[Dialogue] Spong 3/12/08 The democratic race for president

[KroegerD at aol.com]

March 12, 2008 
Sexism! Still a Force in  American Politics  

The quest for the Democratic nomination continues to ebb and flow as the two  
rivals struggle to gain an edge. Senator Clinton was presumed to be the front 
 runner prior to the Iowa Caucuses, but Senator Obama won that state  
impressively. Then Senator Clinton came back to win the New Hampshire primary  and 
looked poised for a sweep on Super Tuesday. The sweep turned out to be more  of 
a draw and launched Senator Obama on to a string of eleven straight primary  
or caucus victories from South Carolina to Wisconsin from Washington to 
Vermont.  Once more he seemed on the crest of victory. The super delegates who had 
been  pledged to Senator Clinton began to waver and defect. No one smells blood 
better  than a politician. The pundits were now sure that he would wrap up the 
 nomination on March 4. It was, however, not to be as Senator Clinton roared 
back  dramatically, scoring impressive victories in Ohio, Texas and Rhode 
Island. Next  Senator Obama won a caucus in Wyoming and a primary in Mississippi 
to regain his  frontrunner position, but he did not win so decisively that he 
was able to  clinch the nomination. So the struggle now moves on to the key 
state of  Pennsylvania in which Senator Clinton, according to the polls, stands 
poised to  make her third comeback of this primary season.  
Beneath the excitement of what is surely the most interesting political  
contest in recent memory, there is another dynamic, always present, but seldom  
talked about. Two debilitating prejudices, sexism and racism, are in this  
political process being routed from their dwelling places deep in the psyches of  
our citizenry. Both have had long histories in the Western Christian world.  
Racism, the more overt and obvious of the two prejudices, was once protected by  
the laws of this nation, but it has had its back broken first by the 
bloodiest  war in our nation's history and second by a rising consciousness that found 
 expression in the relentless pressure of the Supreme Court. Sexism on the 
other  hand penetrated the culture in an almost assumed way that seemed to many 
to be  appropriate, even proper. Even though sexism was also protected by the 
laws of  this nation it was always more subtle and its evil less recognized. 
While no one  would seriously argue today that racism in this society is dead, 
it is  recognized at once when it rears its ugly head, while sexism is still 
widely  supported in high places, including an obvious presence in the official 
 statements of organized religion. Many church leaders continue to use a 
version  of the "separate but equal" argument that has no credibility at all when 
applied  in a racial context. No one in the political arena would dare to make 
an overtly  racist comment, but overtly sexist comments have not been absent 
from this  campaign. History tells us that while racism is crueler, sexism is 
more  difficult to root out. Remember that this nation gave the vote to black 
men many  years before it was given to white women. Data from this political 
season still  points to the fact that sexism continues to be less recognized in 
the body  politic than racism.  
Senator Clinton, who had been first defined nationally as the "First Lady,"  
had to establish her professional competence apart from her husband. She did  
this by winning a seat in the United States Senate, by mastering the 
intricacies  of that most exclusive of clubs, by gaining the respect of her colleagues 
on  both sides of the aisle, and by avoiding the spotlight of the media while 
doing  her unglamorous homework. Her constituents in New York responded to 
these  efforts and rewarded her with election to a second term by an astonishing 
64%  majority. Senator Obama, on the other hand, had been in the Senate for 
only two  years when he announced his intention to seek the presidency. This is 
not to say  that he is without significant credentials. He was an impressive 
student in law  school, being chosen to be editor of the Harvard Law Review, an 
honor that goes  only to Harvard Law School's top student. He taught 
constitutional law at the  University of Chicago's Law School for ten years, during 
which time he was  elected to and served in the State Senate of Illinois. Those 
accomplishments are  not to be minimized, but it is to say that no woman with 
a resume as brief as  that of Senator Obama would have been taken seriously as 
a presidential  candidate. A woman still has to be twice as impressive to be 
viewed as equal.  That is an expression of sexism.  
Hillary Clinton also had to carry the baggage of her husband in a way that no 
 male politician has ever had to do. She is colored by the foibles of her  
husband's administration. His negatives became her negatives. She wanted to keep 
 her maiden name, Rodham, but political pressure on Bill Clinton after he 
lost  the governor's office in Arkansas forced her to become Hillary Rodham 
Clinton.  The loss of her own identity, a reality that women have had to live with 
for  centuries, has played a significant role in this campaign when people, 
defining  Hillary as a Clinton, realized that in the elections of 1980, 1984, 
1988, 1992,  1996, 2000 and 2004 there had either been a Bush or a Clinton on 
the  presidential ballot. She was thus identified with the Clinton politics of  
yesterday, not the Rodham politics of tomorrow. She was implicated in what 
came  to be called the Whitewater Affair, which was investigated endlessly and 
finally  dismissed, yet its odor seems to cling to her. When the Clintons left 
the White  House in 2001 charges were made about the Clintons removing things 
that were not  theirs. These charges turned out to be nothing more than 
political attacks and  were demonstrated to be false; nonetheless the stain on her 
integrity remained.  When Hillary Clinton was cast in the role of violated wife 
in the sordid  Lewinsky affair, she could not win. She was criticized by some 
for refusing to  leave her husband and by others for standing by her man. None 
of these things  would have been the fate of a male politician. Sexism was 
clearly operating  below the surface.  
In 1972 when Shirley Chisholm became the first woman to seek the Democratic  
Party's nomination for the presidency, she carried with her candidacy the 
impact  of both racism and sexism. It is interesting to note that she said 
overcoming  her status as a woman was always more difficult than overcoming her 
status as an  African-American. That was an indication that even long ago racism 
was more  overt and easily identified in the public arena than was sexism. In 
support of  that thesis, I cite the following data from this campaign.  
When Bill Clinton played the race card in the South Carolina primary, it  
backfired because people, aware of racism, were embarrassed by it. The sexist  
rhetoric that commentators let forth on Hillary Clinton, however, did not  
receive a similar rebuke in the Court of Public Opinion. Carl Bernstein on live  
national television referred to Hillary's "thick ankles" and Tucker Carlson, an  
MSNBC conservative talking head, observed that "every time I get near Hillary 
 Clinton I feel castrated." Those were weird sexist comments, saying more 
about  both Bernstein and Carlson than they did about Senator Clinton, but the 
point is  that no female reporter could have gotten away with describing 
Governor  Huckabee's legs or with saying, "Every time I am in the presence of Mitt 
Romney,  I feel like I am going to be raped!"  
A male radio host for Station KOA in Denver, Colorado, wondered on a live  
national network whether Chelsea Clinton "was going to wind up with a big  
posterior like that of her mother." Can anyone imagine such a statement being  made 
about a son of John Edwards? When a woman in a political gathering asked  
John McCain how he was going to "beat the bitch," he knew to whom the question  
applied and proceeded to answer it without unloading its hostility. McCain  
later, however, rebuked a right wing radio host when he spoke of Senator Obama  
in a derogatory racist manner.  
Another radio talk show host accused a cable news channel of overreacting by  
suspending one of its political reporters, who had wondered aloud on national 
 television "if the Clintons were pimping out their daughter as a campaign  
presence." Is that not sexism?  
Senator Clinton also had the distinction of being the only candidate to be  
called "the anti-Christ" by a member of the religious right. That was, I  
believe, a sign of misplaced sexist rage. Why would not the three times married,  
admitted adulterer, Mayor of New York, whose children will not speak to him  
because of his treatment of their mother, be a candidate for that title? Yet he  
was spared this ultimate religious slander.  
Many people quite clearly still carry unconscious fears about a powerful  
woman. Look at the way Sandra Day O'Connor was negatively described by all of  
the Republican candidates except John McCain. Look at the number done on  
Geraldine Ferraro when she was the vice presidential nominee. Look at how  Margaret 
Thatcher developed the aura of autocratic masculinity to win in Great  Britain 
and how British male pride was displayed when they described her "as a  man 
wearing a skirt." Maybe no one ever forgets those years in our lives when we  
were helpless dependent infants being cared for by that seemingly all powerful  
woman we called mother. Maybe the fear of being made dependent again on a 
strong  woman is still buried in our psyche. Maybe our sexist, male-oriented 
society,  which still holds to the primary definition of a woman as a sex object, 
creates  an unconscious difficulty in our ability to relate to women in a 
position of  ultimate authority. Maybe women, who were taught how important it is 
to please a  man to get ahead, were also threatened by her potential power. 
Perhaps that is  why there have always been more "Aunt Jemimas" in the women's 
movement than  there were "Uncle Toms" in the black movement. There is much 
about which we can  speculate, but the fact of which we are certain is that 
sexist barriers are  still potent and that Hillary Clinton, is the current victim.  
People uncomfortable about this charge reply, "I am not opposed to women,  
only to this woman." However, this woman was the only one who has battled to the 
 place where she has a real shot at the presidency and, in the final 
analysis,  she has not yet won a normal portion of the white male vote while she has  
consistently lost,, never the majority, but a substantial part of the female  
vote to her opponent. Hillary Clinton may or may not become our next 
president.  That is yet to be decided. What is clear, however, is that she has taken 
some of  the sexist poison out of the body politic by absorbing it. That will 
make it  possible if she fails in this quest for another woman in another day to 
climb to  the top of the hill.  
I am drawn to Hillary Clinton's ability and to her intelligence. I admire the 
 integrity and independence of John McCain. I am excited about the vision of 
a  potential Obama presidency. I hope, however, that I will live long enough 
to see  my nation and this world be able to celebrate the full humanity and the 
equal  competence of women.  
John Shelby Spong  
Question and Answer
With John  Shelby Spong 
Hande Keykubat, from Turkey, writes:  
I subscribed to your essays a few weeks ago. I live in Turkey, where most of  
the population is Muslim. I accepted Christianity about three years ago and  
began to study the Bible with some missionaries living near my university. I  
realize they are very hostile to those who think or act differently. They see  
people who have different beliefs as inferior creatures. Turkey has always 
been  the hub of different cultures, different civilizations, and, of course,  
different religions. A person living in this land could never believe that  
Christianity or any other religion is the only way to experience God or, in  
Christian terms, the only way to salvation. The Christianity to which I  converted 
is love. It is not magic. I am blind but I didn't become a Christian  because 
Jesus would open my eyes miraculously. I am also against all dogmas that  
limit our minds. Questioning the Bible or God or anything should not be an act  
of sinfulness or shame. Whenever I challenged the missionaries, they said I was 
 absolutely wrong and I would definitely go to hell. So I left that Christian 
 church because it did not respect people equally and did not love as Jesus  
commanded.  
One day, I was listening to Internet radio and heard an interview with you  
that inspired me a lot. I felt I was not alone in the world. You were 
expressing  my feelings very well. Before I was hesitant to say out loud that I am a  
Christian because I didn't think the literal stories in the Bible reflect real  
Christianity. You have given me courage to say openly that I am a Christian. 
I  am happy to know you and to be a new Christian of this new and 
ever-evolving  world.  
My question is, have you ever been to a Middle Eastern or an Islamic country  
to deliver lectures or to give conferences? If you have, what impressions do 
you  have about them? Unfortunately, war and destruction are almost everywhere 
in the  Middle East, and there the children need love, the families need 
care, and, most  importantly, people need to know who God is. I think you would be 
much more  welcome here than any missionaries who are trying to convert 
people and bring  them to their own way of thinking.  
Dear Hande,  
Yours is a remarkable letter. I admire the fact that you became a Christian  
and want to continue to be a Christian, but you realize that you must dismiss  
many of the attitudes of the Christians you have come to know as not worthy 
of  the Jesus you seek to follow. I fear that what you describe is not limited 
to  the Christian missionaries to the Middle East. Christianity has come to be 
 identified by many with similar hostilities and prejudices toward other  
religions, toward women and toward homosexual people. Such behavior is surely  
not true to the gospel, which calls us to fulfill Jesus' promise to be agents  
committed to bringing abundant life to all the people of the world.  
I have only been to Palestine and Israel in the Middle East and that was some 
 years ago. On that trip I stayed with an Anglican bishop in Jerusalem who 
was a  Palestinian Christian. He was so filled with hostility toward the Jews 
that he  was anything but a reconciling presence. His hostility was born out of 
the  Six-Day War in which his family's property was destroyed and confiscated 
by the  Jews. He called the Holocaust Museum, Yad Vashem, "nothing but Jewish  
propaganda." He was amongst the least inspiring bishops I have ever met.  
I would find it an amazing opportunity to lead a conference or give lectures  
in the Middle East, but I doubt if that would be possible given the current  
tensions. Islam has many noble things about it which I admire, but Islam has 
yet  to undergo the critical scholarship about the Koran that Christians have  
undergone about the Bible. There can be little real dialogue with or learning  
from another religious tradition so long as the claim to possess absolute 
truth  in one's own religious forms is still operative. Every religious system 
the  world over is plagued by that mentality, which hinders both dialogue and 
cross  cultural learning. The fact is that there is no infallible Pope, no 
inerrant  Bible, no one true faith and the Koran is not God's dictated words 
through the  Prophet Mohammed. All of these things represent primitive stages in 
religious  consciousness that must be sacrificed before interfaith practice can 
be  developed.  
Thank you for writing.  
John Shelby Spong 



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