'Sexism' sells out
Crying wolf when the term doesn't fit won't help women
Jennifer Crump
Forget the sisterhood. Victimhood was the political tag line for 2008 as accusations of sexism were thrown about more liberally, it seemed, than bumper stickers and T-shirts. But these accusations of sexism — made by women in an effort to rally support and explain away defeat — did more damage to gender equality than any man ever could. They weakened female candidates, casting them not as equals but as victims.
Sometimes women can be their own worst enemies.
For a while, as both Canada and the United States weathered federal election campaigns last year, it seemed sexism might trump both the environment and the economy as the issue du jour. It began in the U.S. primaries, with Senator and Democratic Presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton’s first loss in Ohio, and carried through to the fall, back in Canada, with the debate over Green Party leader Elizabeth May’s participation in the televised leaders’ debates.
Once she began to lose, Clinton supporters, former vicepresidential hopeful Geraldine Ferraro and even Clinton herself began to play the sexist card. In an NBC interview, Ferraro laid the blame for Clinton’s loss on sexism and Clinton herself decried to the Washington Post, “the sexism that has gone on in this campaign is somehow more respectable, or at least more accepted ... and was deeply offensive to millions of women.” Yet Clinton lost her nomination for many reasons — all of which had little to do with her gender.
In Canada, the possibility of Elizabeth May’s exclusion from the leaders’ debates had nothing to do with sexism and everything to do with the right wing feeling threatened, the left feeling crowded and the plethora of competing “green” agendas. Her fellow leaders were, frankly, afraid of her and her party. She was bright, articulate and brought a former fringe party into national play. Victim of sexism, she was not.
So why would some women’s groups, including the YWCA, deliberately cast her as a victim? Why weaken her? Didn’t women learn a long time ago that the first step in not being a victim was, well, to choose not to be a victim? Wasn’t that the point of Take Back the Night marches and the battles to eliminate sexist language and discriminatory rape laws? Perhaps, but while sexism is an ugly issue, it’s also an easy rallying cry for female candidates that was overused during the 2008 political campaigns. It’s impossible for male competitors to fight back against, and guaranteed to ensure the media — painfully aware of its own political correctness — will fall into line or, at the very least, tread carefully.
By not rejecting the label of victim, May lost an opportunity to break through the ceiling for herself, her party and for all women. Women’s groups took up the cause. No one seemed to care if the cry of sexism was justified, so long as it worked. There is no question that it worked, as May was eventually included in the debates. But it also made victims of all women and, frankly, I don’t want to feel like a victim of sexism. I’m not. My daughters don’t need false idols. They know they are capable of competing, and they want female leaders who feel the same way and for whom the gender issue is truly non-existent. The ease with which we cry sexism sets us back, weakens us and is, I would argue, one of the single biggest threats to true gender equality. It’s little more than a cheap trick.
I am not suggesting that we don’t call it when we see it. There was true sexism in this year’s political campaigns. But it was of a far more dangerous, insidious kind. The mid-campaign muzzling by Liberal campaign operatives of a brilliant orator like Stephane Dion’s spouse, Janine Krieber, effectively relegating her to the status of “wife,” was a blow to women but an even greater loss for the Liberal party. Then there was John McCain’s blatant attempt to woo Clinton supporters with the belief that women will vote for a woman, any woman, no matter what her views are. Women are not lemmings and they wouldn’t follow McCain’s vice-presidential nominee, Sarah Palin, over the cliff just for the sake of following a woman leader.
Sexism is an easy rallying cry but it can also be the yoke that reins us in, keeps us relegated to a “less than” status. And like many rallying cries and labels, it loses its impact when it’s used too often and in the wrong places. We have to call it like it is — and reject calling it when it isn’t.
