Race, sex, and Iowa
From the New York Times piece on the Iowa caucus:
Mr. Obama’s victory in this overwhelmingly white state stood as a powerful answer to the question of whether America was prepared to vote for a black person for president.
So, by extension, does Hillary’s third place showing stand as a powerful answer to whether America is prepared to vote for a female person for president? I wonder. Consider that the Republican winner in Iowa is Mike Huckabee, a man who believes unapologetically that God created women to be subordinate to men. (Huckabee also believes that the world is 6000 years old and that fossils are a plot by Satan to lead scientists astray, thus prompting me to suggest that Republicans could achieve their heart’s desire and save themselves a lot of hassle by just posting the IQs of all their candidates and picking the barrel scraper.) So we know that Republican voters in Iowa still think women are a kind of sub-standard auxiliary league to the human race; maybe their Democratic neighbors feel the same way.
The problem is, with Clinton the assessment is complicated. Hillary isn’t just a woman; she’s Hillary fucking Clinton. Every time I think of Hillary as president or even as the nominee, I think of Fox News and Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter and Maureen Dowd and Chris Matthews and the New York Times and the Heritage Foundation and the National Review and the Drudge Report and every book published by Regnery and the endless direct mail crap with unflattering pictures of Hillary above captions that say things like who knew the anti-Christ would be female? and that whole neverending foam-dripping anti-Clinton jihad. Can you imagine would it would be like if Hillary were in office? Jesus Christ, would anything get done? Or would the country just grind to a halt while Chris Matthews hosted a 24/7 cable marathon sponsored by Rupert Murdoch entitled “Bash That Bitch”? Every non-wingnut female in my family would dearly love to see a woman elected president, but it’s kind of hard not to go, “okay, any OTHER Democratic women?”
I actually like Hillary, despite the triangulating and the war votes and the flag amendment, because I think she’s a genuine feminist at heart who’s simply doing whatever dance she needs to do to make nice with the folks. It’s craven and cringe-inducing, but in a world where people are voting for Mike Fucking Huckabee, a gal’s gotta do what a gal’s gotta do. Personally I would be thrilled if she were elected; I would be so overjoyed to see a feminist woman in the Oval Office I’d probably burst into a million pieces of candy. But I still recognize that she’s carrying an absolutely astounding set of (matched) luggage. And I’ve never doubted for a moment that Obama — a new face, charismatic, sharp — is the more electable candidate.
Maybe Iowa voters were making the same calculation.
12 Responses to “Race, sex, and Iowa”
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nina says:
As usual, you are spot on, GoV. I had no idea that Huckabee was so backwards, though. I always give people more credit than they deserve. Sigh.
January 5th, 2008 at 11:25 am EST -
anna says:
This has nothing to do with your post, but if you have a minute I thought you might help me out, since you know so much about history. Is there any history book focusing on women you would recommend? What I want is a “woman’s history of the world”, but scientifically correct, no speculation about primitive matriarchy or the Amazons really existing or anything. Thanks!
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The Ghost of Violet says:
Anna, I can’t think of a book that covers all of women’s history (that would be a great book, by the way), but I can recommend a bunch of different books.
For our deep archaeological past (before, say, the Neolithic Revolution), I recommend The Invisible Sex by J.M. Adovasio, Olga Soffer, and Jake Page. That’s a new book and pulls together most of the up-to-date work on women’s role in our early cultural development.
Beyond that, though, I would have to recommend books that deal with one region or time period or aspect of civilization. Is there something particular you’re interested in?
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kiuku says:
Anna there IS a book on women’s history and it is exactly what you want…but I can’t remember where I saw it. The author details ground-breaking women throughout history, and explains how they were forgotten, ignored, or erased. Perhaps some other feminists here know the book I’m talking about.
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cicely says:
kiuku – it sounds like the book you’re thinking of is ‘Women of Ideas – and what men have done to them’, by the Australian feminist, Dale Spender. A ‘must have’ imo.
And, Anna, I also liked ‘The Women’s History of the World’, by Rosalind Miles.
Waves to Violet …hello, it’s been a while…
I feel much as you do about Hillary, from this side of the world. Hillary as President was put into my head way back in 1993 when I read Judith Warner’s book called ‘Hillary Clinton – the inside story’. Underneath the title were the words ‘lawyer, activist, mother, political wife, feminist – and now first lady.’ The last words in the book, where the rest of the paragraph was about Bill, were: ‘Maybe Clinton will make history. Hillary that is.’
Whatever happens she’s certainly done the hard yards over many years – in terms of being out there and being judged by all and sundry as a pioneering woman at the top end of US politics. I’m willing her on, whatever, for what it means for women – speaking even as someone who’s own small home country, New Zealand, has had women Prime Ministers from the main parties of both sides of politics – Jenny Shipley from the National Party (conservative) and still, Helen Clark from the Labour Party.
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The Ghost of Violet says:
Both the Spender and Miles books are excellent, but I think of them as being kind of western-centric. I would recommend them but not for a full global perspective. Anna’s question got me thinking that we really need such a book, a book that would cover women’s history all over the globe. I write and think about that sort of stuff all the time, but there’s no book that covers it all.
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The Ghost of Violet says:
P.S. Cicely, I have serious New Zealand envy. It’s not just the women prime ministers or the history of being the first westernized country to give women the vote or the unbelievably gorgeous landscape with Alpine mountains and the whole bit. It’s also that New Zealand has no snakes.
When my mother and I talk about where we want to move, it’s always either Ireland or New Zealand. I’m voting for New Zealand.
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Victoria says:
I was an exchange student for one summer (their winter) in New Zealand when I was sixteen, and ever since, it’s been the place I’d absolutely want to immigrate to if at some point I can’t hack living in the U.S. anymore. I actually went to significant trouble to research the process in the days after 9/11. It’s a truly remarkable place.
Some books relevant to women’s history that immediately spring to mind are The Great Cosmic Mother: Rediscovering the Religion of the Earth and Eve’s Seed: Biology, the Sexes, and the Course of History.
And, good to be reading you again, Violet. I’ve been even further out of the loop than usual, and it’s like coming home to visit your fair Internet home.
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cicely says:
Oh yes, I agree that while they’re great, both Miles’ and Spender’s books do have the limitation of being western-centric. Still,for a start, it was pretty amazing to me to discover how little I knew about women’s history and it’s erasure in my own culture!
NZ has only one poisonous creature – the katipo spider – apparently a relative of the OZ redback. I never saw one in my 35 years there though. They’re not nearly as common as the redback is here. I used to go camping at home, but too many poisonous creatures here – especially snakes.
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therealUK says:
Clinton and McCain get New Hampshire, but Clinton and Obama are very close for the dems. ( we get coverage all over the news here, and will continue to until past November).
It seems counterproductive that your Democrat candidates are all set up to have a go at one another in these early stages. Aren’t they supposed to be working together at some point ? They are all very conservative as well.
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kiuku says:
Cicely! Yes that is exactly it! Thanks I was looking all over!
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kiuku says:
Clinton has my vote
