Sexism! Still a Force in American Politics

The quest for the Democratic nomination continues to ebb and flow as the two rivals struggle to gain an edge. Senator Clinton was presumed to be the front runner prior to the Iowa Caucuses, but Senator Obama won that state impressively. Then Senator Clinton came back to win the New Hampshire primary and looked poised for a sweep on Super Tuesday. The sweep turned out to be more of a draw and launched Senator Obama on to a string of eleven straight primary or caucus victories from South Carolina to Wisconsin from Washington to Vermont. Once more he seemed on the crest of victory. The super delegates who had been pledged to Senator Clinton began to waver and defect. No one smells blood better than a politician. The pundits were now sure that he would wrap up the nomination on March 4. It was, however, not to be as Senator Clinton roared back dramatically, scoring impressive victories in Ohio, Texas and Rhode Island. Next Senator Obama won a caucus in Wyoming and a primary in Mississippi to regain his frontrunner position, but he did not win so decisively that he was able to clinch the nomination. So the struggle now moves on to the key state of Pennsylvania in which Senator Clinton, according to the polls, stands poised to make her third comeback of this primary season.

Beneath the excitement of what is surely the most interesting political contest in recent memory, there is another dynamic, always present, but seldom talked about. Two debilitating prejudices, sexism and racism, are in this political process being routed from their dwelling places deep in the psyches of our citizenry. Both have had long histories in the Western Christian world. Racism, the more overt and obvious of the two prejudices, was once protected by the laws of this nation, but it has had its back broken first by the bloodiest war in our nation's history and second by a rising consciousness that found expression in the relentless pressure of the Supreme Court. Sexism on the other hand penetrated the culture in an almost assumed way that seemed to many to be appropriate, even proper. Even though sexism was also protected by the laws of this nation it was always more subtle and its evil less recognized. While no one would seriously argue today that racism in this society is dead, it is recognized at once when it rears its ugly head, while sexism is still widely supported in high places, including an obvious presence in the official statements of organized religion. Many church leaders continue to use a version of the "separate but equal" argument that has no credibility at all when applied in a racial context. No one in the political arena would dare to make an overtly racist comment, but overtly sexist comments have not been absent from this campaign. History tells us that while racism is crueler, sexism is more difficult to root out. Remember that this nation gave the vote to black men many years before it was given to white women. Data from this political season still points to the fact that sexism continues to be less recognized in the body politic than racism.

Senator Clinton, who had been first defined nationally as the "First Lady," had to establish her professional competence apart from her husband. She did this by winning a seat in the United States Senate, by mastering the intricacies of that most exclusive of clubs, by gaining the respect of her colleagues on both sides of the aisle, and by avoiding the spotlight of the media while doing her unglamorous homework. Her constituents in New York responded to these efforts and rewarded her with election to a second term by an astonishing 64% majority. Senator Obama, on the other hand, had been in the Senate for only two years when he announced his intention to seek the presidency. This is not to say that he is without significant credentials. He was an impressive student in law school, being chosen to be editor of the Harvard Law Review, an honor that goes only to Harvard Law School's top student. He taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago's Law School for ten years, during which time he was elected to and served in the State Senate of Illinois. Those accomplishments are not to be minimized, but it is to say that no woman with a resume as brief as that of Senator Obama would have been taken seriously as a presidential candidate. A woman still has to be twice as impressive to be viewed as equal. That is an expression of sexism.

Hillary Clinton also had to carry the baggage of her husband in a way that no male politician has ever had to do. She is colored by the foibles of her husband's administration. His negatives became her negatives. She wanted to keep her maiden name, Rodham, but political pressure on Bill Clinton after he lost the governor's office in Arkansas forced her to become Hillary Rodham Clinton. The loss of her own identity, a reality that women have had to live with for centuries, has played a significant role in this campaign when people, defining Hillary as a Clinton, realized that in the elections of 1980, 1984, 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000 and 2004 there had either been a Bush or a Clinton on the presidential ballot. She was thus identified with the Clinton politics of yesterday, not the Rodham politics of tomorrow. She was implicated in what came to be called the Whitewater Affair, which was investigated endlessly and finally dismissed, yet its odor seems to cling to her. When the Clintons left the White House in 2001 charges were made about the Clintons removing things that were not theirs. These charges turned out to be nothing more than political attacks and were demonstrated to be false; nonetheless the stain on her integrity remained. When Hillary Clinton was cast in the role of violated wife in the sordid Lewinsky affair, she could not win. She was criticized by some for refusing to leave her husband and by others for standing by her man. None of these things would have been the fate of a male politician. Sexism was clearly operating below the surface.

In 1972 when Shirley Chisholm became the first woman to seek the Democratic Party's nomination for the presidency, she carried with her candidacy the impact of both racism and sexism. It is interesting to note that she said overcoming her status as a woman was always more difficult than overcoming her status as an African-American. That was an indication that even long ago racism was more overt and easily identified in the public arena than was sexism. In support of that thesis, I cite the following data from this campaign.

When Bill Clinton played the race card in the South Carolina primary, it backfired because people, aware of racism, were embarrassed by it. The sexist rhetoric that commentators let forth on Hillary Clinton, however, did not receive a similar rebuke in the Court of Public Opinion. Carl Bernstein on live national television referred to Hillary's "thick ankles" and Tucker Carlson, an MSNBC conservative talking head, observed that "every time I get near Hillary Clinton I feel castrated." Those were weird sexist comments, saying more about both Bernstein and Carlson than they did about Senator Clinton, but the point is that no female reporter could have gotten away with describing Governor Huckabee's legs or with saying, "Every time I am in the presence of Mitt Romney, I feel like I am going to be raped!"

A male radio host for Station KOA in Denver, Colorado, wondered on a live national network whether Chelsea Clinton "was going to wind up with a big posterior like that of her mother." Can anyone imagine such a statement being made about a son of John Edwards? When a woman in a political gathering asked John McCain how he was going to "beat the bitch," he knew to whom the question applied and proceeded to answer it without unloading its hostility. McCain later, however, rebuked a right wing radio host when he spoke of Senator Obama in a derogatory racist manner.

Another radio talk show host accused a cable news channel of overreacting by suspending one of its political reporters, who had wondered aloud on national television "if the Clintons were pimping out their daughter as a campaign presence." Is that not sexism?

Senator Clinton also had the distinction of being the only candidate to be called "the anti-Christ" by a member of the religious right. That was, I believe, a sign of misplaced sexist rage. Why would not the three times married, admitted adulterer, Mayor of New York, whose children will not speak to him because of his treatment of their mother, be a candidate for that title? Yet he was spared this ultimate religious slander.

Many people quite clearly still carry unconscious fears about a powerful woman. Look at the way Sandra Day O'Connor was negatively described by all of the Republican candidates except John McCain. Look at the number done on Geraldine Ferraro when she was the vice presidential nominee. Look at how Margaret Thatcher developed the aura of autocratic masculinity to win in Great Britain and how British male pride was displayed when they described her "as a man wearing a skirt." Maybe no one ever forgets those years in our lives when we were helpless dependent infants being cared for by that seemingly all powerful woman we called mother. Maybe the fear of being made dependent again on a strong woman is still buried in our psyche. Maybe our sexist, male-oriented society, which still holds to the primary definition of a woman as a sex object, creates an unconscious difficulty in our ability to relate to women in a position of ultimate authority. Maybe women, who were taught how important it is to please a man to get ahead, were also threatened by her potential power. Perhaps that is why there have always been more "Aunt Jemimas" in the women's movement than there were "Uncle Toms" in the black movement. There is much about which we can speculate, but the fact of which we are certain is that sexist barriers are still potent and that Hillary Clinton, is the current victim.

People uncomfortable about this charge reply, "I am not opposed to women, only to this woman." However, this woman was the only one who has battled to the place where she has a real shot at the presidency and, in the final analysis, she has not yet won a normal portion of the white male vote while she has consistently lost,, never the majority, but a substantial part of the female vote to her opponent. Hillary Clinton may or may not become our next president. That is yet to be decided. What is clear, however, is that she has taken some of the sexist poison out of the body politic by absorbing it. That will make it possible if she fails in this quest for another woman in another day to climb to the top of the hill.

I am drawn to Hillary Clinton's ability and to her intelligence. I admire the integrity and independence of John McCain. I am excited about the vision of a potential Obama presidency. I hope, however, that I will live long enough to see my nation and this world be able to celebrate the full humanity and the equal competence of women.

John Shelby Spong