Beginnings and Endings

By Carol Gee

DEMOCRATIC PRIMARIES

Many women in the United States are facing the ending of a dream these days. Those of us in that place are now relatively sure that next January there will not be an inauguration of the first female president in the nation's history. And in a way that awareness can be heartbreaking to longtime feminists. I count myself in that cohort, even though I began to be an Obama supporter a few weeks before our state's primary. It is not that I did not want a woman to be the nominee. I have deeply looked forward to that eventuality for decades. I just could not support the particular woman running in 2008, ending my dream for now.

Beginnings plus endings equal transitions. Sometimes these periods can be discomfiting psychological stages in which to be thrown, because we have so many associated emotions. We might feel sadness that something we valued has ended, anxiety about what is to come, anger that transition was forced upon us, or ambivalence because of unresolved mixed feelings. We might have changes in appetite, sleep patterns, increased hyper-vigilance or numbness, tears or other unusual behaviors. Not everyone sails easily through transition.

The Democratic party's primary season is ending Tuesday. As this very useful WaPo election season map clearly shows, Montana and South Dakota are holding the final two elections that should decide the nominee for POTUS. This begins the period when heretofore undeclared Super Delegates will announce their preferences, moving the party towards its desired unification in order to win the election in November. The problem is that Senator Clinton is yet unaware of this reality. She remains in denial and in transition. She appears to be having the most difficulty of any of us in letting go of her dream.

The presumptive nominees of both parties are already out of transition. Senators Barack Obama and John McCain have already begun the general election campaign to win the chance to be center-stage at the presidential inauguration.

And Barack Obama and his family have ended their membership in their church. Senator Obama and/or his wife and daughters all faced some of those uncomfortable transitional feelings after making this difficult decision. My hope is that relief will come, too.

NASA IN SPACE

NASA's Shuttle mission, STS-124, has begun its journey to the International Space Station, where the Japanese module Kibo ("hope") will be installed. This mission marks the end of the major construction of habitable space on the ISS. The shuttle docks with the ISS today.

PERSONAL

One of our granddaughters ended her high school years Saturday with a grand graduation ceremony. And very soon she will begin preparations in earnest for starting college in the fall. She begins to make the transition from adolescent to adult, just like millions of happy "mortar board tossers" all over the country.

(Cross-posted at South by Southwest.)

Like your right to bodily privacy? Don't go to Oklahoma

Guest post by LindaBeth

I'd like to welcome a new guest blogger to The Reaction. A former student of mine from the Univ. of Toronto, LindaBeth is currently a graduate student at the Centre for the Study of Theory and Criticism at the University of Western Ontario. Her thesis is a discourse analysis of the normative structure marriage in the U.S., examining the rhetoric on both sides of the same-sex marriage debate and looking at how several socio-political institutions both produce and depend on normative marriage for their viability and legitimacy. And she's a blogger, too: don't ya wish your girlfriend was smart like me? offers "cultural commentary and media analysis with a shot of feminism and a twist of wit," and it is always a great read.

I encourage you to check out her insightful and provocative blog and to welcome her to our community here at The Reaction. Her first post, on an outrageous court decision in Oklahoma, is below.

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The Feminist Daily News (Feminist Majority Foundation) reported this story (via The F-Word):

"Oklahoma Man Not Charged for Violating Privacy of 16 Year Old Girl"

Oklahoma's Court of Criminal Appeals ruled that taking pictures up someone's skirt in a public place is not a crime. The court voted 4-1 in favor of 34-year-old Riccardo Ferrante who was arrested for putting his camera up an unsuspecting 16-year-old girl’s skirt in a department store, reports the Associated Press... Ferrante was charged under Oklahoma's "Peeping Tom" statute, which makes such offenses felonies punishable of up to 5 years in prison. Tulsa World reports that the court ruled that the statute only applies in situations where the victims are in a reasonably private place such as their own homes, a restroom, or a locker room.

Quick thoughts:

• Clearly, sexual privacy doesn't seem to apply to when women are in public.
• What can of worms does this open up? Spycams in changing rooms? Can someone pull down your shirt as you're waiting for the bus? The implications of this ruling are absurd!
• She's 16-years old... WTF?!
• And this is all because she dared to wear a skirt in public that was short enough that a camera could be placed under that. Hear that ladies? If you're gonna leave the house, you'd better be wearing full-body armor! Enter the public sphere, and your sexual privacy belongs to everyone. But stay at home (ya know, where women belong), and you're fully protected.

I have been thinking a lot about women's right to privacy in public spaces, due to some recent stories and discoveries I've made, and I plan to write about it more extensively soon (keep an eye out!)... but, in the meantime, puke on this.

Hard balls

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Chris Matthews may be scared shitless of feminists and their sisterhood lunches, but he sure likes wingnut sexpot Ann Coulter: "She sells books," he remarked, defending her upcoming appearance on Hardball. I guess bigotry is less ball-shrivelling than empowerment.

Surrounded by women

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I know I shouldn't even bother asking this question, but:

What the hell's wrong with Chris Matthews?

As if his man-crush on Fred Thompson. weren't enough, his sexualization of politics came through once more, and as blatantly as ever, on his eponymous show yesterday.

"Okay, let's put the gender thing in here," he said. "I love gender politics, guys. We have two women here all the time to make sure we're balanced on this show." Fantastic. He must feel so good about himself. Some of his best friends are women, surely.

And then it got bizarre. He brought up "last supper scenes," pointing out (as if it needed pointing out) that the Last Supper -- you know, Jesus's -- was "all men". (Seriously, I'm not making this up. Check out Media Matters.) But just when you think Dan Brown was about to show up with a counter-theory, he leapt from Jesus's Last Supper to Hillary's lunches. Yes, that's right. (I'm not making this up!) Hillary Clinton's lunches, which are "all women". (Does this make Hillary the anti-Christ? Chris, you must explain. Otherwise, we'll have no choice but to call you a fool.) At these lunches, he claimed, Hillary is -- and here one imagines how threatened Chris must feel -- "advertising her sisterhood". (Say what? Yes: "advertising her sisterhood," like her campaign is one big episode of The View. Have I mentioned that I'm not making this up?)

Now, Matthew seems to be a sort of homoeroticized ass-slapping sort of guy. (Hence his man-crushes.) He also seems to like women but to be simultaneously attracted to and frightened by feminism. (Why remark, as he did earlier in this exchange, that his two female guests, Elisabeth Bumiller and Kathleen Parker, are feminists? Are you not a feminist, Chris? Are women only on your show to provide "balance" and to be ogled?) And so he doesn't quite know what to make of Hillary's sisterhood lunches: "Is that something she can use to help sell herself as a future strong person defending this country, or does it get in the way?" This may be one of the stupidest questions ever asked in the history of cable news -- and there's an awful lot of competition. It may make sense to ask about sex and gender in American politics, to ask whether voters will vote for a woman, and even to get into gender politics more broadly. (Of course it matters that Hillary is a woman. I don't deny that.) But to connect these lunches to strength and toughness, and to ask this question without a trace of irony? Come now, Chris, stop the inanity.

In response, Bumiller mentioned that women are "the base of her support" -- which is also exaggerated inanity. (Women voted for Hillary, but so did men. Her base is hardly gender-specific.) But Matthews took it even lower. Hillary appeals not to women generally but to "[w]omen with needs". (What does that even mean? Women who need health care? Women who need social security? Women who need tax cuts? Women who need abortion rights? How ridiculous, and insulting. How does Chris even have his own show?) And then this follow-up question: "[B]eing surrounded by women, does that make a case for commander in chief -- or does it make a case against it?"

Thankfully, Parker and Richard Stengel rallied to push back against this nonsense -- really, this sexism. Stengel: "What are you suggesting by saying does that diminish her as a commander in chief by being surrounded by women?" The obvious answer: That a woman shouldn't be president, or at least not a feminist, a women who holds sisterhood lunches. Such women are too needy, too weak and yet too threatening to the regressive sexual identity of a real man like Chris Matthews. But of course that's not the answer he gave. Instead of being honest -- and I'm not sure he's even capable of such honesty -- he got "historic": America's never had a woman president, and so voting for Hillary, or any woman, would be "an historic decision for people". Fine, but that's not the point. The point is what you, Chris, think of women who run for high political office, of women like Hillary. Bumiller mentioned Golda Meir and Margaret Thatcher, two tough women who always get mentioned when the topic is women in politics, but, in response, he made one of the stupidest comments in the history of cable news: "But we've got Patton and John Wayne on our side." (Remember, I'm not making this up!)

What does that mean? That America is a land of bigoted blowhards who would sooner shoot Injuns than vote for a woman? That Chris Matthew is himself a bigoted blowhard who would sooner "worship" Thompson's manhood than vote for Hillary?

Seriously, what the hell's wrong with you, Chris?