Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Actually I gave my duckies away to my granddaugher:) And once in a
blue moon do candles.
  

    
<49> !!
  

    
Ted, I'm not sure if I agree or not. I used to think along those
lines, but the tone of this last election was just as sexist as ever,
the Intertubes notwithstanding.

Actually, I just found a nice post on the blog Feministing about that
very topic, recapping a panel on "Women, Power, & Politics" held last
night in New York. I'm mentioning it specifically because our guest was
one of the panelists, but it's still a worthy read.

http://tinyurl.com/4u8ky4d
  

    
Thanks for that link. No doubt it's still nasty on the ground, after
all
you are threatening the old boy network, but they should slowly sink
into the La Brea tar pits anyway.

I'm just thinking that with tools and focus you can cut through the
noise.
  

    
Also have to point out that the whole tenor of this Inkwell has been
the most refreshing and positive interaction with powerful women and
some of us 'still in consciousness-raising mode for today's lib
movement'(?) men. I wouldn't even pretend to get half of your
realities.

Rebecca, do you find that happening more often these days?  
  

    
Oh, so many issues and questions! 

First, Hillary and diminished power/Secstate, etc.. The reference to
her state of diminished power was based not exactly on her specific
job, but on the fact that, as I wrote, she'd lost the big prize. This
would have been true if she'd been named vp or anything else: the
potential power of having potentially been the president was gone, and
the person who had that power -- the president -- was now her boss. 

Secondly, and more specific to HRC's experience was the first year in
which everyone was writing stories about how she a) didn't have much
power within the administration b) had had her wings clipped c) was so
cooperative with Obama that it was clear she'd been tamed. This was all
based on the fact that when she first took over the state dept, she
was in full Hillary mode -- doing her homework, traveling around the
world, getting her job down pat, working well within the
administration, not making a big splash. It was very reminiscent of
when she went to congress and everyone expected her to be a diva and
instead she played very well with others and everyone said she'd
somehow been tamed. 

This kind of assessment stems from the fact that we still have a hard
time understanding or acknowledging that a very ambitious, competitive,
driven woman can ALSO be a team playing, diligent, competent,
hard-working colleague. We see women either as nice girls or divas,
can't seem to keep in our head that both impulses could exist in one
person! 

But it also fulfilled a fantasy we have about powerful, ambitious
women -- that they will be taught a lesson and learn not to make such a
racket. We have seen this story played out around Hillary after her
health care debacle in the 1990s, after her senate run, and then when
she took over the state department. 

One other note, Fawn: funnily enough, in some quarters, Secretary of
State IS looked upon as the consolation prize. Hillary isn't the second
woman to hold the position, she's the third: Albright, Rice and
Clinton. I heard Geraldine Ferraro once tell a story about a kid asking
Madeline Albright, "Can a man be secretary of state?" It's the
position that it's okay to put a woman in. 

All that said, this diminished power storyline has begun to fade as
Hillary has become more visible after her year of getting situated. I
think that by many accounts, she is doing a fabulous job, that she has
a terrific relationship with the president, and also that she is often
polled as one of the most popular (sometimes THE most popular)
politician in the country. I think it's a terrific job for her, and I'm
very interested to see what she does next. I am one of those crazy
people who thinks it's perfectly possible that she MIGHT run as Obama's
vp in 2012, depending on what they all decide.  I think that would be
terrific. No matter what, I suspect there's a good chance she will
continue to loom large in politics, perhaps even presidential politics,
down the road. 

Ted, as to your observation about the internet, there are lots of
people out there who will agree with you. I write in my book about the
explosion of a feminist blogosphere, which I think took place in part
because there was a new generation of women coming to consciousness
about gender imparity, but also because there was this new frontier in
which they could make their voices heard. 

But the other, ugly side of that is the remarkable misogyny that has
flourished online. Some of it is extremely direct -- see, for example,
much of the tenor of the comments sections on feminist stories at
Salon. Some of it is more subtle -- replications of old habits. I write
a lot in the book about the left-leaning blogosphere, and how even the
new generation of liberal bloggers wind up being an extraordinarily
white male bunch. 

The parity that anonymity and gender-blindness offer tends to fade as
soon as gender is revealed. For a while, one of the most prominent
liberal bloggers was Digby, who was widely assumed to be male. It
turned out Digby was a she, and (to my eye) attitudes about her work
changed very quickly. If you look at the blogrolls of many prominent
political sites, they are at least three-quarters male. 

So I don't think you're wrong to be hopeful, but I do think it's not
as idyllic as we might reasonably hope. 
  

    
Third! You're right, I just blithely glossed over Condoleeza Rice. How
typical that now that we've had 3 women in the job, the job itself is
seen as less important.

"We see women either as nice girls or divas" -- ouch. Painful truth.
  

    
Heh. It's as though they see the word 'secretary' and think, aha, a
woman can do it.
  

    
<56> "But the other, ugly side of that is the remarkable misogyny that
has
flourished online. Some of it is extremely direct -- see, for example,
much of the tenor of the comments sections on feminist stories at
Salon. Some of it is more subtle -- replications of old habits. I
write
a lot in the book about the left-leaning blogosphere, and how even the
new generation of liberal bloggers wind up being an extraordinarily
white male bunch."

Sorry to hear it's still that bad. Don't know whether to let the
yahoos rave on or install controls on comments and posts and screen
them out? Sobering comments from all, thanks. 
  

    
The Hillary I loved and wanted to see as President was the one I first
met in the '90's. I was delighted she was handling health care and
really thought it had a chance then. I was naive to the political
realities of that ever happening via a First Lady.

That Hillary seemed to get lost in all the compromises that resulted.
And on it goes. We see this with good people of both genders. I guess
it was more noticeable to me because I was so focused on her.

As you point out in your book and comments she has undergone several
more sea changes since. Do you think that tension, between being true
to oneself and manifesting that persona to others and the compromises
that realpolitik demands is more pronounced for women or that they are
somehow held more accountable or both? I mean look at a guy like
Lieberman who changes with every cocktail party that contributes and
nobody seems to care.
  

    
"There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil, to one who is
striking at the root." (Henry David Thoreau)

I guess it comes down to focus. Keep striking at the root.

"and it may be that he who bestows the largest amount of time and
money on the needy is doing the most by his mode of life to produce
that misery which he strives in vain to relieve." (rest of quote)
  

    
I don't know if the practicalities of realpolitik apply more to women
than to men, exactly, but because there have been so many fewer women,
and we examine the ones in front of us so much more closely, and
because we are so used to the contortions men make before getting
elected that we barely even register them anymore, it's so much plainer
in a woman. And I would argue, the contortions are bigger, because
automatically, she has to get over one massive difference -- gender and
all that goes with it -- that already sets her apart from the profile
of who winds up winning elections.

With regard to Hillary: there is simply no way that the woman you (and
I, and so many others) admired in the early 1990s could have run for
president. In order to build the political, financial capital it took
to make a serious stab at the presidency, she had to go through so many
stages of transformation. People will argue that the most serious one
was playing the victim to Bill's philandering, which made her less
threatening and therefore more appealing. I say the other big one was
playing well with others in the Senate, getting billing as a
cooperative bipartisan colleague. 
  

    
It sure is a massive challenge, figurative and literally.  I remember
that old adage that you can predict the winner in most presidential
elections simply by betting on the taller man.  Historically, we seem
to like big leaders.  Adding a woman into the mix makes the voting
public have to consciously or unconsciously challenge that ancient way
of thinking. 

We do have a couple of generations of women in positions of trust that
historically were nearly all-male, most notably the role of MD.  Seems
like that is very important to women candidates.
  
  

    
So where do you think the focus lies next?
  

    
Speaking of the Web and pop culture, this is cool:

 http://jezebel.com/5742856/gossip-girl-cares-about-women-in-politics
  

    
Oh hey! May it lead to unexpected sales!
  

    
Yes, Gail, the taller man! It has almost ALWAYS applied. So what does
that mean for a woman? It's a question I actually recently heard
professor Melissa Harris-Perry (you all may recognize her as
Harris-Lacewell, a frequent pundit on Maddow and Olbermann who just
changed her name) ask her class of undergraduates at Princeton. 

The Gossip Girl thing was remarkable. I didn't understand it at all,
but it was terrific, and I have my fingers crossed that it will lead to
unexpected sales. 

Ted, when it comes to gender, the focus lies next with this generation
of young women in congress and governor's mansions, on both sides of
the aisle. The 30 and 40 something women, some young mothers, like,
well, Gabrielle Giffords, Kirsten Gillibrand, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz,
Amy Klobuchar, Nikki Haley. That's not to count out their elders -- as
I've said, I don't think Hillary's done, nor Pelosi, who I really
missed seeing behind the president last night. But when you're talking
"next," we're looking at this group of women who are really redefining
what it might look like to be a leader. 

And then, after that, is the generation of kids that has a view of who
can lead that is utterly different from anything we can likely
imagine. The kids who are learning what government looks like, and that
their president is black, perhaps their governor, senator or
congresswoman is female. Their assumptions about who and who isn't able
to lead are formed by the world around us right now. And these are the
kids who may run and become the first female president, or the first
black woman president, or the first Jewish or Muslim or gay president.
And if they don't, they will likely vote for the first Jewish or Muslim
or gay president. That's the REAL next. 

 
  

    
I so enjoy your comments and writing style, Rebecca. I usually find
that when I read a book about contemporary politics or the political
world, that my attention flags after a few chapters. Your book held me
from beginning to end--it was always interesting, engaging and thought
provoking. 

It seems like events occur and then are swept away, out of our
collective memory, like they never happened. The part in your book
where you compare the reaction of Republican talking-heads to the
treatment of Sarah Palin with the non-reaction or shoulder shrugging
reaction of similar Democratic people really struck me. 

Do you think we are just going to have to relive that whole
merry-go-round the next time? Has anything changed from the post-mortum
of the 2008 election, not to mention the 2010 one?
  

    
Thank you, Julie! I have to say that one of my main motivations for
writing the book was to not let the story get forgotten. There was SO
MUCH history made, sometimes in intricate and small ways, and because I
sensed a reluctance to deal with it head on as it was happening, I
feared that there would be a reticence about chronicling it, at least
until it receded so far back in our memory that we couldn't quite grasp
or remember it anymore. So I'm especially pleased by your comment. 

As for the future: I really do things will be different. Not fixed.
Not without repeats of last time, and history in general, but that an
awareness has been heightened. For example, if Hillary Clinton were to
run again, I think that both she and the country would approach the
experience in very different ways -- I think she learned a lot about
the power of presenting herself as a woman, and I think the country
learned a lot both during (and since) her run about its own reactions
to her. 

I also think that if another woman were to run for president, as I
hope is likely -- and perhaps inevitable, from one side of the aisle or
another -- in 2016, many of us will have a sharpened awareness, a more
extensive vocabulary, and an increased sensitivity about how she is
treated. I also think we will all be a little more used to the idea. I
think there are media people in place -- in part thanks to the events
of the last election, from Maddow to Couric to Sawyer to some of the
female comedians like Fey, Schaal and Bee -- to help us interpret. 

Again, let me stress that this does NOT mean that I think a future
ride will be smooth, or without the depressing regressive, sexist
behavior we saw in 2008. We just saw some repetition of those things in
2010. I obviously don't think that it's a slam dunk for a woman to win
the presidency the next time one tries -- it depends on the woman, and
even if she's a great, competent, brilliant one, she might lose for
reasons related to her gender. But I do think that we are a country
that has changed, perhaps imperceptibly, since 2008. And sometimes
imperceptible change is all it takes to push us a little further. And
then a little further after that . . . 

Again, I'm sort of stupidly optimistic. 
  

    
What you're talking about is what complexity scientists call "the
sandpile effect." You steadily add sand to a pile and it grows and
grows and grows until bam! Suddenly the pile turns into avalanches and
the whole landscape is changed. 

It happens.
  

    
"As for the future: I really do things will be different. Not fixed."

Being an optimist myself I really like that thought. It's exciting
times we are living in. I just take it for granted that several women
will be running next election, w/o a pause for thought in most of the
electorate.

Would like to see that avalanche.
  

    
Rebecca, thank you so much for your time here in Inkwell.vue.  We will
likely continue discussing this long after you've moved on.  Please
feel free to come back whenever you can.
  

    
Thanks, Lisa, and everyone here for such a lively, smart conversation.
I've had a great time! And I will likely check back in if you all keep
talking. 
All my best, 
Rebecca
  

    
Do please come back! It's been great hearing from you!
  

    
Wishing you every success.