From: barnhart@netcom.com (Aaron Barnhart)
Subject: Re: Carol Mosley Braun
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 92 02:26:14 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 
Distribution: usa

carroll@cs.uiuc.edu (Alan M. Carroll) writes:



>I thought it was rather a silly thing to say and at about the same
>level of relevance as Matalin's "bimbo eruptions" statement. It's the
>sort of thing to say when one has no substantive arguments.

>Correct if I'm misinterpreting you, but you are claiming that Ms.
>Braun being female _of itself_ "*is* the political reason". And here I
>thought that we were trying to move beyond judging people by their
>gender. I thought it was considered a good thing to judge people on
>who they were as individuals, and to judge our political leaders on
>what they say and do. Silly me. I suppose you don't have problems with
>someone saying "I'd never vote for a woman".

Hey, that would be nice, their *saying* they'd never vote for a woman.
But that's not the nature of things, at least not in this democracy.
What seems to happen, rather, is that an unspoken code arises and the
support structures arise to enforce the code.  The perfect example in
Chicago would be de facto segregated housing in the 1930s through 1960s
(and some would say still today in places).  Of course, there you had
people saying, with their acts of violence against the new family on
the block, "No, we don't want you people coloring up our neighborhood."

What has happened in American politics is more subtle, in that the
culture is almost entirely a product of the acts of men, males.  It
was not necessary to say, "I'd never vote for a woman," because that
situyation hardly came to be.  For various complicated reasons, one
just didn't have to think about gender -- ironic that in the bad old
days one could afford to be gender-blind. The culture took care of the
dirty work for you by ensuring women rarely ran for office.

Now *some* people would say -- like Carol Moseley Braun in more candid
moments -- that the male hegemony in American politics (*what* % of the
U.S. senators and congressmen?  yup) has resulted in abuses of the public
trust and a distortion of certain gender-related issues.  *So,* a majority
of U.S. senators somehow are able to convince themselves that Anita Hill's
story is simply untenable because what kind of woman would *let* herself
go on with life reporting to a man who had sexually harassed her?

(Aside: The July 1992 edition of the Chicago Reporter details the sordid
history of Chicago's Human Relations Commission and sex-harassment
questions surrounding its chairman Clar -- you knew it would be a
Clarence, didn't you? -- Clarence Wood.  Interestingly once again, only
the women who have resigned from the city board have raised allegations.
Those who still work for him are zipping their lips.  Now what's your
gut feeling ... no, that's not fair, you haven't read the article.  Ah,
c;mon, your *gut* feeling is they must be lying, right?  Hm?)

>In all seriousness, could you tell me what you think would be
>different about what Ms. Braun would do in the Senate if she were
>male?

I'll say two things.  One, if another Clarence Thomas type even *dared*
to stage the media show he did on the Senate floor, Carol Braun, Barbara
Mikulski, Dianne Feinstein, Lynn Yeakel, and maybe even nicey nice Nancy
Kassebaum would have him squashed like a little cock-a-roach.

The other thing is that in 1916, the good people of my home state of
Montana elected the first woman to the U.S. Congress, Jeannette Rankin,
and the next year she was sole vote against the United States' entry into
World War One.  Twenty0-four years later, she cast the same and solitary
vote against WW II.  Say what you will about just wars, or the individual
conscience, or even the idiosyncracies of Ms. Rankin, but there is
something not entirely inappropriate in the model of the lone woman standing
athwart 400 belligerent men yelling Halt.

Just my thought, what is yours?


-- 
Aaron (Barnhart@netcom.com)    |     "It is probable that, after economic
Evanston, Illinois             |    stability, the greatest single desire
                               |    in this country is for a reduction in
Jeremiah 6:14                  |    paranoia."          -- Stanley Crouch
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african.american