Democrats: “We are not your bitches.”
Jun 22nd, 2008 by admin
Pococino rocks it out, oh my goodness:
No self-respecting woman should wish or work for the success of a party that ignores her sex.” (Susan B. Anthony)
I’m pissed at the netroots. For a brief, shining moment - like, 2 1/2 years or so - Left Blogistan was a place of high media skepticism, of proud partisanship, of committed progressivism. Now, anything goes, as long as it’s about That Bitch. HRC and her filthy husband are slobbering racists - everyone knows she sent out that photo, I saw it on Drudge - as long as we never have to question the source. And by the by, Atrios and LGM, your Solemn Pronouncements on race and ethnicity lose a lot of credibility when you snidely revel in the disenfranchisement of an island full of brown people, because they didn’t vote for your candidate.
I’m pissed at the next generation of political pundits. Whenever confronted with uncontrovertible evidence of sexism, they reacted uniformly - to grudgingly admit that sexism exists, and then jump to BUT ITS NOT THE ONLY REASON. People who follow politics to any extent are well aware that there are many factors in political decision making, and most of them are subconscious.
I’m pissed at feminists who decided their feminism didn’t extend to That Bitch. I want to be clear, I’m not talking about feminists who, in good faith, decided that they wanted to support Obama, Edwards, Dodd, or whoever else. I am the first to state openly that reasonable people could have come to different decisions on that. I’m talking about feminists who, usually incisive and merciless in their rejection of expected gender roles, uncritically accept the Nasty Harpy narrative about Senator Clinton. I expect feminists to be able to step back and say, “well, knowing what I know about how I, and everyone around me, and in particular the chattering heads paid to tell me what to think about this campaign, have been conditioned in my expectations of female behavior, I am going to be critical of how I process this election.” For a lot of feminists (Edwards and Obama supporters as much as Clinton supporters) that happened; for a lot of them, it didn’t. I saw one feminist blogger say of Clinton’s suspension speech only, “Best speech of her political career.” The best speech of a thirty five year career of one of the most brilliant women in modern public life just so happens to be her concession? We’d be unbelievably suspicious of such an assessment about any other woman’s career - but it was Hillary, so it’s okay. It’s nauseating from a babbling jowl show - it is heartbreaking from a feminist. And the wheel turns, and a woman’s career is at its apex when she submits to a man.
They have drawn race as black and white. This is patently ridiculous. I’m not linking to anyone who makes the claim that - essentially - white women are the only ones who liked HRC, we should just stop whining and suck it up, POC are thrilled about Obama and we are just entitled bitches. It is true that Black Americans overwhelmingly - though far from universally - preferred Obama. But this erases the huge numbers of brown women - Asian-American, Hispanic-American, in huge numbers, at least where the pollsters bothered - and men as well, who knew that they are not invisible to her. Those claims are out there, though. I’m thrilled for African-Americans who see themselves in Senator Obama. But I do not ever condone the erasure of anyone because they are inconvenient to a political agenda. I have been proud to call these women ally and sometimes, presumptively, friend. I’ve talked before about my frustration with this erasure, but with Clinton supporters - neither all white nor all male - so offended by this campaign they have decided the Democratic Party is no longer their home, the erasure has reached fever pitch. I do not begrudge Obama supporters their excitement. I do not understand the need to begrudge us our grief.
I think that non-feminist Obama supporters, and particularly male non-feminist Obama supporters, have this idea that we are just irrationally angry, our feelings are hurt and we should get over it or we’re just silly, don’t we know how bad McCain is, maybe they’ll just tell us one more time. The choice not to support Obama is a long-run rational choice. Right now, there is a party that hates women all the time, and a party that used to humor us, but hates us when it is convenient. It is our job to never, ever let it be convenient again, or there will be no one in government advocating for our rights.
We are not your sweeties, who just need candy and flowers to come around.
We are not your bitches, that is not a leash in your hand. Our bodily integrity is not a choke chain you may use to threaten us. If you think it is, you are no better than the Republicans. And yes, the “But! But! But!” Roe stick is just that - a threat. Politically involved women know exactly where we stand on Roe, and we know the Democrats haven’t been all that bothered to even look like they’re trying to protect it, these last seven years. We know what an anti-choice Supreme Court looks like, because we read Gonzales v. Carhart and our hearts broke in fear for ourselves and our sisters and nieces and daughters.
When you tell us that we’d better get in line and vote for Obama, OR ELSE ROE, you are holding our own bodies hostage against us, as if they were yours to take. You are actively, proudly, literally threatening us with our lives. Is that the change we should believe in?
Just WOW. Read the whole thing. H/T to the Apostate. And what a fitting response to Tim Wise’s misogynist drivel, to which Littoral Mermaid and Donna Darko have also aptly responded. (Bolds in the excerpt mine.)
I just posted this on WAMI–and I’ll post it here. This is a very good reply about the misogyny that is taking over the left [in Europe its worse, far worse, women being brutally beat up and raped in Sweden for example, are being told by Marxist feminists [seriously, no joke] that they have NO Right to file complaint–or to challenge the creeping misogynist cultures that basically are saying–YOU’RE SHIT–AND WE CAN RAPE YOU AND ITS PERFECTLY LEGAL TO US–some of the photos of young women that were sent to me–their faces all bloody and cut up [from recent gang rapes of women in park in Sweden], they look Identical to the women protesters in Iran on the International Women’s Day march that had the bloody hell beat out of them…
we are AT WAR WOMEN….
western women YOU NEED TO WAKE UP, ANY, ANY POLITICAL MOVEMENT THAT DEMANDS YOUR SACRIFICE AS HUMAN AND DEMANDS YOUR SLAVERY–IS NOT FOR LIBERATION, I DONT CARE HOW LEFTIST THEY ARE.
on the SARI women I posted just a minute ago, some very sad news for women’s human rights advocates. One of the leading women’s human rights workers was murdered–in Nepal.
posted on WAMI–this is so relevant to what we are seeing here in the states…
warning–there are EXTREME VIOLENT GRAPHIC PHOTOS OF WOMEN BEING HORRIBLY MUTILATED IN THE CONGO-PLEASE BE AWARE OF THIS WHEN YOU GO TO THIS LINK
http://www.feministezine.com/feminist/international/Ten-Worst-Countries-for-Women.html
I would add, to this, because while the ezine is good–it tends to be biased–I would add,
to those countries,
IRAN
SOMALIA
SUDAN
NIGERIA [IN PART AND INCREASING
SAUDI ARABIA [INCLUDING THE SLAVERY OF ASIAN WOMEN TRAFFICKED TO BE HOUSE-AND SEX SLAVES]
ZIMBABWE
PARTS OF SOUTH AFRICA
AND
ON THE BEST COUNTRIES–THEY HAVE LISTED–IT DEPENDS ON WHAT COMMUNITY THEY LIVE IN–THERE ARE ATROCIOUS HUMAN RIGHT ABUSES TOWARDS WOMEN AND GIRLS IN ALL THOSE COUNTRIES THAT ARE ‘ALLOWED FOR PEACE’.
SEE WHAT THE MAJORITY OF THESE COUNTRIES HAVE IN COMMON….THERE IS NO TRUE LIBERATION FOR WOMEN AS LONG AS ANY TENANT OF PATRIARCHY BY FORCE–IS IN PLACE,
TO SAY THAT IT IS SO–IS AN OXYMORON.
JUST BECAUSE SOME WOMEN MAY BENEFIT–THE FACT THAT THOUSANDS MORE DO NOT BENEFIT AND SUFFER HORRIBLY–MEANS SOMETHING IS WRONG WITH THE PICTURE OF SO CALLED ‘FRIENDLY PATRIARCHY’,
THERE IS NO SUCH THING.
EITHER ONE IS FREE, OR THEY ARE NOT. IF ONE IS ‘OWNED’ THEY ARE NOT FREE….
ONE OF THE BEST ONLINE SITES OF MUSLIM WOMEN FIGHTING FOR HUMAN RIGHTS–WESTERN WOMEN,
YOU NEED TO READ–WHO DO YOU BELIEVE? THESE WOMEN, OR PROPAGANDISTS OFTEN CONTROLLED BY ‘MALE PHILOSOPHY AND POLEMIC’ [TALKING TO LEFT HERE]?
http://www.wluml.org/english/index.shtml
edited on the WAMI blog–in regards to worst/best countries
[edit--they did list Somalia, and Sudan--however they did not list Iran, and the others so I did here...and, in the countries that are listed as best, Netherlands--tell that to the thousands of trafficked women/children into that country that are gang raped, tortured and prostituted by force...I would NOT include that country for best for women--nor would I include Sweden or Norway--the rise in violence against women in these countries is appalling.]
Currently doing a study on the Spanish Anarchist feminists during the Spanish Revolution against Falenge party–Franco,
and how the Reds sold them out [Stalin], the similarities then to what is going on today with the betrayals to feminism,
are too alike not to take warning/heed to historical analysis. The women in Spain were very revolutionary against fascism/patriarchy–
but it was the very ones who said they were progressive and allies–that had no problem selling them out to Franco’s fascism–once the anarchists were no longer needed.
A lesson that any freedom from human right abuses and fascism really needs to learn….alliances with misogynists and misogynist regimes will NOT LIBERATE FROM PATRIARCHY–NO MATTER HOW PRETTY THEY PACKAGE IT.
Thanks for the post on the complexity of “admit sexism” but but but…. Very well written. I am not falling for the line — vote for democrats or else Roe is gone. First of all, I never much cared for the feminist movement putting all their eggs in the reproductive basket, second of all I think women could create their own rights, and men would have nothing to do with it, and third, I don’t see one man as all that different from another man.
Whether it is McCaine in office or Obama, I don’t see my life changing all that much. The more the democratic party denies sexism, and the more it insults Hillary, the less and less likely I will support this party.
I can win either way, and as a lesbian feminist, I don’t relate to most of the mainstream issues out there anyway.
McCaine could actually do serious damange to the democratic party by simply taking women seriously, and by reaching out to Hillary voters. We are Hillary voters for a reason, and for me personally, it has very little to do with anything anyone else says.
The fact that the democratic party did nothing against the sexism out there in a serious way speaks volumes.
I’m not going to waste the rest of my life worrying about Roe or another issue revolving around children. No, I’m moving ahead as always to my own drummer, ahead of the gender police, ahead of the homophobes, and ahead of women who feel they have to keep placating men. We are powerful, we are a majority in America, and we can organize and change the world. We’ve already been doing it for a very long time.
We want wars to end? Easy, stop marrying soldiers, stop supporting the troops, stop cooking the meals and cleaning up for the boys. Stop doing the unpaid labor of women for the men who rape, murder, and terrorize the cities of the world. Start with your own idea of freedom and keep on moving forward.
Never ever support any man who EVER makes a sexist comment! That’s right EVER. Stop expecting men to do our work, and stop thinking that liberal men are any better than conservative men. I don’t know how women continue to be bamboozled on all of this time after time. This elections just proves the rule… we will not report fairly on the campaign of a powerful intelligent woman. We’ll support anyone as long as she is not a woman, and that’s the way it’s always been.
What shocks me, is that even radical feminists don’t see this for what it is.
Last Thursday Obama met with the Congressional Black Caucus, and got into a scrap with Diane Watson, for saying about the work needed to heal the party, “However, I need to make a decision in the next few months as to how I manage that since I’m running against John McCain, which takes a lot of time. If women take a moment to realize that on every issue important to women, John McCain is not in their corner, that would help them get over it.” http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2008/story?id=5215668
Ms. Watson told him flat out, “Don’t use that terminology.” How condescending could he get? I think I see a familiar pattern.
Today Obama was making a big deal of supporting equal pay for women. Well, duh. These Democrats, always promising, never delivering. He wants women to vote for him, but he will only go so far. He has higher priorities, after all.
***We want wars to end? Easy, stop marrying soldiers, stop supporting the troops, stop cooking the meals and cleaning up for the boys.***
Despite all the arguments that have been advanced against it, I still agree with this one.
***Stop expecting men to do our work***
I just wanted to highlight this one. It is true that if women want to be liberated, women will have to do the work ourselves, not expect men to liberate us. Male allies are fine, but it is women who actually need to do the work of liberation. It is also true that if women want to live in a woman friendly world women ourselves will have to take the initiative and do the work of running it.
As to Roe, Sonia Johnson hit the nail on the head in “Wildfire”. Women were taking the initiative, learning how to treat our own gynecological ailments and do simple abortions, simply walking away from patriarchy, not begging or groveling for legalized abortion. The patriarchs then got scared of what they saw happening and came up with legalized abortion to get us back into the fold, Roe vs. Wade. Women then came rushing back into men’s fold at this “victory”, the air went out of the women’s movement, and women have been expending enormous amounts of energy begging and groveling before male legislatures all over the land ever since to preserve whatever shreds of the right to legal abortion they could.
Thanks Branjor for bringing up Sonia Johnson’s view of abortion. She did indeed say in “Wildfire: Igniting the Shevolution” that women were already taking charge of birth control, and going around all the male medical procedures.
Men only use these “reform” laws to keep women in line. McCaine and Obama have no intention of doing anything at all for women. When will we get this through our heads? I have said this over and over again, women need to back women, and women need to get out of the glamour game entirely.
“Getting over’ the loss of a strong woman candidate as Obama suggests is just horrifying to me. Does he actually believe that I, as a seasoned radical lesbian feminist, am all that impressed with yet another boy after the big job? The boys’ club is all about men only folks. Make sure women raise the children while the men run the country! Absolutely no. Why anyone in their right mind would mistake a Hillary supporter for an Obama supporter is beyond me. Even I can tell the difference and it’s a big one.
Women have this tendency to live in perpetual wishful thinking. Young women born in 1973 or so don’t know what sexism is, or can’t identify its tentacles… they’ve never seen an octopus before and don’t know how it acts. They might now be getting an idea of how the patriarchal game is played. But still women, why do we always end up back at square one every generation! Look at what happened with women after they got the vote. Compare what happened to women in the 1910s to the 1920s. Now we have women of the 1960s dealing with women born in 1973, and already they jumped yet again on the cute guy liberal man bandwagon. They believe a liberal man in office equals real change! Yikes, how dumb are we going to be again.
Get your books out women. Read your Sonia Johnson, or better yet, go meet her. Crack open the books, throw Foucoult in the garbage and let’s act like feminists!
Now we can get beyond this if women really paid attention to their own issues, created the structures to maintain and facilitate them, and got the hang of creating wealth for their own benefit.
Neither John McCaine nor Barak Obama are in the corner of women. They actually have no interest in women’s issues at all. They are interested in power, in getting it, in making the world safe for men. Neither one of them gives a damn about women’s revolution on women’s terms, and they have married women who just go along with this program. Why is this so hard to understand folks?
Once we get this, we’ll know more of what to do. We need a sophisticated feminism that creates a woman centered politics and economics. It’s pretty easy women, but we have to really believe in ourselves to do this.
Can women get over their addiction to male approval? I don’t know. But liberal male democrats are just as much the devil to me as any right wing idiot man. I don’t see tangible real world difference. Even right wing men claim they support equal pay for women for goddess sake! This should tell us something: men will lie and tell women anything women want to hear. They believe we are dummies and can be fooled EVERY time, and after watching this election, well, I think they may actually be a little bit right about this.
So go back to your Sonia Johnson, or even take Heart’s blog as a clear example of just how different things are when women control the delete button! Women control this blog, and that’s why it’s very different from Huffington Post, Daily Kos or other “feminist” blogs out there. The proof is in what you read here.
Branjor, Aletha, Heart, Mary Sunshine and all the others… We don’t all agree, but I believe we all really GET it! Men don’t get it, never have and never will, so stop trying with them.
Women can rise up and really put Obama’s feet to the fire. We can do this with both candidates if we want to! We can really panic the democratic party by not caring about any one man being better than the next. Remember, men believe they are entitled to run this country, and they assume women will just “get over” Hillary. Well, I’d like women to “get over” men!
I remember those days, Branjor. Are there still women who have trained to self-treat and to aid others like that? We have lost so much of our cooperative women’s culture. It’s time for a revival, because our rights to bodily autonomy are being nibbled away state by state.
“They have drawn race as black and white. This is patently ridiculous. I’m not linking to anyone who makes the claim that - essentially - white women are the only ones who liked HRC, we should just stop whining and suck it up, POC are thrilled about Obama and we are just entitled bitches. It is true that Black Americans overwhelmingly - though far from universally - preferred Obama. But this erases the huge numbers of brown women - Asian-American, Hispanic-American, in huge numbers, at least where the pollsters bothered - and men as well, who knew that they are not invisible to her.”
This whole segment deserves some analysis.
I don’t think non-black poc were invisible to Obama’s campaign, as this may be being implied. First and foremost, the fact non black poc, across gender lines, voted more for Hillary begs the question why. The way this issue is presented here is not cognizant of many things that have to do w/poc issues and sensitivities all around. It just asserts that “poc voted more for her” implying they were heard by her and not Obama which is false. Simply put, It is an uphill battle for a black candidate to win a majoroty of non-black poc votes. This is for reasons much deeper than are being implied by this blogger.””
Driving thru TX in February I heard tons of “I’m Barack Obama and I approve this message…” radio ads in spanish pitched to Hispanic voters. (Anyway as a practical matter all candidates must reach out for sure to Hispanic voters, as they are the largest minority. ) Poc tend *not* to be their own natural allies, due mainly to the fact that dividing and conquering always works, and is proven to work on every continent. I am talking all poc toward all other poc.
The entire campaign I cringed at hearing all the times CNN (I definitely disagree that they barely bothered to poll! ) and other news sources mentioned over and over that “Hispanics prefer hillary to Obama 3 to 1″ , and that “Besides in Hawaii (where Obama’s Asian sister and bro in law stumped for him, and also his homestate), “Asians heavily favor Hillary” and some talk of “Obama doesn’t do good with the Jewish demograophic” . I saw this though, as the **usual** that media does in trying to pit minorities against one another and put it in peoples’ heads that “they just can’t get along” and also, more subtly “black people don’t get along with anybody and/or , “see, nobody trusts ‘em!”
I know polls are useful but at what point do they become destructive and fodder for people to become deeply suspicious of each other? (They did this in the LA Times during the immigrant marches too, pitting Asian immigrants against Latin@ immigrants.)
And then later of course Hillary massively won in Puerto Rico which was totally unsuprising (even more so than any other group, being a mixed race and not rich country with the usual blackest on low end and whitest at high end, browns in middle).
Initially, many, too many, said blacks wouldn’t back Obama, b/c blacks are supposedly their own worst enemy. On that point only I was glad blacks did vote for Obama 90 percent strong b/c all my life I’ve heard and knew it wasn’t true, that supposedly “black people are haters” (basically) on each other. (And I *don’t*, I repeat *DO NOT* think this fact is *all* a good thing either though! It merely proves blacks can be as clannish as anybody–clannishness is both good and bad.)
Also on this point it is easy to see why women are pained that people can say “see they won’t stick together…” (another many layered issue I don’t mean to spin off into but just briefly relating to it as it’s extremely significant).
I feel that black is continualy juxtaposed against everything else -White, Brown, Yellow, Jewish, Muslim, Indian, –certainly immigrant. Yadda. It REALLY, deeply, sucks. It doesn’t have to do w/Obama not hearing poc. It has to do w/a much deeper issue. Much the same way Hillary did reach out to women (though it’s also been said she didn’t do so enough, or to all kinds of women, or in the right ways ). But her failing to garner all womens votes is a deeper issue as well. Is it painful? Yes for both candidates.
If Obama had lost, the POC support-gap would most *definitely* (I promise you) be being *bitterly* and *much* talked about in blogs. In a cowardly way I find it a mercy this has not been talked of since spring. Because if it were , the war would be on. I guess, really, the war would be over on that side instead of over here as it is on the feminist side. Who can handle two wars at the same time? (I’ve always felt deeply conflicted with this election, being black/white and female. Thank God I’m not a party loyalist or it’d be even worse.)
When you get enough to win, there is less examination of who was with you and who against you and etc. So that discussion gets mercifully delayed.
I haven’t been reading any blogs about the uber- depressing post-delegate count rehash, so haven’t seen this “erasure” and “painting of b/w” and do not know how prevalent it really is (is she talking about 2 bloggers? 10? 50? ) but I do know it’s a sensitive issue, a “color” issue –an issue within an issue that is hella loaded.
This is just a conscious-raising of a color issue I am bringing up. What are Obama supporters supposed to say? “yes we won without big suppport of other minorities!! yeah! ” ….it’s not something to really celebrate, as it’s depressing and sounds divisive. They could say,”we will prove to all poc a black pres. will do the best by them” but that would also sound divisive, and also claims unwarranted responsibility for a problem that is not one racial group’s problem–it is a systemic thing and the media also works it. There was an article in the LA Times during the primaries “Why Don’t Hispanics Back Obama?” complete w/many divide-making quotes.
This issue brings up something I think for perhaps many non-black poc is subconscious and would be offensive for the Obama campaign to talk about, (and people woud exclaim”color card!” as usual)
even if stats bear out an obvious discrepancy that there is a racism problem within the entire poc community, on every continent and from each color group toward each other color group.
I was working with a woman who was head of Asia-Pacific Americans for Hillary. In fact, the very first “Hillary for President” button I ever saw, was one this woman was wearing at a business women’s group many months ago. All my Asian American friends were very into Hillary. My Latina/o friends loved her too. My neighborhood is more about Mexico, Taiwan, S. Korea and Japan than it is about anything else.
My black neighbor across the street is a die hard fan of Romney… go figure, and I live on the “poor” side of town in Los Angeles. He was so mad Romney lost that he is thinking of not voting at all, and this was ages ago. I overheard him talking to his brother in law about this, so it wasn’t being whitewashed for my benefit.
Now CNN is talking about all the swing states Hillary won, when they were ignoring her arguments about this during the primaries. Sound familiar? Women bring up a subject and men ignore it, then men talk about it later and the men are considered brilliant. Geez that old game again.
Would there have been more democratic hell to pay had Obama lost? Are women once again the push overs who are supposed to go to the prom with the new handsome guy? Who will get angriest and cause the most pain after the loss? Women, you’re not getting angry enough fast enough!
Women opened up the democratic party, and the proof of this is the situation in the republican party. Or as Gertrude Stein once said… a rose is a rose is a rose… :-) Roses go to the feminists!
Good points here - you women wake me up and make me thinl!
I agree that we need to do our own work, stop making apologies for men and stop trusting men unless they prove themselves. And even that may not be wise- I have yet to meet a feminist man; too much to lose.
I love Sonia Johnson’s books and was the 1st to reccomend them until I met her daughter. Johnson has brillinat ideas, but the way she mis-treated her own girl child has nothing to do with feminism. Just a reminder that writers are often different than their writing.
Julia,
Writers and reality! There’s a lot we find out later! Thanks for the report.
Julia, I’m pretty sure Sonia Johnson has her own story to tell so far as her kids. I believe what you say about her daughter, but especially in light of recent events, thinking now about Rebecca Walker/Alice Walker, I think the thing to do is acknowledge that mothers and daughters will always have their own stories to tell. All we can do is do our best to support both mothers and their daughters in whatever way we can.
“But still women, why do we always end up back at square one every generation!”
Is that the right question? I’m not sure. Why do we keep believing the men? –Is that a more accurate question? What do you think causes women to repeat the same mistake, over and over? The experts would probably say it’s failure to identify the right cause, or failure to learn from the past. I think the reason people tend to repeat mistakes is that there’s this egotistical belief that we’re better, smarter, different, from those long-dead people, and so of course our problems are unrelated to theirs.
Anyway, I sincerely doubt if even the worst fundamentalist would outlaw monthly menstrual extraction — problem solved, let the men freaking squirm.
Btw, I’m really glad I read this post, that article really put into words what I’ve been feeling about all this “come together for the good of the party” crap. What they really mean is suck it up, honey, be a good little good and play nice.