Gender and Presidential Politics

I would have been very content to support Hillary Clinton as the Democratic Party nominee had she won the nomination. But she didn’t. Barack Obama won instead, and I’m supporting him. Does that mean that I agree with everything he says? Not by a long shot! But I at least recognize that, after the November election is long over and we all have to reconcile ourselves with whoever ends up in power, what is going to count are the decisions that the new president will be making. Do you want that president to be pro-women or anti-women?

Republican John McCain, who (I think) practiced tokenism by putting an extreme right-wing woman on his ticket (in hope of attracting disaffected Hillary voters), does not believe in enforcing equal pay for equal work whether done by a man or a woman. Democrat Barack Obama, who (I think) foolishly let his pride get in his way by not putting proven vote-getter Hillary Clinton on his ticket, does believe in equal pay for equal work regardless of gender. If you’re a woman reading this, or just happen to believe in the cause of women’s rights, you really should look at things from the perspective of, say--2009 or 2010 looking back. You don’t want a packed Supreme Court beholden to male supremacy, the super wealthy, and large corporate interests. But that’s what you’ll get with a McCain presidency. You don’t want the Family Medical Leave Act so diluted that working women are put into hardship situations while trying to balance family with work. You stand to get that with a McCain presidency. You don’t want women, as they face various health problems, having to choose between food and medicine. Or being forced to remain in dead-end jobs with no hope for advancement simply because they may have pre-existing medical conditions that prevent them from obtaining affordable health insurance from a new employer. You will continue to get that with a McCain presidency. Regardless of what your feelings are about pro-choice vs. pro-life, do you really want the government involved in every sensitive issue that properly belongs within your own family? With a McCain presidency, the state will interfere more than ever before in your own personal decisions, not only with reproductive issues, but also with end-of-life matters (remember the Republicans and the Terri Schiavo “affair” in 2005?). How long do I have to go on to make my point?

Being personally miffed because one’s candidate was defeated is something that people just have to get over. Truthfully, although I believe that Obama’s passing over of Hillary for VP was a mistake, I think that McCain’s refusal to seriously consider Mitt Romney as a running mate is much more telling. For the former Massachusetts governor’s Mormon faith was a big factor in the so-called evangelical base of the Republican Party rejecting him for consideration. The idea that a theocratic element of any party could wield that much leverage should be a very, very scary thing. And if you vote for McCain/Palin, you are voting for that element as well!

If you supported Hillary Clinton in the primaries and believe that Roe vs. Wade should be upheld, then you are not only voting against your convictions if you support McCain: you’re also voting against Hillary Clinton as well! And if you oppose Roe vs. Wade while supporting her, I’m not sure what to say, except that you just might want to get past personalities and images and get more into the content of what the candidates really believe in. If Hillary Clinton were president instead of Barack Obama, she would pretty much be signing the same bills into law that he would, and vetoing the same bills from becoming law that he would as well. Her all-important Supreme Court nominations would be philosophically compatible with his. And all of this would be very, very different from the decisions made in a McCain administration.