It is clear that Elizabeth Cady Stanton and other women’s rights leaders of the nineteenth century, many of whom were staunch abolitionists, were such losers when the 15th Amendment granted black men the right to vote but left out all women. On the one hand, Fredrick Douglass had a pretty strong argument for being first in line:
“When women, because they are women, are hunted down through the cities of New York and New Orleans; when they are dragged from their houses and hung from lampposts; when their children are torn from their arms and their brains dashed out upon the pavement; when they are objects of insult and rage at every turn; when they are in danger of having their homes burnt down... then they will have an urgency to obtain the ballot equal to our own.”At the same time, prioritizing one movement over another seems a dangerous threat to Equal Protection. Acknowledging that the civil rights movement has (perhaps disproportionately) opened up pathways for women’s equality, is Obama’s nomination a setback for women’s rights?
Tracy Thomas of the Washington University Law Review opines, “The campaign between Obama and Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination thus continues the false dichotomy between race and sex, forcing the candidates and their supporters into the box of choosing whether race or gender is more important.” She also points out America’s legal hierarchy, in which race takes precedent over gender. Although both sex and race are considered “immutable characteristics” (cannot be changed), the Supreme Court has established that issues of racial discrimination warrant strict scrutiny, compared with intermediate scrutiny when dealing with gender.
The key difference between Stanton and Douglass’ time and now is that Americans seem to unanimously want to, according to campaign mastermind Karl Rove, “break down barriers.” Now that Sarah Palin could be “one heartbeat away from the Presidency,” voters will do just that, no matter which way they vote, on an even larger scale than in the Democratic primaries. I would argue that this prospect is beneficial to all minority or disenfranchised groups. However, the Supreme Court’s attitude toward women alone suggests that the country has a long way to go before things can truly be considered “equal.” The media’s treatment of the "bi-racial" issue deserves its own discussion, but I wanted to share this revealing (yet lengthy) Nightline segment from January:
I cannot even begin to imagine the legal and cultural consequences of the upcoming election, but one thing is for sure—change, of SOME sort—is imminent.
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4 comments:
Although we have passed the historical primaries and decided that the black man is a more appealing image than the white woman as our president, perhaps we should consider the complaints of Hilary Clinton. She has complained many times about the sexist covering of the election, and although it seems that her cries have thus far fallen on deaf ears, the news of Sarah Palin's entrance reopens the discussion. Being black in America unfortunately comes with many stereotypes, but we have many examples of men and women in this country rising above those bigoted thoughts. Blacks and whites are the same, and although society is still gripping to outdated thoughts of what "black" means, we all readily realize that all humans, black, white and every shade in between, are all just that: human. The point of what I'm saying is this: do the same rules apply to gender that apply to race? Are both gender's playing on the same field, or have we separated them out and ascribed to them personality traits? Taking this idea a little further, is it perhaps not the doing of society, but nature, that has separated gender in a way that it has not separated race? I'm not saying it has, I'm just saying.
I think that breaking down the presidential election into solely an issue of gender vs. race is too simplistic a view. I am frustrated by the identity politics which accompany the issue, such as the way in which McCain and the Republican party are looking to sway disaffected female Clinton supporters by selecting Palin. The underlying assumption -- that because the two are both women, then female voters will automatically switch their loyalites to McCain-Palin -- is insulting. The two candidates are NOTHING alike, as even a brief comparison of their stances on the issues would demonstrate.
Additionally, I would argue that electing Obama would in no way represent a setback for women's rights. Simply put, Obama supports women's rights (he is consistently pro-choice, believes that health care should be available for all, etc.), while Palin does not. This makes him a far more feminist candidate than she is, even though she is a woman. Palin might be a female figurehead, but that does not make her a champion of women's rights.
I agree with danag’s last comment that Obama’s policies better represent a feminist perspective than are Palin’s. To buttress his point, Palin opposes affirmative action supporting women in public employment, equal pay, and education, while Obama adamantly advocates affirmative action and the Equal Pay Act. Perhaps McCain’s strategy in selecting Palin as his vice presidential candidate wrongly assumed that Americans assign greater priority to gender than to race. But, I think that public discussion of the role of race and gender in the election should be less concentrated on the female and Black candidates and rather turned to the policies that they plan to employ. Their policies will reveal whether race or gender is prioritized in politics today. I offer that Obama’s language tries to remove race from the focus and that his policies are more intended to further female interests than just the Black race’s interests in politics.
I personally am having a hard time caring about whether the candidate is black or female. The race vs. gender debate is getting as old as abortion. If your uterus, or skin color, is going to affect your brain processes and ability to lead, then we have a major problem to deal with. I would hope that after so many years, it wouldn't be as major a debate as it is. Don't get me wrong, I'm not naive enough to think that we are all treated equal even though we are in fact equals. I realize that it is still a struggle for women and black men and women to be held on equal ground with white men. But this is a presidential election, and if the color of their skin or their reproductive system is going to determine you're vote then you are missing the point of a presidential election. We shouldn't be using this election to further either a race or gender, this election is about the leadership of our country and who is the best for the job and who is going to take care of our country and not run us further into the ground.
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