Jessica

Vozel

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February 5, 2008

Super Tuesday: Should a Woman Vote on Race or Gender? I Know! Issues!

After first advocating for Al Gore this past summer and then for John Edwards in the last couple months, I’m now forced to start anew yet again and chose another candidate to support in the 2008 election.

As Super Tuesday looms ahead of me today, I feel that by now I should pick someone to advocate, even though the primary in my state, Ohio, won’t come until the basically inconsequential date of March 4. Apparently, Iowans, Floridians and others are better at deciding these things than we Ohioans are, and thus end up with substantial pull in picking a candidate, while we are merely aimless voices adding our two cents long after the party is over. But, other states have it even worse, and I digress. 

According to much of the news media, as a white woman and a liberal, I should statistically be leaning toward Hillary Clinton. But wait!  According to John Wiener of the Huffington Post, known feminist leaders such as Katha Pollit of The Nation and Kate Michelman, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America are voicing their support for Barack Obama. What is a woman to do?

It seems the best course of action for me, and any undecided woman or African American, or female African American, should be to align myself with a candidate who strives for what I hope to see in America. It seems simple enough, but the media cannot seem to comprehend that women and/or African Americans are capable of choosing a candidate based on his or her merits and not skin color or number of chromosomes.

I understand the passion of women and black Americans who choose to vote for the candidate most like them – the one who will hopefully bring them the full equality their grandparents hoped for but never saw happen, especially not in the form of a woman or a member of a minority group leading the country. It is moving to consider what it means that racism and sexism have been surpassed by two viable presidential candidates. However, if we’re going to dissect motivations and break them down into gender and race categories, we should then assume that every white male who votes for another white male is simply voicing support for the candidate most like him. 

White this certainly happens, it is not so thoroughly examined by the media that it becomes common knowledge that white men will vote for other white men. I appreciated Oprah’s comment this past Sunday at an Obama rally in Des Moines, which she directed toward those who insist she is supporting Obama because she’s black: “Don’t play me small. I’m not that small. I would never vote for anyone based on gender or race. I’m voting for Barack Obama not because he’s black. I’m voting for Barack Obama because he is brilliant.” Accusing women and minorities of voting their race or gender assumes that they can’t make decisions based on anything else, which is thinly veiled racism and sexism at their worst. 

Also, I worry that eventually, it will be seen as traitorous to vote for a white male if you are not a white male. I admit, in supporting John Edwards until the end, I felt a twinge of guilt because I could have been supporting a woman, and a woman who has faced vicious sexism throughout her campaign at that. I recently read an article from feminist organization NOW-NYC (a branch of the National Organization for Women) that chided Ted Kennedy for his support of Barack Obama, calling it “the ultimate betrayal” against women. 

But guilt or no guilt, Hillary’s policies just don’t in all cases align with mine. I don’t like the idea of dynasties in a democracy, and after a Bush, a Clinton, and then a Bush again, I think it’s time for a fresh perspective. I don’t like how she supported the Iraq War and then tried to pretend she didn’t when supporting the war fell out of favor. I, as much as any other feminist, would love to see a woman in the White House, but until I can vote for one that I can 100 percent support, I’m going to choose on the same basis that white men are believed to use. The issues.

© 2008 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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