course, so it bugs me when other people do it. Bottom line: watch your ad-hominems, and please don’t use Their language to express your opinions. You can do better.
Jim — yeah, it is a bit weird. In fact there was some commentary the other day on the fact that Edwards is actually doing OK numbers-wise, but the media is barely paying attention to him. As a same-old same-old white guy, he doesn’t have the “controversy appeal” that a black man and a white woman have. What gets me is that this “controversy focus” is so obsessive about race and gender that it’s ignoring some other potential controversies. Frex, Huckabee wants to rewrite the US constitution to conform with the Bible. That’s fucking scary. Why isn’t this man’s candidacy going down in flames right now? What about recent revelations of Ron Paul’s ties to white supremacy? That’s a race issue, isn’t it? Ought to be good for some Nielsen points. And what about the problems with electronic voting in NH?
Why the hell are we still talking about just the candidates’ physical attributes? Do we have time for this?? ::mutter::
When did it become ok to slap a brown face on a police state/corporate bottom line platform and act like that’s progress? Did it start with Colin Powell? And didn’t we already go through this with Bill Clinton (prison builder, social infrastructure destroyer, Black cabinet betrayer, bomber and emargoer of a shitload of brown countries) being the “first black president”? I got geeked over him. And voted for him. And then I watched that scumbag commit genocide in Iraq (yes, I said genocide), bomb an infant formula factory in Sudan, take away health and child services from relatives of mine that even Reagan didn’t touch, and put people I know personally in prison for terms that even Bush I didn’t impose. But he played the sax on Arsenio, so he was ‘the Black president’
And Obama is, if anything, to Billy Boy’s right. Obama’s (Bill) Clintonian platform sucks for poor people in general, which means it will be disproportionately damaging to Black people. Especially since we can count on that platform swinging to the right if elected (it ALWAYS happens with liberal candidates). He, like every single one of the major candidates, is bought and sold by corporations. Straight up. Rhetoric is nice, but when your policies are those that a generation ago might have passed for a liberal Republican’s, that rhetoric is invalidated.
And, BTW, he’s not actually that dynamic a speaker. The people who get all geeked about his ‘charisma’ or his ‘electrifying’ speeches baffle me. Malcolm, MLK, Dolores Huerta, Jemal Abdel Nasser, Hugo CHavez…one could make a long, long list of more inspiring speakers. But I guess when Hillary’s speeches are your main competition….
I always thought I would unhesitatingly vote for a Black canidate for president. I was living in Michigan (but too young to vote) when Jesse Jackson won the MIchigan primary. My dad worked on his campaign (the Arab American vote, big in MI, was a decisive factor in Jackson’s win). Whatever dirty-preacher shenanigans he may have gotten into since, Jackson was a GENUINE challenege to the system. He put America’s war machine AND its only slightly less lethal ‘diplomacy’ (ie, starve ’em instead of bomb ’em) machine were under serious scrutiny. He talked about REAL economic and racial justice. He was a preacher, but he didn’t play the “I’m a Christian, just like you!” card that Obama is so enamored of (Obama can kiss my ass for all the “I’m not a Muslim!” B.S., btw). All around, Jackson actually stood for and proposed REAL change as opposed to somehow getting away with talking about change while having your platform set by old DNC staffers and praising (I don’t care why, so save the ‘explanations’) RONALD FUCKING REAGAN!
I won’t get into Hillary, except to say that she’s worse. On every single count. Though I do agree with the poster who said that she’s dissed more for her gender than Obama is for his race. Even shitty people can be victims of shitty sytems.
Politicians like Obama and Condoleeza Rice are very, very dangerous to my mind: The powers that be run the same ol’ same ol’ “America runs the world” imperialistic/capitalistic game (to the tune of millions of dead brown and yellow bodies worldwide), but they get to put a ‘diverse’ P.C. face
on it.
For, make no mistake, the U.S.’s bloodsucking, homocidal stance toward the 3rd world (hardly something W invented!) is the truest demonstration of how much “we” (de)value women and people of color. It’s amazing to me how much people discussing “race/gender and the election” only discuss it in a national context. The biggest threat to both women and people of color is posed by the US’s INTERNATIONAL policies. Every single time “we” bomb/invade/occupy/impose sanctions on/exploit the sweathshop labor of/destory the natural environment of another country, we are perofmring acts that are brutally racist (since, excepting Serbia, we don’t do this shit to ‘white’ countries) and even more brutally misogynyst (since women always bear the brunt of such policies). But this whole debate about Barack and Hillary has centered so egomaniacally on how Americans feel inside about race and gender in a symbolic sense that it boggles the mind.
The only candidate (other than the almost-professed racist and misogynyst Ron Paul) who has posed any kind of fundamental challenge to the starve ’em-bomb ’em-exploit ’em holy trilogy of American foreign policy is Kucinich. And what do people know about him? Uhhh…he’s short and he believes in UFOs, oh and his wife’s got a pierced tongue! And since he’s not a front runner we let a CORPORATION decide not include him in the presidential debate! Fucking pathetic (not this thread of posts — American electoral politics in general)….
Now – all of this said, would I rather have Obama or even Hillary as president rather than Bumblefuck the Psychotic Fake Cowboy Chimp? Well, duh. Of course. But am I going to jump up and down about how exciting ANY of these candidates are? No. Do I see any real possibility for change coming from these jerks? No. Do I think we’re in a ‘historic moment’? Yes — a historically depressing moment.
My 5,472 cents….
Asalaamu alaikum Saladin.
You are funny! :) I agree with it all, but the way you put it is also so amusing.
Yes, the choices are depressing, but at this stage Obama and Clinton are either of them way better than any of the Republican options. They’re still problemmatic, but better.
I think it is important to note, as you have, that Clinton isn’t really such a savior for women, nor is Obama a savior for people of color. They both have terrifying foreign policy stances that have done nothing but hurt women and people of color outside the U.S. And neither of them is really offering anything significant to women or people of color in the U.S. except the feel-good-see-a-face-like-your-own-in-Washington thing. You’re right, it might be historical to see a Black man or a woman win, but that doesn’t make the change in scenery actually mean anything.
Rumors are out that Mosely Braun may run on Green… see, there you get a Black woman: two for one! LOL. Actually, I LOVED her ideas in 2004; being Black and a woman are, as I’ve said before, just icing.
Wa Salaam Alaikum Aaminah, and thanks.
It’d be awesome if Mosely Braun ran on the Green ticket. Besides being a Black woman, she is one of the very few Senators in U.S. history whose policies reflected the priorities of a decent human being. Sadly, her own party (the Dems) treated her as some sort of cute novelty the last time she ran.
Also, I love watching the Democratic faithful get their knickers in a twist when a Green candidate runs. “How dare those fringe lunatics steal OUR votes”, they say. They’re still furious at Nader, as if he somehow ‘cost’ them the election. I actually remember a Dem-fanatic buddy of mine saying in 2000 “either you’re with us or you’re against us” — years before Bush!
Oh – that should say “Wa Alaikum Salaam”, BTW. I’m apparently in the running for ABW’s most typo-ridden guest!
Asalaamu alaikum Saladin,
Okay, so you seem pretty above average intelligence… what’s the deal with Ron Paul? (And anyone else can feel free to answer that too). My dad thinks he’s wonderful, which in and of itself makes me leery. I have some concerns with him… but then another Muslim woman who I respect is talking like he’s the best thing you can hope for while waiting for the Mahdi, LOL. I’m not buying it… I don’t like his response to the “some-guy-I-won’t-name-who-doesn’t-work-for-me-wrote-all-that-but-I-had-no-clue-what-was-in-my-newletters-for-all-those-years-so-it’s-not-my-fault” story. She points out that alot of people of color love him and that should mean something… but didn’t Muslims block vote for Bush his first time around? The fact that we ignorantly support someone who is bad for us doesn’t exactly make me want to jump on the bandwagon. Am I totally off base on this guy?
Sorry about the swearing a million mea culpeas on my part and the reason I use the term feminazi is because I’ve ALWAYS had issues with the Gloria Steinems of this country and feminist period. Especially when they have clueless,self-centered ideologies like in the Times piece I mean who is she kidding?!! She likes her white skin privilege and probably wouldn’t have it any other way yet has the nerve to bemoan about where white women are on the food chain what a crock. I called her that because she and a lot of her ilk are full of it to their rotten core and won’t even admit it and all her talk doesn’t change the fact that their movement has done nothing to include women of color. Or gives a damn about any of us either.
Ya Aaminah
Ron Paul is a Buchananish Libertarian-Republican hybrid. He’s an isolationist — anti globalization, anti imperialist (good things) but VIRULENTLY anti-immigrant (bad!). He’s radically pro-life and seems anti-gay, but he sneakily avoids seeming far right on these issue b/c he’s above all a states’ right guy. Thus he does not support federal responses against Roe V. Wade or banning Gay marriage, but would be happy to let states impose these things (which they will, without question). His anti-federalist stance means he’s been one of the most consistent opponents of the Patriot Act and the Iraq war.
I agree, of course, that the Federal govt has a terrifying amount of power. But scratch most states’ rights folks and beneath you’ll find a white supremacist (they’re still mad about Brown v. Board of Ed). That seems to be the case here. Needless to say he’s rabidly opposed to affirmative action in any form.
He’s also a nut economically. He thinks corporations should be essentially unregulated, so long as they don’t send all of their jobs overseas. He thinks environmental issues should be left to the whims of “Private industry”. He’s against basically all federal aid programs.
My sense is that a RP presidency would be better than a Bush presidency for the first few years. Then we’d descend into a white supremacist/Dickensian/Handmaid’s Tale nightmare.
Gloria Steinem, Hillary Clinton and NOW are so out of touch with woman’s issues today. The woman’s movement isn’t addressing the issues that the majority of women face in this country today and its economic. Most women are head of households supporting their children on pink collar slum wage jobs with very little child support. Most women don’t want to hear the old “I am woman hear me roar” crap that the U.S. Women studies courses in universities are coming up with. One thing that the media, Clinton and G.S haven’t mentioned is that white women have beneifited more than any group from affirmative action. I am a several generations feminist and I’m not going to vote for Hillary because she is a woman. I supported a woman for president in the last election and she was black too. She was Carol Moseley Braun and she told it like it is. The only people in this country that are making sense to me is the Black Congressional Caucus, because they tell the American people that we are all in the same boat which is sinking. When will the American people realize that the politics of divide and conquer are hurting us. I’m radical liberal white woman and I’m proud of it. I’m voting Obama in Feb and I do like Edwards. I’d love an Obama and Edwards ticket in 2008. Gloria Steinem is so yesterday and too rich to know what women and their children struggle with today. Most of the American males are growing up in households headed by women and poor, which is something that the feminist movement hasn’t noticed. My favorite feminist was Sorjourner Truth.
Now all of you send me positive thoughts because I’m applying for a job as a labor activist, because all American families deserve better wages, housing, health care and education. Well its back to the trenches for me, and remember we have the power if we unite against the richest 1%.
Developmentally, your uterus came first. Skin (at least keratinization) comes fairly late in fetal development. Politically…what was that about crabs in a barrel?
Re: people saying race/sex shouldn’t matter. No, it shouldn’t. But neither should people be dying because Bush and bin Laden have ego problems and take it out on the world. Yet both are happening and pretending that they aren’t is not a particularly useful strategy.
Right now Obama and Clinton seem to be fighting to see who can be the most obnoxious. I’m voting for the first one to say, “I’ve made some obnoxious racist/sexist comments. I apologize profoundly and will do my best to reevaluate my assumptions and be less racist/sexist in the future.” I’m not holding my breath waiting for either of them to say it, though.
Gotta say, I re-read my comment from before (it was late when I wrote it, and I’d had a few), and I think I fell under one of the rules on here (I.E. the one about saying “let’s all just ignore race!” to ignore the problem of racism).
Sorry.