How Will Feminists Vote?

By Jill Filipovic, AlterNet. Posted February 5, 2008.

Today is Super Tuesday, and the feminist vote is torn. Much has been made of the gender gap and the generation gap in the Democratic primary, with women supposedly drawn to Clinton and younger people backing Obama. And while the prospect of the first female president may seem to make Clinton the obvious feminist choice, prominent leaders in the women's movement remain deeply -- and publicly -- divided.

Gloria Steinem was among the first to gain significant attention for her endorsement when she threw her support behind Clinton in a New York Times op/ed, where she argued that "women are never front-runners." Steinem took the position that gender is a key component of the race, and that the "sexual caste system" continues to make political success more difficult for women:

So why is the sex barrier not taken as seriously as the racial one? The reasons are as pervasive as the air we breathe: because sexism is still confused with nature as racism once was; because anything that affects males is seen as more serious than anything that affects “only” the female half of the human race; because children are still raised mostly by women (to put it mildly) so men especially tend to feel they are regressing to childhood when dealing with a powerful woman; because racism stereotyped black men as more “masculine” for so long that some white men find their presence to be masculinity-affirming (as long as there aren’t too many of them); and because there is still no “right” way to be a woman in public power without being considered a you-know-what.

But not all feminists were buying it. Feminist bloggers -- and feminists of color in particular -- took issue with Steinem's argument, wondering, as Jenn of the Reappropriate blog did, "Where do those of us who are disadvantaged both by our race and by our gender fit in?"

Former NARAL Pro-Choice America president Kate Michelman worked for the John Edwards campaign, and then backed Obama once Edwards dropped out. She, too, cited gender issues for her vote:

When I endorsed John Edwards for president, I did so because I was confident he would help lift women out of poverty and protect a woman's right to make her own decisions about if or when to have a family. I was confident that if John were in the White House, the single mother, who was working two jobs, living paycheck to paycheck, and worried about health care and child care, would have more influence than the well-healed corporate CEO armed with a team of lobbyists.

And when I endorsed John Edwards I also knew that Barack Obama shared every one of these concerns, and over the course of Barack's own campaign, the nation has come to believe in him just like I always have as well.

Former NARAL executive director Karen Mulhauser agreed, specifically pointing out that Obama's record on reproductive rights is clearly and strongly pro-choice.

Judith Stadtman Tucker, editor of The Mothers Movement Online, also issued an endorsement of Obama. So did Ellen Bravo, a feminist professor and former director of 9to5, the National Association of Working Women. Bravo argued that "Something's happening in these elections that feels like a tipping point," and said that many of her feminist friends and colleagues were voting for Obama because "justice matters."

But, again, not all feminists were on the same page. Marcia Pappas, president of the New York State chapter of the National Organization for Women, published a now-infamous press release calling Sen. Ted Kennedy's support of Obama "the ultimate betrayal." She further angered some fellow feminists by arguing that women have an obligation "to promote and earn and deserve and elect, unabashedly, a President that is the first woman after centuries of men who 'know what’s best for us.'"

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Jill Filipovic is a New York-based freelance writer and a law student at NYU. More of her writing is available online at her blog, Feministe.

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