After some comfort remedies of panang curry and strawberry Haagen Dazs last night, I bravely flipped back over to CNN at 10 and saw the happy almost-sweep Hillary made of Texas, Ohio and Rhode Island.
This grrrrrl starts YELLIN' at the television set----so happy, so happy, so happy. Hillary looked so happy delivering her speech, and as much as the pundits like to slam her for tearing up, she seemed truly humbled at the very very end of her speech. Her voice caught, that her supporters surged like almost a force of nature to keep her from going down in flames last night. Believe me, this woman may be a seasoned politician, but she was moved and understands that she can't do this all by her self-sufficient self. But I've been a fan for almost 20 years, she and I are both feminists of the second wave who don't apologize for it, and now in our middle age, girls grow up being able to almost take it for granted that they can run for office and not just be the "coffee girl".
This is a huge stride, just as huge as the civil rights stride that makes Barack Obama the other "this is so cool right now!!" candidate. My friend's 13 year old actually asked her mom to tell her about the 60's so she could understand better all the references to it culturally and politically, and she was truly astounded at what the status quo had been. These are the moments that humble me. 'Cause I was a little kid then and remember the snarling white faces live on black and white TV, and heard people say out loud the most horrible things when Martin Luther King was killed, and saw my friends' moms ostracized and belittled for going to work and being one of those "god-damned women's libbers". I used to tell my parents that I was born a liberated woman, and it pissed them off. But it's true, and makes me want to holler at my television today when I see these bitter nasty pseudo-preachers slam Hillary Clinton because they are still feeling insulted that she "didn't stay home and bake cookies" but became an attorney and worked on the Watergate hearings--didn't know her place was in the home and to stay there. And shut up.
That's why I want to see her as Madame President. Like Benazir Bhutto, or Chancellor Angela Merkel, even Thatcher or Meir or Indira Gandhi, it's not like Hillary would be the first and only one ever. Because I know she can do it. No one could have a better kitchen cabinet than hers. And that's not a lame joke, FDR had one, too.
I'm not anti-Obama. If it were he and anyone else running, that sticker on my car would say "Obama '08". It could yet, who can say today who clinches the nomination? The two people I was watching CNN with last night both said they wished Michelle Obama was running instead of her husband. That too may come to pass. She's a high-power attorney. She doesn't stay home and bake cookies all day. That is how far we've all come (thank god) in the last 40 years, that we can know that and it is not an attempt at humor. It is where we are today.
So so happy about that.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
NOT Waiting to Exhale
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2 comments:
Yes. I was conversing with a young woman the other day who casually said, "I'm not a feminist." I felt like shaking her.
"You're in grad school and you're looking to become a professor, and you're not a feminist? Well, you sure as hell better be glad that someone else was, or otherwise you would never even have attended college, let alone aspire to teach at one."
I didn't say that, though I said a few much milder things. I still don't have the faintest idea what "feminist" means to her, that she should repudiate it. I suppose it's really evidence of how far we've come -- the idea that women should be able to be part of higher education is no longer a feminist idea, it's just the way it is.
thanks for reading---
I know, "feminist" used to mean "man-hater" or "emasculator" or "too unattractive to be having sex anyway" along those lines---and which young woman wants to tag all that onto her identity? But the term will be redefined or reinvented to another word, and these young women will get to have it be whatever they want it to be. That in itself keeps me optimitstic.
Laura
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