The scrutiny of the candidates’ spouses is a traditional sideshow in the summer of a US election, but this time it has added spice, because the discussion of what kind of woman the country would prefer to stand beside the guy taking the oath of office occurs after a campaign that rejected the most plausible female candidate for presidency there has ever been.
Four election cycles since she traded cookie recipes with Barbara Bush in an attempt to deflect fears about her feminism, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is forced to watch Michelle Obama going through the same process simply to gain a non-elected job that becomes available only through an accident of marriage.
The Democratic candidate’s wife appeared on The View, a US talkshow with an all-female panel, in what looked like an attempt by her husband’s media strategists to soften her image and correct an impression of black, leftwing militancy that has been spread on the web and picked up in other media.
We have come to accept that presidential candidates will have to address “character issues,” but to watch their partners being spun — and, in this case, specifically home-spun — induces fresh levels of depression with the political process.
Commendably, though, Michelle Obama went sufficiently off-message to suggest that she believes Clinton to have suffered from sexism. Well, she should know: The same prejudice led to the need for her to make this appearance.
The sexual politics will become even more noxious if Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama opts for a woman running mate. Sharing the ticket with Clinton seems unlikely, but Kansas Governor Katherine Sebelius is a possibility. If the job were offered, though, the governor might want to think hard about whether politics is ready for a gender shift, even in this secondary position. Has there been any progress in the quarter-century since Geraldine Ferraro made history as the first female vice presidential nominee, but failed partly because of suspicion over her marital finances?
Clinton didn’t lose the Democratic nomination because she was a woman: It was her misfortune that her run coincided with the offer of an even more progressive and historic candidate. But it’s clear from the campaign that, even now, non-male contenders have to face pressures that are never suffered by men: an antiquated, muttering sub-debate over how they dress, speak, feel and whether they provoke castration complexes in the male population.
US broadcaster Katie Couric, the first full-time female anchor of a nightly news bulletin, this week posted an angry video blog suggesting Clinton lost partly because of “the continued and accepted role of sexism in America — particularly in the media.”
Clearly, there was a testy empathy in Couric’s words, as she may attribute her low ratings at CBS to the possibility that a section of the population not only doesn’t want a woman in charge of the country but won’t even tolerate a woman reading out the facts about what the men who run the nation are doing.
Even so, only a redneck who’s had too many beers could seriously argue with Couric’s central point. There was chortling reporting of placards at Clinton rallies reading “Iron My Shirt,” and novelty Clinton nutcrackers on sale at airports. Yet public expression of similar prejudice toward Barack Obama — signs, perhaps, reading “Shine My Shoes” or keyrings with simulation shackles — would, quite properly, lead to front-page outrage and criminal investigation.
Racism is no longer publicly acceptable, although Barack Obama’s polling performance in November may show if it remains privately an issue in the US. But sexism is permitted to thrive both overground and underground. The sad spectacle of a Democratic candidate’s wife having to “reposition” herself on TV in case she threatens his electoral chances, shows us that US politics still has a problem that is not being addressed.
The fundamental unfairness is that visible political wives are accused of stridency and interference, while invisible ones are criticized for failure to stand by their men.
In Britain, comparison between the administrations of former prime minister John Major and Prime Minister Gordon Brown, has become standard — house price crisis, record poll lows, turning to jelly on the telly — but there is another similarity. Their wives Norma Major and Sarah Brown are private people.
Norma Major, though, despite what we later learned to be tension in their marriage, was eventually forced to hover at John’s elbow for photo-ops and give interviews supporting him. And, intriguingly, the Downing Street press machine enthusiastically spread the news recently that a banquet for US President George W. Bush had been largely organized by Sarah Brown, who was credited with selecting the menu.
So Sarah Brown is good with food and Michelle Obama is not a “femi-nazi.”
The fact that such reassurances are still thought necessary is far from reassuring.
Taiwan heads to the polls next month for local elections. Beneath the campaign ads lies a deeper question: What do we call this place and who gets to decide? In the pages of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), that question has been playing out across three centuries. The entries for “Formosa” and “Taiwan” chart an island’s journey from colonial fantasy to self-named reality. Names are rarely neutral; they are the first act of possession. Nowhere is this more evident than in the OED, where the two entries serve as a linguistic seismograph for one of the world’s most enduring geopolitical fault lines.
There are two space races that the democracies must win: one to deter military campaigns near Earth, and the other to secure positional deterrence on the Moon and beyond. The good news is that the US is engaged in both races, which will also benefit US allies and partners in Asia, including Taiwan. On Sept. 14, US Air Force Secretary Troy Meink disclosed, “...the US now has on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the Joint Force against hostile adversary action.” No details about these “space control weapons” have yet been disclosed. However, a graphic apparently issued by French Space Command and posted
Taipei’s school lunch program has run into trouble yet again. This time, Shilin District’s (士林) Shihtung Elementary School (士東國小) was exposed by parents on social media for serving rotten, blackened pears. The incident once again sparked criticism about food safety in Taipei schools and the quality of the city’s free lunch policy. Free school lunches for all elementary and junior-high schools is a flagship policy announced by Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) in January, but at the time it attracted criticism from other administrative regions. Since the policy’s official implementation last month, the city — which has the largest budget
Upon entering Taipei Railway Station, what greets us at the interchange of Taiwan’s three major rail systems are not testimonies to the city’s technological development or cultural heritage, but an inescapable barrage of cosmetic surgery and aesthetic medicine advertisements. Advertising itself has always been more than commercial activity; it is a manifestation of the collective unconscious. When the entranceway of the nation is lined with legions of cookie-cutter perfect faces and plastic surgery adverts, it both reveals and provokes society’s collective body-image anxiety. From a psychological perspective, these advertisements are an exercise in social conditioning of the public. They do
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