Posted April 10, 2008 7:16 AM
by Glenn Thrush
A bitter Sir Elton John thinks America's sexism may be sinking his friend Hillary Rodham Clinton.
John, a knighted British subject, said that gender discrimination is behind Clinton's problems in the polls as he addressed 5,000 Clinton supporters at Radio City Musical Hall last night in an event that raised $2.5 million for the cash-strapped campaign.
"I never cease to be amazed by the misogynistic attitudes of some people in this country," said John, wearing a spangled black evening coat over a vermilion silk shirt. "I say to hell with them. ... I love you, Hillary, I'll always be there for you."
John's comments echo the former first lady's remarks to National Public Radio Tuesday, when she said there was "a double standard" in media coverage of the race.
moreThen you have the millions of Clinton supporters who have come to see her campaign as the literal embodiment of feminism. "Now Clinton's methodical, dogged history of work for the Democratic Party is treated just like the methodical, dogged histories of so many women in the workplace," writes syndicated columnist Marie Cocco. "She must step aside to take the smaller office, with the lesser title and the lower pay to make room for the younger guy with the thinner resume."
In the same column, Cocco concedes, "Maybe it is true that Clinton has no realistic way to win the nomination." That's quite a concession! That is, if you consider the presidency an instrument for legislation and policy change, rather than a vehicle for Hillary Clinton's self-actualization and the civic expression of the South Dakota Democratic primary electorate.
linkIt was Kerry and Kennedy's endorsement of Obama that in part prompted the
screams of betrayal.
Hillary supporters and surrogates seem to be implying not only that Hillary is a victim, but also that she is the one uniquely qualified to address issues important to women.
Wrong.
As we grapple with issues of gender and race, we have a lot of other problems to address that impact both men and women of all races:
While Hillary is campaigning on a
90-day moratorium on foreclosures, more comprehensive solutions are being passed in the Senate:
Washington, DC –
The Senate today voted 84 to 12 to pass the Foreclosure Prevention Act of 2008, which included Senator John Kerry’s provisions to protect active duty service members and their families from foreclosure, and Kerry’s Mortgage Revenue Bonds proposal to give localities new tools to help keep thousands more American families in their homes. Kerry introduced The Military Family Homes Protection Act to expand the Service Member Civil Relief Act (SCRA) which provides returning soldiers with one year relief from increases in mortgage interest rates.
It will also extend the existing protections from foreclosure from 90 days to nine months after active duty service members return home. The SCRA helps members of the military and their families deal with the special financial burdens associated with serving their country.
A Kerry provision that would
expand the Mortgage Revenue Bond program was also included, which would provide an additional $10 billion of tax-exempt private activity bond authority to be used to provide for the refinancing of subprime loans, mortgages for first-time homebuyers, and multifamily rental housing.
“Today’s passage of these provisions will help ensure our military families won’t lose their home to foreclosure or face skyrocketing mortgage interest rates. Combine a housing crisis with an unemployment rate for young veterans that has been as high as triple the national average and it’s clear Congress needed to act,” said Senator Kerry. “I’m also glad we succeeded in expanding the mortgage revenue bond program which will help families facing foreclosure and first-time buyers looking for a safe, fair mortgage.”
more(emphasis added)
While Hillary is calling for a Poverty Czar, Obama has passed legislation to deal with
global poverty.
There is no doubt that this country has huge issues with racism and sexism. Look at the history of the United States Congress:
The 110th Congress includes the most religiously diverse House in history, including the first Muslim (Keith Ellison), the first Buddhists (Mazie Hirono and Hank Johnson), and thirty Jews. There are 42 African Americans (including two non-voting delegates) and 74 female representatives. There are also 27 Hispanics, three Asian Americans, and one Native American.
There are currently 74 women serving in the U.S. House of Representatives and 16 in the U.S. Senate.There have been
35 women in the United States Senate since the establishment of that body in 1789, meaning that out of the 1,897 Americans <1> who have served in the United States Senate since that time, 1.85 percent of all Senators have been female.
List of female U.S. SenatorsThroughout the history of the United States House of Representatives,
there have been 217 women serving in that body. In 1917 Jeanette Rankin, a pacifist Republican from Montana, became the first woman in the United States Congress upon being elected to the House.
In 1965,
Patsy Takemoto Mink became the first female minority to join the ranks of Congress.
In 1968,
Shirley Anita St. Hill Chisholm became the first African American woman elected to Congress.
There are 6 ethnic minorities in the Senate:
3 Hispanic, 2 Asian-American and 1 African AmericanSince 1868, 121 African Americans have served in the United States Congress. (five in the Senate or .25% of the 1897 who have served in that body)
The Senate is 1% African American and the House is approximately 9.2% African American.Between 1870 and 1881 there were two black Senators. More than 86 years later, and since then,
three other African Americans have served in the Senate:
- Edward William Brooke 1967-1979
- Carol Moseley Braun 1993-1999
- Barack Obama 2005-present
The last black congressman elected from the South in the nineteenth century was George Henry White of North Carolina, elected in 1897. His term expired in 1901, the same year that William McKinley died, the last president to have fought in the Civil War.
No blacks served in Congress for the next 28 years, and none represented any southern state for the next 64 years.-end-
Why, after winning a seat in the Senate twice, is sexism being cited as the reason Hillary is losing the Democratic primary?
Note to Elton John:
Hillary is not a victim.
MELISSA HARRIS-LACEWELL: Well, I mean, honestly, I’m appalled by the parallel that Ms. Steinem draws in the beginning part of the New York Times article. What she’s trying to do there is to make a claim towards sort of bringing in black women into a coalition around questions of gender and asking us to ignore the ways in which race and gender intersect. This is actually a standard problem of second-wave feminism, which, although there have been twenty-five years now—oh, going on forty years, actually, of African American women pushing back against this, have really failed to think about the ways in which trying to appropriate black women’s lives’ experience in that way is really offensive, actually.
And so, when Steinem suggests, for example, in that article that Obama is a lawyer married to another lawyer and to suggest that, for example, Hillary Clinton represents some kind of sort of breakthrough in questions of gender,
I think that ignores an entire history in which white women have in fact been in the White House. They’ve been there as an attachment to white male patriarchal power. It’s the same way that Hillary Clinton is now making a claim towards experience. It’s not her experience. It’s her experience married to, connected to, climbing up on white male patriarchy. This is exactly the ways in which this kind of system actually silences questions of gender that are more complicated than simply sort of putting white women in positions of power and then claiming women’s issues are cared for.
Now, what I know from the work that I’ve done on the Obama campaign is that there are tens of thousands of extremely hard-working white men and women, as well as black men and women, as well as actually a huge multiracial and interethnic coalition of people working for Barack Obama. And so, for Steinem to sort of make this very clear race and gender dichotomy that she does in that New York Times op-ed piece, I think it’s the very worst of second-wave feminism.
linkMore on how Hillary has benefitted from the white male patriarchy:
The notion that Hillary is losing because she is a victim of misogyny is BS!
Edited to take Elton John out of the thread title.
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