I very strongly believe in trying to get more women into all levels of politics on both sides of the aisle. I think that the new organizations The New Agenda and 51% are doing very important work. Even though I personally might have trouble supporting or voting for a conservative woman over a progressive man, it is crucial to work on increasing women's representation. A perfect illustration of this is the Senate vote on the Ledbetter bill. All four Republican women Senators voted for the bill. That's not to say that Republican women will always do what I believe is best for women, but it does show that women are needed to represent women's interests.
So even though the woman I preferred is not going to be Secretary Clinton's replacement in the Senate, I am very pleased that Patterson did choose a woman. Making note of this shouldn't be problematic, but I was still uncomfortable with the way that NPR promo'd their news piece about the appointment. I heard it in my car, so this isn't quite an exact quote, but the pertinent words are correct: "Gov. Patterson chooses another woman to fill Hillary Clinton's Senate seat."
I've been trying to piece out exactly why this bothered me. First of all, no one in the mainstream media was talking about how Blagojevic appointed "another man" to replace Obama. Just like no one in the MSM is going to talk about how another white person has been selected in Colorado. White men are the default, anyone else is a special case.
I think that I wouldn't have such a problem with this if the MSM put it in the context of representation. Instead, the way it's mentioned just serves to make women and minorities the non-default, the other. What do you all think?
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2 comments:
Hi, I just wanted to say I liked your comments they made me think. I'm a second waver who spent most of her university life fighting for the reform of rape laws and the passage of the ERA. There's undoubtedly a generation gap thing here, but I understand your point.
Thanks, dakiniland. And thanks for the real discussion at the Confluence.
I'm the age to be a third waver, but never felt like part of that group. I've always admired the second wavers who had to fight so hard and the hostility toward them is bewildering to me.
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