feminist blogs

You might have already heard that yesterday in Australia, where I was born and raised, a woman ousted a man for control of the Australian Labour Party, making her the first ever woman Prime Minister in the country's history. She was sworn in by Quentin Bryce, Australia's first ever woman Governor General.

Just as racism ended forever with the election of Barack Obama, sexism in my homeland is now OVER FOREVER. Australia will now become a matriarchal society, like bonobo colonies, or a feminist utopia where birth control and Ani di Franco CDs are subsidized by the government.

Except, not. The rise of one woman to the top spot (it's not an election, because in Australia you vote for the party, and once in power that party is free to reshuffle its leadership as much as it wants) is a big freaking deal, and I'm really proud to be an Australian today. Julia Gillard, our new WOMAN PM - sorry, I can't stop writing that in delighted caps - is a very impressive woman, and I have high hopes that this ouster will get voters' approval in the upcoming Federal election. But one woman leader does not an egalitarian society make.

Gillard has faced her fair share of sexist media coverage (she's 48, unmarried, has short hair and access to power, so I'll give you three guesses as to what people assume about her), and it's no coincidence that an ABC News headline referred to yesterday's events as a "bitter divorce" between Gillard and now-former PM Kevin Rudd. Get it? Because they're of opposite genders, and they had a falling out! Something tells me that if Obama and Biden had a disagreement, no one would call it a "lover's quarrel."

And of course, Australia is still a pretty sexist society, in many of the same ways that the US is - a 17% wage gap, under-representation of women in positions of corporate and government power and all the pop culture and advertising crap we deal with here. And the installation of a woman in Kirribilli House (that's where the PM lives when s/he's in Sydney - see, you learn something new every day) isn't going to change that overnight.

But this is a start. Hell, yes, is it a start.

Melissa Harris-Lacewell and Katrina vanden Heuvel were on GRITtv yesterday to talk about the “Year of the Woman” framing that’s hit hard after the round of primary elections we saw in the States last week, and something that Harris-Lacewell said really struck me.

Transcript: This is part of what identity politics always does, it assumes that anyone whose voting record is contrary to the identity group from which they emerged, it assumes that they are therefore independent thinkers. We saw the same thing with Colin Powell as a potential Republican nominee for the U.S. presidency, the idea that as a military man and a Republican he wasn’t bound by race. It’s part of what made the election of Barack Obama so extraordinary. It wasn’t even so much the election of a black man but a black man in the Democratic party which was so surprising! I’d expected us, in fact, to elect a person of color, to elect a white woman as president, but I certainly thought that it would have come from the Republican party because there’s always this assumption that if you are against the interests of the majority of the individuals of the group from which you emerge, that you are therefore an independent thinker.

Sarah Palin’s whole “Maverick” shtick. Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman, who my boss noted are just the acceptable version of any other multimillionaire, being able to play some sort of “outsider” game. These women get credit for being independent!!!! because they’re seen as having decided on their own to come to right-wing politics, having stepped outside of their identity group to join a politics that, let’s face it, favors well-off white people, especially men. They favor cuts to government services that disproportionately help women, they pretend that gender is no obstacle–well, sure, when you’re the former CEO of eBay or HP, your money buys you out of many of the obstacles that gender creates for women candidates in fundraising.

Me, I’m pretty far left in my politics, but in general I do support policies that would be assumed to be “identity politics.” Yet for me, it was completely contrary to how I was raised. My parents were conservatives. For me to come round to being not only a liberal but someone who identifies as a socialist, I had to do a lot of “independent thinking.” Solidarity wasn’t exactly a word that was used in my household growing up.

But suddenly the media has a narrative it likes; that this is the year of the (Republican) women. I spent a chunk of last month writing a piece that should be out soon on women in the Tea Party and Patriot movements, and their connection to feminism. I mentioned yesterday when writing about Labour in the UK the idea of requiring 50% women in the Shadow Cabinet, and Harris-Lacewell, elsewhere in the show (you can watch the full episode here), noted that having women and people of color represented is in fact a good in itself because it shows people who is considered a citizen, who counts. But that is a separate good from having candidates and elected officials who are in fact progressive and supportive of people who are oppressed, regardless of their identity group.

In other words, to simply be a member of a group does not mean you are actually advocating for or helping the members of that group. You see this even more with the kind of identity politics that are created rather than innate: the argument over who gets to call themselves a feminist, for example. Feminists are rightly angry that antichoice, anti-social-spending Sarah Palin wants to claim the title, and saddened when young women reject it. But just the fact that Sarah Palin and others put it on does not mean they are actually doing anything for us.

It’s what makes me like bell hooks’s statement that instead of saying “I am a feminist,” one should say “I advocate feminism.” It changes it from an identity to an action. Otherwise anyone can declare themselves a feminist and then have to do nothing to help women. One can say “I’m not racist” and then get angry when called out on a racist action. It becomes not all that much different from claiming to help women simply by being a woman in the race. Maybe on some level it helps to have more women calling themselves feminist, more women in office, but we need more than just words and presences. We need action.

Last night, Incumbent Senator Arlen Specter lost in the Pennsylvania democratic primary to Representative Joe Sestak.

What does this win mean for feminists? Jodi at RH Reality Check thinks this could be good news if Sestak can win the general election come November.

But if Sestak wins, and remains true to the principles on which he campaigned, his election could be a net gain for women, families and ther rights of LGBT, African American and Latino populations, because he would be replacing a Senator known for being mercurial especially on issues of women's rights, gay rights, and a range of civil rights and sexual and reproductive justice issues.

He voted to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and to increase enforcement against anti-gay hate crimes. He has voted in favor of paid parental leave, to increase economic support for low-income, unemployed and underemployed people, and to increase funding for education. He supported comprehensive sexual health education. And Sestak has a 100 percent rating from NARAL. While he obviously has spent less time than Specter in national office, at no time (yet) has he appeared to vote against the values he espouses.

Read the rest of the analysis here.

Hiram Monserrate, who was expelled last month from the New York State Senate after being convicted of a misdemeanor assault against his girlfriend, lost his bid to regain his seat last night. José R. Peralta won the special election in a landslide, with 66 percent of the vote compared to Monserrate's 27 percent.

The political issue that received the most attention in this special election was the divisive topic of same-sex marriage, which Peralta supports and Monserrate opposes. Monserrate tried to create a David-and-Goliath narrative for his campaign, painting himself as the political outsider oppressed by entrenched power in Albany. As opposed to a former elected official who lost his seat because he was convicted of brutally assaulting his girlfriend.

Monserrate's campaign seemed like a long shot. But special elections, with their typical low voter turn outs, can lead to surprising results (Scott Brown in Massachusetts anyone?). Turn out was apparently high for a special election, and thankfully voters kept Monserrate out of office.

168 viruses and a broken computer screen later, I am finally able to do a blog. In other words, sorry about the infrequently of my blogs lately. Anyway, onto the blog.

Brown’s hopes of staying on as leader after the election illustrates a very ignorant and undemocratic perspective of Labour’s future. It is almost childlike, refusing to back down until he gets what he wants. It is unsurprising to then see Brown try and justify his pledge to continue with reference to the promise of a ‘good society’:

“I owe it to people to continue and complete the work that we have started of taking this country out of the most difficult financial recession.”

No. You owe it to the people to listen.

If not enough people vote for Labour so they can have their overall majority then why should he have any mandate to stay on? Even if they do get an overall majority, he owes it to the people to let a fresher face take charge so that they can try to rescue Labour from a sinking ship. It is rather ignorant to assume that only he as leader would be able to rebuild the economy.

On a personal note, with the reports that the Libdems would not support a Labour government in a hung parliament if Brown was still in charge, I very much hope he resigns his leadership regardless of whether he gains a majority or not. It is clear that a new election requires new leadership and that for Labour to regain some of its more attractive principles centered around Libdem values such as equality then there needs to be a new leader with a new direction. If Brown cares about the country and Labour as much as he says he does he has to realise that he cannot continue after the election as leader.

It would look too divisive if Brown was to go now and would distract attention away from more important policy debates, that the Tories are weak on, towards Labour’s internal debates. However, whilst this may be the case, Brown is losing more of his allies by the day, and thus, has really compromised any substantial support that he might have had for a post-election leadership bid.

Representative Bart Stupak, formerly an obscure Member of Congress who rose to notoriety when he introduced the anti-choice Stupak Amendment to health reform, is being challenged in the Democratic primary in Michigan. From TPM:

Connie Saltonstall, a former commissioner in Charlevoix County, told me this evening she's challenging Stupak over his refusal to allow health care reform to move forward without abortion language attached.

Saltonstall told me her "two passions" are health care reform and choice. And after spending the last 20 years voting for Stupak, Saltonstall said he managed to run afoul of both of them.

I don't know much about Saltonstall yet except that she is, in her own words to RH Reality Check, "Without a doubt pro-choice." That's already a big improvement over Stupak, who has been urged by the DCCC to run for re-election.

I'm sure we'll hear a lot more about Saltonstall soon. I hope she turns out to be a great candidate with a range of socially just positions, and that folks in Michigan help her create a positive campaign that can successfully unseat this anti-choice zealot.

Now is a great time, when the campaign is just getting underway, for folks in Michigan who want to help shape the agenda of their next Congressperson to learn more and get involved.

Campaign finance reform is famously one of the most convoluted and complicated issues in politics. But there's nothing ambiguous about the most recent development in the long saga of regulating campaign contributions: the Citizens United decision. It's bad for progressives, and bad for women.

Last week's ruling reverses previous limitations on corporate spending, and allows corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money on political campaigns based on the legally shaky premise that corporations' "speech" should be protected by the First amendment.

But, as David Kairys points out on Slate in one of the most persuasive arguments against the ruling I've read so far, money isn't speech and corporations aren't people. He sums up the consequences of the Court's latest decision like this:

The Citizens United decision will make it harder to achieve reforms opposed by major corporations and change business as well as politics. Increasing the constitutional rights of corporations beyond their business purposes is really about increasing the rights and power of corporate managers...Taken as a whole, the conservative court's First Amendment jurisprudence has enlarged the speech rights available to wealthy people and corporations and restricted the speech rights available to people of ordinary means and to dissenters.

And he's not the only one highlighting these consequences. The NY Times reports that President Obama called it "a major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and the other powerful interests that marshal their power every day in Washington to drown out the voices of everyday Americans."

So we already know that the decision is bad for "everyday Americans". Many have argued that it's bad for democracy. But what effect will it have on women?

I'm sorry to say, it's not looking good, for a few reasons:

1) The "powerful interests" that Barack Obama and others have deemed most poised to benefit from this ruling, namely big business and corporations, are overwhelmingly male and conservative. This ruling means their influence will increase, which will make it even harder for women and progressives to thrive in the political landscape. Translation: you can expect to see even less representation. How do we expect to increase representation of feminist women's voices in politics when conservative men have a disproportionate amount of sway?

2) Under the new ruling, women candidates have the potential to be exposed to more scathingly sexist criticism than they already are. We're already familiar with the disproportionately high amounts of criticism and ridicule female political candidates face when pursuing election, but this ruling increases their risk of facing criticism. The NY Times reports that "The case had unlikely origins" in that it emerged from a case involving "Hillary: The Movie," an anti-Hillary documentary, but I'd argue these are the most likely origins there are. We don't have to look far to see the gross double standard and horrific criticism Hillary's been exposed to during her career, to which her male counterparts have not been introduced to a comparable degree. The Citizens United ruling, both explicitly in its immediate practical consequences for the Hillary documentary, and implicitly in the long-term legal precedent set by the decision, condones corporate-funded attack ads that- if history is to give any indication- disproportionately affect women.

3) The ruling benefits corporate interests, and corporate interests are often anti-feminist. From labor rights and unionization efforts to the environment, more often than not corporate interests get in the way of feminist ones. For more on the intersection of anti-corporatism and feminism, check out Naomi Klein's self-proclaimed feminist book, No Logo.

Tonight, Barack Obama is slated to give his first State of the Union address. Rumor has it that he will criticize the Citizens United decision, as he did last week. He may not mention women or feminism specifically in his remarks on the subject, but those with feminist sensibilities should support his efforts to criticize and curb the effects of this anti-progressive, anti-feminist ruling.

Today is the special election in MA to fill the late Senator Kennedy's seat and we need Martha Coakley to win. But while women's groups have thrown down support for her, it seems that she is not getting the support she needs from women voters. Dana Goldstein looks at why this might be so,

Coakley did not go out of her way, especially during the general-election campaign, to play up her feminist credentials. She never filmed a general-election ad that presented a positive image of herself as a defender of reproductive rights and civil liberties, as opposed to just attacking Brown on those issues. She also never fully embraced the message that her ascension to the Senate would be historic, putting the number of women serving in the upper chamber at 18, an all-time high. She has called her gender "secondary," eschewing the more emotional feminist appeal that Hillary Clinton made in the final months of her presidential campaign.

It is so hard to predict which is the most effective tactic, hiding your feminism or making it blatant, but Dana continues with discussing the shifting mood of the country against repro rights after the health care debates, which has re-centralized value voter issues. Go read the rest of the article to get a clear picture of how gender is playing out in this race.

And sadly Brown's people are using sexist tactics and intimidating voters.

Today is a very important election. If you are interested in supporting getting the vote out but are not in MA, you can always phone bank.

Today is the special election in MA to fill the late Senator Kennedy's seat and we need Martha Coakley to win. But while women's groups have thrown down support for her, it seems that she is not getting the support she needs from women voters. Dana Goldstein looks at why this might be so,

Coakley did not go out of her way, especially during the general-election campaign, to play up her feminist credentials. She never filmed a general-election ad that presented a positive image of herself as a defender of reproductive rights and civil liberties, as opposed to just attacking Brown on those issues. She also never fully embraced the message that her ascension to the Senate would be historic, putting the number of women serving in the upper chamber at 18, an all-time high. She has called her gender "secondary," eschewing the more emotional feminist appeal that Hillary Clinton made in the final months of her presidential campaign.

It is so hard to predict which is the most effective tactic, hiding your feminism or making it blatant, but Dana continues with the shifting mood of the country against repro rights after the health care debates, which has re-centralized value voter issues. Go read the rest of the article to get a clear picture of how gender is playing out in this race.

And sadly Brown's people are using sexist tactics and intimidating voters.

Today is a very important election. If you are interested in supporting getting the vote out but are not in MA, you can always phone bank.

Democratic Congressional Campain Committee Chair Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) wants to make sure Representative Bart Stupak (D-MI) runs for re-election. Stupak, who may prove to be the worst thing to happen to abortion access since Henry Hyde, is considering a run for governor. Stupak's seat in Congress would be vulnerable to a Republican candidate, and he says the DCCC chair has already called "urging him to run for re-election."

Because it matters if the person restricting reproductive rights has a D or R next to their name? Because the Democrats want to do the work of limiting abortion access all by themselves? Because it wasn't obvious enough there's no major party in the US willing to take a stand for women's health?

Jodi Jacobson at RH Reality Check hits the nail on the head:

There you have it, gals. The Democratic Party once again has your back.

To the firing squad.