As I noted the other day, women as a political and economic democraphic are coming into their own. Suddenly, everybody is paying attention to how they are lining up in the polls. If there is nothing else to come out of this election, it is that the new look of politics, from a minority presidential candidate to a hard fought primary with a female candidate and now a female VP, interest in our nation's political process has taken a whole new leap forward. It has likely set a very high bar for future elections.
There is, sadly, still some very ugly aspects of this election and we probably "ain't seen nothing, yet." In reality, that's been the nature of our politics since the second election when cartoonists started caricaturing Washington, Adams, et al. The question, for over two decades, is whether any woman could stand up to that election cycle scrutiny and bashing while managing an effective campaign.
That has been answered today.
Most people would point to Obama and Palin as the main instigators of that change, but the real transformer was Hillary Clinton. Sound strange? Without Hillary's run in the Democrat primaries, the Democrat establishment would not have went out and fronted a minority man to beat her. Prior to Obama's rise, Hillary was being called "inevitable" as the Democrat nominee. She had the power and the backing. Even to the end, the Democrat machine had to recognize that power in negotiating her withdrawal to getting her to go along with the nomination by proclamation of Obama to avoid the roll call and potential problems that went with it.
Whatever Obama walked away with at the convention he didn't get it because Hillary was in a subordinate position of power. Even now he has asked Hillary to campaign for him, but she is going to do it on her own terms.
Whatever one thinks of Hillary Clinton, heres a simple fact: she fought to the end. And, it was her fight that provided the Republican ticket an opportunity to select their own female candidate as a viable choice with winning potential.
That is not to take anything away from Palin as an obviously successful woman in politics in her own right nor from her obvious credentials as a conservative Republican. It is all three of these things that makes Palin an excellent choice for this election cycle. But, it was Clinton that rejuvinated women's interest in politics. Palin was correct in giving her respect at her first introductory speech even if some saw it as a cynical ploy.
Many men and women in the political punditry have focused solely on that idea and have given Palin's accomplishments short shrift in favor of the "cynical ploy" narrative. Women in particular have been extremely vicious in decrying Palin as the worse thing that could happen to feminism and its causes, most of them because she does not agree with that one feminist mainstay of "reproductive rights". Some because they believe that being "selected" instead of having won any position through the hard work of a primary campaign denigrates women as capable candidates in their own right.
Yet, Palin's history indicates that this is nearly meaningless as a complaint. She has been a self-starting campaigner from the first days of running for city council all the way to governor. Often doing it on a shoe string budget, hauling her children with her and with little support from the main party apparatus. Further, when she ran for governor, it was the Alaska Republican Women who gave her the most support. Which says something about women in the last American frontier and harkens back to the days when women first won the right to vote in Wyoming and the first woman elected to congress was from Montana.
That last, may indeed, be the reason that the largely urban feminist establishment has proverbially lost their collective minds. They have been the foot soldiers in "the fight" for so long, the idea that a total outsider that doesn't check all the feminist agenda boxes has stolen the march has nearly rendered them their own worst enemies. It may be simply that the focus has been so urbanized that these women have forgotten the history of who shattered the first "glass ceilings" and where they were from.
Finally, what these groups have failed to recognize is that women and "feminism" are no longer defined by the issues of 1968. They don't look like, think like or live like those past counterparts. The problems of 1968 feminism do not resonate and many women's organizations founded in those days have failed to recognize that shift, slowly losing membership and recognition among young women today.
What these groups have failed to recognize is that the advent of Hillary Clinton and Sara Palin in this election, no matter what happens in the end, have given women a much greater status in the political landscape. They are no longer broken up into demographics such as "security soccer moms". They are married women with children and careers who have significantantly more economic resources and financial control than any of their predecessors.
The demographic "women voters" has taken on a whole new improtance and women voters are paying much more attention.
The likely outcome of this election, despite overwrought hyperbole about setting women back a million years, is that many more women are likely to volunteer, likely to vote and even more likley to run for political offices in the near future.
These women will likely look like the largest demographics: married, with children and a career.
Count on it.
There is, sadly, still some very ugly aspects of this election and we probably "ain't seen nothing, yet." In reality, that's been the nature of our politics since the second election when cartoonists started caricaturing Washington, Adams, et al. The question, for over two decades, is whether any woman could stand up to that election cycle scrutiny and bashing while managing an effective campaign.
That has been answered today.
Most people would point to Obama and Palin as the main instigators of that change, but the real transformer was Hillary Clinton. Sound strange? Without Hillary's run in the Democrat primaries, the Democrat establishment would not have went out and fronted a minority man to beat her. Prior to Obama's rise, Hillary was being called "inevitable" as the Democrat nominee. She had the power and the backing. Even to the end, the Democrat machine had to recognize that power in negotiating her withdrawal to getting her to go along with the nomination by proclamation of Obama to avoid the roll call and potential problems that went with it.
Whatever Obama walked away with at the convention he didn't get it because Hillary was in a subordinate position of power. Even now he has asked Hillary to campaign for him, but she is going to do it on her own terms.
Whatever one thinks of Hillary Clinton, heres a simple fact: she fought to the end. And, it was her fight that provided the Republican ticket an opportunity to select their own female candidate as a viable choice with winning potential.
That is not to take anything away from Palin as an obviously successful woman in politics in her own right nor from her obvious credentials as a conservative Republican. It is all three of these things that makes Palin an excellent choice for this election cycle. But, it was Clinton that rejuvinated women's interest in politics. Palin was correct in giving her respect at her first introductory speech even if some saw it as a cynical ploy.
Many men and women in the political punditry have focused solely on that idea and have given Palin's accomplishments short shrift in favor of the "cynical ploy" narrative. Women in particular have been extremely vicious in decrying Palin as the worse thing that could happen to feminism and its causes, most of them because she does not agree with that one feminist mainstay of "reproductive rights". Some because they believe that being "selected" instead of having won any position through the hard work of a primary campaign denigrates women as capable candidates in their own right.
Yet, Palin's history indicates that this is nearly meaningless as a complaint. She has been a self-starting campaigner from the first days of running for city council all the way to governor. Often doing it on a shoe string budget, hauling her children with her and with little support from the main party apparatus. Further, when she ran for governor, it was the Alaska Republican Women who gave her the most support. Which says something about women in the last American frontier and harkens back to the days when women first won the right to vote in Wyoming and the first woman elected to congress was from Montana.
That last, may indeed, be the reason that the largely urban feminist establishment has proverbially lost their collective minds. They have been the foot soldiers in "the fight" for so long, the idea that a total outsider that doesn't check all the feminist agenda boxes has stolen the march has nearly rendered them their own worst enemies. It may be simply that the focus has been so urbanized that these women have forgotten the history of who shattered the first "glass ceilings" and where they were from.
Finally, what these groups have failed to recognize is that women and "feminism" are no longer defined by the issues of 1968. They don't look like, think like or live like those past counterparts. The problems of 1968 feminism do not resonate and many women's organizations founded in those days have failed to recognize that shift, slowly losing membership and recognition among young women today.
What these groups have failed to recognize is that the advent of Hillary Clinton and Sara Palin in this election, no matter what happens in the end, have given women a much greater status in the political landscape. They are no longer broken up into demographics such as "security soccer moms". They are married women with children and careers who have significantantly more economic resources and financial control than any of their predecessors.
The demographic "women voters" has taken on a whole new improtance and women voters are paying much more attention.
The likely outcome of this election, despite overwrought hyperbole about setting women back a million years, is that many more women are likely to volunteer, likely to vote and even more likley to run for political offices in the near future.
These women will likely look like the largest demographics: married, with children and a career.
Count on it.
