posted
Humean, You are once again getting confused between the general and the specific.
I have no doubt that there are Americans who would never vote for a Woman, but that does not mean that a woman could not win a US presidential election. I know a lot more Americans who would never vote for a Republican than those who would never vote for a woman, yet this nation elected a Republican President in the past two general elections.
The question of whether or not gender is a deciding factor for some individuals and whether or not gender is likely to be the deciding factor in a US Presidential elections and of whether or not gender has been the deciding factor in this primary election are 3 different questions.
I don't think that gender has been the deciding factor in this years primary. It has certainly worked both for and against Clinton and is likely at worst a neutral factor. I think if the right woman were running for President, the majority of Americans would be willing to vote for her.
I think that the more compelling question, is why the right woman hasn't ever run for President. This is the first time we have ever had a serious woman candidate for President.
Its interesting to note, that the country with the 3rd largest Muslim population in the world (India), elected a woman president over 40 years ago. The country with the world's 2nd largest Muslim population (Pakistan), elected a woman president 20 years ago.
To me, the question we should be asking isn't, "Is this country ready for a woman President?", but "Why aren't there more women out there who a ready to run for President?"
I think Hilary has broken important ground with her candidacy. I think it shows progress that gender has been such a minor issue during her campaign. I am confident that more women will follow in her footsteps in coming elections and hope there will be soon be a time when there is a woman Presidential candidate that I can throw my support behind.
Hillary just isn't that woman. I'm somewhat disappointed that she and her supporters are tarnishing her accomplishments in this elections with a bunch of sour grapes pouting about how the country isn't ready for a woman to lead them.
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quote:I have no doubt that there are Americans who would never vote for a Woman, but that does not mean that a woman could not win a US presidential election. I know a lot more Americans who would never vote for a Republican than those who would never vote for a woman, yet this nation elected a Republican President in the past two general elections.
Well, I never said that a woman couldn't either. The only thing I have ever said is that maybe the question of whether or not we are ready for a woman President is not a dumb one. I am not confused about the general and specific, my argument has been, and has always been, that maybe the sexism Hillary Clinton faced in this campaign is not simply confined to her or her policies, maybe its a more endemic problem that needs to be talked about and discussed. In some sense, the 60 year old veteran I spoke to also speaks volumes about the electorate itself. How much of Hillary Clinton's failure is a product of her gender? Is America ready for a woman President? The question isn't dumb because though there are people who would vote for a woman (just not this one), there are some who would not.
Everyone keeps saying, "Hillary just wasn't the right woman", but thats not even close to the point I was making. For some people that is true, for some people Hillary Clinton just wasn't the right woman even though they would vote for the right woman in a heart-beat, but as I have said over and over again, there are some who would not vote for a woman, even if she was the right one. The 60 year old Vietnam vet, my cousin, the man who called Hillary a "bitch" to John McCain (can you imagine *anyone* calling Barack Obama a N***er and getting away with it?--even in my post right here I am allowed to call a woman a bitch but I really can't use the N the word--are you really sure that sex had *nothing* to do with Hillary Clinton's loss?), are all perfect examples, and though yeah she wasn't the right person for you for whatever reason, the question still remains whether sexism had a bigger role in this election than we'd like to think.
We can also speak about how some people wouldn't vote for Republicans, Democrats, Muslims, or atheists but that is a different situation because those are choices that people make. Being a woman, an African American, or even a homosexual are all parts of the human condition that cannot be chosen. People can choose not to vote for a Democrat and I wouldn't cry anything, but if you don't vote for someone because they are a woman or an African American, then there is a cry of racism or sexism that should be levied.
ETA:
quote: I think that the more compelling question, is why the right woman hasn't ever run for President. ... To me, the question we should be asking isn't, "Is this country ready for a woman President?", but "Why aren't there more women out there who are ready to run for President?"
Which is our way of saying that we aren't doing anything wrong, it's the people we discriminate against that just aren't ready. Could it possibly be the case that there are women who are ready to be President but sexism has been one of the things that keeps them back? Could it be possible that the right woman has tried to run for President, but since women didn't get the right to vote until suffrage, that maybe our sexist and prejudice feelings had something to do with it? I don't think those are dumb questions, and I believe they are the more compelling.
posted
Actually Humean, right after you say you are not confusing the general with the specific, you then immediately confuse the general with theh specific.
There is a very good reason why the anecdotal is so convincing, and also so dangerous. The fact that people exist who would not vote for a woman in present circumstances is irrelevant- those people are a minority, they are not representative.
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quote:There is a very good reason why the anecdotal is so convincing, and also so dangerous. The fact that people exist who would not vote for a woman in present circumstances is irrelevant- those people are a minority, they are not representative.
Ahhh but for that to work you have to know that they are the minority. And just how do you know that? Do you have some kind of numbers that tell you that? A poll? What tells you they are the minority? And how do you know that it is not representative of a large group of people?
I have never said they were the majority, I tend to believe they are the minority too, but the question isn't dumb because we just don't know. Thats why I always ask if it's possible, I never say that it is because I don't know and have never said that I did, but inherently, thats why the question is important. Thats not confusing the general with the specific, thats wondering if something specific is an example of the general, which is a valid question.
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quote:Its interesting to note, that the country with the 3rd largest Muslim population in the world (India), elected a woman president over 40 years ago. The country with the world's 2nd largest Muslim population (Pakistan), elected a woman president 20 years ago.
I believe Indonesia had one a few years ago.
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I forgot all about that. Yes, Indonesia the world's largest Muslim country elected Megawati (a woman) President in 2001. She governed the country until 2004.
I find it ironic that certain American (see Humean's example), maintain that we wouldn't be respected by Muslim countries is we had a woman president when the three countries with the largest Muslim populations in the global have all elected female leaders.
On one hand, I agree with Humean that this is a discussion we need to have in this country. If there are people who are willing to say they would never vote for a woman, there are certainly more who feel that way but won't say it. And even more who may not ever consciously think it but still feel uncomfortable voting for a woman candidate. Many maybe even most Americans vote based on their gut feelings about a candidate rather than rational evaluation of any criteria. And I know quiet a few people who consider themselves to be women's advocates yet who feel uncomfortable around women who have authority or are too outspoken.
On the other hand, I think this is the wrong time for this nation to have this discussion for several reasons. Right now it is impossible to separate this question from the Clinton campaign and has been noted many times the issues in her campaign are far more complex than simply gender issues. If you are a woman working in a man's field (and I suspect if you are a minority in any professional field) you very quickly learn that complaining about unfair treatment gets you worse than no where. You get branded as a whiner and someone unwilling to take responsibility for their own destiny. If the situation is too egregious, you can go to court and you may win a big lump of money but you will have to win enough to live on because you will likely be black balled everywhere from then on out. So right now, talking about gender bias in elections doesn't do Hillary any favors. It just makes her look even more like a bad loser.
Beyond that, asking the question right now is bound to offend a lot of people. Right now, that question essentially points a finger at everyone who is backing Obama (and maybe even McCain) and calls them sexist. In fact, certain people in this thread like Pixiest have done exactly that. You simply can't have a productive discussion about gender issues if you start off by unfairly accusing people of voting for Obama solely because he has a penis.
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posted
Personally a part of me wants Obama elected so that we can all stop going around trying to convince each other that we're all racists, even just for a week. A bigger part of me likes him for being a great candidate on the other merits, but I'd say handling his image the way he has, given that he's black, has only helped my estimation of his character.
Like Obama has said many times, the fact that he is black is an aspect of the race, but there's no god-given reason why it should be a bad thing for us to be aware of it. Boiling it down to the primary reason for his success would be a mistake, of course, because of all the black people in America, he's the one that so many believe could be president- so it's self-evident that his being black is not the only reason.
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quote: On the other hand, I think this is the wrong time for this nation to have this discussion for several reasons. Right now it is impossible to separate this question from the Clinton campaign and has been noted many times the issues in her campaign are far more complex than simply gender issues.
I agree that the issues of the Clinton campaign go beyond sexism, but I also think the important question about her campaign (and her in general) is the notion of why she creates such a polarizing political environment. People tend to either hate her or like her, and I would bet that part of that hatred has to do with the simple fact that she is a woman (it's obviously not all and not the only reason).
Of course, I don't think it is ever the wrong time to discuss issues that we, as a country, need to face. In my very first post about this topic, I said that one of the reasons "are we ready for a woman President" is not a dumb question is because of our tendency to use this as an excuse to maintain the status quo. To me, humanity is always ready to be better, to fight intolerance, and to face the difficult choices and conclusions inherent to the human condition. Only our own weakness and inability to face those tough and difficult choices keep us from becoming better human beings, but that's a challenge we should always be willing and able to face.
quote: Beyond that, asking the question right now is bound to offend a lot of people. Right now, that question essentially points a finger at everyone who is backing Obama (and maybe even McCain) and calls them sexist. In fact, certain people in this thread like Pixiest have done exactly that. You simply can't have a productive discussion about gender issues if you start off by unfairly accusing people of voting for Obama solely because he has a penis.
Then don't do it. Being offended, being lumped in with those we shouldn't, and the fear we all have of being labeled as a racist or sexist in a PC society like ours are all problems we face in this debate, but we shouldn't shirk from our responsibilities or an opportunity we have to improve ourselves simply because the task at hand is incredibly difficult. Those difficulties will still be here in later years, and all we do, as we have done with sexism and racism over the years, by ignoring those problems is to create more problems for ourselves.
Who doesn't think our society would be better if we finally dealt with those problems of race we have so convienently swept under the rug? Who doesn't think that humanity itself would be better if we learned to be heroes and face the tough choices? The difficult discussions?
We have the ability to be better, all we have to do is get in the game. A wise man named Sorkin taught me that...
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quote:Its interesting to note, that the country with the 3rd largest Muslim population in the world (India), elected a woman president over 40 years ago. The country with the world's 2nd largest Muslim population (Pakistan), elected a woman president 20 years ago.
And Irami mentioned Indonesia.
I would like to point out (especially to all of those who believe Hillary's experience as First Lady is false experience), that all of those women were elected because of family ties; or, in the additional cases of Margaret Thatcher and Golda Meir, because the country in question has a parliamentary system--meaning the executive is selected by party members (elites) from a pool of elected legislators.
Indonesia: Megawati Sukarnoputri is the daughter of Indonesia's first president, Sukarno. Elected 2001. Served until 2004.
India: Indira Gandhi's grandfather, Motilal Nehru, was a prominent Indian nationalist leader. Her father, Jawaharlal Nehru, was a pivotal figure in the Indian independence movement and the first prime minister of India. (Gandhi served 1980-1984.)
Pakistan: Benzair Bhutto, first elected in 1993 as prime minister of Pakistan, was the eldest child of former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto
Israel: Golda Meir (in office 1969-1974) was Israel's first woman prime minister and the third woman in the world to hold this office, but the first to do so without a family member having been head of state or government. Israel has a parliamentary system; she served in several cabinet posts before being chosen for the PM job by fellow elected party members.
UK: Margaret Thatcher, prime minister from 1979 until 1990, originally elected head of the Opposition in 1975.
Guyana: Janet Jagan - elected Guyana's leader in 1997 after the death of her husband, the previous president
Argentina: Isabel Martinez de Peron - sworn in as interim president of Argentina in 1974 when husband Juan Peron fell ill and died; kept power until 1976
Argentina more recently: Cristina Fernandez elected president, replacing her husband
The only example I can find of a woman running and being elected by the wider populace without having family ties to the office is the recent election of Michelle Bachelet in Chile.
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posted
I also think your assessment that the UK and Israeli Prime Ministers aren't elected by the general populous is erroneous. In practice, the British Prime minister is selected by a general election as is the Israeli Prime Minister.
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posted
Kasie, Officially in the US, we don't vote for President. We vote for members of the electoral college who will select the President. But in practice, I think its fair to say that the President is elected by the general populous. The electoral college just ends up being an elaborate and somewhere bizarre way to weight votes from different states differently.
In the UK, although on the books the Prime Minister is appointed by the Queen who is bound by law to select the leader of the party who holds a plurality in parliament, in practice its fair to say that the Prime Minister is elected by the general populous. Long before the elections everyone knows who the leaders are of each party. On election day, the ballot may contain the names of candidates for seats in Parliament by party, but everyone knows that a vote for a "Labor candidate" or a "Conservative candidate" is in actuality a vote for a particular Prime Minister. All the Brits I know think of their vote as a vote for a Particular Prime Minister much as Americans view their vote as a vote for President and not as a vote for the Electoral College. In fact, the practical reality is that the British Prime Minister comes closer to being chosen by direct election than does the US President. Your inference that Prime Ministers aren't elected by the general populous may be accurate in a technical sense but it doesn't reflect the practical reality of the situation.
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posted
Rabbit, respectfully, I disagree. In the U.S., the electoral college is designed specifically for the election of the executive. Sure, it's not direct democracy--and we can have a debate over whether the U.S. system or the British system comes closer to the ideal of direct democracy (if, in fact, you consider than an ideal)--but there can be no question that in the U.K. the leader is chosen by the party, not by the people. When people go to the polls on election day here in the U.K., they typically vote mostly based on party loyalties because the nature of the system means that the party in power *has* more power to get what it wants done. Sure, they might know that they are getting a particular prime minister--and they may vote against a prime minister's party because they don't like what they're doing.
But look at Gordon Brown, for example. The last round of British parliamentary elections was in 2005; Blair's Labour Party won. While there was wide speculation that Brown was likely to be the next prime minister, no one knew for sure; when Blair stepped down, Brown was tapped as his successor without a single vote from a regular citizen being cast. Now, it's entirely possible Brown's Labour Party will lose (as they did in the local elections held recently), but if they do, it will be for a more reasons than just a dislike of Brown.
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But Kasie, We aren't talking about Gordon Brown. We are talking about Margaret Thatcher. She had been leader of the conservative party for over 4 years before the conservatives took control of parliament and she became Prime Minister. In 1979, every one voting in the UK knew that a vote for the conservatives was a vote for Thatcher. It is virtually unquestionable that her leadership of the party played an important role in the conservative victory in 1979. Certainly if Brits had held a strong bias against having a woman head of government, they would have been less likely to support the conservatives and Thatcher. If other leaders in the conservative party had sensed that having a woman leading the party was a disadvantage in the general election, Thatcher wouldn't have got that position in the first place.
So my point is that claiming Thatcher doesn't count because she wasn't elected directly is splitting hairs.
Now its unquestionable that there were bigger issues in that election than Thatcher's gender, but there are bigger issues in this election as well. That's the point.
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posted
I'm saying that there were much bigger issues than Margaret Thatcher when she was elected. Voters had a lot more to consider than just a prime minister, just as they had more to consider than just her gender if they were thinking about a vote for the conservatives as vote for her. I'm also not disputing that there's more to consider than just Hillary's gender. All im saying is that the effect of gener might be underestimated by the participants of this thread.
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quote:All im saying is that the effect of gener might be underestimated by the participants of this thread.
Then we are more or less in agreement. As I stated above, I think the question of why there aren't more women ready to run for high office in this country is an important question to address.
My point in bringing up countries that have had women Presidents and Prime Ministers was to demonstrate that the US isn't leading in this area. In fact we trail behind countries that a reputed for their regressive attitudes towards women. I'm not sure where that gender bias enters the equation. It could be that our electoral process tends to amplify the influence of personal traits like gender over position. Which is I guess what you were getting at.
It could also be that subtle cultural biases mean that women start opting out of career tracks that might lead to high political office when they are young.
It could be the WW II backlash where women who had held important jobs during the war were asked to step aside to make room for returning vets. It could be a reflection of the 1950's and 60's suburban trend which (for a time) made working women a curse of the lower classes. After all, even though those cultural conditions have turned around dramatically it takes along time for them to work their way through the system.
I fully agree that this is a discussion America needs to have. But I still maintain that this isn't the right time to have it because right now that debate is inseparable from Clinton's candidacy. As has been pointed out repeatedly, its important not to the confound the general and the specific.
Its possible that their are general biases that keep American women out of high office and that those biases are not a deciding issue in this election. Its possible that Hillary evokes gender biased reactions from many people who would not reactive negatively to some other woman. Having this debate now means we will have a debate that is overshadowed by the details of Clinton's candidacy and will miss the general gender issues.
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quote:Originally posted by Humean316: Then don't do it. Being offended, being lumped in with those we shouldn't, and the fear we all have of being labeled as a racist or sexist.
Humean, I wasn't mearly "lumped with others". Pixiest's accusations of sexism were directed specifically and personally at me. I was challenged to defend myself.
Realistically, that is the inevitable course of this debate. People like Pix who have a strong opinion that no one could possibly prefer Obama over Clinton for any reason other than his penis, will insult Obama supporters. You can't have a rational debate when you start by insulting a large fraction of the people. The result is the people become defensive rather than open to evaluating their own behavior.
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posted
Ahem. 9 year old here! Well anyways, Hillary would be the first female president, but her health care plan is a bit iffy. Obama, however, seems like a sophisticated young man. People at my school have opinions that Obama is a muslim and will bomb our country, but them knowing a speck of politics in highly unlikely.
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quote: Argentina: Isabel Martinez de Peron - sworn in as interim president of Argentina in 1974 when husband Juan Peron fell ill and died; kept power until 1976
I wouldn't chalk that up as a win for democracy though. Pretty thorny history there.
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Some might argue that the 1979 victory for the Conservatives, led by Margeret Thatcher, was more a reaction to the previous Labour government. Indeed they might go on to argue that if the Tories had been lead by a talking donkey they would probably have won too.
Not to equate Baroness Thatcher with a talking donkey. I would never do that. Some of my best friends are donkeys.
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Who is We? I think if one looks closely at the "Are we ready for a woman President," or "Are we ready for a black President" questions, the answer comes down to white American men. Women or blacks don't have a problem voting for women or blacks over white men, and lumping the three categories together as a "we" subsumes and marginalizes the vast majority of blacks and women who have been ready for generations and are forced to wait for white men to get over themselves.
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Irami, that's a disgusting comment, aside from being wrong and overly simplistic. The "We" here is an open question, plainly.
There are approximately 100 million white males (non-Hispanic) in America, that's 33% percent of the population. You can go around whining about anything you want when it comes to white Americans, it's all been said, but there's nothing that changes that number.
If everybody else is ready and willing to vote for women and blacks, and has been "for decades" then I see little to stop them, even if all white American males, regardless of their heritage, social status, politics, wealth, education, or religion, voted as one big block. Oops, what you said was racist.
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*laugh* Some of the most virulent racists -- and misogynists -- I've ever met have been women, Irami.
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: *laugh* Some of the most virulent racists -- and misogynists -- I've ever met have been women, Irami.
That's my experience as well. I think perhaps it is not a matter of women being any more prejudiced than men, but the imperatives for maintaining socially responsible appearances are different between genders. I think that many women who have fallen into this category don't seem to cultivate the insight, or the appearance of insight, necessary to defend their prejudices and remain apparently credible.
My late grandmother is an excellent example for me, of someone who was fundamentally racist, and had spent her life free of challenges to her assertions. My mother balks at such challenges in a way that my father could not afford to do. That doesn't make their opinions different, but their outward demeanors are. In our society, we unfairly assume that women posses intuition unattainable to men, and I think that some women use that assumption to justify indefensible reasoning. That at least, is my experience with my mother, take it as you will.
I think this is part of the reason shows like Sex in the City, centered around feminine empowerment, are insensitive and shockingly denigrating to male characters. A similar show, like Entourage, though it does show men objectifying women on a near constant basis, highlights the negative consequences of this behavior, and rewards characters for being sensitive to feminine needs. The women of Sex in the City never suffer realistic consequences of their poor priorities, but men in similar shows tend to. Entourage is almost entirely based on showing how men's priorities and behaviors have such negative consequences for them- even if the situations depicted aren't exactly realistic.
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