After Arizona, will Obama learn to include women?
January 14, 2011
by Amy Siskind
|I was moved and touched by the Arizona Memorial Service on Wednesday night. In part by President Obama’s speech, but a bigger part was the surrounding cast of women. Governor Brewer’s hopeful speech and Secretary Napolitano’s reading from the Old Testament. The miraculous story of Congresswoman Giffords opening her eyes for the 
first time during a visit from her friends Senator Gillibrand and Congresswoman Wasserman Schultz.
For a moment, I was in a trance – hypnotized by the thought of gender equality in our leadership. Then I snapped back to reality.
Yes, just as I was snapping to, Air Force One would be landing back in DC. Senator Gillibrand and Congresswomen Wasserman Schultz and Pelosi would deplane and return to their 17% minority. President Obama would be head back to The White House – or should I say the ‘fraternity house’: his inner-circle composed almost exclusively of men.
Yes, to the President’s credit, he did appoint two women to the Supreme Court. That’s the end of the good news for women. Here’s the bad news:
- Obama’s cabinet picks are just 25% women.
- Obama’s czars are only 12% women.
- No women have leadership roles in running our country’s economy.
- Obama has only one woman in his inner-circle: Valerie Jarrett.
President Obama had a chance to change the dynamic last week; but he did not. He had two openings in his inner-circle. He chose men (William Daley and Gene Sperling), ignoring calls from some women’s groups once again. Furthering the belief of many that when the photo ops are over, this President may well be uncomfortable with women.
Paradoxically, Speaker Boehner in his opening days seems quite comfortable with women. One of his first symbolic gestures: to build a women’s restroom near the House floor. Next, Boehner shocked even me: he officially endorsed a woman for RNC Chair (Maria Cin0). And here’s a prediction: Boehner’s ability to cry in public will make it easier for women candidates to do the same in the future. Hey – I gotta admit – although I agree with Speaker Boehner on very few issues, I like the guy! He walks the walk for women on the right.
I fear our current President only talks the talk. Yes, he signed The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. But, he did nothing to shepherd through the act which would legislate equal pay, The Paycheck Fairness Act. Yes, he created the White House Council for Women and Girls. Yet, despite recently being tapped to become the First Lady’s chief of staff, Tina Tchen will also continue to run the Council – which should be easy – the Council wasn’t doing anything anyways.
So I say this to our President: yes, let’s live up to the dreams of Christina Green, the 9 year-old who was tragically and senselessly killed in the Arizona shooting. The girl who was interested in politics and therefore came to see Congresswoman Giffords, Arizona’s only female representative in the U.S. House or Senate. Why don’t we have more women in leadership for girls like Christina to see and model after? And President Obama, what will YOU do to live up to her expectations?
Women being able to participate in our political system is a civil rights issue. Gabrielle Gifford has the right to be a congresswoman without being harmed and Sarah Palin has the right to participate without receiving death threats and constant harassment from the media. I do not believe the President has shown any leadership what so ever to protect and defend these womens civil rights. Sorry, but I did not like the memorial, it became a campaign event with cheering crowds and free tee-shirts.
If the President wanted to impress me, yes, he would appoint more women, but he also needs to show some leadership when it comes to Palin. He could simply make a statement about toning down the rhetoric because he may not agree with her politically, but as a woman she has every right to participate in the political process without constant threats against her and her family. If she were a black man being driven out of politics with threats of violence, especially from the mainstream media, there would be a huge public outcry and dozens of congresscritters rushing to her defense.
I agree yttik. I truly just don’t get the Palin hatred – by men and more so by women. It’s our culture fanned by the media. Good news – Palin marches on. She has learned to manipulate the media better than they have learned to manipulate people to hate her.
Yttik, I love your points. The thing with Palin is a cautionary tale about what happens to you — women– when you climb too high. It would never fly if she were and African American male and political figure.
Amy, excellent post on Obama’s failure to level out the playing field — but he’s a man — playing for power with other men in the political sandbox. I have to admit that we cannot rely on men to vote us into political offices — we have to do it ourselves. We have to fight harder — get more women out there — if we need to rely on men to invite us — it will never happen — or at least it will continue to happen as slow as it is right now.
Thanks for this information.
I agree that the memorial was turned into a campaign 2012 event. Not impressed -rather…badly impressed. No leadership in pointing to violence and outright hostility towards women politicians and the impact on deterring women to run for office. I also think that if it was a black politician, as it was pointed above, there would have been a discussion of racism.
I couldn’t watch the memorial. I found what seeped through my attempts to avoid watching it crass.
Fear and hatred of women may seems to be an accepted part of the culture of the east coast. It is not part of the culture where I live in Seattle. The Corporate Media is profoundly misogynist.
In case you missed it Palin flipped the Corporate Media off with her Facebook segment. The men of Corporate Media and their female mouthpieces think they can make or break a political figure. Palin went around them, released a statement they couldn’t control and distort and reached her supporters and people in general without Old Corporate Media permission. She made them more irrelevant than they already were. Every person who is running in the future for any office took note.
Perhaps in Bes’ circle in Seattle she doesn’t witness the Palin-bashing, but I also live in the Seattle area, and it is alive and well, trust me.
The last Democrat event I went to was the 2008 joke of a caucus. Since the State run Democrat party decided they would ignore the state Presidential Primary and support whomever emerged from their crooked caucus I was forced to attend that and I got more than my fill of jingoism. It is true I no longer associate with Democrats and so I probably miss a lot of the rabid misogyny. I did wear my Hillary shirt to a McCain party where I didn’t know anyone and felt an order of magnitude more welcome than I did at the Democrat caucus.
Democrats really want credit for being the party for women. But they don’t really want to work for us. It makes them rabid to see Republicans get our votes with little more than simple respect.
I am actually an Independent and I have always been an Independent and that is a strong part of my identity. I vote for the best from both sides. I think the Dems have some interesting ideas for programs and I believe the Government couldn’t organize a one car parade efficiently. Recently I am a de facto Republican and that pisses me off and I blame Democrats. Until Democrats address the rabid misogyny in their party I will not vote for them (although I do vote for women Dems). This makes me feel mad and helpless because how do a change a party that I am not part of? I just want some choices. But the Republicans seem to be far more accommodating to women than the Dems ever were.
Really why doesn’t someone from inside the Dems start a program to make woman hate uncool complete with slogans which seem to be very appealing to the offending demo? Use the same strategies that were used to make smoking go from cool to disgusting in a few years. I don’t expect the people who indulge in misogyny to actually care what happens to women or society so start by pointing out how misogyny hurts them personally and how women’s votes are needed by the Democrats since women are the majority so it isn’t prudent to offend women. I think it is clear the forces of misogyny are directed from within since they are so coordinated so it isn’t like no one knows how to reach them. At least women voters who haven’t drunk the koolaid would look at such an effort and think, “well they have admitted they have a problem and they are trying to deal with it” as opposed to now when the misogynists seem to be coddled by the party and their minority is valued much higher than the majority of women voters. But really I shouldn’t be telling people how to run their party which I’m not going to join anyway. It just seems like glaring and profound mismanagement from my position of being on the outside looking in.
Obama is not the least bit interested in leveling the playing field. He is interested in one thing, self promotion. And if misogyny works to his advantage, he is quick to use it.
I didn’t care for the memorial service either. It was nothing less than a campaign rally for his re-election. He took the opportunity to pretend to be above the fray, while his media hinchmen continued to attack Sarah Palin by blaming her for the violent imagery pervasive in our political discourse.
Obama has never rejected this imagery, and infact has welcomed it and particitated in it, particularly when it is perpetrated against women who in anyway oppose him.
What is even more disturbing is the women gate keepers of the patriarchy. This has always been the largest bearier to women’s progress. In the days of Alice Paul, the most prominent women’s groups in the country opposed her efforts, and nothing has changed in that regard in the last hundred years. This is exactly why our progress lags behind every other group, even though we are the majority. I believe that if we can get women to stop bashing each other our progess will sky rocket.
I wish we could figure out a way to break this cycle. Any ideas?
Amy
What part of Obama’s emotionless speech moved you? He was not even a little bit choked up when speaking about Christana Green who is about the same age as his two daughters. From the moment professor Gonzales took the stage and began his bizare promotion of Pagan Pantheism at the memorial for victims of a mass murder (none of those victims Native American), I could begin to see that this was going to be a political event, complete with T-shirts Obama adulation and open border advocacy. Why were no other religious leaders invited to speak at the memorial of Christian and Jewish vitims. Why only this pro- Mexican political activist- professor Gonzolas.
And further more, why does Obama fail as always to call for a stop to the violent imagery, misogyny and now thousands of death threats aimed directly at Sarah Palin. This so called memorial service was even more inappropriate as anything we have witnessed during this Obama mania. It was the launch of his 2012 campaign. And I won’t hold my breath until Obama appoints more women or calls for an end to the wilding of Sarah Palin. Palin’s life is in danger as is her families and our president is just fine with that.
I propose that instead of us trying to get a hard core misogynist Barak Obama, to include more women in his administration, we start a campaign to make misogyny uncool. Liberal culture has elevated misogyny to the level of art. We have spoken about this in realtion to rap lyrics, hollywood and also political campaigns. The new commercial that takes on texting harassment as uncool is a good example of how the issue of misogyny should be presented as the harassment it is and should be presented as uncool.
Words like Bitch, Ho, and the C word must be comapared to the N word because they ARE a form of enslavement and oppression. I have no HOPE for Obama. No one taught him how to respect women. I do have hope for this coutry which will have a new president in two years. In the mean time we need to make misogyny a habit that is associated with classless unintelligent weak and insecure sheeple. After all that is a perfect discription of those who use misogyny to try to keep a strong confident and very competent women like Sarah Palin out of the political debate and out of the oval office.
Boo,
You’re right about the women gatekeepers. It is frustrating and sad.
However, in a world where men have maintained total control at all levels since the beginning of time, what I see is the cause for women to become enablers of the patriarchy is what is known as The Stockholm Syndrome.
It’s definition: “In psychology, Stockholm syndrome is a term used to describe a paradoxical psychological phenomenon wherein hostages express adulation and have positive feelings towards their captors that appear irrational in light of the danger or risk endured by the victims, essentially mistaking a lack of abuse from their captors as an act of kindness.”
The Stockholm Syndrome and cognitive dissonance which accomopanies it develop on an involuntary basis. The victim (women) do not purposely invent this attitude. Both develop as an attempt to exist and survive in a threatening and controlling environment and relationship.
These women enablers are simply developing the feelings and thoughts needed to survive the situation and lower their emotional and physical risks. All of us have developed attitudes and feelings that help us accept and survive situations. We have these attitudes/feelings about our jobs, our community, and other aspects of our life. As we have found throughout history, the more dysfunctional the situation, the more dysfunctional our adaptation and thoughts to survive. The victim is engaged in an attempt to survive and make a relationship work.
The way to change this phenomenon is to discover the “cure” for this syndrome on a wide scale, because it’s clear there are still far too many women experiencing The Stockholm Syndrome, when it comes to their defending the patriarchy and willingness to sacrificing their autonomy.
Some other ideas for the misogyny is uncool campaign would be to take Optixmoms cartoon and do a live version series with the misogyny spewing talking head, pull back to kids playing on the floor and start playing that famous liberal chant “the whole world’s watching, the whole world’s watching, the whole world’s watching”.
Or take photographs such as Palin hung in effigy and substitute either a black man or Jewish man, talk briefly about how it isn’t OK and substitute in the real photo of a woman being threatened or debased and add, Here is the real photo and it is’nt OK either.
And the thing is I can’t believe no one has done this yet, again, not because I think they give a rats ass about women or girls, or children or society, but because women are the majority vote and the majority of consumers. Either political party could make a huge impression by being associated with it and Corporate Media who have been crapping on women consumers for decades could score points with this campaign. For that matter NOW could have seemed legitimate and relevant had they taken on misogyny in politics and corporate media. But the SOS prevails.
How about suing corporations, news reporters, and any other public figure who uses sexist names towards women? I’m only a College Instructor with an almost Doctorate in feminist and gender theory — so I don’t know much — but if we can get some feminist lawyers and start a faction dedicated to punishing any male — and woman — for that matter who hold public offices and roles and use denigrating language towards women as a whole — why not hit their time and pockets. Elizabeth Cady Stanton didn’t play nice in the early 1900′s and she made waves that changed the ways women were regarded. Just an idea — laws only seem to change when people get together to change them — not just talk about them — and I also am part of the “talking” problem — I want to be part of the proactive movement towards forcing men and society to regard us… not just appease and handle us with condescension.
Marina
What a great idea. Whenever I see Senator Chuck Schumer, I wonder how a senator, who called a stewartist “Bitch” because she asked him to turn off his cell before flight, is still a US senator.
But then I remember that the former patriarch of the democrat party Sentor Ted Kennedy left a women at the bottom of a lake, saved himself and went home to bed before calling to report the “incident.”
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