Feminism Redux

Recently, I’ve heard a couple of talks on NPR about Hillary Clinton’s run for President that have upset me. In the first one, they were talking about it in the context of feminism: they said that Geraldine Ferraro was all sorts of pissed off at her daughter for voting for Barry rather than Hills in the Democratic primary. Apparently, she felt that her daughter should “stick with the sisterhood” and was not supporting feminism or something by voting for Barry.

And then I heard a blurb on NPR last night that referred to Hillary as the “first credible female Presidential candidate” (agreed) and asked when would we be ready for a female President. And that pissed me off because I don’t think that she lost the primaries because she is a woman. Of course there were some people who voted against her because she’s a woman. And there were obviously people (like Geraldine Ferraro and many other Democratic women my mother’s age) who voted for her largely because she was a woman.

I think that feminism is all about women having choices. If I am voting for someone simply because she is a woman, then I’m not having a choice. I’m using gender to make the decision, without considering the issues. That’s as bad as someone who votes against a woman simply because she’s a woman.

I think that Geraldine Ferraro’s daughter (and I) are perfect illustrations of feminism (although I don’t really know what went through Gerry’s daughter’s head, I’m giving her the benefit of the doubt that she thought this through carefully since she’d have to incur her mom’s wrath for making the decision to not support Hills). I considered both Hillary and Barry based on their campaigns and what they said they believed in. I didn’t weigh either one more heavily because of gender or race.

Isn’t that what we all want? To be judged based on who we are as a person rather than gender, race, sexual preference, blah blah blah blah blah?

Call me post-Feminist, call me crazy, call me anti-feminist. I don’t really care. I think that if/when we are able to judge people based on who they are rather than “what” they are, we are moving in the right direction.