During the 1984 Presidential elections I was in 1st grade. My teacher had us fill out a mock election ballot put out by some children’s magazine as to who we would vote for if we could vote. In my astute understanding of how the entire process worked I voted for Geraldine A. Ferraro, Walter Mondale’s vice presidential candidate. My rational was as follows – since Reagan and Bush had already had a turn in the White House I thought it would be fair to let someone else have a turn. And given that there had never been a female President, I thought it was high time a woman got to take a turn at that as well. (I apparently got the whole playing fair and taking turns thing). So in the box under the pictures of Mondale and Ferraro, I shaded in only the half of the box under her side. I wanted to vote for a woman.
But I am not voting for Hillary Clinton in the Primaries (it could be a different story if she gets the nomination). But I have been intrigued by the media’s reports on the effects of gender on this campaign. Many are accusing Hillary supporters (quite a few who are 50-60 year old women) of voting for her just because she is a woman. I have a hard time with this. I am a firm advocate of the need to allow women to have a voice and the necessity of altering male-dominated systems to make that happen, but I don’t subscribe to the idea that one’s gender should be one’s sole qualifications for a position. But neither should it stand in the way.
I found Gloria Steinem’s recent op-ed piece in the New York Times on this issue to be intriguing. In the piece she states her support for Hillary and mentions the gender roadblocks she continues to face.
“So why is the sex barrier not taken as seriously as the racial one? The reasons are as pervasive as the air we breathe: because sexism is still confused with nature as racism once was; because anything that affects males is seen as more serious than anything that affects “only” the female half of the human race; because children are still raised mostly by women (to put it mildly) so men especially tend to feel they are regressing to childhood when dealing with a powerful woman; because racism stereotyped black men as more “masculine” for so long that some white men find their presence to be masculinity-affirming (as long as there aren’t too many of them); and because there is still no “right” way to be a woman in public power without being considered a you-know-what.”(and for a challenge to her racism/sexism comments see this interview on Democracy Now!)
Hillary Clinton has hecklers demanding that she iron their shirts for them. Her win in New Hampshire gets attributed to her tears on national television – just sympathy votes for a woman. She is seen as divisive because of her sex. Women are called disloyal to their sex if they don’t vote for her, and biased by gender if they do. In all – the gender issue is still an issue.
I personally think we absolutely need more women in leadership in this country to bring in various perspectives and leadership styles and to serve as role models. But I have my reasons for voting as I do and I no longer vote as I did in first grade and am not voting for someone solely on her or his gender. Nor do I appreciate the accusation that gender based voting is the only reason one would ever vote for Hillary. But then again single issue voting is one of my many pet peeves. I find it sad that (at least in the media) this comes down to being about gender. I know it could represent a long overdue historic first for women, but I look forward to the day when “because she’s a woman” doesn’t have to be a factor either way.