Women Will Pay for an Obama Presidency: Obama’s Woman Staff Members Paid 17 Percent Less Than Men, McCain’s Paid More Than Men, McCain Hires More Women Than Obama Does
Oct 22nd, 2008 by admin
The Caucus, the New York Times Political Blog, blogged yesterday about a speech Sarah Palin gave in Las Vegas. She was described as having been flanked by women who were members of the Democratic Platform Committee and of NOW and is reported to have strongly criticized Obama’s record so far as women’s rights, criticizing him for not choosing Hillary Clinton as his running mate and for paying women on his staff less money than he paid the men. I went poking around and learned that this latter was actually news about a month ago, although I missed it, which is unsurprising, since I am sick and tired of these campaigns and can barely bring myself to check in to find out the latest. I was interested, though, in this information in part because Catharine MacKinnon recently endorsed Obama, and one reason she gave was the fact that he is the father of two daughters. I don’t find this to be very persuasive. Fathers across every conceivable divide — race, ethnicity, religion, class, political and philosophical beliefs have acted without regard for the future of womankind, their daughters, wives, and mothers included, since time immemorial. Sometimes they talk a good game, but they still act — intentionally or unintentionally, willfully or blindly — in ways that have continued to make the world safe for male supremacy and the ongoing subordination of female persons.
I couldn’t find anything about these allegations of Palin’s on FactCheck, so I did a little research and came up with the information below from a credible article published in September in the Seattle P-I:
“Now is the time to keep the promise of equal pay for an equal day’s work,” Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama said Aug. 28 in his convention acceptance speech. He told the crowd in Denver: “I want my daughters to have exactly the same opportunities as your sons.”
Obama’s campaign website is even more specific. Under the heading “Fighting for Pay Equity,” the women’s issues page laments that, “Despite decades of progress, women still make only 77 cents for every dollar a man makes. A recent study estimates it will take another 47 years for women to close the wage gap with men at Fortune 500 corporate offices. Barack Obama believes the government needs to take steps to better enforce the Equal Pay Act…”
Obama’s commitment to federally mandated pay equity stretches from the Rockies to Wall Street and beyond. And yet it seems to have eluded his Senate office. Compensation figures for his legislative staff reveal that Obama pays women just 83 cents for every dollar his men make.
A watchdog group called LegiStorm posts online the salaries for Capitol Hill staffers. “We have no political affiliations and no political purpose except to make the workings of Congress as transparent as possible,” its website explains. Parsing LegiStorm’s official data, gleaned from the Secretary of the Senate, offers a fascinating glimpse at pay equity in the World’s Greatest Deliberative Body.
The most recent statistics are for the half-year from Oct. 1, 2007 to March 31, 2008, excluding interns and focusing on full-time personnel. For someone who worked only until, say, last Feb. 29, extrapolating up to six months’ service simplifies this analysis. Doubling these half-year figures illustrates how a year’s worth of Senate employees’ paychecks should look.
Based on these calculations, Obama’s 28 male staffers divided among themselves total payroll expenditures of $1,523,120. Thus, Obama’s average male employee earned $54,397.
Obama’s 30 female employees split $1,354,580 among themselves, or $45,152, on average.
Why this disparity? One reason may be the under-representation of women in Obama’s highest-compensated ranks. Among Obama’s five best-paid advisors, only one was a woman. Among his top 20, seven were women.
Again, on average, Obama’s female staffers earn just 83 cents for every dollar his male staffers make. This figure certainly exceeds the 77-cent threshold that Obama’s campaign website condemns. However, 83 cents do not equal $1. In spite of this 17-cent gap between Obama’s rhetoric and reality, he chose to chide GOP presidential contender John McCain on this issue.
Obama responded Aug. 31 to Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s Republican vice-presidential nomination. Palin “seems like a very engaging person,” Obama told voters in Toledo, Ohio. “But I’ve got to say, she’s opposed — like John McCain is — to equal pay for equal work. That doesn’t make much sense to me.”
Obama’s criticism notwithstanding, McCain’s payment patterns are the stuff of feminist dreams.
McCain’s 17 male staffers split $916,914, thus averaging $53,936. His 25 female employees divided $1,396,958 and averaged $55,878.
On average, according to these data, women in John McCain’s office make $1.04 for every dollar a man makes. In fact, all other things being equal, a typical female staffer could earn 21 cents more per dollar paid to her male counterpart — while adding $10,726 to her annual income — by leaving Barack Obama’s office and going to work for John McCain.
How could this be?
One explanation could be that women compose a majority of McCain’s highest-paid aides. Among his top-five best-compensated staffers, three are women. Of his 20-highest-salaried employees, 13 are women. The Republican presidential nominee relies on women — much more than men — for advice at the highest, and thus, best-paid levels.
Defenses of Obama’s treatment of women on his staff, based on what I’ve read, are not very encouraging. Nobody denies that the information I’ve posted here is correct and true. One Obama aide who asked not to be named reported, just as is stated above, that “women on McCain’s staff earn more comparable salaries to men on staff because they occupy more senior, high-paid posts in the Arizona senator’s office, not because Obama discriminates against women.” Hello. Is it more or less discriminatory to have more women in senior, high-paid posts than in junior, lower-paid posts?
None of this is or should be surprising. It’s become more and more clear with each passing day that if Obama becomes President — and it is almost certain he will — there will likely be little to no substantive change in the works for women as women. I’ve often written about the significance of having a black/biracial President and his family in the White House; I stand by what I’ve written about that. Black and biracial girls and boys, men and women, and ultimately all Americans will benefit from an Obama Presidency because of what it means for persons of color, black people especially. I will be intentionally focusing on that and feeling that when Obama is inaugurated, as I believe he will be. I will cry, I will be extremely moved, I will hug my kids and feel so grateful that this particular glass ceiling of race has been shattered.
And at the same time I will mourn, and grieve, and rage — you better believe it, I will rage and feel tremendous, gut-wrenching resentment – over the truth I’ve known and observed all along: that women will continue to suffer under an Obama presidency, just as women have suffered under ALL previous presidencies. Here is a guy who doesn’t even KNOW his woman staff members earn less money than his male staff members and who hasn’t even considered how few women staff members he has compared with McCain.
Where men have the power, women will suffer. Doesn’t matter that they identify as Democrats or liberals or progressives; in fact, we are more likely to suffer under these latter, given our lengthy and all-too-dependable history of betrayal at the hands of such men. They spout off about women’s rights, expect to be believed, and ARE believed. In fact, it is unlikely that they will meaningfully change the reality of women as women in the world. It simply will cost them too much and they know that.
This post at Reclusive Leftist is relevant.
Heart
Heart, I’m glad to see this on your blog - I read the P.I. article and wondered why it didn’t get more attention.
My last adventure has been misogyny in the Nader campaign.
Nader was programmed to speak in Eugene on Monday but missed his plane. His senior advisor showed up instead, a PDX lawyer who has paid for and organized all of Nader’s Portland appearances.
He said he’s spoken for Nader many times and would do so again.
All was well until he started talking about candidates. He said the RNC forced McCain to take Palin, as if it was not McCain’s choice at all. He repested this three times. Then he smirked ‘and look what we were blessed with!’. He said that Hillary Clinton, ‘fell on her own sword. And I wish she actually had!”. He credited Nader with the anti-nuclear campaign and said nothing about the thousands of women who risked their lives and actually did the work.
I was livid. After the Clinton comment I stormed out of the auditorium, spoke to his volunteers outside in the hall. One, who is a long time activist, looked at me blankly. She did not understand why these comments were sexist. I wrote an article for PDX indymedia Monday night, describing what happened and explaining why it was sexist and why women are oppressed. By Tuesday morning, it had received 10 comments, quite a lot for
Portland in a short time. All but one did not understand the sexism.
I just looked for the article again, as I was away yesterday , and guess what? It’s gone. The PDX indy staff deleted it.
I have to say I’m not surpirsed. They have a column for articles on anti-racism but none for feminism or misogyny. But I am furious: if IMC is a people’s page, why did this threaten them? Because they get money from the lawyer in question? Because his son didn’t like seeing his father’s words in print?
The left is as misogynist as the mainstream, and seperatism is sounding better and better to me everyday.
I just saw the above article on genderberg posted on July 2nd. This was three and a half months ago, and no major papers have picked this up. Not even FSRN. None of them thought this was news.
Then it really doesn’t matter who is president.
I commented on this pay disparity between Obama and McCain staffers months and months ago right on this blog. I wonder why women don’t hold Obama’s feet to the fire over this one.
I tend to take a careful look at how the candidates treat women on their staffs, including pay and promotions. If a candidate is not paying women equally to men, but then uses this rhetoric in the campaign, well, I have nothing but contempt for them.
The personal is how you should really look at these men. This type of inquiry was never made in ANY of the debates to my knowledge.
I’ve said this a million times — you keep sending men to the White House and this is what you get. Catherine MacKinnan can use the same old “Obama had daughters” argument till the cows come in. The fact is, where it counts — women get paid — women on HIS staff, he again falls short.
It is my personal experince with conservative men that they pay better than liberal men. It’s weird, but is true in my industry. I just don’t trust liberal men at all, but I do trust women.
So it is up to us to elect women to the White House and get it right next time. This election was a pathetic commentary on how women fail to seal the deal and deliver. It’s what frustrates me to no end about feminism in general of late.
So, if progressive folks feel it is okay to slader Palin the way we have seen, how are they not reinforcing the status quo?
If feminist blogs don’t come out supporting Palin as a person, as a woman, how are they feminist?
Also, Heart and Aletha, there is a debate in D.C. tonight between (at minimum) Ralph Nader and Chuck Baldwin. I am confused if you are still in the race, but it would be fabulous if they did let you at least send something in to be said or shown during the debate (don’t know if that is possible for you in any case but the debate is supposed to be a third party one).
To the person who spammed my e-mailbox unbidden and who apparently needs to learn some self-control:
I, myself, am a candidate for President. I have an entire blog dedicated to the subject: http://www.cheryllindseyseelhoffforpresident.wordpress.com. I have been writing about this for months.
No, I will not be voting for McCain/Palin, as I’ve written by now too many times to count over many months. Since you read my blog, I’m sure you’ve read this for yourself. If your question is, have I changed my mind and am I now voting for McCain, the answer is NO.
Hopefully, this comment is not so challenging or difficult that it is beyond your ability to understand and comprehend.
I checked my blog at about 9 p.m. last night, Wed., Oct. 22, briefly, and that was it for me for the computer last night. I just signed on for the first time today at 11:30 a.m. That’s a span of 14 and 1/2 hours in which I did not look at my blog, sleep, family, work and commuting taking precedence.
I’m not sure what’s up with e-mailing me with a demand to know whether or not I’m going to approve comments. For the record, I’ll approve whatever comments I am going to approve when I have time to log on to my blog and take a look!
Jeezus.
I’m not sure what’s up with e-mailing me with a demand to know whether or not I’m going to approve comments. For the record, I’ll approve whatever comments I am going to approve when I have time to log on to my blog and take a look! Jeezus.
That’s tellin’ ‘em.
Laur, if this third party candidate debate is the one I’m thinking of, I did write to the organizer, but the debate is being restricted to candidates who are on the ballot in at least one state. I did register for this organization’s site though and was encouraged to do so and to keep in touch with the organizers in days ahead.
In answer to your questions (which I know were rhetorical but I still want to answer :)), women (and men) who do not defend other women against misogynist, sexist attacks — Sarah Palin is a woman — are not in my opinion feminists. If they are launching the attacks themselves they are sexists and misogynists and anti-feminists (and jerks).
Re the way conservatives pay women more than liberals pay women. This is the way it works (my experience). Conservatives/Republicans will pay women more and hire more women so long as they are, of course, conservatives and willing to tow the conservative party line. This is good conservative PR– they can say that see, they aren’t sexists, they aren’t misogynists, look at all the women who are supporting them, look at how well they pay, and so on. And yeah, women who ride that particular gravy train are sellouts no doubt about it. They are supporting the conservative status quo.
Liberals/Democrats otoh don’t feel they have to pay so well or hire so many women because in their minds, it’s a no-brainer that they are “for women” (even though in general, they are not. They are just more ”for women” in certain ways than conservatives are. They are sexist light to conservatives’ sexist, period. ) They figure, women should understand that they are pro-woman (even if they aren’t, still, they are more than, again, conservatives) and should be all about sacrificing for the cause and should not demand high salaries or high positions *as women*, given that there are all sorts of minority groups to consider. They should be willing to step aside for male representatives of these minority groups and males just in general because after all, they’re *liberal” males and so they are pro-woman. Is the theory.
The result is, women who shill for conservatives make bank, personally, but end up screwed as women to the degree that conservative policies are anti-woman (as most of them are). Liberal women/Democrats end up shilling for men/male issues and end up screwed to the degree that liberal/Democratic policies are anti-woman.
Either way, women are screwed. The only real choice women have so far as party politics is, what, in their minds, is the least odious way of being screwed.
Some women will be conservative and tell themselves they will advance women’s causes once they’ve made bank. Some women will be liberals/Democrats and will tell themselves that their service to liberal men will indirectly advance women’s causes because there are women connected to the liberal men they are serving and so their good service will “trickle down”. And they tell themselves maybe they’ll get a chance to get women’s issues on the table sometime, if not today, then someday.
Women who decide to go for the cash will live more comfortably. Women who decide to go for self-sacrifice will suffer materially but might find relief in having taken, in their mind, the moral high ground. Women who decide to go for the cash will have to shill for the rest of their lives or lose everything. Women who decide to go for self-sacrifice will never have anything to lose.
That’s how it works, pretty much.
It’s not that conservatives are feminists now. But I think it is true, and I think Satsuma said it early on and she was right, feminism has affected everyone, all groups, in these interesting ways, such that neither of the mainstream parties wants to be called sexist, and that is something we can be glad of.
“This election was a pathetic commentary on how women fail to seal the deal and deliver. It’s what frustrates me to no end about feminism in general of late.”
We could not even agree to nominate a mainstream Democratic woman over a mainstream Democratic man, the later being young enough to easily run again in the next cycle.
Ever since Hillary was knocked out of the race, Obama supporters keep telling me: “but their policies are so similar, if you vote for him, it’s just like voting for her.”
Really? If you honestly felt that way then why didn’t you just vote for her in the first place ???
Arrgh! If I keep going I’ll just reignite some old primary battles and what’s the point?
I just wanted to say I agree with you, Satsuma. I’m also frustrated to no end.
Catharine MacKinnon recently endorsed Obama, and one reason she gave was the fact that he is the father of two daughters. I don’t find this to be very persuasive. Fathers across every conceivable divide — race, ethnicity, religion, class, political and philosophical beliefs have acted without regard for the future of womankind, their daughters, wives, and mothers included, since time immemorial.
Where on earth did MacKinnon say that she was endorsing Obama because he’s a father? Certainly not in that WSJ editorial.
If she did say something like that, somewhere, I’d like to read the whole context of her remarks, because as it stands, I don’t think it sounds persuasive, either.
Funnie, I was thinking of what she said here:
Neither presidential candidate has taken a position on all of these issues. But the decision, in Mr. Obama’s words, on “what kind of America our daughters will grow up in” could not be more urgent.”
I think she was referring here to what Obama said in his acceptance speech, where I understood him to be suggesting that being the father of daughters would guide his policies. I think that being the father of daughters probably will guide Obama’s policies– as much as they guide any man’s policies.
I do not know the connection between Free & Equal and Third Party Ticket, but it appears the former took over organizing this debate.
C-SPAN 2 Set to Broadcast Presidential Debate LIVE @ 9:00PM EST Vice-Presidential Debate a Possibility for Next Week
Cynthia McKinney is apparently not attending, although the campaign has refused to directly inform Free and Equal of their decision.
I wonder what that is all about. Heart could not participate, because All six candidates who qualified for enough state ballot lines to be eligible to win the presidency on November 4th are invited.
…neither of the mainstream parties wants to be called sexist, and that is something we can be glad of.
Yeah, they want to have their cake and eat it too. They can be as sexist as ever, but they do not want to be called on it, and will deny it vociferously. I think male politicians and pundits must believe this is the postfeminist era, that we are all equal now, so when women say men are acting in sexist ways, men say they are just treating women like Senator Clinton and Governor Palin as they would a man, so what is the beef?
I feel constrained to wonder again, was the near loss of the Hillary Clinton campaign a reflection on women, or on her? Why should women get enthusiastic about a mainstream Democrat? Especially one as heavily compromised as Hillary Clinton? Just because according to conventional wisdom, she was the first woman with a chance to win? Did it ever occur to you despairing Clintonites that many women would rather support a woman who actually represents our interests? She almost won anyway, despite herself and all her baggage. That to me shows how much political power women have, not how little. A better candidate could have walked away with this election, but all the attention was siphoned off toward the historic candidacies of this mainstream woman and black man. As usual, Democrats found a way to defuse and demoralize the brewing rebellion. They do not represent any of the opposition movements, not the women’s movement, the antiwar movement, or the environmentalist movement, but they certainly make a show of being the best any of those could hope for. They are not. Sooner or later, that bluff will be called.
And I’m afraid that Obama’s election won’t be more than a symbolic victory for racialized people, though I hope I’m wrong.
All of you give me solace with your comments.
Heart, your analysis of why feminsts support liberals men is spot on. The thing is - we’re still waiting around for women’s rights. Decades go by and we get bread crumbs. I’ve had enough waiting.
Catherine Mackinnon’s endorsement was the worst. I don’t know her, of course, just her work. Which has nothing to do with Obama. I wonder if some radfical feminists just get tired and decide to give in. Think that liberal is better than nothing. Why give an endorsement at all?
I wonder why Cynthia McKinney will not be a part of the debate. She was the only candidate to confirm for last Sunday’s web cam debate (moderated by Amy Goodman) and it was cancelled.
After my experience with the Nader campaign this week, I don’t doubt that he has his own brand of misogyny.
The web cam debate was cancelled, but Break the Matrix did a special forum with Cynthia McKinney instead.
I don’t think MacKinnon’s endorsement was the worst. And I think it DOES have to do with her work, and that she WAS pretty clear about why she gave it.
She didn’t say Obama was great. She mostly didn’t discuss him, did she.
She talked about federal court appointments and judges and the fact that she approves of his campaign and presidency in one narrow sense. Her piece walks through reason after reason after reason that it matters to her — and her work. And why she thinks it’s more important than the “Save Roe!” excuse that others have used in the past.
You don’t have to agree with her. I understand not agreeing with her. And I understand defaulting to the feeling that anytime anyone brings up “what about federal judges/Supreme Court appointments!?!” it’s an attempt to scam and threaten and browbeat.
But I see no - zero - reason to assume that’s what MacKinnon’s endorsement does or says. And none of the bullying way that other people talk about this changes HER sincerity, the fact that those judges DO matter, very much, to HER, and to what SHE does, nor that what SHE is saying (as opposed to anyone else) may in fact be perfectly legitimate reasons to support Obama.
I understand feeling let down. But I think it does MacKinnon - not Obama, MacKinnon - a huge disservice to assume she’s tired and giving in. Or that she’s finding weirdo reasons (like his daughters) to justify supporting him, or something.
Like everything else she’s written, her editorial is pretty clear. Disagreeing with her conclusion does not require mischaracterizing what she wrote, who she is, and what she does.
funnie, I don’t think there’s anything “weirdo” about my reading of what MacKinnon wrote. You can disagree with my reading, of course, as you’ve done. Calling it “weirdo” isn’t helpful.
Sigh.
So far as tired and giving in, I don’t know. To me, that’s what Second Wave leaders I’ve looked up to for years have done and continue to do: give in. Endorse the Democrat whose platform is for all the world conservative. It makes no sense to me. Endorsing conservative candidates is a disservice to women. To point that out is not doing a disservice to the woman who seems to be, I’m sorry, just tired and giving in.
It also does a disservice to me and to the women here to characterize what has been commented here as “weirdo.”
So tired of that kind of thing.
I mean, I was all excited because I got via e-mail a link to something Starhawk wrote for the WaPo calling for an “end to the hatred” in the Presidential campaigns. (I thought). I thought, YES, at last some leadership from a respected Second Wave activist. No. She was calling to an end to McCain/Palin’s campaigners’ hatred ONLY. No mention of the sexist, misogynist hatred of SO MANY PEOPLE who support Obama/Biden.
Argh. I”m posting my own platform. So done with this crike.
I think you said MacKinnon said something that she didn’t say. But I didn’t call what you said “weirdo.” I said that it would be a “weirdo” reason to support a presidential candidate — IOW, agreeing with you. “He has daughters” WOULD be a weirdo reason to support someone! I really didn’t intend any offense there, or mean to cast aspersions on you.
But I just don’t see how your reading is at all plausible, no. She simply didn’t say what you said she said. She flat-out didn’t give the reason that you said she did.
Re: being tired and giving in — eeeeh. I still don’t see any reason to think that’s so, but whatever, as you said, we just disagree. It bothers me more, I suppose, when groups who exist in order to exert political pressure do it (e.g. NOW/NARAL/etc) than an individual woman writing as a very specific kind of professional, assessing candidates’ suitability as pertains specifically to what she knows, you know?
I mean, assuming that MacKinnon’s tired and giving in means assuming that she’s somehow disingenuous about what she wants and expects as compared to what she wrote. And I’m not sure that’s at all true.
I don’t know much of anything about Starhawk, so I can’t speak to that.
Mm. Obama himself in his acceptance speech alluded to his own daughters, didn’t he? The inference being that his policies will be informed by the fact that he’s a father to daughters. When I read what MacKinnon wrote, I read it as responsive to what Obama said in his acceptance speech.
Being tired and giving in does not equal disingenuous about what anyone, including MacKinnon, wants and expects. Being tired and giving in, as I’m meaning it, means bailing on the likelihood or hope for radical, revolutionary solutions and going with what’s on the table because you don’t really have much hope that what would be better is achievable. I understand being tired and giving in. But I’d hoped more of our leaders as women would push beyond that all-too-understandable impulse.
Thanks for the clarification re “weirdo.” Heh. Tired “heh.”
See, I read MacKinnon quoting Obama as throwing down a gauntlet. She quotes him, I think, in order to say that yes, you’re right, Obama — what kind of America your daughters grow up in IS important, and for that reason, these judicial appointments will be important.
I frankly don’t think she wrote that piece in order to get other people to support Obama (esp. since she waited to put it out until his win seemed clear, and since a WSJ op-ed isn’t a rally cry to the grass-roots!)…but rather wrote it TO Obama, to remind him, publicly, what it is that he needs to do. Though I’m totally speculating, there.
I also don’t think that with MacKinnon it IS a matter of giving in, or bailing on a radical agenda. Her work has always run on two tracks, simultaneously: radical theory at the same time as very practical incremental steps within the legal system. Those incremental steps have meant revolutionary change for women. And they have meant fundamentally changing the system for women, changing the whole playing-field. But they haven’t been accomplished by overthrowing the system, not in the least bit.
I think MacKinnon the radical theorist & MacKinnon the pragmatist activist meld in that op-ed.
She says, I think: we can accomplish a lot of pretty radical, meaningful stuff for women if we can just get “A” and “B,” which the Dems claim to be in favor of (hence, her reminder that both ERA & CEDAW are in the party platform), and get them interpreted by the right set of judges. Obama is more likely to be able to deliver these things than McCain. In fact, Obama is fairly likely to get us the kind of judges that could be of assistance.
(And since Obama & MacKinnon not only had the same job, but performed it at the same time and in the same place @ U Chicago, I’m willing to bet that she personally knows him and has some concrete reason for believing that’s so.)
I think her piece puts the Dem legislature on notice about what is expected of them — ERA & CEDAW — and Obama on notice about what kind of leadership and appointments are expected of him.
I don’t think any of that compromises her radical theory, her agenda, anything. Seeing a pragmatic way to accomplish legal protections for women and attempting to exert what leverage she has to see that the framework is in place for her to do just that =/= giving up, giving in, compromising, or bailing.
Especially since MacKinnon has never been a radical feminist activist in the sense that endorsing a Democrat would be a reversal. Toward a Feminist Theory of the State isn’t about voting or candidates or running for office or political endorsements. And she explicitly does NOT say that Obama’s positions or the Dem platform are consistent with a feminist theory of the state.
She says only that he and they are more likely than McCain to put in the kind of infrastructure women need in order to achieve our own liberation, and she lets them know they should do that.
It’s how I read it, anyway.
Really good and thoughtful comment, funnie, and I do agree with you completely about MacKinnon’s (imo brilliant) approach to radical feminist activism and the ways she has found to make radical change working inside the system. I think you’re so right, too, about her work running on two tracks simultaneously (which I think really is what we all have to manage to do when it comes right down to it, but she does it brilliantly). It really changes everything too if you view what MacKinnon wrote there as a throwing down of the gauntlet and a heads up to the Democrats that some of us (too few!) are going to hold their feet to the fire so far as women’s issues go. So yeah, what you’ve written makes a lot of sense.
I thought about this stuff after I read your comment and realized it touched on something that has haunted me from the time I first read it in MacKinnon’s book, “Women’s Lives, Men’s Laws.” I’ve returned to it again and again. She writes:
It’s the bolded part that haunts me, both the truth of it and, I think in my reading of it, the fear that MacKinnon, after decades of brilliance and accomplishment, is really acknowledging here, now from many years’ experience, that the power men wield, once women begin to really share it or even just meaningfully challenge it, will just move, evidence itself in some new or different form. Maybe my discouragement with what MacKinnon wrote about Obama is sort of existential, touching on this fear I have that there really is no way to make real revolution that changes lives, which is sort of what MacKinnon wonders too in this excerpt. It feels to me as though in what she wrote about the election, MacKinnon is sort of, as she writes, “picketing and hoping Obama listens”. And, I’m afraid he’s not going to because he is not going to have to, that women, in the end, once again, will bail– on themselves and on other women.
I’ve got this on my mind right now in part because of something that has happened to a really good friend. She is an attorney. She divorced her ex several years ago. He is basically destroying her. His latest tactic was, changing things a little so there is no possibility she will be recognized, he set her up, tricked her, and the result was that felony charges were brought against her, to wit, “The State vs. My Friend.” She had to pay a criminal attorney $20K to get the charges dismissed (which they were, of course, but what a hell). The kicker was, we have a law in this state that says that if someone has alleged abuse, they get a say in the resolution of whatever charges are brought against the person they say abused them. So though my friend was COMPLETELY set up by her horrifically abusive ex and though the charges against her were TOTALLY bogus, he was allowed to have some say in the disposition of the case! Which amounted in this case to him being able to draw things out a few more weeks and cost her a few more thousand before everything was dismissed. He’s bleeding her, bleeding her, turning domestic violence law into a weapon *against* her. In this I see the hopelessness — the way I feel right now — of working within the system. Men in their hatred of us will just find new ways to hurt us with the laws we have helped to enact to end their hurting us.
Well, this is all working underneath with me and figured in when I read what MacKinnon wrote. I like your take a lot better than mine, funnie!
Reading the MacKinnon quote in bolds my mind turned to “The letter killeth but the spirit giveth life”. Lawyers have this power to interpret –isn’t interpretation everything? In the end, in this world, it seems to often be. An interpretation becomes a way of organizing all of the world’s mindstate, which of course ultimately organizes the actions of this world.
So since that’s the way it is, more *feminist* (womankind friendly please!) lawyers.
And more feminist, womankind-friendly judges, yes. We need female interpreters! People who speak woman. As their first language. :)* :)*
MacKinnon is neither giving in nor throwing down a gauntlet to Obama. It IS a public letter to Obama. In the most practical view, she is trying to make herself and her concerns relevant to the Obama campaign where they have not, so far, been even the least bit relevant nor even very well thought out or discussed. She will be, I suspect, very much disappointed if his conduct thus far is any indication.
Given the way that Obama won the primary, and the size of his expected win in Nov., the ability of MacKinnon or any other feminist to hold Obama’s feet to the fire is non-existent. This is not a shot across his bow. It is, like much of the rest of the progressive left, a plea to be taken seriously by a man who has spent months signaling he won’t take these issues seriously.
Yes, this is a public letter to Obama. In my view, given that MacKinnon and Obama were colleagues at the University of Chicago AND that Cass Sunstein, a close colleague of MacKinnon’s, is also a close advisor to Obama and considered by some to be on the list for SCt Justice in an Obama administration, that fact that MacKinnon felt that a public letter to Obama was necessary does not bode well for any of the issues which concern her and me.
<i>It’s the bolded part that haunts me, both the truth of it and, I think in my reading of it, the fear that MacKinnon, after decades of brilliance and accomplishment, is really acknowledging here, now from many years’ experience, that the power men wield, once women begin to really share it or even just meaningfully challenge it, will just move, evidence itself in some new or different form. Maybe my discouragement with what MacKinnon wrote about Obama is sort of existential, touching on this fear I have that there really is no way to make real revolution that changes lives, <b>which is sort of what MacKinnon wonders too in this excerpt. </b></i>
I think you’re reading MacKinnon wrong, here. I don’t think she’s wondering that at all. I think she’s saying that women getting power IS real revolution. The next real revolution is what we do with it after we get it. But we have to get it first. Yes, male power will mutate. But it will be opposed by another power.
<i> It feels to me as though in what she wrote about the election, MacKinnon is sort of, as she writes, “picketing and hoping Obama listens”. And, I’m afraid he’s not going to because he is not going to have to, that women, in the end, once again, will bail– on themselves and on other women.</i>
This, I think you got exactly right. Exactly.
***As more women become lawyers and maybe the law starts to listen to women, perhaps the legal profession will decline in prestige and power.***
Like what happened to the medical profession in Soviet Russia. Many women became doctors under that system and the medical profession simply declined in prestige and power.
***As more women become lawyers and maybe the law starts to listen to women, perhaps the legal profession will decline in prestige and power.***
Like what happened to the medical profession in Soviet Russia. Many women became doctors under that system and the medical profession declined in prestige and power.
Has anyone noticed that Ms did not put the only two-woman ticket on the cover. They missed their chance this year, just liek they did in 2000 when they did not do a cover story on Winnona LaDuke. When challenged, Gloria Steinam said something like,
“They did not have a chance of winning.”
If that’s all that matters, I must be voting wrong.
So would a large group of women support a woman on the ticket?
Only if they play for a major party. Which means , to me, that they’d be a symbol of a woman in power but not do much, if anything, to help women in general.
I am getting very angry about the absence of women in even alternative media coverage. There is a memorial for Brad Will tomorrow night in Eugene - but not for Sali Eiler. DemocracyNow just did another piece about Will’s death but have done nothing about Eiler’s. This is her hometown, this memorial should be for her alone.
Thanks for the reply Heart. I’m very sorry about your friend. What a total nightmare. And yeah, weariness and despair are totally understandable, in general, and of course especially in those specific circumstances.
I choose to believe it’s all cyclical and that fearing it’s pointless is only your brain’s/heart’s way of telling you to take it easy, already, it’s a marathon not a sprint.
Of course that’s me, today. Ask me another day, you’ll hear something else.
Emma - yeah, being mutual friends w/ Sunstein occurred to me, too. But if you think that makes it less likely that she believes Obama will deliver (not more), than I don’t understand how her letter isn’t an explicit challenge, not a feeble protest. Or maybe I’m just taking too weak of a view of “picketing and hoping he listens.” I tend to associate picketing with protests nobody listens to, not strikes.
Julia - if the Ms Magazine cover were a major-party and chance-of-winning thing, they’d have put Clinton on it, eh?
Emma - yeah, being mutual friends w/ Sunstein occurred to me, too. But if you think that makes it less likely that she believes Obama will deliver (not more), than I don’t understand how her letter isn’t an explicit challenge, not a feeble protest. Or maybe I’m just taking too weak of a view of “picketing and hoping he listens.” I tend to associate picketing with protests nobody listens to, not strikes.
I’m saying it goes far beyond “mutual friends”. Sunstein is a decades long professional colleague and personal friend of MacKinnon’s. Sunstein is an Obama advisor. I’m saying that MacKinnon has connections to Obama, at least two direct connections that we know about for sure, herself (she and Obama taught together at U of Chicago) and Sunstein. If MacKinnon thinks that going public is the way to get her voice heard, it means that Obama isn’t listening to the private channels. IMO.
That makes MacKinnon just another voice crying out in the wilderness, “hey!! Obama!! here’s some things you should think about! If you want to be a great President, here’s what you should do.” I don’t know that that’s a “feeble” protest, and I didn’t say it was. And I think one can use challenge in the weak sense here, i.e. I challenge you to stand by what you said and give it real meaning, and be right. But it’s not a challenge in the strong sense, i.e. do this or else, as she has no power to make “or else” happen.
I see nothing in MacKinnon’s “endorsement” that’s actually an endorsement, i.e. vote for Obama because he’s going to be GREAT! on women’s issues. I see MacKinnon saying, at best, that as a Democrat Obama is predisposed to be better on women’s issues than McCain. And I see MacKinnon asking Obama to be great (or at least decent) on women’s issues.
Yeah, I agree, [MacKinnon] explicitly does NOT say that Obama’s positions or the Dem platform are consistent with a feminist theory of the state.
She says only that he and they are more likely than McCain to put in the kind of infrastructure women need in order to achieve our own liberation, and she lets them know they should do that.
Of course the McCain campaign pays women better, it has to get some on board and it has to look good, and it is taking care of its own.
Obama = no change for women as women, and McCain, esp. with Palin, means change for the worse. In addition, war is bad for women.
I am also sorry about your friend, Heart.
On voting: think feasability. It is feasible to get the Republicans out. I’d like to get the Greens or someone alternative in but what is feasible now at the national level is to get the Republicans out.
At local and state levels more can be done. Yes, that means not voting idealistically at the presidential level. I used to do that and I might still do it if I were sure there were no way to defeat McCain in my state. But we are looking at w.a.r. and international embarrassment, don’t go for McCain just because he pays *his* women staffers better than Obama does. Think about women in general.
Call and response: here’s the counterpressure on judges: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122515067227674187.html
One of the great unappreciated stories of the past eight years is how thoroughly Senate Democrats thwarted efforts by President Bush to appoint judges to the lower federal courts.
From Funnie’s link.
The real story is that the blocking of judicial appointments began with Clinton, not Bush. In fact, Clinton’s choice for the Sixth Circuit, from 2002 or so, only recently got appointed, about 6 months ago, in a deal that got a Bush appointee on the District Court for the ED of Michigan. Stonewalling on judicial appointments is an old story and that, more than anything else, is responsible for the current sorry state of the Federal Courts.
If the Dems have been fighting back on judicial appointments it’s only because Republicans stonewalled for years, keeping seats open for future conservative judicial appointments. Frankly, lower Court appointments aren’t decided in the White House, they’re decided in the Senate.
In any event, I trust neither Obama nor the current Congressional leadership to provide us with progressive, or even notably liberal, judicial appointments. We have yet to see what Obama will bargain away in obesiance to his great god postpartisanship. I’m guessing abortion rights and gay rights given the social conservatism of his base in the Black church and his overt wooing of the conservative evangelicals over the past months. YMMV.
Sorry, I f’d up the date Clinton nominated Helene White: it was 1997. It took over a decade for her to be confirmed to the Sixth Circuit.
If Mr. Obama wins we could possibly see any or all of the following: a federal constitutional right to welfare; a federal constitutional mandate of affirmative action wherever there are racial disparities, without regard to proof of discriminatory intent; a right for government-financed abortions through the third trimester of pregnancy; the abolition of capital punishment and the mass freeing of criminal defendants; ruinous shareholder suits against corporate officers and directors; and approval of huge punitive damage awards, like those imposed against tobacco companies, against many legitimate businesses such as those selling fattening food.
Mr. Calabresi (writer of that WSJ editorial) must not be aware that Obama favors banning late-term abortions (with a health exception more constricted than current law). I would be amazed if any of those comes to pass under Obama.
Well, luckily,
<i>Positions on women’s rights do not divide neatly along conventional political lines, nor is abortion their sole template. As Justice Sandra Day O’Connor demonstrated, conservatives can oppose sexism they see in operation, including forms of violence against women that some liberals do not see as such. Reaching across ideology can win legal arguments, but who judges those arguments, at this moment in time, could make or break women’s equality in law, hence in life, for generations.</>
But yeah, the link is delusional on a number of fronts. If only it weren’t!
Not so luckily:
As Justice Sandra Day O’Connor demonstrated, conservatives can oppose sexism they see in operation, including forms of violence against women that some liberals do not see as such. Reaching across ideology can win legal arguments, but who judges those arguments, at this moment in time, could make or break women’s equality in law, hence in life, for generations.
It reads like a warning to, or about, Mr. Postpartisan who was all set to vote Yes for John Roberts for SCt until an aide told him it would screw his presidential ambitions. Obama voted no, but went onto the Senate floor and gave a speech defending both Roberts’ nomination and Patrick Leahy’s yes vote. It seems Obama was more prepared to pay obesiance to presidential perogative than to seriously consider Roberts’ tenure on the Court and its effects on women, among others. Roberts’ Court, remember, gave us the Leadbetter decision.
I too would be surprised if anything Calabresi warns about or MacKinnon hopes for would come to pass under an Obama administration. It’s all backsliding from here.
There was a story in the New York Times yesterday about how far Bush has gotten in packing the appeals courts.
Republican-appointed judges, most of them conservatives, are projected to make up about 62 percent of the bench next Inauguration Day, up from 50 percent when Mr. Bush took office. They control 10 of the 13 circuits, while judges appointed by Democrats have a dwindling majority on just one circuit.
David M. McIntosh, a co-founder and vice-chairman of the Federalist Society, said the nation’s appeals courts were now more in line with a conservative judicial ideology than at any other time in memory.