(no subject)
I thought Obama's acceptance speech was amazing, and while I didn't agree with everything he said (and while I remain hugely disappointed with his choice of Biden, who, beyond being the consummate Beltway insider who believes in nothing more strongly than politics as usual, is impressed that Obama is "clean" and embarrassed by his wife's education), and I spent most of last night and the early morning feeling good about the upcoming election, about just what an incredible candidate we have and just what a positive thing this could be for the country.
Then I got in the car and put on NPR and heard that McCain had named Palin as his VP, and my good mood was instantly shattered. Not because I object to Palin (though I very emphatically do) and not even because I find the McCain's belief that large numbers of feminist Hillary supporters are stupid enough to vote for any ticket that includes a woman, no matter how firmly anti-woman her personal politics are, patronizing and offensive in the extreme. My first thought was, I can't deal with the flood of misogyny this is going to provoke, the huge upswing in claims made in the media and liberal blogosphere that Obama's campaign is going to be irreparably harmed by all the selfish, irrational, horrible females who will vote with their vaginas and singlehandedly destroy the Democratic party, America, and indeed the world as we know it.
I know that's an irrational opinion. Yes, there has been a flood of people saying exactly that since the minute McCain made his announcement, but at this point, it's just another inch of rain in the Mississippi River -- women, feminists, and Hillary Clinton were determined to be a deciding factor likely to lose Obama the election long before today, and that narrative wouldn't change if McCain had chosen Rush Limbaugh as his running mate. But this just brought the whole thing into stark relief yet again, and it's just exhausting and demoralizing and awful.
Women just can't be trusted with something as important as the vote, y'all. They do really stupid things with it.
This isn't a race vs. gender thing. Yeah, there's a shitload of misogyny amongst Obama supporters, but there's a shitload of racism amongst Clinton supporters, and had Clinton won the nomination, right now we'd be hearing about all the stupid black people who were voting for McCain to punish the party, and there'd be the same upswing in patronizing, racist remarks if McCain responded by choosing a person of color as his running mate. Hell, before Obama secured the nomination, there was some really gross speculation about all the riots people of color would cause if Hillary was chosen. It's infuriating, insulting, and generally offensive no matter what minority group it's targeting.
The pitting of minority groups against each other that has been so prominent in this election has had one particularly ironic outcome -- when you average things out, the only people who can be trusted to vote are white males. Women vote with their vaginas. People of color vote with their skin. (Women of color, those mythical creatures so rare that they rate no mention at all, must choose: Are they people of color, or are they women? They can't be both, obviously; how would they choose how to vote then?) White men, though, they'll vote on the issues, not their own irrational prejudices. They can fairly decide whether a black man or white woman is more worthy of holding office in a way people of color and women could never be trusted to.
This shouldn't be the narrative. We shouldn't be using a historic election, an election that would have been historic no matter which candidate won, as an excuse to wallow in further prejudice. And I hate -- I HATE -- watching the media and the liberal blogosphere so gleefully seize on every opportunity to do just that.
Then I got in the car and put on NPR and heard that McCain had named Palin as his VP, and my good mood was instantly shattered. Not because I object to Palin (though I very emphatically do) and not even because I find the McCain's belief that large numbers of feminist Hillary supporters are stupid enough to vote for any ticket that includes a woman, no matter how firmly anti-woman her personal politics are, patronizing and offensive in the extreme. My first thought was, I can't deal with the flood of misogyny this is going to provoke, the huge upswing in claims made in the media and liberal blogosphere that Obama's campaign is going to be irreparably harmed by all the selfish, irrational, horrible females who will vote with their vaginas and singlehandedly destroy the Democratic party, America, and indeed the world as we know it.
I know that's an irrational opinion. Yes, there has been a flood of people saying exactly that since the minute McCain made his announcement, but at this point, it's just another inch of rain in the Mississippi River -- women, feminists, and Hillary Clinton were determined to be a deciding factor likely to lose Obama the election long before today, and that narrative wouldn't change if McCain had chosen Rush Limbaugh as his running mate. But this just brought the whole thing into stark relief yet again, and it's just exhausting and demoralizing and awful.
Women just can't be trusted with something as important as the vote, y'all. They do really stupid things with it.
This isn't a race vs. gender thing. Yeah, there's a shitload of misogyny amongst Obama supporters, but there's a shitload of racism amongst Clinton supporters, and had Clinton won the nomination, right now we'd be hearing about all the stupid black people who were voting for McCain to punish the party, and there'd be the same upswing in patronizing, racist remarks if McCain responded by choosing a person of color as his running mate. Hell, before Obama secured the nomination, there was some really gross speculation about all the riots people of color would cause if Hillary was chosen. It's infuriating, insulting, and generally offensive no matter what minority group it's targeting.
The pitting of minority groups against each other that has been so prominent in this election has had one particularly ironic outcome -- when you average things out, the only people who can be trusted to vote are white males. Women vote with their vaginas. People of color vote with their skin. (Women of color, those mythical creatures so rare that they rate no mention at all, must choose: Are they people of color, or are they women? They can't be both, obviously; how would they choose how to vote then?) White men, though, they'll vote on the issues, not their own irrational prejudices. They can fairly decide whether a black man or white woman is more worthy of holding office in a way people of color and women could never be trusted to.
This shouldn't be the narrative. We shouldn't be using a historic election, an election that would have been historic no matter which candidate won, as an excuse to wallow in further prejudice. And I hate -- I HATE -- watching the media and the liberal blogosphere so gleefully seize on every opportunity to do just that.