American politics: it's nothing but a game of cards

Craig Barritt via Getty Images 

 Gloria Steinem at the May 4 premiere of Viceland’s “WOMAN.” 

Photo via the Huffington Post.

Card playing in American politics is a big deal. Standing up against racism means you're playing the race card. If you support Muslims, you gotta be playing the religion card. And lately you're either playing the man card or the woman card. Who else but Donald Trump would come up with the woman card in his feeble attempt to put Hillary Clinton in her place. The Donald should have known better, but then he repeatedly demonstrates that he's not very bright; whereas, Hillary is known for her intelligence, knowledge, experience, and grasp of the important issues in the political arena. She's also a sharp card player. "Deal me in," she chided Trump, reminding him of the strong positions she's taken in support of sisterhood, which Robin Morgan continuously reminds us is a powerful force to be reckoned with. Yes, indeed, Donald:  Sisterhood is powerful!

Since attacking Hillary the other day, Donald Trump has been introduced to the powerful sisterhood of Hillary and Gloria Steinem - Steinem didn't miss a beat in suggesting that Donald plays a number of cards, including the masculinity and testosterone cards - she backed off that one as she recalled that both genders have testosterone - I didn't know that until I read this article by Emma Gray,  Huffpo's executive women's editor:

Gloria Steinem has strong feelings about Donald Trump, and unsurprisingly, they’re not glowing.
During the Wednesday night premiere of her powerful new docu-series for Viceland, “WOMAN,” Steinem did not mince words about Trump’s misogyny. The feminist icon responded to the presumptive GOP presidential nominee’s assertion that Hillary Clinton plays the “woman card.”

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A powerful duo on behalf of women: Gloria Steinem and Hillary Clinton

Steinem with Hillary Clinton at a Girls Learn International event in 2006. Photograph: Jemal Countess/WireImage for Glamour Magazine via the Guardian.

I'm up early two days before having guests for dinner on Christmas Eve and browsing the Web this morning brought me this treasure: an excerpt from Gloria Steinem's book, On The Road, in which she reflects on another outstanding female leader in "Why the White House needs Hillary Clinton:"

I know Hillary Clinton mostly in the way we all do, as a public figure in good times and bad, one who became part of our lives and even our dreams. I once introduced her to a thousand women in a hotel ballroom. Standing behind her as she spoke, I could see the binder on the lectern with her speech carefully laid out – and also that she wasn’t reading from it. Instead, she was responding to people who had spoken before her, addressing activists and leaders she saw in the audience, and putting their work in a national and global context – all in such clear and graceful sentences that no one would have guessed she hadn’t written them in advance. It was an on-the-spot tour de force, perhaps the best I’ve ever heard.

But what clinched it for me was listening to her speak after a performance of Eve Ensler’s play Necessary Targets, based on interviews with women in one of the camps set up to treat women who had endured unspeakable suffering, humiliation, and torture in the ethnic wars within the former Yugoslavia. To speak to an audience that had just heard these heartbreaking horrors seemed impossible for anyone, and Hillary had the added burden of representing the Clinton administration, which had been criticised for slowness in stopping this genocide. Nonetheless, she rose in the silence, with no possibility of preparing, and began to speak quietly – about suffering, about the importance of serving as witnesses to suffering. Most crucial of all, she admitted this country’s slowness in intervening. By the time she sat down, she had brought the audience together and given us all a shared meeting place: the simple truth.

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And another woman learns to speak up!

Cornell Library, Cornell U., Ithaca, NY.

The title of Jordana Gilman's recent post at the New Agenda grabbed my attention: But first it will piss you off. Yeah, she was quoting feminist icon Gloria Steinem: “The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.”

Indeed. And would you believe the truth in question is discovered at the much esteemed Cornell Univesity? But Gilman is not content to just discover the truth; she takes action to right matters:

In an instant, I opened my eyes to the gender inequality in portraits that adorned the walls of my alma mater, Cornell University. I was studying in the nutrition building this past Fall when I glanced up and noticed the faces of three white men in suits watching over me from where their portraits hung. This is despite the fact that Cornell granted the first Ph.D. in nutrition to an African-American woman (Flemmie Kittrell in 1936) and that the female undergraduates of the Nutritional Sciences department outnumber the males 495:190 (from the department administration as of April 2014).

Upon noticing this imbalance in one building, I started noticing the same imbalance in other buildings. Portraits of men hung everywhere, and the rare female portrait was most often a famous man’s mother or wife. Again, this is despite the fact that Cornell University has been admitting women since 1870 and boasts some of the most notable alumnae in a variety of fields. These portraits and the names of the buildings that housed them were sending us clear messages about who is important and valued, and it went something along the lines of wealthy, male, and white. If I asked the average Cornellian today to list some famous alumni, they could easily rattle off the names of the libraries, auditoriums, administrative and academic buildings. They would be naming men. But they would be forgetting Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Frances Perkins, Janet Reno, Pearl Buck, Barbara McClintock, and hundreds of other impressive women of Cornell.

I couldn’t think of a good reason for this besides that portraits reflected who had the money and the power, and I couldn’t think of a good reason for who had the money and the power besides that it was the way it’s always been in our patriarchal society. This seemed less than satisfactory to me.

It’s like Gloria Steinem said, “The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.”

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On behalf of feminist leader Gloria Steinem

Photo courtesy of bio.com.

I met Gloria Steinem the first time at a Planned Parenthood meeting in Rochester, Minn. where Gloria was the featured speaker. I was privileged to shake her hand afterward. When I marched in Chicago in support of the ERA, Gloria and several other feminist leaders led thousands of us through Grant Park. Several years later, I attended her book signing event in the Twin Cities. I am so grateful to Gloria for all she has done on behalf of women around the world.

Gloria is 80 years old now, and I thank Upworthy for providing this video.   

PBS film honors women who led the march for equal rights

Courtesy of PBS.org.

Yep. I met several of "the Makers" in person on Mother's Day, 1980, when I marched in Chicago in support of the Equal Rights Amendment, which, by the way, still has not been passed. Leading the march that day in Grant Park were Marlo Thomas, Gloria Steinem, Jean Stapleton, and several other major contributors to the "second wave of the women's movement."

So for sure I'll be following Marlo's advice to watch the PBS film this evening (7 p.m.- 10 p.m.) "Makers: Women who make America."

Here's Marlo:

Billie Jean King. Condoleezza Rice. Ellen DeGeneres. Hillary Clinton. Barbara Walters. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg. 

We see their names and instantly picture their faces. We know their achievements and have grown to admire them. We think of them as "doers."

But they're more than that, actually. They are "Makers" -- those who, early in their careers, had the determination and intuition to survey the cultural landscape and recognize not only what was there, but what wasn't. And then they helped provide that missing piece.

This evening (7:00 to 10:00 PM), PBS will premiere "MAKERS: Women Who Make America," a television special that tells the compelling saga of the American women who led the march to equality over the past half-century. It is inspiring to watch their stories on the special -- and on the Makers website -- and discover how their wildly different trajectories would eventually converge in the crucible of the women's movement -- whether they were reporting from a battlefield overseas, like Christiane Amanpour, or waging a different kind of war here on the home front, like Gloria Steinem.

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Marlo Thomas on her friendship with Gloria Steinem

I’ve got a busy day ahead of me with a freelance writing assignment among other things, and I hadn’t planned to post this morning, but when I saw this tribute by Marlo Thomas to Gloria Steinem, who will be featured this evening in the HBO documentary, Gloria, in her own words, I couldn’t resist.

Incidentally, I saw Gloria and Marlo in person in Chicago in 1980 when I joined thousands of other women to march in Grant Park in support of the Equal Rights Amendment.

Marlo writes:

In the forty years I've known Gloria Steinem, we have been confidantes, soul mates and sisters. And only once can I remember feeling any worry about our friendship. I had fallen in love with a white-haired Irishman, and had decided to marry the guy. This was not going to be easy to break to my soul mate.

Until that moment, Gloria and I had always been philosophically synced. We were two unmarried women who were obviously not man-haters, which is how many people at the time tried to portray feminists. We were women who had loving relationships with men, and shared a passion about women's freedom -- and the concept of marriage just never fit in the equation for either of us.

In fact, both of us would often get mail from women who'd write, "I refer to you whenever my mother nags me about settling down. I say to her, 'Well, Gloria Steinem and Marlo Thomas aren't married, and they're not crazy!'"

But in 1977, I met Phil, and the idea of marriage surprisingly seemed possible for me.

But there was still Gloria -- and that had me worried. So the night before my wedding, I wrote her a long letter, pouring out my feelings, and assuring her that walking down the aisle would never mean walking away from all we believed in. 

"This will be the greatest test of our sisterhood," I wrote. "We've always been a support for each other on this issue, and I hope now you won't feel abandoned by me."

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Misogyny in America Encourages the Abuse of Women in Other Cultures

There was a lot of rehashing of the Democratic primary and the general election campaign in the final weeks of 2008. In the process, even Howard Dean publicly acknowledged the sexism endured by Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin.

Reading Nicholas Kristof’s painful op-ed in the New York Times this new year’s morning on the brutal exploitation of teenage girls in Cambodia reminded me that Kristof – well known for his reports on the abuse of females in other cultures – joined his so-called liberal colleagues in the media in their concerted attempt to force Hillary Clinton to drop out of the race.

Gloria Steinem among others has since reminded us that no male candidate has ever been told to drop out.

In the meantime Obama named Clinton as secretary of state in his administration. That distinction did not inhibit Jon Favreau, the head of Obama’s speechwriting team, from joining a drunken male friend to sexually molest a cardboard cutout of Clinton.

Needless to say Favreau has not been fired for his adventure in hate speech; we hear the young man is busy working on Obama’s inaugural address.

It’s long been my contention that the repeated evidence of misogyny in America - reported worldwide - gives permission to other cultures to continue horrific treatment of girls and women.

We’re reminded of the 13-year-old Somali girl who was brutally raped by three men while on her way to visit her grandmother. The child went to the authorities for help and was charged with adultery. She was then publicly stoned to death.

To my knowledge Sen. Hillary Clinton was the only American official to write a letter to the United Nations on behalf of this child.

This morning, Kristof’s column is yet another on the abuse of girls and women in poor countries; this time he tells the story of Sina Vann, a teenager in Cambodia brutally forced into prostitution.

Among the ugly details:

“Sina is Vietnamese but was kidnapped at the age of 13 and taken to Cambodia, where she was drugged. She said she woke up naked and bloody on a bed with a white man — she doesn’t know his nationality — who had purchased her virginity.”

I’m left wondering if Kristof will ever take responsibility for his role -along with his sexist colleagues in the media - in the world’s continued ill treatment of girls and women.

I doubt it.

SOS Hillary Clinton: a Natural on the Global Stage

Photo credits: Courtesy of the NY Times

Barack Obama has described himself as a Rorschach test in whom people see what they want to see. And in today’s NY Times, Jodi Kantor offers a somewhat similar metaphor for Hillary Clinton, Obama’s one-time opponent expected soon to become secretary of state in his administration.

Kantor writes:

“Hillary Rodham Clinton, a first lady turned senator turned almost-president, is now transforming herself again, this time into the nation’s top diplomat. But she is also back to a role she cannot seem to shake: a canvas for women’s highest hopes and deepest fears about the workplace."

Kantor quotes several Clinton friends and associates, including feminist icon Gloria Steinem and long-time supporter and friend Susie Tompkins Buell to illustrate her point. Some of those cited expect great things of Hillary as SOS, and others regret her decision to take a position in which – as the saying goes - she will serve at the president’s pleasure.

‘“On the positive side, Tomkins Buell said: ‘And in terms of sheer impact, the imprint she leaves on the world and on history, the State Department would offer a more global platform than the Senate. ‘I always come back to what Hillary wants, which is to do the most important work she can do, the biggest work.’"

Kantor reports that Marie C. Wilson, president of the White House Project, a women’s leadership organization, said she would like to have seen Mrs. Clinton as Senate majority leader, a situation she now knows will never happen.

And Kantor can’t resist pointing out:

“The fledgling Obama administration is a mostly male club, with figures like Rahm Emanuel, Eric H. Holder Jr. and Timothy F. Geithner filling or expected to fill top positions, and in recent days, some speculated that Mrs. Clinton was selected, at least in some small part, because she was a woman.”

Considering the rampant sexism in the 2008 race, Ms. Kantor, we could also say that Barack Obama was elected to the presidency, at least in some small part, because he was a man. In the Democratic primary, Obama most certainly did benefit from the trashing of Hillary Clinton and in the general election, he benefited from similar treatment of Sarah Palin.

Christine C. Quinn, the first female speaker of the New York City Council and a longtime political friend of Ms. Clinton summed up well all of the conjecture about Clinton’s appointment to the secretary of state position:

'“If she was a guy going to work for a guy, nobody would ask if it was a diminution of her voice.”

'“Our country has been shunned by our allies, been rejected off of the world stage,' she continued. 'The president, who has a job that you have the deepest respect for, says ‘You are our gal, put our country back on the world stage.’ Unless you are blind with ambition, how can you walk away from it? It’s a calling too great for somebody who has a deep sense of patriotism and duty.”

As outraged as I’ve been since the Democratic primary, I’m becoming convinced that with Hillary Clinton’s record on human rights and other issues of international concern, she was destined all along for a global stage; the oval office would have been too confining for her.

You go, Hillary!

How Does Trashing Sarah Palin Advance the Feminist Agenda?

I gave up trying to calmly discuss Sarah Palin with liberal friends and relatives some time ago. Their outraged pre-judgment of the governor of Alaska would not allow them to hear a different perspective. Come to think of it I had a similar experience with many of my acquaintances back during the Democratic primary whenever Hillary Clinton’s name was mentioned.

In the final weeks of this depressing presidential campaign, I’ve perfected a standard response to derogatory comments about Palin: “I may disagree with her on the issues, but I will stand with her against sexist attacks.”

Whenever it has seemed appropriate, I've added to the above, “I’m a Unitarian-Universalist, and we believe in the inherent worth and dignity of every person, even pro-life Republican women.”

In that context it was comforting to read Artemis March’s post at the New Agenda the other day that describes the bizarre behavior of so-called feminists in their disdainful treatment of Palin.

March writes:

“Feminist eruptions about Sarah Palin have been stunning. Eve Ensler went ballistic. NOW endorsed an all-male ticket and disavowed Palin. Gloria Steinem contradicted her January op-ed argument. Naomi Wolf spun off into a paranoid fantasy. Feminists urgently circulated petitions full of false claims about Palin. When I sent friends information and links correcting these claims—shouldn’t that reduce fear and allow a saner conversation?—two who wrote back were outraged. Friends who normally speak in dulcet tones were suddenly pitched an octave and decibels higher, unable to converse in the normal rhythm of give and take.

“I began asking myself, what is going on with feminists as they rationalize lining up with their misogynist Party/candidate while engaging with this new rorschach named Sarah Palin? How is it that feminists—the Americans most caricatured, distorted, misunderstood, and demonized by the Right and by the Left—are themselves caricaturing, misrepresenting, and demonizing a woman whose policies and beliefs offend them? Is it too much to ask that they at least get their facts straight, and not push rumors and unexamined claims as if they were gospel? How is it that Hillary supporters who have aligned with the DNC’s selectee are exhibiting some of the behaviors they formerly excoriated in Obama devotees (e.g., self-righteous judgmentalism, and the rejection, denial, or trivializing of information unfavorable to their guy)? Is it just too uncomfortable for them to bear the cognitive dissonance entailed by their second choice?

“As to those pesky facts: Palin favors contraception. Despite Ms. Gandy’s claim that NOW would not endorse Palin because of her anti-abortion position, as governor and mayor, she never attempted to promote legislation that would weaken or alter abortion laws. Palin tripled (not cut) special needs funding, did not try to ban library books, and has not pushed creationism in schools, only opined that students be allowed to discuss it along with evolutionary theory. Contrary to Charlie Gibson’s inquisition and ABC’s egregious, libelous cropping and editing of not only his interview with Palin but also of the video clip he referenced, she does not see the Iraq war as a mission from God. She asked Alaskans to pray that what our troops, our leaders, and our country are doing there is part of God’s plan. Or, as Lincoln said, to pray that we are on God’s side. Many of our past presidents have expressed similar sentiments, and the world didn’t end.

“Exactly how does trashing Sarah Palin—a savvy, self-made woman with whom so many non-elite Americans can identify—advance the feminist agenda? And how far has that agenda advanced these last 40 years? Sexism is still overwhelmingly invisible, misogyny (literally, hatred of women) does not constitute a hate crime, feminists are ridiculed rather than honored, and gender asymmetry is not even on the table. This appalling state of affairs testifies to the depth and comprehensiveness of patriarchy as well as to the limitations of extant feminist strategies.”

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Gloria Steinem’s Critique of the Impact of Sexism in the Democratic Primary

Gloria Steinem’s critique of the sexism endured by Hillary Clinton throughout the Democratic primary and the misogyny in American culture at large is impossible to refute; I’ll continue to pass, however, on throwing my support to Barack Obama. Watch Steinem’s interview on CNN here.

The Lingering Question: “Why Is The Sex Barrier Not Taken As Seriously As The Racial One?”

As one of Hillary Clinton’s supporters, I received her email this morning with the subject line, “I want you to know” in which she announced her plans this Saturday to formally withdraw from the race and endorse Barack Obama as the winner of the Democratic primary.

It’s been a privilege to support the first viable female candidate for the presidency who by most counts won the popular vote. But at the same time, I’ve experienced a growing sense of shame as a member of a political party that has not only passively tolerated the misogyny in its ranks, but has joined forces with the good old boys’ network in the media to propel Barack Obama to the finish line.

Hillary’s email reminded me of Gloria Steinem’s op-ed in the NY Times last January titled Women Are Never Front-runners in which the feminist icon asks, “Why is the sex barrier not taken as seriously as the racial one?”

Because Steinem’s words hit home even more powerfully today, I’ve copied them below:

THE woman in question became a lawyer after some years as a community organizer, married a corporate lawyer and is the mother of two little girls, ages 9 and 6. Herself the daughter of a white American mother and a black African father — in this race-conscious country, she is considered black — she served as a state legislator for eight years, and became an inspirational voice for national unity.

Be honest: Do you think this is the biography of someone who could be elected to the United States Senate? After less than one term there, do you believe she could be a viable candidate to head the most powerful nation on earth?

If you answered no to either question, you’re not alone. Gender is probably the most restricting force in American life, whether the question is who must be in the kitchen or who could be in the White House. This country is way down the list of countries electing women and, according to one study, it polarizes gender roles more than the average democracy.

That’s why the Iowa primary was following our historical pattern of making change. Black men were given the vote a half-century before women of any race were allowed to mark a ballot, and generally have ascended to positions of power, from the military to the boardroom, before any women (with the possible exception of obedient family members in the latter).

If the lawyer described above had been just as charismatic but named, say, Achola Obama instead of Barack Obama, her goose would have been cooked long ago. Indeed, neither she nor Hillary Clinton could have used Mr. Obama’s public style — or Bill Clinton’s either — without being considered too emotional by Washington pundits.

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.

I’m not advocating a competition for who has it toughest. The caste systems of sex and race are interdependent and can only be uprooted together. That’s why Senators Clinton and Obama have to be careful not to let a healthy debate turn into the kind of hostility that the news media love. Both will need a coalition of outsiders to win a general election. The abolition and suffrage movements progressed when united and were damaged by division; we should remember that.

I’m supporting Senator Clinton because like Senator Obama she has community organizing experience, but she also has more years in the Senate, an unprecedented eight years of on-the-job training in the White House, no masculinity to prove, the potential to tap a huge reservoir of this country’s talent by her example, and now even the courage to break the no-tears rule. I’m not opposing Mr. Obama; if he’s the nominee, I’ll volunteer. Indeed, if you look at votes during their two-year overlap in the Senate, they were the same more than 90 percent of the time. Besides, to clean up the mess left by President Bush, we may need two terms of President Clinton and two of President Obama.

But what worries me is that he is seen as unifying by his race while she is seen as divisive by her sex.

What worries me is that she is accused of “playing the gender card” when citing the old boys’ club, while he is seen as unifying by citing civil rights confrontations.

What worries me is that male Iowa voters were seen as gender-free when supporting their own, while female voters were seen as biased if they did and disloyal if they didn’t.

What worries me is that reporters ignore Mr. Obama’s dependence on the old — for instance, the frequent campaign comparisons to John F. Kennedy — while not challenging the slander that her progressive policies are part of the Washington status quo.

What worries me is that some women, perhaps especially younger ones, hope to deny or escape the sexual caste system; thus Iowa women over 50 and 60, who disproportionately supported Senator Clinton, proved once again that women are the one group that grows more radical with age.

This country can no longer afford to choose our leaders from a talent pool limited by sex, race, money, powerful fathers and paper degrees. It’s time to take equal pride in breaking all the barriers. We have to be able to say: “I’m supporting her because she’ll be a great president and because she’s a woman.”

Gloria Steinem is a co-founder of the Women’s Media Center.