Глория Стейнем о роли сексизма в ситуации Клинтон vs. Обама
Совершенно замечательную статью (Women Are Never Front-Runners) написала Глория Стейнем про нынешнюю ситуация с предварительными, внутрипартийными выборами в Америке, а точнее, про ситуацию с гендерными и расовыми стереотипами в современном американском обществе. Кое-что стоит просто процитировать:
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.
По сравнению с моей статьёй на эту же тему (Женщина versus чернокожий, или О роли стереотипов в американских президентских выборах), она добавила, как минимум, две очень важные причины для нынешнего статус-кво со стереотипами. Во-первых, тезис о том, что поскольку преимуществнно женщины занимаются воспитанием детей, то взрослые мужчины склонны ощущать себя «регрессирующими в детство», когда имеют дело со взрослой женщиной, обладающей властью. Второй момент - о чёрном мужчине, как эталоне маскулинности в восприятии белых мужчин (и не только, судя по перекосу в межрасовых браках в сторону пар, где муж - чернокожий, а жена - белая или азиатка по сравнению с зеркальной ситуацией).
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.
По сравнению с моей статьёй на эту же тему (Женщина versus чернокожий, или О роли стереотипов в американских президентских выборах), она добавила, как минимум, две очень важные причины для нынешнего статус-кво со стереотипами. Во-первых, тезис о том, что поскольку преимуществнно женщины занимаются воспитанием детей, то взрослые мужчины склонны ощущать себя «регрессирующими в детство», когда имеют дело со взрослой женщиной, обладающей властью. Второй момент - о чёрном мужчине, как эталоне маскулинности в восприятии белых мужчин (и не только, судя по перекосу в межрасовых браках в сторону пар, где муж - чернокожий, а жена - белая или азиатка по сравнению с зеркальной ситуацией).