The PUMA movement is a grassroots uprising of people determined to resist the Obama takeover of the Democratic party and all that it represents. We refuse to legitimize from the left the sexism and misogyny that Obama exploited. We refuse to endorse the strong-arm, anti-democratic actions of the DNC itself, which manipulated the nominee selection process to force a predetermined result. We refuse to comply with the metastasization of the Republican cancer to the Democratic Party, which is what in our view Obama represents — in his imperialism, in his pseudo-religiosity, in his money-soaked corruption, and in his political positions. We refuse to give up our voices — our leverage — for the sake of a fraudulent “party unity” that is no more than the short-circuiting of democracy. We refuse to let the Democratic Party become “Republican lite,” abandoning its mission to represent women, workers, immigrants, gays, the poor, the disadvantaged, the elderly.
Most of us are lifelong Democrats, seasoned veterans of the political game. We know exactly what we’re doing. We’re making a high-stakes strategic bid to salvage the Democratic Party — or, failing that, to build a new coalition that will take up the mantle that the DNC seems determined to shed.
So why are we dismissed as hysterical angry women, so bitter at the defeat of Hillary that we’re ready to lash out in blind, confused rage and vote against our interests? Because of sexism. That’s how sexism works: it is the systematic devaluing of women and their actions. No matter that not all PUMAs are women; the movement is female-identified. And so we’re dismissed as hysterical old bats who can’t think straight.
I sympathize with the men in the PUMA movement who are experiencing this for the first time. It’s frustrating, isn’t it? Read this fine post by myiq2xu, a mixed-chromosome PUMA. There’s a subtext in that essay, an unspoken air of frustration along the lines of, “why aren’t people taking me seriously?” Welcome to the world of women, myiq2xu. You could have the political intelligence of Bismarck and you’d still be dismissed as a hormone-addled cow on the rag.
Just as reactions to Hillary Clinton’s campaign served as a kind of giant diorama of sexism in this country, so the reaction to the PUMA movement shows how anything female-identified is automatically assumed to be irrational. Media coverage of PUMA has exploded in the last week, but I’ve yet to see an article that actually explains what we’re about. Again and again we’re described as angry, bitter women, unable to get over our burning disappointment that Hillary lost. We’re made to sound like fan girls having a crying fit because our favorite got voted down on American Idol.
The overtures (such as they are) from the DNC and the Obama campaign are in a similar vein: the same assumption that we’re just crying over Hillary, the same assurance that once we get a grip on ourselves we’ll come around, the same failure to acknowledge our actual agenda. Obama tells us that if we stopped and thought for moment, we’d get over it. (Newsflash, Opossum: we’ve spent a lot more than a moment thinking about you, and that’s why we’re working so damn hard to bring you down.) Gov. Rendell tells us that, basically, we’re dumb pussies. “Feminists” (note the scare quotes) in the Obama camp weigh in with articles telling us that our hysterical whining just proves the male chauvinists right. (Enlisting women to deliver the sexist message is an old trick, and has precisely zero effect on us cowgirls who have been around the rodeo a few times. But nice try.)
What none of these folks realize is that they’re simply confirming our judgment of what the Obama movement is about and why it must be resisted. Sexism? Check! Intellectual dishonesty? Check! Smug insistence that Obama Is The One and anybody who disagrees is insane/racist/hysterical? Check!
Keep it up, possums. Keep it up. You’re making our case for us.
Posted by Violet in Election 2008, PUMA
