Mills: The sexism in this campaign.
Thursday night’s Democratic debate was a study in just how similar the two candidates are when it comes to their big ideas and end goals, and how different they are in terms of how they’d attempt to achieve them. It was (mostly) refreshingly free of zingers and wild accusations, and included some responses of actual depth. In talking about it with friends and strangers online, though, you’d think one or the other candidate had killed a puppy on stage.
I’m going to be honest: I’m an undecided voter. I am not a registered member of any party, though I tend to vote Democrat (or Green or Progressive, on the local level) because their candidates line up far more closely with my own ideals than the modern Republicans. In fact, the current roster of GOP candidates for president are so far removed from anything I recognize as representing a reality I’d like to live in that I’d put them all somewhere far below “charming cocker spaniel” on the list of who I’d vote for in this race.
Still, I’ve been watching with equal parts fascination and horror as the debate within lefty circles over who to support — Hillary or Bernie — rages. There are days I swing a little toward the Hillz, and others when I swing back toward feeling the Bern.
Both have qualities that I admire, and both have strikes against them from the mundane to the very serious: Clinton’s friendship with Henry Kissinger and adherence to that line of neoconservative interventionist thinking is not to be overlooked, while Sanders has a seeming inability to recognize harsh political realities and put detailed plans in place to wrangle them, not to mention how he sometimes dismisses or ignores gender inequality issues.
But we’re going to end up with one or the other as the Democratic nominee, that much is all but certain. Honestly, they’d probably make a pretty great team, regardless of whether it ends up being Clinton/Sanders or Sanders/ Clinton.
What has distressed me more than anything, though, is how this race has yet again brought into stark relief the toxic thread of virulent sexism that runs so deeply through our society. I’ve seen it rear its head in the way the media chooses to portray Sanders vs. how they handle Clinton (this is not new, and is something Clinton has admirably weathered for years now). It happens to female Republican candidates, too. I’ve also seen it show up in how regular folks deal with debate in person and online.
If you are a woman who dares to have a political opinion, you can expect to be raked over the coals for it. And the thing is, it doesn’t matter who you support. There will be someone, usually a man, there to tell you not just how wrong you are, but that your wrongness stems from your gender. Voting for Clinton? That’s just because you’re a woman and you think too much with your genitalia. Voting for Sanders? You’re a traitor to your sex, or too dumb to think for yourself.
Or worse. I can’t reprint many of the truly vile epithets and accusations I’ve seen hurled at women in general and Clinton in particular. I’ve seen selfprofessed liberals threaten to vote for a Republican if Clinton gets the nomination, a painfully extreme reaction that ignores the very real harm that would be done to less privileged populations if one of the current GOP contenders won office. Spite is not a good reason to throw everyone else under the bus.
There’s certainly been plenty of ill-mannered harassment of people with opinions about candidates, regardless of their gender. Name calling and abuse, especially online, knows few bounds. But it takes on an especially violent, misogynistic and often silencing tone when it comes to those who identify as women.
Heck, even Sanders himself has fallen prey to some of these bad habits, wagging his finger dismissively when Clinton says something he doesn’t agree with, looking for all the world like a disappointed old man patronizing his granddaughter.
In the end, I will make my decision based on a wide variety of factors, some of them, yes, having to do with my identity as a woman. My personal experiences are, after all, very relevant to how I view the world — as they are for you. What I sincerely hope is that we all do a better job of stepping outside of ourselves to see things from the point of view of a wide variety of people — especially those less privileged than us. Maybe then we can leave the isms that drive us apart by the wayside, and focus instead on our shared desire for real progress.