I’m more than a little disturbed by several things going on in our political world today. Of course I’m always disturbed by racism and bigotry, and certain genderist trends seem to be rearing their ugly heads right now.
The first is that in the US for the first time, can I say ever, there were women running for presidential candidates. Okay, one running for presidential candidate (Hillary Clinton) and another put in as a VP running mate (Sarah Palin). It’s great that there are women in politics and of course there should be more. It is still and often a man’s world where a woman politician will be mentioned in the press for what she wore rather than what she stood for. The media is getting better at this and in the US and Canada there are women politicians.
But when I hear some woman say that she would vote for Hillary because she is a woman and then will now vote for McCain because he has a VP running mate who is a woman, it scares me. How stupid can people get? Obviously, very stupid. I’m sure there are men who would have voted for McCain if Hillary got in because they think politics ain’t no place for a woman. I’d like to think this is a small percentage but I don’t know.
Since the Suffragette movement women and politics have been mixing (if not unofficially before). Looking at Palin and Clinton, their views are so diametrically opposed that it’s like comparing a salad and a piece of baklava; they’re both food but that’s it. These women are women but that’s it. Their attitudes are different, their beliefs are different, their ways of thinking and acting are different.
Not all women are the same or think the same. This seems pretty obvious to anyone of intelligence. Just as men are not the same. Men and women can have the same views just as they can have different views. Hey, buttheads of both genders, vote for issues, not for a person’s gender. Those that vote for McCain because of Palin, (and gods help us if they get in) will get what they deserve. Unfortunately, everyone will suffer.
Likewise in Canada, there are four parties running in the federal election, with Elizabeth May of the Green Party being the only woman leader. However, there has been recent news that the Green party is putting in candidates who are women, which is fine but if the best candidate is a man they’re being overlooked or worse, being barred from being a candidate in a riding. WTF? Does no one see a problem with this?
I’ve always had huge problems with people being barred from something based on their gender. Humans are of equal intelligence independent of gender. Men are stronger in average but unless a job is only physical women can do all the jobs men can. Any party or any person who chooses their candidate because of gender should be smacked upside the head. On top of this, it’s downright scary and a slippery slope to such groups as the Taliban who subjugated women to such a degree that they couldn’t work. I’m sure they couldn’t vote, if the Taliban even allowed something as democratic as voting.
Men should not be banned because they are men. Women should not be voted for because they are women. If we were in a country where women (or men) had been tamped down so much they had few rights and the only way to ensure some balance against bias was to vote for gender, then that would be a different thing…if their views supported what you believe in. I’d say I’m embarrassed to be a woman, but I’m not. I just think there are women and men out there who should be embarrassed because they’re thinking with their genitals, not their brains.
Let’s see some intelligence in these elections and no gender politics.
Colleen Anderson 