Comments on: Women and Election 2008: A gut check

By: Feminism, Changing the World, and the Internet at Fem2pt0 : society’s issues + women’s voices

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 17:01:40 +0000

[...] our voices and ratcheting up the pressure for change. As mismeta at the Adventures at Midlife blog points out, "I think it’s time to us women to start speaking up — in ways small and large, [...]

By: rprangle

rprangle — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 16:02:11 +0000

Duchess, black people have historically voted Democratic, I don’t think you can say that Obama’s mandate is diminished. I agree that it would be stupid to vote for a woman just because she is a woman, we need to look at what the woman stands for. I supported Obama over Hillary because Hillary has some huge baggage named Bill. I think women over 50 are facing 2 problems – sex discrimination AND age discrimination. And, it’s likely to get worse as the economy worsens and competition for jobs increases.

By: Twenty Four At Heart

Twenty Four At Heart — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 05:14:48 +0000

I think women associate the word feminist with women burning their bras in the 60’s. The word developed a stigma. Maybe we need a new word for a new generation of women. A word they can relate to and rally to. In some ways we’ve come so far. Jane is right though – a lot of times we are our own worse enemy.

By: byjane

byjane — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 20:01:46 +0000

I echo and ditto as well what The Duchess says. But I despair of there ever being any real unanimity among us. I keep a pad and pen by the bathroom sink so that I can write the brilliance that comes to me while brushing my teeth. Recently I’ve been working on “Why are women so hard on one another?” Maybe it’s hard-wired, something to do with fighting for the best bull in the yard. Whatever, one only has watch women snipe and peck away at each other on line to feel–well, despair.

By: Duchess

Duchess — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 02:02:05 +0000

Well, I’m in the 20% that calls herself a feminist and in the 17% that would be happy to have her daughter call herself one too. Nevertheless I will not vote for a woman just because she is a woman, though that would certainly be a point in a candidate’s favour, other things being equal. The fact that many black people voted for Obama just because of his race, diminishes his mandate. It is not a pattern I would like to see women follow. I supported Hillary because I thought she was the best candidate AND she was a woman. I did not support Palin because I thought she was the worst candidate EVEN THOUGH she was a woman. I don’t think I let my sisters down by taking that position! And I don’t think Palin would have done a lot for women had she got in since it seems to me that ownership and control of one’s reproductive system is fundamental to women achieving equality anywhere.

By: msmeta

msmeta — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 18:14:49 +0000

Thanks for the responses. Yes, I agree with Alison and Adlibby that we have made progress in the workplace and in education, but it always seems that when there’s a real test of society’s intent, like an election, we fall short. So we do need to speak up against a biased media and we do need to empower and educate our daughters and granddaughters — just as long as we don’t call them feminists.

I’ll keep hoping.

By: ask allison: the middle-Aged woman’s go to girl » Have We Midlife Women Come A Long Way Baby?

Wed, 19 Nov 2008 16:37:53 +0000

[...] was just over at Ms. Meta’s where she continues to be frustrated about whether we women really have made headway politically in [...]

By: Midlife Slices

Midlife Slices — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 16:20:15 +0000

My mantra is “Fork The Media” because I’m not listening to their biased drivel. They are brain washing America and only WE can stop them from continuing. Also, I’m speaking out against the media whenever possible. There should be some accountability but there seems to be none when it comes to their reporting.

By: Allison

Allison — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 16:01:27 +0000

Ms Meta,

I think we have to believe about ourselves first anything we want someone else to believe about us (if you can make sense of that grammatically twisted sentence). I have a background in human systems, how they do (or don’t) change, etc. I know it takes a VERY long time to make changes like this. The bias is so embedded, and it must be said, has some biological hard wiring that complicates it further.

I do believe it’s changing, just slowly. My concern is that the younger generation of women have to keep at it, they can’t slide backwards. They are certainly making more gains educationally than men, and they participate in organized sports etc to a much greater degree than we did, all good signs. But, our culture seems to do its darndest to make women sex objects and judging from what I see, an awful lot of young women buy into that.

I think we need to be focused on our daughters and granddaughters, personally. We need to support and encourage them to keep pushing on this.

By: Adlibby

Adlibby — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 15:48:37 +0000

Great blog. Glad to find you.

It certainly feels like two steps forward and one step back. Still… compared to the choices my grandmothers were faced with… one lived on a farm and never finished highschool (got her GED when she was 81!) and the other had to quit teaching school when she got married. We’ve come a long way baby.

Women are rising. Women are rising to power in corporations. Women are the majority of college graduates. Women are doctors and lawyers and lawmakers. Women are moving into the kinds of positions where real lasting change can be made. Change isn’t happening as fast as we would like — but it’s coming.

I’m very interested to see if Michelle Obama takes on any of these women’s issues as her mission as first lady. She has hinted at it.