Commentary
Political misogyny
By Isabel Escoda
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 03:01:00 03/23/2008
Filed Under: Politics, Elections
MANILA, Philippines—The welter of flattering media reports about Barack Obama and Internet slander against Hillary Clinton recently produced a report about Shirley Chisholm, an African-American who ran for president in 1972 and lost. Interestingly, she attributed her defeat, not to the fact that she’s black but to being female.
Compared to sensibly short election campaigns in other countries, the extended race for the US White House has captured worldwide attention. The intensively pervasive media coverage saturates the news and has produced a fascination for three personalities: an elderly candidate (Republican Party’s John McCain), a young black (Barack Obama of the Democratic Party) and a middle-aged woman (Hillary Clinton, also of the Democratic Party).
Racism may be waning in America, and ageism likewise almost completely repudiated. But indications are that misogyny, already existing back in the 1970s during Ms Chisholm’s time and earlier, still flourishes today in the world’s greatest democracy.
A shining example of gender equality is New Zealand where Helen Clark is prime minister. That country has had female suffrage since 1893, with women (including the indigenous Maoris) becoming eligible in 1919 for election to the House of Representatives—the first such country in the world granting that right to their female population.
Prime Minister Clark and her professor husband keep low profiles and are generally admired. The contrast with the situation in Manila is stark, with our President and her husband mired in countless controversies and generally vilified.
So one wonders what’s so unusual about the probability of having a woman leading the world’s most powerful nation. After all, there have been various other women elected as their countries’ leaders. Liberia’s Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf was voted the first female president in Africa in 2006. Countries like Britain, Israel, Germany, Ireland, India, Finland, Ukraine, Argentina and Chile have had or have female career politicians as heads of state.
Developing countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Argentina and the Philippines similarly had and have female leaders who did not necessarily win on political merit but by succeeding assassinated or retired relatives.
America’s image as a conservative, even puritanical, society is tied to its religious affinities. The negative feelings towards Hillary, who stood by her husband, President Bill Clinton, during his involvement in a sex scandal—which, in sophisticated Europe, wouldn’t have mattered (France tolerated a president, Francois Mitterand, who kept a mistress)—also stem from her being too unfemininely aggressive. This hidebound mind-set against intellectual women is one reason Hillary cannot win. She’s additionally unlucky not to live at a time when the media were circumspect about sexual matters, like the one in which John F. Kennedy (with his many affairs) and Franklin Delano Roosevelt (whose mistress, not his wife, was around when he died) lived.
The deep-seated hatred toward female politicians, which is more rampant than racism, is hardly ever admitted in the United States. The sexism displayed toward Hillary, a savvy hard-working politician, is quite staggering; the hatred for her and her husband have resulted in countless insults and allegations against them. She’s seen as cold, calculating or simply bitchy—something seldom brought up against cold, calculating male candidates. During a rally for Hillary, some men held up placards saying “Iron my shirts!” which merely produced general amusement. If anyone had dared flash a placard at an Obama rally saying “Shine my shoes,” there would have been general condemnation. Obviously it’s fine to insult females, but never males, of any color.
Jokes during Margaret Thatcher’s time were pretty savage; and in the Philippines today the insults about President Macapagal-Arroyo are even more virulent. Whether deserved or not, ad hominem attacks (“Midget in Malacañang,” etc.) directed at Ms Arroyo reflect an infantile irrationality.
French feminist Simone de Beauvoir once said that when women act like women, they’re accused of being inferior; but when they act like human beings, they’re accused of behaving like men. Female politicians displaying “male qualities” like self-confidence, forcefulness and aggression are described “neither likeable nor nice.”
When Hillary’s voice quavered during an interview, sounding on the verge of tears, she was accused of staging it. Many said the display of weakness proved she would crack in a national crisis, making one wonder if she can’t be considered human for showing some emotion.
The American fascination for Barack Obama raises some interesting issues. I’ve always found the attitude toward black Americans peculiar: if one has a small percentage of Negro blood, he/she is considered black. Think of golfer Tiger Woods, actress Halle Berry, singer Mariah Carey, among others. Obama was brought up by his late mother who was white; Tiger Woods, embraced by black Americans as one of them, has played along, even though he once went on record by calling himself a “Caublanasian”—Caucasian, black and Indian on his father’s side, and Asian (Thai) on his mother’s.
Before the days of political correctness and black power, Americans called their black citizens “colored.” In Latin American countries, citizens of African and European origins are called “mestizos”—the same way Filipinos call those whose heritage is mixed Indio, European or Chinese.
In a recent New York Times interview, some black women in the South expressed fears that Obama might be assassinated if he’s elected. It seems no one is worried that Hillary could herself be murdered if she becomes president. Circumstances might have been different, but Pakistan’s Benazir Bhutto and India’s Indira Gandhi lost their lives in the hands of assassins. Obviously it’s not only in the United States where misogyny thrives—it’s a worldwide scourge.
A big question today is whether Americans are mature enough to choose a woman for president some day. Or will they always hold gender against their aspiring female politicians?
Isabel T. Escoda is a longtime Hong Kong resident who has been writing about migrant workers in Asia.
|
