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No gender gap, no respect. That's the story for Republican women voters in the primaries so far. Tonight, according to exit polls, they broke for John McCain 32 percent over 30 percent for Mitt Romney. Which means they voted along the same lines as GOP men more or less (35 percent McCain, 32 percent Romney). Ho-hum. As in Iowa and South Carolina and New Hampshire—if the lack of coverage in my last hour of searching is any measure—no one is much keeping track. Gender has mattered a great deal in the Democratic race, with women tilting between Hillary (New Hampshire and Nevada) and Obama (Iowa and South Carolina), and voting in larger numbers and by different margins than men. But they haven't been the key to any Republican victories. In Florida, tonight, they accounted for 44 percent of the vote in their party, compared to 60 percent among Democrats.
So the main interest in GOP women has been speculation about how many might vote for Hillary in a general election. (Mark Penn: as many as 24 percent. Republican response: no way. October poll: Eighty percent said definitely not, more than ruled out Obama or Edwards.) Given their political views, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense that they're up for Hillary to grab. On the other hand, if McCain or Romney or someone doesn't start tailoring his pitch to them and only them, they could get miffed. The virtue of a party without a gender gap is that it's not dodging the potholes of identity politics. The downside is that it's muddling along without thinking much about what its women want. Listening to Romney's and McCain's speeches tonight, I don't hear anyone wooing the ladies. Not even in a throwaway sentence or two.
Why is there no female angle to the Republican race? Are the security moms completely gone? Has the Hillary candidacy simply erased gender as an issue for Republicans because they don't have a first woman to support and history to make? What do Republican women want, anyway? They support the Iraq war in far greater numbers than their Democratic counterparts. But they're just as worried about the economy. Beyond that, and the obligatory pro-life nod, no one seems to ask them. Maybe the Republican candidate who went a-courting would find himself with his dance card more than full. When you've spent months as a wallflower, you're ready to dance with the guy who asks you.
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Rachael I don’t think you’re going to find anyone on this blog racing to second Karen Von Hahn’s simplistic take on feminism, any more than we swallowed the NOW tantrum last night or the Steinem logic earlier this month. The split you’re sketching isn’t really between feminists and traditionalists but between feminists and what Von Hanh seems to want to characterize as overgrown tweens. I think that she's mixed up her criticism of apathetic women with a critique of a new generation of (for lack of a better word) post-feminists. Like you, I am infuriated by representatives of the women’s movement who demand I vote for whichever candidate wears the Spanx. And like you—and Rich Ford, whose wonderful book we just excerpted—I agree that if all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a nail (in this case pervasive sexism). And that this is a lazy way to view the world. Right or wrong, this generation of feminists can’t be made to see everything through a gender prism, and that’s not because we’re all spoiled, stupid, or too wrapped up with the Spice Girls to see what’s really happening under our noses—or just above the glass ceilings.
Let’s agree that life is too complicated to hammer away at problems—or at Kennedys—for imagined acts of sexism. But can we also agree that Von Hahn, for all that her evidence is dopey, points to the same trend Deborah Howell poked at in this week’s Washington Post (Disclosure: Slate is owned by the Post). It was a strange effort at explaining the massive disparity between young fathers and young mothers who read the paper, but it touched on some of the same themes as Von Hahn (including the observation that “women read magazines avidly, and as one young woman told me, magazine ink doesn't rub off on her hands.”) I don’t know who depressed me more, Howell or Von Hahn, but I do wonder if their claims are true and a generation of young women are more politically checked out than their male counterparts.
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So, some folks are worried that "feminism is out of style." Gee, could it have anything to do with stuff like this? Apologies if I seem too flippant. But I do sense a common thread between Karen von Hahn's column in the Globe and Mail (go read it if you haven't) and that noxious letter from the New York chapter of NOW: It's as if feminism is an either/or proposition. If you like pink ... if you are anti-abortion ... if you don't quiver with joy at the possibility of a President Hillary Clinton, then you are NOT a feminist.
Is there no room for nuance? A woman should be able to think that it's rotten that there aren't more female CEOs and that we still wipe more bottoms and mop more floors than our husbands without also feeling compelled to believe that The Man is still keeping us down because the abortion clinic gives Juno "the creeps."
Von Hahn bemoans the fact that "girls of this generation ... consider it ‘lame' to align themselves with a woman candidate on the sole ground of sisterhood." I think that represents a rousing success of the feminist movement. It tells me that women believe that it's so possible for a woman to become president that they're willing to wait for the female candidate who best represents their views.
If "sisterhood" means that I have to choose Ms. over InStyle, Hillary over John McCain, and If These Walls Could Talk over Knocked Up, then count me out.
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I see that the blogosphere is aflame - oh, it must be Tuesday - with a debate about whether Obama snubbed Hillary at last night's State of the Union. I didn't catch this moment, or lack of one, myself. Which is a shame, because after Kennedy endorsed Obama yesterday, I truthfully was a lot more curious about what the Kennedy-Clinton-Obama body language would be than about whether Bush would make it all the way through his last SOTU without ever once correctly pronouncing the word nuclear. (Si, se puede!)
But here is the play-by-lay from Frank James, on the Chicago Tribune's The Swamp: "As Clinton approached, Kennedy made sure to make eye contact and indicated he wanted to shake her hand. Clinton leaned towards Kennedy over a row of seats and Kennedy leaned in towards her. They shook hands. Obama stood icily staring at Clinton during this, then turned his back and stepped a few feet away. Kennedy may've wanted to make peace with Clinton but Obama clearly wanted no part of that. "
On MSNBC this morning, Obama adviser David Axelrod denied said snub: "First of all, they acknowledged each other as they entered the chamber. But I think he knew that Senator Kennedy and Senator Clinton were friends. This was obviously an awkward day from that standpoint, and I don't think he wanted to stand there while Senator Kennedy was greeting Senator Clinton. And I think that was an appropriate sentiment. Unfortunately, the camera caught it in a different way, and so it got interpreted that way. And that's the kind of environment we're in right now. It's a very competitive race, so every little thing is going to be interpreted in that way. But it was really a matter of letting Senator Kennedy have his own conversation, his own greeting with Senator Clinton without him hovering over them...I think it's understandable that he would not want to stand there with Senator Kennedy as if he were lording it over her."
Today, some Obama backers are arguing that he might not have even seen her, though this seems unlikely, given that one thing we can definitely conclude about last night is that she should wear red more often. Others in the Obama camp say good for him, refusing to shake the hand of someone so willing to whip out the race card. And of course, Hillary backers are outraged that Mr. Nice Guy, who is supposed to bring us all together, refused to reach out to her on his campaign's best day.
Whether Obama was being ungracious, authentic or tactful in a way that did not serve his political interests, I don't know. But I can't help thinking of how big a deal it was when Claytie Williams, who was running for Texas governor against Ann Richards in 1990, refused to shake her hand at a debate; it really was a turning point. Of course, last night's missing handclasp was nothing like that blatant. And Barack Obama is certainly no Claytie Williams, who handed what was left of his support from women to Richards when he observed that bad weather is like rape - "as long as it's inevitable, just relax and enjoy it.'' Still, for future reference: When in doubt, shake it.
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I saw HBO's therapy series In Treatment last night, and felt it could be helped by adding a long-married couple to the lineup of patients:
Therapist: Why don't we start by--
Hillary: Have you seen his finger? It's out of control. He's wagging it at everyone. Every time his finger comes out I lose 5 percent of voters.
Bill: I should be in the presidential suite at Davos getting a massage from those Swedish gals they have there. But because I agreed to help my wife, I have to listen to lectures on behavior from Ted Kennedy!
Therapist: How do you feel when --
Hillary: Could you tell him to try to remember to mention my name occasionally when he gives one of his "I'm the greatest" speeches?
Bill: You wanted me to rough up Obama for you!
Hillary: I didn't say you should sound like the ghost of Lester Maddox!
Therapist: Could we --
[cut to: lamp being thrown at Bill's head]
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