A question for "Mainstream Feminism"

[maevele]

Okay, so all this time, the important feminist voting issue has been women's rights, particularly reproductive rights. But now the big name capital F Feminist talking heads are telling me I'm a bad feminist if I don't vote for Clinton. Now, could someone tell me, in 300 words or less, how she's more pro-choice than Obama, looking at what they've said, or how they've voted?


Because I just don't see it, and it looks to me like they're down to take choice off of the table to get a woman in the white house. Because I don't trust Clinton, who thinks all abortions are tragic and regrettable, to work very hard to support abortion rights.


Not to mention all the other reasons I think Barack is a better feminist choice than Hillary, no matter what Gloria, Erica and Robin frikking Morgan may tell me.

Comments

[chris462.livejournal.com]

Wait ... You're not gonna vote for Huckabee?! ;)

[orangemike.livejournal.com]

Clinton is a woman. Big deal. So is Margaret Thatcher, Phyllis Schlaffly, etc. So what?

[ladyjax.livejournal.com]

What Steinem et. al. don't get is that as feminists, this is the first time in like, I don't know, forever that we actually have candidates that we can choose from instead of holding our noses and hoping for the best.

[mystickeeper.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I know a lot of female Republicans who I would not want to vote for.

I think being a feminist means that we can vote for whomever we damn well please.

[ethora.livejournal.com]

Did she really say that all abortions are tragic and regrettable?

[mylaptopisevil.livejournal.com]

weeeeeeeell, you could be pro-choice but still acknowledge that it's regrettable for someone to have an abortion*.

*but that regret could be more than just regretting the act itself. it could involve all the things that also led to the act. hell, it can mean she also regrets that condoms break, birth control fails, and women end up having to even be put in the situation to make a choice like that.

that said, it's not like voting for Barack isn't "feminist" - that' the stupidest shit i heard since forever.

edit: For whatever it's worth, didn't McCain also say that he's personally pro-life, but he supports the right for everyone else to be pro-choice (which really means he is pro-choice, only his choice if he had a say in the matter would be wanting to not have the woman get an abortion, but WHATEVER).

[ethora.livejournal.com]

One could also say that *any* preventable surgery is regrettable (painful, risky, etc.), but in this case all I really wanted was a citation. :)

[mylaptopisevil.livejournal.com]

i think this is the speech where she said it (someone correct me if I'm wrong..).

This decision, which is one of the most fundamental, difficult and soul searching decisions a woman and a family can make, is also one in which the government should have no role. I believe we can all recognize that abortion in many ways represents a sad, even tragic choice to many, many women. Often, it's a failure of our system of education, health care, and preventive services. It's often a result of family dynamics. This decision is a profound and complicated one; a difficult one, often the most difficult that a woman will ever make. The fact is that the best way to reduce the number of abortions is to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies in the first place.

The long and short of the entire speech is that she wants abortions to be a much more rare occurrence than now, and she's not a fan of women having to get abortions, but her solution isn't "make less likely to be able to get one" as much as "make it much less likely to ever need one."

[maevele.livejournal.com]

I can't remember the quote, or find it, but that's what I remember.

[heathergalaxy.livejournal.com]

Y'know what's feminist? Getting to make up your own damn mind about who you want to support! *hates on these "there's only one feminist choice" people*

[tupelo-lights.livejournal.com]

Along the lines of the recent video+post in debunking_white, voting for civil rights is voting for feminism and it should also work vice versa. This is not to say that Obama = "civil rights" or that Clinton = "feminism," but just that you should not feel that advancing a black man into the white house is somehow working against advancing feminism. Ever.

Also I'm rooting for Obama. So you've got me.

[unwoman.livejournal.com]

The sense that I got from Gloria Steinem's editorial & Robin Morgan's piece is that, there are some really bad reasons for not voting for Hillary out there -- basically, a deep-seated sexism, the fact that we've all acknowledged that between Black and White people there are no differences, but we all secretly believe that men and women are different in their ability to lead.

I take this to tell only part of the story, however -- because there are really good reasons to pick Obama over Clinton as well. One I can never get past is that she voted for the war in Iraq. As much as she can equivocate on it not really being a vote for the war, hundreds of thousands of protesters in the leadup to the vote told our senators otherwise. She, like all politicians, made a gamble on which would be the more popular position based on the climate of fear and warmongering that existed in 2001-2003, and she, like many others, chose tragically wrong. Not to say Obama hasn't made similar mistakes in his voting record -- but I'm willing to gamble that he'll make fewer.

I'm not not voting for Hillary because she's a woman, or because she shows emotion, or bakes cookies, or occasionally shows her cleavage but usually dresses like a politician.