Schiller’s response essentially argued three points:
1.) Electing a woman as president (for example, Hillary Clinton)
would still be a simplistic solution to sexism, as well as an empty
symbolic gesture.
2.) That a female president isn’t actually needed for feminist
progress because its gains have mostly been realized (using the backlash
around Todd Akin’s “legitimate rape” comments as evidence of said
gains.)
3.) That a woman in office would do no more to combat sexism than
Barack Obama’s presidency has done to combat racism, conveniently
quoting Frederick C. Harris as saying:
“…Mr. Obama, in his first two years in office, talked about race less than any Democratic president had since 1961. From racial profiling to mass incarceration to affirmative action, his comments have been sparse and halting…when it comes to the Obama presidency and black America, symbols and substance have too often been assumed to be one and the same.”
Okay. So many problems here.
For one, Schiller largely trivialized the importance of symbolism and visibility.
Symbolism matters. In a country with very specific controlling images
and historical connotations that attach themselves to certain bodies,
seeing said bodies in spaces not originally reserved for them matters. Seeing someone who looks like you grasp forbidden kinds of power and provide a schematic reference for possibility, matters. The concept of fictive kinship that creates a sense of pride when one of Us has Made It, matters.
Visibility is also an extremely powerful concept. In a culture that
sees marginalized people only through peep shows of white supremacist,
patriarchal perspectives—that are always obscured through bias—lack of
full recognition becomes a marker of second-class citizenship.
For marginalized bodies to enter public spaces and demand visibility not filtered through oppressive gazes—to be seen in any autonomous way at all, matters.
But here’s what also matters:
Barack Obama as the president of the United States has been one of
the most vivid confirmations of racism in a post–Jim Crow America.
Folks usually critique Obama for his reluctance to talk about race,
and rightfully so. But we usually neglect to acknowledge that while he
may avoid explicit racial discourse, it doesn’t mean that no implicit
discourse has been made.
Policy-wise, he has done race work:
his Affordable Healthcare Act will reduce health disparities for
millions of African-Americans and raise Medicaid eligibility. Almost
half of undergraduate Pell Grants under the Obama administration were
received by black students—higher than any other group. He also signed
the Recovery Act in law, which helped keep a disproportionate number of
blacks out of poverty through tax credits, increase in food stamps, and
funded re-training for the unemployed.
This is not to say that there aren’t numerous policy and social
critiques to be made about Obama (there are) and that his symbolism
negates those critiques (it doesn’t) but to simply to suggest that
covert race work is race work nonetheless—its impacts still the same.
More than that, Schiller ignores the very overt race talk that has been had around Obama.
In less than four years of his first term, Obama’s presence managed to
evoke centuries of white anxiety and classic oppressive behaviors:
The perpetual Othering of his biracial/Kenyan origins, “exoticized”
to the point of fetishism. The commentary on his Negro “inefficiencies”
(by conservative and white liberals) while simultaneously
forcing him into old stereotypes of black maleness. The assassination
attempts, Birtherism, xenophobia, and inexplicable skepticism of his
abilities and intelligence. The constant reference to him as “Obama” and
refusal to use “president” as an authoritative title-like an eerie
homage to Jim Crow, when adult black men were referred to as merely
“boys.”
Not to mention the media representations of Michelle Obama that,
despite her respectability, always sought to reinterpret her as the
Sapphire/Mammy/Jezebel tropes of black womanhood.
Before we could only ask the question, “would a black president in America signal post-racialism?” as a hypothetical.
Obamas now give us a resounding emblematic answer: Hell. No.
And in knowing this, we were able to confront race in a “colorblind”
America. It gave the black community an archetype in which to
acknowledge, analyze, and vent about racial oppression in a cultural
climate that had rendered race invisible.
If a woman is elected president of the United States, the same thing
will inevitably happen. We can have an opportunity to confront sexism by
bringing it to the surface. We’ll be able to dissect gender roles and
patriarchal power dynamics. Evoke talk about the beauty myth, ageism,
and the consequences of the male gaze. Analyze female sexuality,
madonna-whore complexes, and rape culture. And to examine how these
issues manifest differently for LGBT/poor/disabled/women of
color—through a lens of instersectionality that is too often abandoned
in feminist conversations.
I, like Valenti, don’t have simplistic fantasies about being rescued
from oppression by public figureheads and symbolism alone. I don’t cater
to the concepts of collectivity that make our individual choices bear
representation on the entire group. I don’t expect anyone who shares my
identities to carry the burden of social justice on my behalf. And I
don’t think a marginalized body in a position of power is inherently
progressive.
But I also know that diversity is a threat to the status quo, and
that marginalized bodies are (not always, but more likely to) enact
policy, discourse, and change that benefit the people who look like
them—not because of identity “loyalty,” but because your lived
experiences encourage action.
The only people who can truly make the best decisions about matters
of oppression are those who actually experience it. After centuries of
whites creating the policies that disproportionately affect people of
color, doesn’t it account for something when at least a colored body is
now making these decisions, regardless of outcome? And after centuries
of male paternalism determining what is best for women, won’t it matter
that these decisions are enacted by someone that can at least live out
its consequences?
Schiller seems to think that minimal instances of collective pushback
is sufficient progress, that we should “be happy” with the meager gains
we’ve made. That Obama’s inability to eradicate centuries of social
injustice within a four-year period is somehow evidence of failure. A
failure that will inevitably be used to justify the blocking of more
black and brown people from the Oval Office in the future.
Schiller’s assertions that a female president will actually “dampen”
feminism seems to suggest that a victim of oppression in spaces of power
is inherently dangerous, that it only makes oppression worse. But we
can also look at how this language of skepticism also warned our
ancestors not to defy their own oppressive strictures—not to vote, enter
segregated institutions, run for office, boycott, march, speak too
loudly, speak at all. And knowing that we are forever indebted, because
they did it anyway.
If you haven’t already, read Jessica Valenti’s column “Why I’m Voting for Her,” and Amy Schiller’s reply, “The Feminist Case Against a Woman President.”
Source: thenation.com
Author: Erica Brazelton
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