The XX Factor: What women really think.

Goodbye to All That

Dana, I also noticed the lack of any mention of Hillary in Barack's speech. There was another notable absence, too. Early in the speech, Barack spoke about how last night's results were an "answer" to those who doubted America's democracy. He then said: "It's the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled." Well, hello. How odd not to mention "women and men" in this list, since that division speaks to the only other historically significant part of this election year: Namely, a woman almost became the presidential nominee. Granted, Obama later spoke about Ann Nixon Cooper's having borne witness to not only the advent of civil rights but the suffrage of women. Still, I wished that he had given a nod to women in that early part of the speech—especially since his message all along has been about unity and healing.

That's the only kvetching I'll do. Last night, I stood in Grant Park with hundreds of thousands of other Americans and found myself experiencing a wave of patriotism and pride as never before. When CNN announced Obama had won, strangers hugged and kissed; black men and white men shook hands; and when the speech was over the crowd rolled down Michigan Avenue, slightly dazed and narcotized with joy. Spontaneous cheers broke out ever few minutes, whenever an El train went by, with the energetic unity Whitman described in his healing paean to democracy, Song of Myself, a poem written at a moment of cultural divisiveness rivaling the one we just lived through.

Vestal Guardians for Obama

Now wait a second. Just because that poster (in which cute hipster girls threaten to withhold sex unless their prospective partners vote Obama) has its roots in classical literature doesn’t mean that its vision of women's political power isn’t retrograde and sexist. Last I heard, women in ancient Greece had the same social status as slaves. Maybe this is a generational division, which I guess would put me, at 42, in the frowny-old-crone camp. But this idea of women as the coy vestal guardians of their own, er, temples, which will be tendered only in exchange for some sufficiently valuable transaction? Whether the object accepted in exchange is a vote for Obama, an end to the Peloponnesian wars, or a Fifth Avenue penthouse from Mr. Big, isn’t that vision of male-female relations just a little depressing?
 
To the extent I care about this poster at all (and really, I don’t—it seems like any neighborhood where its aesthetic would go over is already solidly pro-Obama anyway), I’d have to say, along with Salon’s (wonderful) Rebecca Traister, that it kind of makes me want to drown myself. Anyone care to toss me a lifesaver and drag me to shore?