There is exciting gender movement in India, no doubt. Lately I've been reading about "The Gulabi Gang", or "the pink gang," who dress in pink and "thrash men who have abandoned or beaten their wives and unearthed corruption in the distribution of grain to the poor." Now of course I don't think we should all be dressing in pink and beating men up on a wide scale (I like to think women can offer different solutions rather than replicate the same problems), but to see this kind of action from a country with very stratified gender roles is really exciting. An interesting angle here is that many of The Gulabi Gang members are women who didn't get married and had no place to go, since women traditionally live with either their father or husband at all times, so the gang took them in. This brings up a another great NYT article from last wknd on the explosion of single young women in India renting apartments while they pursue professions and delay marriage, which is happening on this scale for the first time ever. It's a great article, and taken with the Gulabi Gang piece and other tidbits tells a really compelling story.
On Hillary Clinton... we've discussed before our feelings on the gender politics of her role as a major candidate... There's definitely a place to just be disgruntled and frustrated with the way she is being covered although she is not necessarily someone we will vote for. Annoying, yes. Two possible widespread reactions come to mind for me depending on how this all shakes out, and I don't like either of them, but on some level I think we just all need to jump in and sink into this moment we're having and plug our nose through the stink of it so we can put this first time behind us.
- Scenario 1, Hillary Clinton is elected president: HC wins and as we all know was not the most progressive candidate on the Dem slate. During her tenure, let's imagine, not much changes for women around the country, and women-based appeals on issues like pay equity, childcare, health insurance, etc. get nowhere. Mainstream response: "Feminists got a woman elected to the Oval Office. And it's still not good enough! Those pesky feminists are never satisfied!" That's so beyond the point, but I can see it everywhere. Elect a woman and you still want more, they'd all scream.... Ridiculous.
- Scenario 2: John Edwards manages to win the Dem primary: "Voters just couldn't stomach the idea of a woman or African-American as their president!" Ugh. Never mind that on so many issues JE has the progressive record... for many people that's the only way his win would be spun, and it's too bad. Once more we'd have our mainstream media feeding us reaction and analysis instead of a look at platforms and how voters weighed them against one another.
There are so many more really annoying headlines we can conjure up here, and I think it goes without saying that we're going to see more annoying headlines and media commentary than we can stomach before this is all over. It's good for us, though. It's good for everyone. Slogging through all this gender bias crap now will mean less of it later, I've gotta believe....
For the moment, let me just say that I couldn't believe it when I read that John Edwards would sic collection agencies onto poor people who didn't buy health insurance. For this reason alone I will absolutely not vote for John Edwards, I don't care what else he says or does. To me it shows a serious disconnect despite his poverty mantra.
I'll get back to this on the gender/Hillary topic when I can...am jammed today!
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