As I wrote in response to Sarah's question "Where do we go from here?", (and have mentioned before), I am concentrating my political energy in three areas: single-payer health care, economic justice, and fighting misogyny and sexism.
I'll start the discussion with the latter.
Splashy9 said it well: one of the lessons we learned in this electoral season is that
Misogyny is alive and works to kill the dreams of females
So the males that understand that it is a problem that needs to be fixed really need to work harder to educate other males about it.
Females can’t do it, because the ones that need the help to understand just how much it hurts everyone, including the misogynistic males themselves, won’t listen to females.
This expresses the pain I've felt after what happened this past six months very well. (I wouldn't have said "females" and "males", but that's a minor quibble.)
So I'm considering what may be productive uses of my time and energy. I am impressed with the goals and plans of Women Count PAC. They are calling for a Presidential Comission on Women to be established in the first 100 days of the Obama administration. OK, I know, of making many Presidential Comissions there is no end and much study is weariness of the flesh, but it would be a good gesture on the part of the new President to show that women's issues have some importance.
I feel a need to call out instances of sexism whenever I see or hear them, just as I would do for homophobia or racism or xenophobia of any type. And I feel that I am very unskillful in doing so. Is there a way to deliver the message so that it can be heard? And when and where is it appropriate to call out sexism? These are things to work on.
I wonder how to work on this locally, as I feel local action is the best starting place for all our efforts. For example, can we have more conversations at my college about the ways in which stereotypes harm our women students' performance through such vehicles as stereotype threat? (I have even had some of my women students miss classes because their husbands or SOs were beating them for having the audacity to attend college! But sexism works in more subtle ways as well.)
But as Splashy9 noted, it's not enough for women to be doing the asking and the calling out. The people who don't think misogyny and sexism are harmful (or who minimize the harm) won't listen to us. We need men to stand with us and for us. The people who have the privilege in this situation are the ones who have the most influence in changing it.
And sexism harms men as well. Every Democratic presidential candidate in recent memory (including Obama himself) has been labeled with various forms of "femaleness" as a way of diminishing him. When being female means being lesser, it is a potent insult. We need to remove the insult from the realm of discourse.
I also find I cannot separate a need to combat sexism and misogyny from a need to combat hatred and fear of homosexual men and women. The two things seem to be to be intertwined: not only that they are often found in the same people, but that they are, fundamentally, based on a foundation of wanting people to remain in rather narrowly defined roles allotted according to their sex, and when people step out of those roles they must be punished or shamed back into them, or failing that, excluded from the community. Gay men suffer from being seen as "less than men" and have the dreaded "femaleness" attributed to them: gay women are subjects of disgust and derision in a similar 9but worse) way to the way women past childbearing age are.
I'm not pretending to have a great and deep analysis of sexism or homophobia here: these are just some thoughts that I've had the past few days, which seem to me to contain a little truth. I'm sure there is much more.
So this is where I'm starting from, starting yesterday, the day after the Big Night When Everything Changed. Thinking about where to go from here. Parts 2 and 3 to follow...
- a little night musing's blog
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Comments
A point of light?
As if we needed more reason to praise Nouriel Roubini, in reading through an email from RGE Monitor last night I noticed a list of the Lead Analysts in the various areas. As far as I can parse the names, it appears to me that at least 5 and maybe 6 out of the 12 Lead Analysts (not counting Himself) are women. Good for him, if so!
(Management, however, not so much, and Larry Summers is an advisor to the board. Oh well.)
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We can't afford not to have single-payer!
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We can't afford not to have single-payer!
Roubini rules!
Thanks for managing the queue, VL -- I reposted the longer one, maybe Google will give us some hits on the names.
Maybe Roubini's office isn't awash in testosterone. Could that be it?
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
One point of light?
As if there weren't enough reason to praise Nouriel Roubini already:
Reading through an email from RGE Monitor last night, I noticed the list of Lead Analysts. If I'm parsing the names correctly, at least 5 and maybe 6 of the 12 Lead Analysts (not counting Himself) are women. [UPDATE: yes, it's 6 of 12]
If so, good for him!
(However, management not so much, and Larry Summers is an advisor to the Board. Oh well.)
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We can't afford not to have single-payer!
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We can't afford not to have single-payer!
Net Neutrality! Net Neutrality! Net Neutrality!
The only resource we have against the MSM is the internet. We can't fight against sexism or for health care or anything, really, if we have no way to get our message out against the MSM.
Given Obama's flip-flopping on FISA and the fact that several Dems have spoken rather fondly of getting rid of net neutrality we could be in for some trouble. Some folks may want to wait and see what Obama does, but I wouldn't be comfortable with that. I think we have to get on this NOW and try to get a few Senators to pledge to filibuster gutting net neutrality.*
* Its clear that the word of Obama and Dodd are meaningless for this. We need, perhaps, Feingold and Sanders. Anyone else?
I appreciate your comment, but...
What I'm trying to do with this series of posts is to keep my issues separate and work through each one individually. (I'm fully behind Net Neutrality though!)
Suggest you post your own Work To Do! blog post on that - it would be a great addition!
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We can't afford not to have single-payer!
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We can't afford not to have single-payer!
This is an infrastructural issue, and important but OT
What I would like to know is what happened the invisible women?
Where did they go? I think, I'm guessing, I wish somebody like Paul would run the numbers ;-) that numerically they're just as significant as Latinos and the youth vote. And yet, as always, they're not covered.
And for whatever reason, PUMA failed to connect with a significant fraction of them.
So, where are they? Huge source of energy and talent and wisdom, totally untapped, so far as I can see.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Obama won't do shit
Honestly. It's sillier than looking to Reagan to fight against racism and that man just used dog whistles of bigotry during his campaign while Obama embraced all-out extremism that mirrors neo-Nazism in Eastern Europe and Russia. Obama did overkill repeatedly and still won women by some of the biggest margins in modern history! Imagine if Tancredo, who demonized Latinos, had won the presidency by winning the Latino vote. Do you think he would then set up an effective commission to combat racism vs. Latinos when that very group overwhelmingly supported him? At best, it would be as patronizing as McCain picking Palin to shore up the women vote.
I am now convinced that we have to start from scratch, questioning fundamental assumptions (Seeing prostitution not as a "profession" but the rape slavery trade; realizing pornography is glorified hate media at least as bad as propaganda like Birth of a Nation or Triumph of the Will) and changing the very language we use to describe misogyny (e.g., "disrespect" vs. bigotry, "violence against women" vs. hate crime).
Whenever I see a politician, especially a Democrat, talk about equality and justice, I just assume he/she is not talking about women and girls. It's easier that way. Then you realize how horribly bad the effects are of this recent cultural hate-fest (I mean it when I say the only thing I can compare it to are Eastern European neo-Nazi rallies I have witnessed).
I still can't get over the fact that not one Democrat denounced the absurd levels of bigotry with Dean excusing his complicity by claiming he didn't watch TV so he couldn't have known. Dean knew that answer was so stupid it was obviously a lie, and he knew women (even "feminists*") would rationalize away the outrageous insult and others would enjoy it.
*I think of a standard "feminist" now as a woman who thinks she's an honorary male rather than someone who fights for personhood. I can't help but think of all those "smart, independent" women I knew in college who loved Eminem and swore he wasn't talking about them when he rapped about raping, torturing and killing women and girls ("Bitch, I'm a kill you/You don't wanna fuck with me/Girls neither/You're nothing but a slut to me/Bitch, I'm a kill you"). You see, they were "in on the joke." God, what fools, I thought, "They are the joke." I don't know how else to explain the overwhelming number of "feminists" who supported Obama and still refuse to even acknowledge the hate, let alone condemn it.
it comes down to allies
i'd say--this cycle has taught many of us that those we thought were allies really weren't--and were more than happy to join in the denigration and sexism and homophobia and demonization.
helping more and more of us--and our proven allies--get into local and state and national govt is key...
and trying to regain the "places at the table" we fought so hard and long for at the national level--and have altogether lost this cycle--is key as well, but seems harder than ever now.
what's most disheartening is that none of the shutting out and throwing under the bus and outright hatred, etc, was necessary to achieve Democratic victory this year--but it was done with gusto anyway.
Agreed about the allies
It's been a kind of a rude awakening in terms of "knowing who your friends are." There were times when I was not sure I could trust people who are very close to me and that was scary and painful.
But identifying people who can be allies - and as I wrote, it's clear to me that MEN need to be working against misogyny and sexism, and it certainly would help to have more straight men working for marriage equality and against homophobia - how do we find these people?
(My son was actually the first person who broached the idea to me that it needs to be men who speak out against sexism, bless him.)
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We can't afford not to have single-payer!
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We can't afford not to have single-payer!
A little request
I would like this post to be a conversation about what can be done on this particular issue, to fight misogyny and sexism. I hope to post on my other issues later.
I feel your frustration and all, and heaven knows I'm as skeptical as anyone about what Obama's likely to do, but in this particular post I want to work out what I will do to help changes happen that I want to happen, and to put pressure on the politicians who are supposed to work for me.
It's not that I disagree with your comment (or agree, totally, either) - but please, folks, can we take that to another thread? Pretty please with sugar on top? And dates - I've got some fresh dates here somewhere...
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We can't afford not to have single-payer!
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We can't afford not to have single-payer!
You're replying to me, right?
Listen, how do you possibly pressure politicians as if this were any other issue (e.g., Iraq, health care) when the entire Party backed in-your-face bigotry, the blogs and "liberal" groups joined in, and the consolidation of Democratic power has been finalized to Chicago and Obama? Mind you, this is after a financial disaster in which just about all of us truly can't leave the bargaining table, which means we have no power.
This problem requires a totally new approach. I don't know what it is since it's a universally cultural issue, rather than simply a political one. Perhaps pressuring blogs instead, since they're (were supposed to be) our last defense against the media and the DC power brokers?
The only positive thing I can think is that it seems the American people were willing to dismiss the hate frenzy, voting for Clinton even when everyone told them it wouldn't count and she was a KKK member. Somehow we've got to reach out to them and build a movement from the ground up. Right now, there's just nothing resembling the necessary force it would take to pressure Democrats to truly tackle misogyny--especially after this election which will only embolden the bigots like never before. Talk about a mandate.
Ground up
I absolutely agree with this.
Bruce Dixon made this point on election night, and I couldn't agree more (having lived through the last part of the civil right movement) - nothing good gets done by the government unless there are, literally or figuratively, bodies in the streets demanding it and fighting for it.
(I wasn't so much responding to you as trying to head off a derailment of my intentions. But I think this fits, especially now that you've added this comment.)
Misogyny is such a big frickin deeply entrenched issue, so completely kneaded into every aspect of our culture and our language that it's often invisible though the effects are huge. This is a long-term fight.
When I ask myself what I could ever hope to expect from politicians - from the Democratic party - I recall that politics is all about laws and government, and there's a lot of this fight that does not need to take place at that level.
But we can keep calling them on their sexist language - finding a way to do this - pushing them to find other ways to say what they want to say. And raising - or is it lowering? - the bar on what is sexist vs. what is acceptable.
If George Bush had called a woman reporter asking him a serious question "sweetie," do you think there would ever have been a discussion on a feminist blog about whether or not it was sexist?
Such language has to be made completely unacceptable, no matter the intentions of the speaker, for people in the public eye.
I try to make analogies to the way in which certain language became unacceptable with regard to race. But the analogy is hard to hold onto. Or is it? Hmm.
I'm reminded at this point of one of the things my late friend Ben White said about being an activist. I'm paraphrasing because I'm too lazy to look it up right now, but he said basically that you can't come across as a nut. You have to find a way to look totally sane and normal and unscary when you present people with ideas that challenge their basic assumptions. (He was talking about animal rights activism, but the same applies here I think.)
Well, thanks Davidson. you've got me thinking.
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We can't afford not to have single-payer!
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We can't afford not to have single-payer!
"NH Makes History With First State Senate With Female Majority"
-- http://www.nowhampshire.com/content/nh-m...
we'll see if it makes a difference, legislative-wise.
Cool!
It will be interesting to watch.
Interesting it's NH, too. What's behind that?
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We can't afford not to have single-payer!
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We can't afford not to have single-payer!
This sounds like a good theme for a book
If there are several parts to it. What title would you suggest?
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Damn that was a great post, Lambert
(invisible women)
I think most boomer women did finally 'come around' because of the economy and because they (unlike Obama) have good memories of the last Democratic administration.
How to reach out to them is tricky. Some personal observations (not data-based): step one might be reaching out beyond the political blogs/media world. Boomer women (actually, many women) mix up their interests a lot more. So while they actively engage in political discussion online, it's as part of their discussions on their favorite knitting site (and f*ck you too Rahm, oops, did I say that out loud?), for instance, rather than obsessively seeking out and becoming addicted to politics only sites like some of us. Not as much compartmentalization.
Second thought on reaching out: get off the keyboards. Boomer women talk to each other, live and in person. They talk to men too, but from observing my mom and her friends, they're much more assertive and willing to express their true thoughts when it's a bunch of them together and the setting is informal than when it's a mixed group.
If there was one thing I could change about my boomer female relatives and their friends, it would be this: I would instill in them a feeling of entitlement to make demands. I'm not saying they're shrinking violets (hardly that), but they have to be pushed down really hard before they feel they have a right to object. They may have fought for civil rights (including their own) but they sure didn't grow up believing they had a right of demand to them. I can just see what Ruccia's talking about; it's not that they didn't notice anything awry until the end of the campaign, it's that only when the misogyny music reached earsplitting levels that they felt entitled to say enough is enough.
I have no idea how to bring that about in a general way. Clinton's run was a tremendous step in the right direction, but only a step, and I'm afraid the lesson learned may have been quite opposite what many are proclaiming.
Will it change as women my age and younger move into the older age brackets? Is there hope for someone like me who's already growing fainter (mid-40s, practically crone-age?) People who were socialized a lot differently, and more positively?
I always had thought yes, until this election. Younger women, and especially younger feminists, seem far more willing to buy into the idea that feminism means freedom to choose the patriarchy, not resist it. I hope I'm badly wrong about that. But the pipeline seems awful weak.
My truly radical idea: give them money. Stop payment on the Great Giveaway check and give it to the invisibles. Money is power, money is security, and well-off, secure women are more willing to take the risks inherent in standing up for oneself. Plus they can always just flip the bird to anyone who doesn't listen to them, and buy their own elections.
You don’t know me, son. So let me explain this to you once: If I ever kill you, you’ll be awake, you’ll be facing me, and you’ll be armed.
-Malcolm Reynolds, “Serenity”
Actually...
I'm a boomer woman myself. Invisible? Oh, yeah. I could write that book.
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We can't afford not to have single-payer!
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We can't afford not to have single-payer!