Posts Tagged ‘women in politics’
Giffords Tragedy: What’s the Message to Young Women?
I wrote this article as an exclusive to the Women’s Media Center, and reprint it here with permission. It can’t begin to describe the pain in my heart for those killed or injured, their families and extended networks of friends.
When an angry young man aimed his semiautomatic handgun at Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in a Tucson Safeway store on Saturday, he didn’t just critically wound her and kill or wound 19 others. He fired a shot through the heart of American democracy.
It will fall to rising leaders like Giffords—and girls like nine-year-old Christina Green, killed by the assailant’s gunfire just days after she was elected to her school’s student council—to transform our political community to one where differences can be debated safely and policies decided without fear for anything but re-election prospects.
I feel a deeply personal connection to those horrendous events that occurred during the latest “Congress on Your Corner” public meeting the third-term Democratic congresswoman has held routinely in her district. Though I was witnessing them from New York, I’m a resident of Scottsdale, 120 miles north of Tucson, and from 1978 to 1996 was CEO of Planned Parenthood in Arizona. I know the state’s wild-west politics quite well. And I’m so familiar with violent extremist attacks upon reproductive health providers that my first reaction was to swing reflexively into “how can I keep colleagues safe and courageous” mode.
Ironically, a moment before the carnage, I was urging Arizona Democratic party activists via Facebook to stop arguing about arcane party rules and get on with fixing the state: to stand firm against roiling bigotry toward immigrants, slashing public education funds while advancing legislation to allow guns in schools, and other retrograde policies that threaten to make the state an object of derision throughout the country.
Almost immediately after the shootings, I received messages inviting me to a candlelight vigil at the state Capitol. It’s important for people to come together to share their grief while they are absorbing the reality of an unspeakable crime.
But as important as a candlelight vigil might be to heal the rips in our individual souls, healing the social fabric requires infinitely stronger threads.
Read MoreDoes Palin Trump Biden?
I had intended to blog throughout the Democratic Convention. But there came a moment when I just wanted to be a spectator. Partly this was motivated by the fact that my husband Alex and I were simultaneously shopping for (and finally picking) a new apartment, an endeavor that diverts one’s attention considerably.
So I took a couple of days off from writing just to soak up the historic events. I especially enjoy lavishing myself with the rich sounds and sights of major speakers’ rhetoric, turning every nuance of what was said or not said around in my mind and analyzing their delivery. 
Last night, Alex and I went to watch Obama’s speech with a group of friends who were all charged up and ready to go out and work for him. Dawn, a young woman who’d attended the first few days of the convention, had brought hats and placards, and the flags we frequently waved to signal our approval of some speaker’s point, were provided by the host, Loretta, along with all-American Chinese food and ice cream sandwiches for sustenance.
That afternoon, a wave of sadness had washed over me unexpectedly. Yep, I thought I’d gotten over the fact that the Democratic nominee wouldn’t be a woman, and that not even the vice presidential candidate would be a woman. For so long, I thought sure….
Read MoreNO WAY, NO HOW, NO McCAIN: HILLARY, THE DESIGNATED ADULT
Her orange pantsuit might be a Glamour magazine “don’t”, but like every word Hillary spoke last night during her moment at the Democratic National Convention, it was so right, so Hillary.
Her once-ridiculed pantsuit is part of the Hillary brand now, like Barry Goldwater’s thick-rimmed black glasses, Winston Churchill’s smelly cigars, Joe Biden’s train tickets.
Standing sharp against the cobalt blue DNC backdrop in the organgest pantsuit I ever saw, Clinton paid tribute to her “sisterhood of the traveling pantsuits”. It was a moment of feminist humor and a nod to the fact that she was today truly, completely, and finally ceding the Democratic nomination to her former chief rival, Barack Obama.
Read MoreIN WOMEN’S EQUALITY DAY SPEECH, HILLARY WILL LOOK WITH LONG EYES
All eyes will be on Hillary Clinton when she speaks tonight at the Democratic National Convention.
Media pundits and McCain loyalists will be parsing her every word, scrutinizing her every nuance, analyzing every element of her body language for quite a different reason. They love a political food fight. They’ll pounce on any whiff of tepidness, real or imagined, in her support for Barack Obama’s presidential candidacy. The Republicans have even set up a “Happy Hour for Hillary”, lying in wait to whip up animosity toward Obama, whether their spin is real, or if all else fails, conjured up by their Rovian attack dogs.
But while talking heads will strain to see any shred of conflict between the Democratic nominee-to-be and the second-runner, some of us will be looking at the occasion with what the Tohono O’Odham people call “long eyes”.
Read More“Omaba Caint” Post Sure Could Get Blog Buzz Going
Seems like my last post, “Obama Caint Choose Kaine”, riled some folks up.
Erin Kotecki Vest, who blogs at BlogHer and Queen of Spain, got on my case with several arguments worthy of response. I have great respect for Erin, and am pleased for this excuse to congratulate her in public on becoming BlogHer’s Producer of Special Projects (high five here!).
However, I learned from hard knocks on the political frontlines that her argument on behalf of Gov. Kaine is self-defeating. Sadly, it also demonstrates how we can make it so incredibly hard to hold politicians’ feet to the fire about reproductive rights, health, and justice, and how women are often entirely too well behaved to make history turn out the way we want it.
True, the issues of birth control, sex education, reproductive rights, and abortion have been so polarized by the media’s false balance (someone else used that phrase on HuffPo last week, but I made it up when I wrote The War on Choice) that both the facts and the framing get skewed in public discourse. That’s frustrating to be sure. But, the deal is, whoever defines the terms of the debate is probably going to win it. And you can’t ever win at all if you don’t stay in the game.
If you haven’t already, please read “Obama Caint Chose Kaine” for my key points about Obama’s veep pick, which I won’t reiterate here. Here’s an excerpt of Erin’s reaction:
We could go through and talk about Kaine’s repeated his position supporting Roe and what he’s done as Governor…however, let’s just put all that aside too.
Let’s deal with the realities of this country. The reality of government. The reality of America in 2008.
Read MoreObama Caint Choose Kaine
In Texas where I come from, “caint” is a perfectly good word. If it’s not already in the dictionary, it should be.
Definition: what someone must not do, as in “Barack Obama caint choose Virginia’s anti-choice Gov. Tim Kaine as his running mate.”
Think about it. If Obama had won vastly more popular votes than Clinton, he might have more leeway in his vice presidential choice while still hoping to keep progressive women who form the core of Clinton supporters. But he didn’t. Clinton and Obama were nearly even in the aggregate primary votes.
Why Hillary Will Lead More Women To Partake in Politics
Like Kristen said in her post at Girl With Pen, “Now That The Dust Has Settled (Sort Of)”, Hillary Clinton’s candidacy for president is still fascinating to ponder. I was recently asked to write an article on the topic for the ILF Digest, the journal of a think tank I’ve been a fellow of (I find this terminology amusing, but have never come up with an acceptable alternative—can you?) for some years. It won’t be published for a few weeks but I’d like to share an excerpt here because takes up where Kristen’s questions were leading:
Despite many problems with sexism in the culture and media that made themselves self-evident during Hillary Clinton’s campaign, there are even more reasons to be optimistic that Clinton’s presidential run will be a net plus in motivating women to enter politics. I predict a sea change in women’s participation in politics up and down the ticket and in non-elective political roles as well, for these reasons:
Read MoreSATURDAY EVENING REPLIES TO YOUR COMMENTS
As my daddy used to say, “That’s what makes horse races.”
The many and multi-textured responses with varied opinions I received to my comments in the AP story last week which I link to in “Saturday Morning Coffee Questions on Women and Voting Power” below came via e-mail rather than on this site and warrant a post of their own. (Note to readers—I always love to hear from you, but I would appreciate your posting comments here on Heartfelt so other readers can have the benefit of them too.) Excerpts from two e-mails that especially touched me are below; I’ll introduce each one and share my reactions.
First from Lakeisha, whose depth of feeling about Obama’s candidacy is so compelling, it brought me to tears:
Read MoreShould Hillary Quit? Definitely Not.
So my Los Angeles liberal friend called while I was on the treadmill this morning. She helped me get an especially good workout today. In fact, I got so worked up I was panting.
LALF: What about your girlfriend?
(I didn’t have to ask her who she meant.)
Me: It’s highly unlikely she’ll prevail at this point, but she ought to stay in the race through the rest of the primaries. Let the process run its course. Then the winner can win with honor and the loser can lose with honor and they can join hands with dignity to go defeat John McCain in November. I hope on the same ticket, but even if not, they’ll work together.
LALF: But that’s not what people are saying out here. They’re all screaming for Hillary to quit.
Me: They wouldn’t stop a football game in the last quarter just because their team was winning. Why would they want to stop the presidential primary before the last states have voted?
Read More