I am a proud feminist but I’m feeling weary of women at the moment.
For the first time in the history of our nation, there is a smart, qualified, viable female Presidential candidate in the race but instead of vehemently supporting her, women are deafeningly silent. Why?
bell hooks once wrote that “feminism is for everybody,” and I sincerely wish that were true, but as of late I’m growing concerned that feminism has become a dirty word to females.
As can be expected from a woman who topples boundaries and smashes ceilings, Hillary Clinton is eliciting a relentless onslaught of criticism and condemnation from the media and public. “She’s too experienced.” “Too political.” “Emotional.” “Not emotional enough!” “We need change and she’s part of the establishment!”
Since when did a female President become part of The Establishment?
Why are women not raising their voices to support her? This is a historic opportunity. Complacency is a dangerous state, so if there is ever a time to put principle over politics, the time is NOW.
In a polemic that articulates the postmodern, “postfeminist” conundrum our country faces as two minority candidates vie for the oval office, Robin Morgan writes:
During my decades in civil-rights, anti-war, and contemporary womenâs movements, Iâve avoided writing another specific âGoodbye . . .â But not since the suffrage struggle have two communities â joint conscience-keepers of this country â been so set in competition, as the contest between Hillary Rodham Clinton (HRC) and Barack Obama (BO) unfurls. So.
Goodbye to the double standard . . .
âHillary is too ballsy but too womanly, a Snow Maiden whoâs emotional, and so much a politician as to be unfit for politics.
âSheâs âambitiousâ but he shows âfire in the belly.â (Ever had labor pains?)
âWhen a sexist idiot screamed âIron my shirt!â at HRC, it was considered amusing;
…
Goodbye to the toxic viciousness . . .
Carl Bernstein’s disgust at Hillaryâs âthick ankles.â Nixon-trickster Roger Stoneâs new Hillary-hating 527 group, âCitizens United Not Timidâ (check the capital letters). John McCain answering âHow do we beat the bitch?” with âExcellent question!â
…
Goodbye to the most intimately violent T-shirts in election history, including one with the murderous slogan âIf Only Hillary had married O.J. Instead!â Shame.
Goodbye to Comedy Centralâs âSouthparkâ featuring a storyline in which terrorists secrete a bomb in HRCâs [female anatomy].
Goodbye to the sick, malicious idea that this is funny. This is not âClinton hating,â not âHillary hating.â This is sociopathic woman-hating. If it were about Jews, we would recognize it instantly as anti-Semitic propaganda; if about race, as KKK poison… PETA would go ballistic if such vomitous spew were directed at animals. Where is our sense of outrageâas citizens, voters, Americans?
…
Goodbye, goodbye to . . .
âan era when parts of the populace feel so disaffected by politics that a comparative lack of knowledge, experience, and skill is actually seen as attractive, when celebrity-culture mania now infects our elections so that itâs âcoolerâ to glow with marquee charisma than to understand the vast global complexities of power on a nuclear, wounded planet.
…
As for the âwoman thingâ?
Me, Iâm voting for Hillary not because sheâs a womanâbut because I am.