If Hillary wins I will be happy. This is the first presidential campaign in a very long time that I have been so enthused and excited. Daughter M. sent me an email this morning quoting from feminist Robin Morgan. I found her essay outlining a few reasons why Hillary Rodham Clinton should be our president to be powerful and moving. I found myself agreeing with just about everything Ms. Morgan wrote. I have excerpted several paragraphs about women, the struggle, and HRC.
“Women have endured sex/race/ethnic/religious hatred,
rape and battery, invasion of spirit and flesh, forced
pregnancy; being the majority of the poor, the
illiterate, the disabled, of refugees, caregivers, the
HIV/AIDS afflicted, the powerless. We have survived
invisibility, ridicule, religious fundamentalisms,
polygamy, teargas, forced feedings, jails, asylums,
sati, purdah, female genital mutilation, witch
burnings, stonings, and attempted gynocides. We have
tried reason, persuasion, reassurances, and being
extra-qualified, only to learn it never was about
qualifications after all. We know that at this
historical moment women experience the world
differently from men-though not all the same as one
another-and can govern differently, from Elizabeth
Tudor to Michele Bachelet and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf…
We are the women who brought this country equal
credit, better pay, affirmative action, the concept of
a family-focused workplace; the women who established
rape-crisis centers and battery shelters, marital-rape
and date-rape laws; the women who defended lesbian
custody rights, who fought for prison reform, founded
the peace and environmental movements; who insisted
that medical research include female anatomy; who
inspired men to become more nurturing parents; who
created women's studies and Title IX so we all could
cheer the WNBA stars and Mia Hamm. We are the women
who reclaimed sexuality from violent pornography, who
put childcare on the national agenda, who transformed
demographics, artistic expression, language itself. We
are the women who forged a worldwide movement. We are
the proud successors of women who, though it took more
than 50 years, won us the vote
We are the women who now comprise the majority of U.S.
voters…
Hillary said she found her own voice in New Hampshire.
There's not a woman alive who, if she's honest,
doesn't recognize what she means. Then HRC got drowned
out by campaign experts, Bill, and media's obsession
with everything Bill.
So listen to her voice:
"For too long, the history of women has been a history
of silence. Even today, there are those who are trying
to silence our words.
It is a violation of human rights when babies are
denied food, or drowned, or suffocated, or their
spines broken, simply because they are born girls. It
is a violation of human rights when woman and girls
are sold into the slavery of prostitution. It is a
violation of human rights when women are doused with
gasoline, set on fire and burned to death because
their marriage dowries are deemed too small. It is a
violation of human rights when individual women are
raped in their own communities and when thousands of
women are subjected to rape as a tactic or prize of
war. It is a violation of human rights when a leading
cause of death worldwide along women ages 14 to 44 is
the violence they are subjected to in their own homes.
It is a violation of human rights when women are
denied the right to plan their own families, and that
includes being forced to have abortions or being
sterilized against their will.
Women's rights are human rights. Among those rights
are the right to speak freely-and the right to be
heard."
That was Hillary Rodham Clinton defying the U.S. State
Department and the Chinese Government at the 1995 UN
World Conference on Women in Beijing (look here for
the full, stunning speech).
So goodbye to Hillary's second-guessing herself. The
real question is deeper than her re-finding her voice.
Can we women find ours? Can we do this for ourselves?
"Our President, Ourselves!"
Time is short and the contest tightening. We need to
rise in furious energy-as we did when Anita Hill was
so vilely treated in the U.S. Senate, as we did when
Rosie Jiminez was butchered by an illegal abortion, as
we did and do for women globally who are condemned for
trying to break through. We need to win, this time.
Goodbye to supporting HRC tepidly, with ambivalent
caveats and apologetic smiles. Time to volunteer, make
phone calls, send emails, donate money, argue, rally,
march, shout, vote.
Me? I support Hillary Rodham because she's the best
qualified of all candidates running in both parties. I
support her because her progressive politics are as
strong as her proven ability to withstand what will be
a massive right-wing assault in the general election.
I support her because she knows how to get us out of
Iraq. I support her because she's refreshingly
thoughtful, and I'm bloodied from eight years of a
jolly "uniter" with ejaculatory politics. I needn't
agree with her on every point. I agree with the 97
percent of her positions that are identical with
Obama's-and the few where hers are both more practical
and to the left of his (like health care). I support
her because she's already smashed the first-lady
stereotype and made history as a fine senator, because
I believe she will continue to make history not only
as the first US woman president, but as a great US
president.
As for the "woman thing"?
Me, I'm voting for Hillary not because she's a
woman-but because I am.”
I will vote for Hillary or Barack. I have donated to both. I am a happy voter for the first time in decades. I note the Republicans are in disarray and who knows even poobah Limbah says he may vote for HRC too. Maybe a few Mormons will realize there isn't a home for them in the R party given the trashing of their 'golden boy' Mitt.
The link to Robin Morgan’s
web site.
For HRC go to:
HillaryClintonGo Hillary!
