Folks:
My mother has a keen eye for feminist wisdom in the
mainstream press and found this thoughtful op-ed by Susan Faludi in which I
think the list may also be interested. My mother’s take is one that many
feminists have: “I think women are also demeaned when men demean other
men for being like us.”
It will be interesting to see if this more tacit sexism is
also documented/noted by the Women’s Media Project and mainstream sources
such as The Daily Show which have put together montages of sexist comments
about Hillary Clinton. Tacit sexism (“He throws like a girl”) tends
to be more socially acceptable even than the blatant sexism (“Iron my
shirt”), and attempts to point it out thus less effective with those who
were appalled by Sen. Clinton’s treatment in the media. We shall see.
Best,
Alison Reiheld
June 15, 2008
Op-Ed Contributor
The New York Times
By SUSAN FALUDI
San
Francisco
FOR
months, our political punditry foresaw one, and only one, prospective gender
contest looming in the general election: between the first serious female
presidential candidate and the Republican male “warrior.” But those
who were dreading a plebiscite on sexual politics shouldn’t celebrate
just yet. Hillary Clinton may be out of the race, but a Barack Obama versus
John McCain match-up still has the makings of an epic American gender showdown.
The
reason is a gender ethic that has guided American politics since the age of
Andrew Jackson. The sentiment was succinctly expressed in a massive marble
statue that stood on the steps of the United States Capitol from 1853 to 1958.
Named “The Rescue,” but more commonly known as “Daniel Boone
Protects His Family,” the monument featured a gigantic white pioneer in a
buckskin coat holding a nearly naked Indian in a death’s grip, while off
to the side a frail white woman crouched over her infant.
The
question asked by this American Sphinx to all who dared enter the halls of
leadership was, “Are you man enough?” This year, Senator Obama has
notably refused to give the traditional answer.
The
particulars of that masculine myth were established early in American politics.
While the war hero-turned-statesman is a trope common to many countries in many
eras, it has a particular quality and urgency here, based on our earliest
history, when two centuries of Indian wars brought repeated raids on frontier settlements
and humiliating failures on the part of the young nation’s
“protectors” to fend off those attacks or rescue captives. The
architects of American culture papered over this shaming history by concocting
what would become our prevailing national security fantasy — personified
by the ever-vigilant white frontiersman who, by triumphing over the rapacious
“savage” and rescuing the American maiden from his clutches,
redeemed American manhood.
Aspirants
to the White House have long known they must audition for the Boone role in the
“Rescue” tableau. Those who have pulled off a persuasive
performance, from Jackson to Teddy Roosevelt to Dwight Eisenhower to John F.
Kennedy, have proved victorious at the ballot box. Even candidates lacking in martial
bona fides have understood the need to try to fake it with the appropriate
accessories — riding high in the saddle (Ronald Reagan), commanding tanks
(Michael Dukakis), wielding shotguns (John Kerry) or brandishing chainsaws and
donning flight suits (you know who).
Senator
McCain may fit the model better than anyone. After all, he actually starred in
a real-life captivity narrative, having withstood five and a half years of
imprisonment by non-white tormentors, declining special treatment and coming
home a hero. “I have seen men’s hopes tested in hard and cruel ways
that few will ever experience,” he declared from the hustings. A
12-minute video on his Web site dwells on how his faith in the
“fathers” and his will “to fight to survive” got the
young Navy pilot through Vietcong bayonetings, bone smashings and bondage.
The
story’s appeal is evident in the flood of news media adulation. The
worshipful tone of the last Newsweek cover article on Mr. McCain is typical.
The subtitle: “He’s Endured the Unendurable and Survived.” As
the liberal television watchdog group Media Matters for America has noted, the
press is most reverent about the candidate’s humble refusal to trumpet
his captivity — even as his campaign advertises it freely.
Although
Senator McCain didn’t rescue any helpless maidens, he outdid even Daniel
Boone in averting emasculating domination. Boone was a captive for only a few
months, and was widely suspected by his contemporaries of having enjoyed his
time with the Shawnees rather too much (he was adopted by the Shawnee chief and
evidently passed up several opportunities for escape).
Senator
Obama, for his part, will not be cast as the avenging hero in “The
Rescue” any time soon — and not because of the color of his skin or
his lack of military experience. He doesn’t seem to want the role. You
don’t see him crouching in a duck blind or posing in camouflage duds or
engaging in anything more gladiatorial than a game of pick-up basketball. If
Mr. Obama’s candidacy seeks to move beyond race, it also moves beyond
gender. A 20-minute campaign Web documentary showcased a President Obama who
would exude “a real sensitivity” and “empathy” and
provide a world safe for the American mother’s son. Mr. Obama is
surrounded in the video by pacifist — not security — moms.
If
Mr. Obama’s campaign has fashioned any master narrative, it’s that
of the young man in the bower of a matriarchy — raised by a
“strong” mother, bolstered by a “strong” sister,
married to a “strong” wife and proud of his “strong”
daughters. (Bill Clinton had a similar story, although his handlers highlighted
his efforts to save his mother from domestic violence.)
“In
many ways, he really will be the first woman president,” Megan Beyer of
Virginia, a charter member of Women for Obama, told reporters. An op-ed essay
in The New York Post headlined “Bam: Our 1st Woman Prez?” came to a
similar conclusion, if a tad more snidely: “Those shots of Barack and
Michelle sitting with Oprah on stools had the feel of a smart, all-women talk
panel.”
Hillary
Clinton’s candidacy showed that a woman, too, can play the tough-guy
protector. But Mr. Obama takes the iconoclasm a step further — by
suggesting that martial swagger isn’t what America needs anymore.
In
the campaign ahead, expect a fierce Republican effort to reinstate the
nation’s guardian myth — by demonstrating how the other
party’s candidate fails to fit the formula. Had Mrs. Clinton been the
candidate, she would no doubt have faced more attacks for being too mannishly
abrasive or, conversely, too emotional to play the manly role. But Mr. Obama
should expect similar damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t gender
assaults. He will be cast either as the epicene metrosexual who can’t
protect the country or else as the modern heathen with a suspicious middle
name.
The
attacks are already under way, as is evident if one enters the words
“Obama” and “effeminate” into a search engine. The
effeminacy canard lurks in Mike Huckabee’s imaginings of Mr. Obama
tripping off a chair and diving for the floor when confronted by a gunman, and
in the words of Tucker Bounds, Mr. McCain’s campaign spokesman, who
depicted Mr. Obama as “hysterical.”
News
media blatherers and bloggers are taking up the theme. On MSNBC, Tucker Carlson
called Mr. Obama “kind of a wuss”; Joe Scarborough, the morning TV
talk show host, dubbed Mr. Obama’s bowling style “prissy” and
declared, “Americans want their president, if it’s a man, to be a
real man”; and Don Imus, the radio host, never one to be outdone in the
sexual slur department, dubbed Mr. Obama a “sissy boy.”
Will
such attacks succeed? The wild card in the campaign drama to come is 9/11,
which for a while kicked us into Daniel Boone overdrive. But in recent years,
the dangers and costs of that prolonged delusion have become painfully
apparent. In the primaries, a substantial portion of Democratic voters turned
away from the dictates of “The Rescue.” In choosing between Mr.
Obama and Mr. McCain in the general election, Americans will pass a referendum
on 200 years of bedrock gender mythology.
Susan
Faludi is the author of “Backlash,” “Stiffed” and
“The Terror Dream: Fear and Fantasy in Post-9/11 America.”
Copyright 2008
The New York
Times Company