Feminism in Obama-Time

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HASTAC isn't a political organization. It's a virtual network dedicated to participatory learning and a humanistic creativity and critique and development of technology, always with a socio-political attention to the implications of the technologies we develop and use. It is not my intention to turn this blog into a political blog, although, as one of HASTAC's regular bloggers, I do reserve the right to deviate from technology and new media and new science once every week or two. Usually it's funny or frivolous commentary to break up all the meditations on neuroaesthetics and other topics. I make it clear, in my personal blogs, that I do not represent HASTAC but only myself. This is one of those personal blogs . . . and this one has politcs in it. Today, as Barak Obama makes history with the Democratic Party nomination I offer some personal reflections on feminism in the hour of Obama. Yes we can! And, as a bonus, a url for the most delightful adorable compilation of "Lisa Simpson: Feminist Hero."

I am offering this url this morning because, although I myself am a 100% die-hard Barak Obama supporter, I understand those who are weeping at what may be the end of Hillary Clinton's presidential bid and who have made the slippage from "feminist politics" to "political identity politics" so passionately. She's a woman, therefore feminism. It's not a logic I buy--but I get it in those who do, I understand the impulse even though I don't share it. And I find the sexist reporting, innuendo, and sneering newscaster comments about her to have been abominable, no matter what one's attitude toward Hillary herself.

Here's some history:

Several weeks ago, I talked to my first real mentor, almost an intellectual mother to me, the novelist E. M. Broner, now in her early eighties and still a political activist. I have picked up more than one newspaper over the years featuring Esther's photograph, involved in some major activist movement on behalf of feminism, peace, anti-Semitism, Israeli-Arab understanding, civil rights, anti-racism, or other causes--with feminism being the one enduring focus. She and Grace Paley were chained to more than one fence in protest of more than one war over many tireless decades of struggle. Esther's feminist seders and her feminist spirituality are the stuff of legend. And of all the great joys of my last year, high on my list was learning that her novel, Red Squad, will be published later this year, a roman a clef about Jewish Leftist intellectuals, feminists too, in Detroit in the anti-Semitic McCarthy Era. Esther and I wrote a series of essays and edited a book and a journal issue on "Mothers and Daughters in Literature," back in the day, when I was starting out in this profession, when feminist criticism was still relatively new, and I was captivated by this amazingly beautiful, vibrant, wild, passionate, and yet endlessly productive and dedicated playwright, poet, novelist, intellectual, essayist who redefined, for me, the limits and boundaries and strait-jackets of a profession that was (to my young eyes) astonishingly conventional. Esther, with her wild raven hair and flashing eyes, taught me that it was okay to fly (even on the way to tenure) as long as one understood how high and how to fly steady and well, sometimes avoiding the live wires and other times ignoring them (and knowing the cost and knowing which is which). It is a complex lesson in professional and personal aviation that I've never forgotten.

After the New York primary, I called my friend Esther and asked how she voted. She refused to tell me. She said she had waited all her life to vote for a woman presidential candidate, had fought for feminist causes for decades. Now she had that chance to vote for a woman, perhaps the first and only chance in a life of activism. And, she said, politics is about the future and Barack Obama is the future. Esther said, in that profound way that she says everything: "I won't say which way I voted. But I will say that after I voted, I wept."

I repeat that story because I myself don't have that impulse to weep. "Woman" does not equal "feminist" for me. Margaret Thatcher proved that. And, for me, "the Clintons" are too much of a duo for Hillary to be the feminist choice in any clear way. She's had to give away far too much, not only for this election, but also for her time in Congress when she has disappointed me many times, and also for the legacy of her smiling First Lady face in the wake of her husband's NeoLiberalism and his Neanderthal sexual/personal politics (however unfairly he was pilloried for them). My students tell me they learned about oral sex, as preteens, from watching hearings for a Presidential impeachment. Grotesque! I don't want that again. Any of it. That is not good for feminism, that's for sure! I don't want Hillary's own continuing vacillation on this terrible war. And I hate more than I can say the snide, under-the-breath racism that is being vocalized more and more as we get closer to the Convention in Denver. I do not feel that Hillary Clinton is good for Politics or for sexual feminist politics. Right now, to my mind, Hillary is giving feminism a very bad name. She'd still be my choice over someone who wanted to implement more of the devastating Bush economic and international politics. But why take that choice when there is a shining candidate, a once-in-a-generation symbol of hope, Barack Obama, who stays astonishingly steady and clear despite it all?

My friend's tears were after the NY primary, and lots of unsavory things have happened since then--or, at least, the media has reported many unsavory things on Hillary's way toward the nomination. There were many reported racist innuendos.  I am positive that much of this is blown out of proportion in the same way that Reverend Wright was---that is the way of the media these days. I actually think Hillary's campaign, although a death match, was more civilized than that of many, many close races in the past. That said, I'm still utterly disgusted by what I've seen with the racist nuances, as much from Bill as from Hillary, and apparently, from what various Black commentators and politicians have said, even more so in private than in public. And the racist comments I've heard (even if distorted and blown up by the media) have nothing to do with the kind of "feminism" I embrace.

Obama for me is hopeful. Living in Italy this Spring, I was shocked by how often I heard Europeans say that he is the hope not only for America but for the world. Some reminded me of how many European Union countries have taken a turn towards ultra-Conservativism and anti-immigrant racism that borders on neo-fascism. They consider the Clintons part of America's wars of aggression and yet still maintain a kind of shining hope that the U.S. can show a leadership that can help reverse a world trend in the wrong direction. Obama, for them, is that symbolic turn that will have influence and impact at a moment of despairing reactionary neo-fascist violence.

I find it so depressing that Hillary Clinton did not withdraw, not even this morning, when the nomination has now been clinched. She needs to withdraw not just with dignity but with power and assume a position of leadership and power for the next Democratic administration. There are many ways to have power and influence and moral authority without being president. Look at Jimmy Carter, post-Presidency. Hillary Clinton could be statesperson extraordinaire, and, not bounded by politics, perhaps even be a real feminist and a visionary, with principles. Maybe. Maybe. It's never too late in politics. Again, look at Jimmy Carter's post-Presidency leadership role in the national and international scene. No one would have guessed it.  

That said, I remain disgusted by the anti-feminism.  No, it has been worse than that:  it's been hatred of women.  Palpable, fearful, obnoxious, arrogant, disgusting.  And I wish Obama would come out forcefully and denounce that.  I wish he would make a speech on gender as powerful as his unforgettable speech on race, in the wake of the first round of commentary on Reverend Wright.  He has the nomination.  Now is the time to powerfully and passionately remember that women make up the majority of voters and the long race, no matter what else it did, created a lot of bad feeling toward and among women.  Obama needs to tackle that head on.

Have I given up feminist hopes and dreams? Not for a second. Do I believe one can be anti-racist and feminist at the same time? Not only is that answer a resounding "yes" but, for me, it is a mandatory "yes," in both directions. Thus I understand why (at least back earlier this Spring) my brilliant, passionate, political writer friend, at 81, could come out of a voting booth with tears in her eyes. What a crappy choice to have to make! And yet, to reverse it, what an amazing choice? I asked Esther, "Did you ever, in your lifetime, think THIS would be your choice?" "No," she said, "Never. And that's what makes me smile."

For all my friends who understand what this post was about, who feel sad that we will not be seeing the first woman president, I include the most adorable url ever. It is a very clever and beautifully done compilation of all of eight-year-old Lisa Simpson's most feminist moments. It will make you smile. http://jezebel.com/5012847/lisa-simpson-feminist-hero