The ‘Her, Please’ Simplex
About this, I think Yglesias is more right than Scott.*
Yglesias writes:
Garance put up a post yesterday evening that I thought was a bit of a low blow, suggesting that Sam Rosenfeld, Ezra Klein, and I all just don’t like Hillary Clinton because we’re men. I don’t want to get into that[…]
Well, I will get into that, even though I probably shouldn’t:
Being attracted to — much less voting for — a candidate based on their identity politics is about the most superficial and illiberal thing ever. My interpretation of what Franke-Ruta wrote is that it’s perfectly natural, even expected, for women to back Hillary because of her gender and because of this, it’s perfectly natural to assume that (Liberal) males who don’t like Hillary base their dislike on her gender.
There is merit in part of GFR’s projection, but what I resent is that it’s based on an assumption everyone’s supposed to accept as politically kosher. It’s not. Here’s Scott:
I should say that I take a somewhat more charitable view of what GFR is arguing than Matt does here. I don’t think she’s arguing that I oppose Clinton because I’m a man in some reductive sense.
I do think that’s what she’s arguing. But again that’s only half of it; she’s based the accusation on a tacit admission that she and the women she’s thinking of base their support of Hillary on Hillary’s identity as a woman.
Rather, as I read her she’s claiming that 1)the male dominated pundit class is not likely to have representative views of what Democrats think of Clinton, and 2)people’s judgments can never be fully abstracted from their social circumstances. Both of these points are, I think, correct.
Which is a very nice way of saying she thinks her male colleagues dislike Hillary because they are men and Hillary is a woman. Actually, it’s early yet obviously, but by the time it gets to crunch time in the primaries I think GFR is going to have little to complain about. It’s precisely why I don’t like Hillary** — her tendency to centrism, her penchant for triangulation — that the male-dominated liberal pundit class will end up endorsing her. But for now, because passions are high, several male pundits GFR called out (despite themselves and their Free Trade-loving, Iraq War-endorsing, ‘Sensible Liberal’ instincts) are turned-off of Hillary for the excellent reason that she’s not very fucking progressive.
Anyway, if GFR’s reductionism (and that’s exactly what it is) is so sound, try it on a different sort of Identity Politics. Is it decent for a black to say they will vote for Obama (or Alan Keyes, or Al Sharpton) because he is black and that if you do not vote for him, it’s because you’re not black and therefore, the implication is, you’re racist? Substitute ‘Jew’, ‘Lieberman’, ‘goyim’ and ‘anti-Semite’. Still doesn’t work.
I mean it when I say that there’s merit in GFR’s projection to the extent that, yes, every candidate of majority or minority identity-status attracts followers of that same identity, in large part because of that shared identity. It happens. But it’s something everyone’s supposed try to overcome so that the candidate is appraised on merits — on their politics. I take GFR to say that it’s right for her and her female comrades enamored of Hillary to not overcome such a superficial bias, and moreover, it’s right for them to assume you won’t either. If I’m right then what she’s saying sucks.
PS — Who knew that Twisty Faster’s name is Rachel Singer? More crackpot ID-P, this time apropos the Edwardses’ decision to stay in the race:
Rachel Singer, 53, a writer who lives in Brooklyn, saw the opposite picture — another woman oppressed by male expectation and ambition.
“This, for me, encapsulates how women are regarded,� she said. “If she was to say, I want to stay home and I need my husband’s support, she would be guilty of fracturing of the political union — for women there’s always a choice to be made.�
* – Something I never thought I’d say, whatever the context. Scott’s a true Leftist; Yglesias is a basically a Clintonoid neoliberal whose disgust of George Bush has made him appear Leftist at the moment.
** — Of course, if she’s the nominee, I’ll vote for her just as I’ve voted for Mrs. Lincoln (even back when she was Miss Lambert!) — because she’s the best choice available. Finally, I think I’d like Hillary more if she were more …feminist! Just so long, mind you, as she’s not “feminist” like certain “intellectuals” who habitually sneer at “Liberal Dudes,” who think blow jobs are crimes against humanity, who think photoshopping a sandwich in a fat chickenhawk dork’s hands is a type of Hitlerian agitprop.
I’m so thoroughly sick of Hilary already, and I don’t even get to vote in your damned election. I was prepared to give her some points for being female, and it’s true that the right-wing attack dogs get extra nasty because of that, but as you say so eloquently, she’s just not a fucking progressive. She’s a weaselly, finger in the wind, corp-rat ‘centrist’, and I wouldn’t trust her as far as I could comfortably spit a rat.
Not that I’d waste a good rat, mind you. Plenty of fun to be had in a rat.
Gah. Can’t we just totally ignore the primaries this time around? All of the Dem hopefuls are varying degrees of meh, and the only reason I’m voting Dem this time around is sheer unadulterated terror at the apocalypse portended by a Republican victory.
The biggest problem with Hillary Clinton is that she’s unelectable. Not even because she’s a woman (although I do think that it’s too soon in this sexist country for a woman to stand a chance at that office), but because she is Hillary Clinton, and the utter contempt in which she is held by vast tracts of this country is constantly underestimated by liberals. The hatred of her is purely irrational, but that doesn’t make it any less real.
*My* dislike of the female Clinton goes back to how she bungled the health care reform push in her husband’s first term. We really needed that, and she did a lot to screw it up – not all her fault, but she’s not blameless, either. And the HMO monstrosity we have today is directly rooted in her bungling. So, it’s not likely that she and I will ever be BFFs or something.
Does the fact that I am a woman and I don’t like Clinton make me not a woman? It’s soooooooo confusing………
Somebody needs to come up with a drinking game that can be played for the entire primary season. The whole thing is a pointless clusterfuck, because we all know that even if the Dems nominate the rotting corpse of James K. Polk, we’re all voting (D) in the fall of next year, anyway. I just don’t think I can stand to listen to an entire year of this bullshit entirely sober.
The whole thing is a pointless clusterfuck, because we all know that even if the Dems nominate the rotting corpse of James K. Polk, we’re all voting (D) in the fall of next year, anyway.
Ah, Jillian, such eloquence. I almost wish I lived in ‘Murka, so I could vote for a rotting corpse.
Come to think of it, that would be better than grinding my teeth in chagrin every time the ignorant Australian populace persists in re-electing John Goddamned Fucking Howard.
Howard seems to have the same speech impediment that Tony Blair has, Qetesh.
It’s hard to understand what he says around Bush’s dick in his mouth.
What about the idea of NOT having political dynasties running the country? I’d like to see someone without the last name Bush or Clinton in the White House for awhile,personally.
I just want an honest grown up with some freaking integrity having run of the place,is that so much to ask?
I’ll vote for her just as I’ve voted for Mrs. Lincoln (even back when she was Miss Lambert!) — because she’s the best choice available.
Aha!
You’ve publicly revealed your location!!!
So now, it’s fair game for me to post your phone number and social security number on the interwebs! I’ve got you now, HTML Retardo. The wedding photo chickens are coming home to roost.
Alea delenda est!
When GFR gets the blog regulation she wants, this site is toast.
I hope this Garance person doesn’t see this, but she’s not the sharpest crayon in the box. She often has weird interpretations of simple political issues. The other members of the Tapped crew try to make sense of what she says. Then they find a way to politely disagree, without making fun of her.
As a progressive male, I have no problems at all with voting for a woman, or a gay, or a transsexual. I will not, however, vote for anyone, regardless of gender or sexual orientation, whose positions on policy issues are largely indistinguishable from Joe Lieberman’s. That is why I will not support Hillary Clinton, because she is not an authentic progressive candidate. In an earlier era she would have been a moderate Republican, before the species went extinct.
I’m like the young girl in the post… “I like Hillary”. I like all the other Democrats. I’ll only vote for one of them, but I like all of them.
I save my words of disdain for the Republican creeps.
Mencken, Yglesias is more right than Scott, but even you are too forgiving of the analysis at hand. Clinton’s politics are, in the primaries, precisely the problem, and the only problem: too centrist/corporatist/DLC. That weird healthcare plan in the late nineties was a good example of how such stances can go wrong: you create this monstrosity that’s supposed to be all things to all people — a reform the poor and middle class can get behind, as well as a sop to HMOs and insurance companies — and it just becomes a big mess.
Every would-be pundit wants a bite of the easy “what do liberal men really think of female candidates” pie, but it’s a bunch of bullshit. Even at least four years of those hideous canary or salmon pantsuits can’t be any less dignified than that put-on, howdy doody goofy goober grin we’ve had in the Oval Office for the last six years. Simply put, her womanhood has virtually nothing to do with any of this.
My esteemed colleague in the medical community, DrDick, brings up an interesting question: would I vote for a transsexual for President? Wouldn’t the very fact of transsexuality itself be an indicator of unacceptable flipflopping?
I had thought myself relatively openminded, but DrDick’s off-hand comment has made me wonder…
You’re totally right about that part of the health care reform kerfluffle, teh. Clinton did try to make it all things to all people, and in doing so she turned her back on the idea of national health insurance, something that had been a part of the progressive Democratic vision since the days of FDR. Of course, if you really aren’t a left-leaning Democrat, I suppose there’s no reason you should care about that. But if you really want people to think you’re a left-leaning Democrat, you should really try standing up for things that left-leaning Dems stand up for.
But in some ways it’s even worse than that. Even the bastard abortion of a health care system that she was pimping for, she screwed up. I’ve read reports from people who worked with her in the committee days of health care reform saying that she was dictatorial, didn’t know how to delegate, changed her approach with each new opinion poll, and generally fucked the whole process up.
Explain to me again why Hillary Clinton is a “progressive Democrat”? Does she support a national health insurance system? Does she support gay marriage? Has she ever offered a coherent explanation for why she supported the Iraq war in the first place? Does she have a sound energy policy? Can she explain why her husband gutted AFDC while he was in office, and does she have any intention of fixing what he did?
Yeah, yeah, yeah….I’ll vote for her if I have to. But good God damn, do I hate the Democratic party.
I’d feel some solidarity with you if you weren’t a crackpot raging against regulation per se — whatever the target.
GFR’s wrong on that because she assumes the regulations she cites in her analogies — good regulations that effect equality, that protect something otherwise defenseless against the powerful; in short, the sort of regulation which arrests the brutal darwinism your lot wholly endorses — would translate to the blogosphere, which to the contrary has no such inequality or endangerment issue (or, at least none yet worth intervention). But even she’s closer to righteousness than you with your doctinaire laissez-faire crapola.
Actually, the internet, *along with* campaign finance reform (McCain-Feingold, the reference in her post that really sticks in your craw) has done a fair job at *beginning* to address the inequality of political $peech. In an ideal country elections would be publicly financed and all private attempts to give money to politicians for future and/or past services rendered — the universal definition of bribery — would result in mandatory jail time for both parties, but until then we’ll do with what we have. Yes, your lot wants an unregulated internet. But your lot also wants to allow anyone — or more omniously and pointedly, any entity — to give whatever amount they/it want(s) to bribe whatever politician in the name of ‘free speech’ (in which case, we all know what happens, and indeed what you *desire* to happen: that which has the most money to give gets the most political results, and those results are quite predictable considering the interests of the wealthy criminal class), and so if you had your way through the whole shooting match, the internet would be even more useless than if GFR had her way with it.
It’s been a while since you chimed in, but really I have less use now for your ‘freedom’-is-just-another-word-for-fascist/inevitable-end-result-is-at-best-plutocracy, libertarianism than I ever did — which, if you’ll recall, was never much. You’re fairly moral when it comes to foreign policy, but otherwise, you might as well fucking be Grover Norquist.
Of course there’s another problem with the Third-Wayism of policies like Clinton’s 1993 healthcare reform: the First Wayers don’t see any reason for getting off their gravy train.
Despite Clinton’s throwing sop after sop to the insurance industry, the industry successfully fought back tooth and nail. And they always will. Whatever HMO-based plan Hillary Clinton (or anyone else) can come up with, it will still earn them less money than the status quo.
This is why this whole genre of healthcare plan (including John Edwards’ latest variation on it) is a misguided form of political compromise. The insurance and pharmaceutical industries will brook no compromise, unless the alternative is their going out of business.
The starting point for any successful national healthcare plan has to be a singlepayer scheme that’s sold to the American people using a narrative frame in which the insurance companies are the villains. We may well end up with a hybrid plan that keeps the insurance companies in business, but we’ll only end up there if they believe they have to compromise. And so far, they don’t think they do.
or – and this was my first thought – she’s not so much arguing that to not support hillary is sexist as she is: a) acknowledging that hillary’s election would be a social good to American women, just by virtue of, you know, happening, and that this real, tangible benefit is (obviously) inextricably tied up with her womaness and not her policy positions; and b) acknowledging that, as with other marginalized social groups, those who are not members of the marginalized group really have no way of knowing what the fuck they’re talking about in this kind of situation. i’m white; i don’t pretend to know what it’s like to be black, or to understand exactly how the fortunes of black public figures affect the black community.
even though i dislike her foreign policy positions, i think her politics are kind of cowardly douche-like, and she has the charisma of a pet rock, there’s still a part of me that would love to see hillary elected just because she is a woman, and i think that would help with all the sexism. that’s not illiberal; it just reflects the fact that her election would represent a substantial social benefit to a marginalized group that constitutes more than half the population.
that said, now that nancy pelosi is in a highly visible and powerful position, and thus has given us a bit of that social benefit already, hillary’s bullshit definitely outweighs considerations of advancement for women etc.
and it’s not sexist for men not to support hillary, but it is douchey for men to claim there’s no validity to supporting hillary on the basis of her gender. that’s just not true, and it’s the kind of thing you can think only if you’re, you know, a privileged white dude. not that there’s anything wrong with that – i love you guys! – but there it is.
Dan server ate my post. I’ll try again – ‘scuse me if it shows up twice.
Kind of like how the election of George W. Bush was a substantial benefit to Christian Americans?
I’m sorry, but this kind of thinking is just flat-out wrong. The best president for women is the president whose policies are most consistently in the best interests of women, regardless of whether that president is male, female, transgendered, or an asexual Venusian. The question of whether or not Hillary Clinton is a candidate whose positions are in the best interests of women is completely separate from the gender of Hillary Clinton.
Look at it this way: if a company manufactures a product that is harmful to women (douches are one that come to mind fairly quickly), is the harm of that product somehow mitigated if the CEO of that company is a woman? Obviously not, and it’s pretty clearly “douchey” (to turn a phrase) to think otherwise.
Believing that the gender, race, or any other inherent trait of a person in any way affects the validity of an argument or position they take is a logcial fallacy known as ad hominem. In fact, most of identity politics can be seen as argumentum ad hominem writ large. It’s just false.
But then again, I’m an atheist Jewish woman who comes from a background of poverty, homelessness, and abuse, so anything I say on social issues is automatically true.
Or something.
“even though i dislike her foreign policy positions, i think her politics are kind of cowardly douche-like, and she has the charisma of a pet rock, there’s still a part of me that would love to see hillary elected just because she is a woman, and i think that would help with all the sexism. that’s not illiberal; it just reflects the fact that her election would represent a substantial social benefit to a marginalized group that constitutes more than half the population.”
Maggie nailed it.
How much of a benefit for women in the UK was it that Maggie Thatcher served as PM for eleven years?
Would US women be substantially better off today if Liddy Dole or Kay Bailey Hutchison were president?
The fact that a woman can be elected president necessarily suggests positive for women in the U.S. The actual election of a particular women would only be as good for women as her policies are.
Has anyone just called Garance’s post stupid? Because, you know, it is. It’s almost as stupid as Rich Lowry thinking a cowboy hat is character.
Gah.
In what way – what real, concrete, tangible way – would Hillary Clinton’s election benefit American women, let alone “women” in general?
Hillary Clinton voted for the war. In 2,005, she was calling for MORE troops in Iraq. Last year, she changed her position to try and get more votes from the left, pretending to be antiwar. Then, LAST WEEK, she said that she wants to keep a military force in Iraq, apparently indefinitely. She is both for the war and against the war, so I guess we can’t call her a flip-flopper. She stabbed the antiwar movement in the back, plain and simple. I will never vote for her. If she is the nominee, I won’t vote, or I’ll vote for Nader.
So a rich white women is going to set all women free?
I’m so effing sick of the kind of gal I grew up with trying to use her vagina as a means of denying she had exactly the same advantages growing up I did. Gender isn’t determinate of a damn thing anymore. Class is. Supporting Hillary because she has a vagina is fucking stupid. If she were an actual progressive or electable, maybe it’d be different.
But the underlying misandry of giving liberal white dudes guilt trips (because guys suck and if the ones who deserve it won’t suck it up somebody’s gotta), that’s fine, cause the patriarchy blahblahblah.
Reverse bigotry is just as bad as regular bigotry. Twisty is a bigot. It’s that simple. Being mugged doesn’t make it ok for someone to be a racist, and, well, follow the logic. Nevermind the vast majority of the twisty type are the gals I grew up with, who think having been called a bitch or facing unwelcome advances makes them victims. Just like the dumb fuck white guys I knew who think the white man is under assault.
And, since I’m bitching about twisty and lack the balls to deal with the hatefilled groupthink at her blog, lemme just say one last thing; fuck anyone who thinks they have the right to go around blaming others. First off, karma isn’t yours to dispense. No one has that right.
Second, why do they assume they’re the only one with eyes? I’ve blamed myself plenty for the unearned and undeserved advantages I have in life. Part of being a liberal white dude is facing a guilt trip for that. That guilt trip is what allows twisty n such to get the response they want when bein a righteous blamer, which is to say success shows how full of shit they are. It’s not about teaching anyone anything, it’s about getting revenge. Eff dat.
N that’s my weekly pointless rant.
Please don’t vote third party. And I say this as a proud third party member and voter.
I honestly have my doubts as to whether this country can survive another Republican presidency right now.
Wait another election cycle, and I’ll be right there with you voting either Green or Socialist like I usually do. But I’m scared shitless right now over how close these lunatics have brought us to the brink of Armageddon. I don’t want to die just yet, please.
I hate what the Democratic party has become. But until I feel we’re a little further away from total, all-out war, they’ve got my vote.
are you still going on about the Dafyd Ab Hugh thing? Jesus man, get down off the cross and give it a rest.
Jillian,
If you’re going to give people pragmatic voting advice, at least be pragmatic.
So long as we have an electoral college system in which the vast majority of states allocate their electoral votes by a winner-take-all method, the votes of the majority of us who live in non-battleground states will have no impact on the outcome of the presidential election.
Your advice makes some sense for those battleground-state voters. The rest of us can make lemonade out of electoral college lemons and vote our conscience.
True enough, IB.
I’m in Florida, and just projected my state’s insanity out onto the rest of the world. Mea culpa. Hell, I don’t even have any good reason to believe my vote will even be counted here. We just had a referendum down here in Miami – one question on the ballot. Out of the 150000 or so people who showed up to vote, only 149000 votes were registered, and the local board of elections insisted the other hundred were “undervotes”.
Now, I can see undervotes on a standard ballot with a couple dozen things to vote for on it – but this was a one question ballot initiative. We’re supposed to believe that a thousand or so people took time out of their day to drive down to their polling place, showed their two pieces of ID, got into the voting booth, and said “Oh, fuck it, I’m going home”.
Have I mentioned lately how much I hate Florida?
So, anyway, yeah……much as I can feel the worms of weaseliness gnawing at my soul for saying this – vote strategically. As much as the Dems suck snot out of a dead dog’s nose, we can’t afford to have the Republicans win another election.
I don’t think I would conflate all the sandwich haters into one big pile.
Anyhow, GFR has both legitimate and illegitimate points. There is quite a bit of sexism in how Hillary is dealt with, but most likely much less from those to the left of her than those to the right, so GFR has problems there for sure.
I dunno if that was in response to my poorly edited rant, but I’ll use it as an excuse to clarify a little regardless.
I was not crying victimization. I get annoyed, but it’s not oppressing me.
However, that doesn’t make it truly relevant to anything at hand except my need to spout off, so I’ll stfu.
My problem with Hillary is the same problem I have with McCain. Lying about her position, misrepresenting her position, disembling about her positions, anything to avoid distancing herself from anyone who can fog a mirror. That’s not political courage, that’s political cowardice. I will always prefer a candidate who says “this is what I’m about – if you agree with me, vote for me”. These consultant driven campaigns are just too dishonest for me.
That said, it’s also true that there’s no way I’m voting for anyone but a dem in ’08 – a little old fashion venality-within-reason would be a fresh of breath air. Hillary, however, seems to me to be just as likely to use the military as george, so I’m gonna root hard against her getting the nomination.
And lastly. I am white – can’t figure out how that’s my fault. I do have a y chromosome. Again, kind of out of my control. Here’s what I am most certainly fucking not, maggie. I’m not rich. I’m not “entiltled”. And if you think I’m fucking priviedged, lemme ask you something. Would you really be prepared to trade life experiences with me, straight up? ‘Cause I’d take that deal sight unseen. I am sick and tired of these victim-bigots telling me all about who I am and what I believe. Know what? You don’t know shit about me, and you’re out of line…
mikey
Please don’t vote third party. And I say this as a proud third party member and voter.
I honestly have my doubts as to whether this country can survive another Republican presidency right now.
Bah, that’s garbage. I didn’t vote for Kerry because he’s a douche, and I didn’t vote for Bush for the same reason and I won’t vote for Hillary for the same reason. If the country collapses because I didn’t betray my values, then the country wasn’t meant to stand.
Honestly?
I could give a fat flying fuck about the country at this point.
I’m worried about MY life. And the lives of my loved ones.
These guys are fascists in the making. And fascists take people like me and put them into camps and kill them.
I just want to see things get pulled back from the incredibly scary precipice they’re currently hanging on. Not because I love “democracy” and the Constitution all that much (remember, I’m a socialist here), but because I don’t want to end up in a refugee camp. Or worse.
Selfish? Yeah, I’ll cop to that. So sue me. Or convince me that the current driving force behind our Republican party doesn’t have as many similarities with a jackboot brigade as I think it does.
This shit isn’t funny. And our country isn’t immune to a takeover by violent extremists. There’s no magic blessing on America that says that it can’t happen here. I just want to do what I can to hold that stuff off until I can relocate myself and the people I care about. After that, y’all vote for whomever you like.
I really, really do believe things are precisely this precarious. I wish to hell some of you could convince me otherwise, but until then, I have to call things as I see them.
“If this country collapses” isn’t a concept that inherently bothers me – it’s the way it’s shaping up to collapse. And I’ll be damned if I’ll get stuck fighting in a civil war to protect the capitalists from the fascists.
Read up a bit on the collapse of the Weimar republic – how fast it happened, how totally predictable it should have been, how no one saw it coming despite the fact that the people behind it wrote a fairly detailed description of how they were going to do it a decade before they did it.
I’m not a chickenshit sort of gal – you don’t grow up the way I did and survive it by jumping at shadows. But I’m scared now. Had I the available resources, I’d leave the country tomorrow.
If you think I’m voting Democratic to “defend the country” or “defend the Constitution”, you’re crazy. I’d love to see the Constitution done away with, and replaced with a document that didn’t base people’s rights on social contract theory – something more amenable to a socialist form of government. It’s not like I would automatically cry if the Constitution vanished. But under the current circumstances – if you aren’t scared, you aren’t noticing what’s going on around you.
Jillian’s not wrong. It COULD happen here. It’s not a bad idea to think about how to be an american guerilla. Light, field sustainable weapons. Stick with 9mm, 5.56 and 7.65×39 – stuff you can pick up on the battlefield or take off of people you kill. You need to be able to move, fast. High protein, high fat foods and plenty of water. Get some hi-res topo maps of your region. Gold will continue to have value after currencies collapse. Everybody should have at least two alternate IDs – in this scenario, they don’t have to be great, just photocopies of birth certificates. You might need to get a new ID to stay out of a camp.
Remember, in a civil war there are government thugs, guerillas and refugees. You do not want to be a refugee. And if the wheels do come all the way off, you WILL have to fight. Like planning for an earthquake or a hurricane, it’s worth putting a few minutes thought into…
mikey
I don’t like Ms Clinton because she is a cunt. I am glad I don’t have a vote there because if it’s Clinton vs Giuliani/McCain/Gingrich (LOL!), it’s going to be bad enough watching you guys elect another cunt into office, without having to hold my nose and do it myself.
I hate to say it, mikey, but you’re right.
This summer I plan to learn to shoot. Not buy a gun, but learn to handle one. As much as listening to the Canadian I’m seeing and running away to British Columbia to hide in the trees with Bigfoot is an attractive option, I can’t do it. Those pigfuckers ain’t running me off. I have roots on both sides going back to the Revolution, and injun blood that means my ancestors have lived in this general area for 1000 years or so, tho the Mohawks were further north than I am now. I’ve benefited too much from this country to give it over to the greedheads without a fight, even if it seems they have most of it already.
Great men and women have had great dreams for this country, and I’m not ready to give them up, even if I don’t pretend to have it in me to dedicate my life before it’s at risk.
where did i imply that a female president would be beneficial to women regardless of policy towards women? that’s obviously not true, which is cool, because i never said anything of the sort.
having a woman as president would mean something to other women in society – it has some psychological benefit to girls growing up to see a woman be president. (that’s not all, but for the purposes of my argument it’s enough.) you may argue that it’s inconsequential, or that it pales in comparison to other considerations, and you may be right, but it still exists. and because it exists, it can serve as a basis for political support. you might not think it should be very important, but that’s entirely different from saying it doesn’t exist.
and i never implied that only people with seven different identity labels were fit to judge issues of social policy. (seriously, that was a reach.) i only claimed that humans, limited in communication by both language and by the nature of their own experience, must admit that there are therefore limits on the degree to which they can truly empathize with or understand the experience of others. men don’t really know what’s it like to be a woman, so probably men shouldn’t claim that within female experience there is no valid reason to desire a certain outcome, *because they just have no way of knowing*. i wasn’t arguing that *traits* of a person affect the validity of their argument; i was arguing that the *experience* of a person affects the validity of their argument.
and i’m sorry, “identity politics?” you say that like it’s a trashy genre of politics that we should try our best to avoid. much of history has been determined by conflict over identity; the ur-identity is tribal, you nitwit. some of whatever you classify as modern “identity politics” might seem frivolous, but lots of things people get upset about are frivolous; it says nothing about the nature of “identity” politics. in other words, that some id politics issues are frivolous doesn’t not imply that all id politics issues are frivolous. the fact is, there is still a social hierarchy, and whether you like it or not, some of that hierarchy (much of it, even) is based on what you’d call “identity”. and the persistance and nature of that social hierarchy are, i’d venture, valid considerations when talking about *social policy* and, more immediately, social benefit.
jesus.
Ah, you’re just saying that because you’re a man. And anyway, I don’t talk to anyone using a pseudonym.
True! Even — or perhaps especially — the ‘nitwit’ part.
But it’s how we address those conflicts and combat those heirarchies that matters. One stupid way of doing it is de facto criminalization of certain language — this attacks a symptom of hierarchy, not a cause. Another stupid way of doing it is voting for someone based on their identity and not their beliefs, which rewards (an often coincidental) bit of cheap symbolism in lieu of substance.
I don’t like the ‘but is it good for the Jews?’ mentality, whatever the identity in question. Instead the concern should be, ‘is it good for the country?’ Saying that, insisting that such tribalism is illiberal, does not make me an anti-Semite anymore than saying it about a fucked-up form of feminism that would endorse Hillary simply because of her gender makes me a sexist. Nor does it mean that I deny hierarchies exist, that they are unfair, that they need rectified.
ok, once again: there are usually many reasons to endorse or oppose a candidacy. it is not invalid for one of the things in the “yea” side of the ledger to be “i think a female president will help the cause of female equality simply by being a visible woman in a position of authority”; this says nothign about the degree of weight you give this particular reason. i personally don’t think it’s important enough given the circumstances, or at least the reasons i dislike hillary far outweigh the (admittedly! jesus!) small benefit to american women that would come from having a female president, but what about the marginal case? i.e., the person who agrees with hillary on the issues/matters of policy as often as they disagree with her?
and it doesn’t make you a sexist (when did i ever say sexist?); it just makes you willfully ignorant of the fact that there may be somethign to the typical (or majority of, whatever) female experience(s) that provide(s) a basis for thinking that having a female president would result in a social benefit for women that you are unaware of b/c you’ve never, you know, had that experience.
and honestly, how do you articulate what is good for the country when you get down to specifics? “the country” consists of its citizens. you don’t think attempting to level the playing field would produce a general social benefit? really?
Eh, lemme rephrase that before I’m called a Buchananite nationalist. I mean that the concern should be more simply utilitarian — what’s good for the most folks *as well as* what’s right, what’s principled, what’s decent.
The concerns of historically oppressed groups — by which I mean, basically, anyone but rich white males — should be given added weight.
I’m sure I’m giving any lurkers from Feministe a thrill, but really, to disappoint them, all I mean to attack here is navel-gazing, superficial identity politics — not identity politics tout court. Hillary Clinton is centrist; anyone who thinks she’s gonna deliver a feminist coup is deluding themselves. If anything, if Hillary doesn’t sincerely change and she’s subsequently elected she’ll be likely to injure feminism — something I’d rather not see even if it’d be just desserts to the self-described feminists who voted for her *just because* she’s a woman.
Ok, we’ve all kind of lost our Heinlein love. But it’s hard to find the lack of utility in this:
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
Just sayin. Think about it…
mikey
you don’t think attempting to level the playing field would produce a general social benefit? really?
POLICIES level the playing field. Not the cheap symbolism in voting for someone who shares an identity with oppressed groups — especially when that candidate is highly unlikely to offer the policies that would level the playing field.
True story: My s/o is at work, and he mentions that we went to see Obama at a town hall deal. His black female coworker says, “Obama? Yeah, he’s okay, but I want Hillary Clinton to win, because she’s a woman.” So my s/o gets annoyed, and he’s making some of the points made above. Then this same coworker says, “You know who I’d really, really like for President? Condi Rice!” Just think, Condi or, failing that, Hillary, for preznit. It boggles the mind. And yet, from her point of view, it makes sense. Condi is a black woman. She wants a woman president, preferably a woman of color. I’m afraid that identity politics is very, very important to an awful lot of voters.
The true problem lies in the fact that most Americans are incredibly uninformed politically. In my office, a woman was asking, “What do you think of that black fella, what’s his name, Osama something?”
These are people who work in the corporate world. They are not high school dropouts. They own cars and houses and process complex transactions involving other people’s money. And yet, they are abysmally ignorant about the political process. Many of them couldn’t tell you who the Speaker of the House is if it meant the firing squad. Or even what a SOTH is. Not all of my/our coworkers are as out of it as the two I’ve referenced, but none of them is what could be reasonably called “well-informed”. Nor do they care to be. It’s all too much trouble. It distracts them from American Idol and Anna Nicole’s Baby.
I’m with Jillian. Try to get someone into power who won’t bring about death and destruction on a massive scale. That’s the best we can hope for, right now.
Mikey and Jillian, can you two get together and write a script for a cool leftist Red Dawn-type movie? You can call it “Nazi Pigs Fuck Off!” or something simple like “Antifa”. Now stop scaring me and talk about funny stuff.
it’s not sexist for men not to support hillary, but it is douchey for men to claim there’s no validity to supporting hillary on the basis of her gender. that’s just not true, and it’s the kind of thing you can think only if you’re, you know, a privileged white dude. not that there’s anything wrong with that – i love you guys! – but there it is.
HTML, much as I love you, Maggie is correct about this. If the mere fact of Hillary’s deficiency-in-the-Y-chromosonal-area was without significance except to us Barr-bodied Feminist-Bigots, then the Pope in Rome and the Elders of the LDS wouldn’t be so obsessed with posting NO GURLS ALLLOWED signs on every flat surface. The election of the first female president will be a Big Honkin’ Deal, just as the election of the first openly Not-Protestant president was (and I can remember when that happened, too, mostly because my Irish Catholic parents were too busy watching the results on the TV they’d only bought for the debates to put me to bed). The election of the first African-American president, and the first Hispanic president, and the first Jewish president, and maybe in some distant future the first atheist president, will also be Big Honkin’ Deals. Goddess knows Hillary Clinton would not be my first or second or maybe two-hundred-eighty-fifth choice for First Female President, but pretending that her gender doesn’t matter — both positively and negatively — is a luxury reserved for people of the gender heretofore exclusively presidential.
Frankly, I’d love to see the Democratic Party stop tap-dancing around this particular Problem That Dare Not Speak Its Name and just admit that, yeah, we’re the ones who are willing to consider a choice beyond ‘White Anglo-Saxon Male’ for the lead column. Because we *all* have a bit of the tribalist in us, and the honest thing is to acknowledge it and admit that our best hope as humans is probably to embrace the ever-shifting Venn diagrams of gender/race/religious/national/social/political tribalism, rather than pretending that there’s some kind of Natural Law whereby given the millions of native-born Americans over the age of 35, it just so happens that every single person of presidential calibre so far has turned out to be a White Christian male. Clinton’s gender shouldn’t be the sole deciding factor, but it is a legitimate factor, and 89.9% of the male people who say “Hillary’s gender has no bearing on how I consider her fitness for the presidency” are either lying to themselves or lying to the rest of us — or both.
It could happen here? It IS happening, it just hasn’t happened to you or me or most of us. For the people who are in Gitmo, for the men who’ve been sent to Syria and been tortured, for the people who’ve been arrested without charge and are being detained indefinitely and are incommunicado, it is happening. How many of these people are innocent, and even if some are guilty, do they deserve that?
As for Hillary Clinton’s worth being measured by her sex…all I have to say is remember Margaret Thatcher.
or sex as a measure of her worth, I meant to say. gah.
Annie Laurie — I appreciate all that; I don’t think we’re that far off. Consider:
I think *everyone* has identity politics; the ‘default’ position in the culture — rich white male-ness — is also an identity politic. It is not neutral as reactionaries like to pretend.
That considered, an assertion of identity politics by those not of the default position needs to be taken into historical and cultural context. Ergo, minorities should be allowed more assertion of whatever tribalism in order balance themselves against the rich white males.
But, that said, the ideal is that everyone should try to overcome tribalism of whatever variety.
***
You’re absolutely right that Hillary catches a lot of shit only because of her gender. But if GFR had said the truth about it — that this bigotry comes from the Right, then I wouldn’t have had a problem. But no, she had to be reductionist/determinist about it and allege that *anyone male* who doesn’t like Hillary must believe as they do out of sexism, consciously or unconsciously.
I think my lack of enthusiam for Hillary stems from the fact ‘Republicans’ keep quoting her as support for their positions on Iraq.
From this I’ve gathered Hillary doesn’t think Invading and Occupying another country for false and specious reasons was a FUCKING BAD IDEA.
Apparently, Hillary thinks that it failed because she wasn’t in charge…
Great post, Mr. Mencken.. Sam Brownback is so much better than Hillary Clinton it’s not even funny. All of my liberal friends despise her but feel they have to vote for her anyway. It leaves them feeling rather hollowed out inside.
But I understand how they feel, in a way, since I have to deal with the fact that The Three RINOs (Rudy McRomney) are apparently the “frontrunners” and that fellow conservatives somehow think that actor Fred Thompson is somehow the answer to all their dreams. He’s not.
I fear that whoever is elected in 2008 will really be the definition of “meh.”
Wait a minute. I’m a woman. Why do you get to tell me what having Hillary Clinton as my president would mean to me? I am telling you that it would mean nothing to me – why do you get to discount my experience? Am I not a woman?
As far as denying that people can support Hillary Clinton for no reason other than the fact that she’s a woman, and it might make some women feel good about themselves to see a woman in the White House – I never denied that. I’m just saying it’s a dumbass reason to support anyone for president. The president doesn’t hold their job to make you feel good about yourself – if you need to feel good about yourself, I’d suggest therapy or a prescription medicine.
Having a female president might provide a psychological boost to young girls. Having a female president who fails to create a system that provides them with basic health insurance is going to guarantee that all poor girls have a hard time ever “feeling good” in a meaningful sense of the word. Take a look at Maslow’s hierarchy of needs – no matter how much humans may need a sense of belonging, they need basic health, food, and shelter first. You’re trying to argue that providing for esteem should override providing for basic physiological needs, and that just isn’t a very convincing argument.
As far as my rejection of identity politics goes, I’m sorry I used an unfamiliar term with you. Identity politics refers to a specific political movement that emerged out of the New Left in the late 60s/early 70s in this country. It’s rooted in irrationalism and antirealism, and it, in my opinion, hurts the very groups its supposed to help by marginalizing them and trivializing their concerns.
Like the way voting for Hillary Clinton because she has a vagina – regardless of whether or not her policies are going to really hurt real women – trivializes those very real concerns that real women really have.
Anne Laurie, do you think that Democratic wonks who don’t support Hillary Clinton right now are doing so because her gender has influenced their decision in some way? I don’t mean that as a rhetorical question – I’m honestly curious (it can be hard to tell intent in text sometimes).
And as far as how bad things are in this country right now….
Utah Phillips registered to vote in the last presidential election.
Things getting so bad the anarchists are voting is like things getting so bad the nuns are fucking.
Anne Laurie, do you think that Democratic wonks who don’t support Hillary Clinton right now are doing so because her gender has influenced their decision in some way? I don’t mean that as a rhetorical question – I’m honestly curious (it can be hard to tell intent in text sometimes).
Jillian, “Democratic wonks” is a large class, one including both of the majority genders and a wide selection of inventive alternatives. I can’t and don’t want to get into attacking so amorphous a group, least of all for its lack of political rigor. I just have a deep-seated suspicion, based on my own experience, about people — especially but not limited to male people — who insist that “It really doesn’t make any difference” whether a particular politician is not another White Christian Straight Rich Male. Because of course it does, and it will, both to individual voters (& policy wonks) and to the general American gestalt. Senator Clinton has given plenty of people every reason to hate her as a result of her own actions; I believe I said she wouldn’t be my first choice for 2008 either. Eeyore that I am, I just reserve the right not to believe that her gender has nothing to do with peoples’ perceptions of her fitness for the Presidency. I myself am prejudiced against rich White men with excellent hair, and yet I have voted for such individuals in the past, and may even do so in 2008 if, for instance, John Edwards is the Democratic nominee. But it would be dishonest for me to pretend that I didn’t start out slightly biased against Edwards just because he inherited excellent follicular genes. We all have our failings, and I prefer honest prejudice over phony “openness”, because you can argue with prejudice but you can’t argue with someone who’s lying to you or themselves about their biases.
You’re trying to argue that providing for esteem should override providing for basic physiological needs, and that just isn’t a very convincing argument.
No, Jillian, she’s being very careful not to argue that, for exactly the reason that you’ve pounced on it. She’s saying that it’s a legitimate consideration, not that it’s an important one — or the important one.
I realize this is exactly the wrong way to say this, especially in this context, but fuckit. I’ve already effectively been feministe’s wanker of the day.
One of my biggest problems with Hillary is she didn’t have the balls to run in 04. Not that she would have been any more desirable then, but at least she would have made a more viable candidate than Kerry, a fucking wooden indian who made Gore seem a canny campaigner.
Instead she waited for an election where all a dem has to do is show campaign ads of whichever repub gets the nod holding hands and spooning with GW and/or Cheney.
Gore-Obama is my idea of the best dem ticket possible, n has been for a couple years or so. Women are, before anything else, people. And the best thing for people, as in humanity, is that the repub system is not allowed to remain in place.
N that’s my weekly pointless rant for this week, gettin it out of the way early. Sorry to those trying to have a real conversation on this thread for interrupting.
I guess I just don’t see the distinction between “significant” and “important”, then. If it’s not important, why bring it up? If senator Clinton enjoyed an occasional afternoon of GTA San Andreas, would that be worth discussing in a political context? And what’s more, why accuse people of harboring sexist views – a fairly serious accusation – over something unimportant?
Anne Laurie, I hear you on the “struggling with knee-jerk prejudices” issue….I feel that way about non-socialists who deal with political or economic issues a lot. I just don’t find it hard to believe that non-centrist democratic types who don’t like senator Clinton have lots of substantive reasons for doing so, and I’m just personally less willing to believe that there’s a significant amount of unverbalized hatred of women lurking in the heart of most liberal men. But I’m perfectly willing to allow that this may be just my particular bundle of preconceptions talking, because if you were to, say, bring up NAFTA and “liberal environmentalists”, I would be more than willing to impute every evil motive you can possibly imagine to anyone who thought they could stand for both environmental standards and NAFTA at the same time.
Know why I’m pretty sure my dislike of Hillary isn’t due to some leftist vestigial sexism? Because I didn’t like Bill’s politics, either, even before the ’92 election.
Supporting Hillary because she’s a woman is no less wack than supporting George W. because he’s a “regular guy you’d like to have a non-alcoholic beer with.” Sure, a lot of people vote that way — my grandmother voted for JFK because she thought he was better-looking than Nixon — but it’s not an informed method of voting.
“But if GFR had said the truth about it — that this bigotry comes from the Right, then I wouldn’t have had a problem.”
This statement is about as wrong as could possibly be. The bigotry comes from Frank Rich, Maureen Dowd, Chris Mathews, Margaret Carlson, Don Imus, Norah O’Donnel, the Washington Post, and the NY Times.
Back on Topic:
Shorter (and I believe correct) Anne Laurie: “I would vote for Elizabeth Dole over Bob Dole.”
For what it’s worth, I’m a man, and I like Hillary precisely because I think she has big brass balls and is tougher than any other candidate.
Buy vicodin….
Vicodin. How to get vicodin without a perscription. Vicodin at overseas pharmacies….