Ten Women I Have a Heart On for This Valentine's Day

10. Aung Yan Suu Kyi.
Pro-democracy activist and leader of Burma's National League of Democracy, elected Prime Minister in 1990 but forcibly not allowed to take the role by the military junta, who've kept her in detention ever since. Advocate of non-violent resistance, and winner of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize.





9. Fatima Bhutto. Poet, writer, activist. Intelligent, conscientious, progressive, and gorgeous. And it doesn't even matter that she's Benazir's niece.






8. Wanda Sykes. Brilliant, perceptive, and absolutely hilarious stand-up comic and actor. I've had a crush on her for years.











7. Angelina Jolie. Everything she touches turns to gold, from her work as an actor to her humanitarian work everywhere in the world, from the Congo and Sudan to Afghanistan and Cambodia. She's super hot as hell, and she'll be as sexy thirty years from now as she is today.


6. Melissa Harris Lacewell. Associate Professor of Politics and African-American Studies at Princeton University. One of the most intelligent, articulate commentators on gender issues, racial issues, and politics today.


5. Ani DiFranco. Incredible poet, singer, songwriter, and guitar player. Super-smart feminist icon who is a role model for women - and men - worldwide.










4. Mukhtar Mai. One of thousands of women who are victims of the tribal practice of "honor revenge" every year - in her case, a brutal gang rape in the village of Meerwala, Pakistan. What differentiates her from the others is that she spoke out, wrote a book, and became a voice for millions, something virtually unheard of among rape victims in her country.



3. Tina Fey. She should be sent flowers every day of her life - not only for her brilliant writing on Saturday Night Live and 30 Rock - but for playing such an invaluable role in preventing the obliteration of at least half a century of struggle for women's rights by helping to expose and defeat patriarchy's most prominent poster woman since Phyllis Schlafly: Sarah Palin.


2. Taslima Nasrin. Bangladeshi physician, author, activist, feminist, and secular humanist who risked her life to expose the truth about the status given to women by most religions. A woman ahead of her time. Thankfully, the world is catching up.


1. Helen Thomas. Eighty eight years old this year, this presidential correspondent has continued to help keep all US presidents since Kennedy accountable to the people, and continues to be a beacon for journalistic integrity. When President Obama called on her at his first major prime-time press conference, he said, "Helen, I'm excited. This is my inaugural moment." In a conference that had been going well for him so far, she hit him with the ultimate presidential foreign policy litmus test, asking if he knew of any countries in the Middle East that possessed nuclear weapons. Obama failed her test, refusing to give her the answer that both of them knew was the right one: Israel. Simple question, massive impact. And... Bill O'Reilly said she sounded like the Wicked Witch of the East - that alone is enough to put her at the top of my list of women that I have a huge heart on for this year.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Honorable mentions: Rachel Maddow, Christiane Amanpour, M.I.A., Shirin Ebadi, Kerry Washington, Hillary Clinton, Naomi Klein, Kate Winslet, Janeane Garofalo, Michelle Obama, and Amy Poehler.

Why Jim Webb Should Not Be Barack Obama's Vice Presidential Pick

Here it is, the link to the notorious article penned by Virginia Senator (and favored VP candidate) Jim Webb in The Washingtonian in November 1979:

Jim Webb: Women Can't Fight

"Lest I be understood too quickly, I should say that I believe most of what has happened over the past decade in the name of sexual equality has been good. It is good to see women doctors and lawyers and executives. I can visualize a woman President. If I were British, I would have supported Margaret Thatcher. But no benefit to anyone can come from women serving in combat...

...There is a place for women in our military, but not in combat. And their presence at institutions dedicated to the preparation of men for combat command is poisoning that preparation. By attempting to sexually sterilize the Naval Academy environment in the name of equality, this country has sterilized the whole process of combat leadership training, and our military forces are doomed to suffer the consequences."

Okay, here's the case for Webb: he is a decorated war hero. He has won the Navy Cross, a Silver Star, two Bronze Stars, and two Purple Hearts. He worked as Secretary of the Navy under Ronald Reagan. He was a Republican until 2006. He is now a Democrat.

The advantage he brings to the Democratic ticket has three parts: (i) he virtually neutralizes John McCain's war hero status; (ii) as a former Republican who worked under Reagan, he can potentially have a lot of crossover and centrist appeal; and (iii) he puts Virginia - a key swing state this year - into play for the Democrats.

And to give him the benefit of the doubt, the article is from 1979. It's clear that his political and personal perspective have changed and evolved dramatically since then, evidenced by his going to the extent of switching parties. Also, the article was written more in the spirit of chivalry than sexism; although they can be virtually synonymous, the line between the two was much more definitive three decades ago, and has blurred significantly since then.

Yes, it was 29 years ago. Yes, he may have changed his mind. Yes, he did offer that half-assed disclaimer up there in the first paragraph of the excerpt. And yes, in almost every other way, he is a near-perfect VP choice.

But this is not the year for him. This has been a historic year for women. Hillary Clinton, in her graciousness when she conceded, became a hero in her own right even as she lost the nomination. Read the transcript of her landmark speech here.

Hillary Clinton got almost as many votes (or more, if you count Michigan where Obama's name wasn't on the ballot) as Barack Obama. She has millions of supporters, many of them women who had years of struggle and a strong personal, political, and emotional investment in her candidacy.

Inviting Jim Webb onto the Democratic ticket this year will potentially alienate this essential component of the party's base. It will not help to heal the schism left from a bitterly fought primary season. Already, many (sometimes too) vocal Clinton supporters have been (rightly) screaming sexism and (wrongly) pointing fingers at Obama - and he risks legitimizing their argument by picking Webb as his running mate.

It's not the smart thing to do politically. But more importantly, it is not the right thing to do, period. It is not conscientious, unless Webb really goes out of his way to reach out to women across the country and rescind his outrageous proposition about women in combat.

For now, though, that article is not going away.

The Politicization of Feminism: Why Geraldine Ferraro is Not Good for Women

A few weeks ago, when asked by Detroit reporter Peggy Agar how he plans to help American autoworkers, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama replied, "Hold on one second, sweetie, we'll do a press avail, thanks."

This has now been immortalized as the "Sweetie-gate" scandal, and admittedly, it was disturbing. I couldn't understand how Barack Obama, a man with a remarkably accomplished mother (whom Hawaii Democratic Congressman Neil Abercrombie once called "the original feminist"), a strong independent grandmother, an equally accomplished and successful wife, and two young daughters, turned out to be such a closeted sexist.

My concerns cleared a little when I went down to the cafeteria at my hospital where I have lunch every day and know pretty much all of the cashiers. As she does every day, the friendliest one (who I always try to go to) said, "Thanks, honey!" as she handed me my change. I realized that in the four years that I've worked there, I have also been called "sugar", "darlin'", "sweetheart", "love" - and one of our secretaries even calls me "babe" fairly often.

They are all women. And I am a man (pending just one more karyotype test - pray for me). I don't particularly think of myself as sexually attractive. To be honest, I have several unappetizing stretch marks on my ass. But I've gotten every term of endearment there is. Specially when I've traveled in the South.

So I had lunch, quietly wondering if I should be offended. I thought of the details, the minutia: this was about a man saying it to a woman in a professional environment; women say it to other women too, not only to men; but men don't call other men sweetie! Then the counter-arguments: men do call each other bro, pal, man, amigo, and dude in the same spirit - the difference in semantics isn't necessarily a difference in intent based on the receptive gender, is it? And how do you define "professional" anyway? Does cafeteria interaction between cashier and other employees qualify?

Shortly after this story broke, I realized I wasn't the only one poring over this incredible outing of a major presidential candidate's overt misogyny and disrespect of women, which he had managed to hide so well over the years.

There was also Geraldine Ferraro, the first female vice presidential candidate in American history, addressing the Sweetie-gate scandal on Fox News (watch 3 minutes and 20 seconds in), and talking to Meredith Viera on NBC's Today Show about how sexist Barack Obama's campaign has been (see clip below).

She mentioned "several" campaign incidents, notably when during a stump speech, Obama, in a gesture demonstrating how he deals with "dirty" Washington politics, brushed imaginary dirt off his shoulders, in this clip.

Ferraro interpreted this as "diminishing" Clinton, alleging that it was sexist and offensive.

Okay.

Sitting by her was NBC and Air America's brilliant Rachel Maddow, a feminist in her own right, visibly stunned. She civilly attempted to counter Ferraro when she accused all of the candidates in the December 2007 Democratic primary debate of "ganging up" on Hillary Clinton. (Note: Yes, Clinton was running against seven men who she was beating handily in the polls; as any male or female frontrunner would be, she was attacked by her trailing competitors.)

Watch Maddow's response to Ferraro's examples 4 minutes and 50 seconds into the video:



At one point in this clip, Ferraro even refers to Obama as a "typical man" (2 minutes and 20 seconds in).

Ferraro, one of Hillary Clinton's most respected campaign advisors, was dropped from the campaign in March 2008 for the controversy she caused by alleging that Barack Obama has the stature he has in the country because he's black. She further defended her comments afterwards, alleging discrimination against her because she's white.

Okay.

First, I think Geraldine Ferraro deserves an enormous amount of respect not only for being the first female vice presidential candidate in US history, but for her record as a civil rights activist and her work as ambassador for the UN Commission on Human Rights during Bill Clinton's presidency.

Second, I agree that there has been an extraordinary amount of sexism in this campaign. I do think that a lot of the opposition to Hillary Clinton is because she is Hillary Clinton. But I do think, unfortunately, that a significant proportion of that opposition has been because she is a woman.

As I referenced in a previous post, this Rebecca Traister Salon piece is an excellent analysis of this pretty disturbing aspect of the primary race. I also think Geraldine Ferraro makes an excellent point in the Today Show interview (clip above) when she talks about the disgusting "Iron My Shirt" incident (click here to watch) that Clinton was subjected to during one of her speeches earlier this year. She is right - the incident would have garnered significantly more media attention and sympathy if it was racist in nature. I agree with her that sexism is somehow more easily accepted in society than racism.

But the reason people will pay less attention to Geraldine Ferraro's valid points is because she peppers them amid so many unrelatable, invalid ones. The "Iron My Shirt" incident is an example of the very serious, horrific kind of misogyny that can form a basis for discussion and education - it would be hard to imagine any reasonable woman or man not being able to feel the blatant offense in it.

But lumping it in during the same seven minute stretch with the shoulder-brushing incident and Sweetie-gate trivializes it. It turns people's minds off from the big picture by virtually invalidating it.

Unfortunately, "feminist" has become a bad word over the last two decades, just as (for the sake of analogy) "Muslim" has become a bad word in around the same time. In the same way that the word "Muslim" is now associated with the image of bearded, turbaned, uneducated terrorists, the word "feminist" has come to be associated with angry, man-hating, bra-burning, extremist women. This is simply because both of these movements have been politicized to ridiculous, unchecked levels by the infiltration and subsequent rise of radical, agenda-driven loudmouths who have hijacked them.

And Geraldine Ferraro is not doing a whole lot to help that. Sadly, she is perpetuating it. By focusing on 'Gotcha!' type pseudo-sexism, she is not only alienating men who, like Barack Obama, are very obviously not sexist yet are being accused of it; she is also alienating girls, boys, men, and women around the world who can't relate to her views. She is distancing women like Rachel Maddow, who emphatically expressed her disagreement with Ferraro in the Viera interview, and is probably, in almost all aspects, the perfect example of what the modern woman (or man, for that matter) today should be like. The only legitimate issue mentioned in that interview - the "Iron My Shirt" incident - was virtually overlooked and buried under the pseudo-gotcha stuff.

The feminist movement has to be taken back from those using it for political motive. The very word "feminist" needs to go back to its association with women like Abigail Adams, Susan B. Anthony, Eleanor Roosevelt, Margaret Mead, the pre-2008 Hillary Clinton, and more recently, Rebecca Walker and Maddow herself.

Finally, saying as Ferraro did that she may not vote for Obama "if" Clinton doesn't get the nomination means that she - still an influence and role model for so many women that believe in and live her values - is willing to lead her supporters to elect John McCain, directly, or indirectly by not voting.

She would prefer to withdraw her support from a candidate that has grown up among strong, independent, educated, accomplished women, who supports and understands their issues - and instead opt for a party that is anti-women's reproductive rights, anti-family friendly policies (like modifying the Family and Medical Leave Act, for instance), is associated with countless extremist sexist religious "leaders", and prefers tax cuts for CEOs to those for single mothers.

Okay.

I guess she does have a point. McCain has never simulated brushing anything (anyone?) off his shoulders - and who can imagine a conservative calling a woman sweetie? Right?

Click here to see where else people are politicizing the feminist cause!

All Democrats - Including Obama Supporters - Need Hillary Clinton to Stay in the Race

On Thursday, May 15, the newly formed WomenCount PAC took out a full page ad in USA Today in response to NARAL Pro Choice's endorsement of Barack Obama, titled Not So Fast... Hillary's Voice is OUR Voice, and She's Speaking for All of Us, some of which is excerpted below:

"We are the women of this nation. We are rich and poor, young and old, married with kids, married without kids, single moms, gay, straight, and widowed. We are every color. We are of every religion. We are from all political parties...

...As Senator Clinton campaigns, she speaks with our voice. She carries our hopes, dreams and aspirations with her and transforms them into policies that can make our nation great again...

...Women risked all they held dear to make this country great. They put their lives on the line in all our quests for justice – from Abigail Adams to Sojourner Truth to Susan B. Anthony to Eleanor Roosevelt to Fannie Lou Hamer to Barbara Jordan to Dolores Huerta to Hillary herself...

...We want Hillary to stay in this race until every vote is cast, every vote is counted, and we are convinced our voices are heard."

The primary election process between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton has been tense, divisive, and fiercely contested - and there is almost unanimous agreement now that Obama will be the Democratic nominee. Still, approximately 50% of Clinton supporters have declared that they will either vote for John McCain or not vote at all if she is not the nominee. Meanwhile, supporters of Obama, who has virtually won, continue to bash Hillary Clinton and retain their animosity towards her.

When faced with Clinton supporters - most of whom are women - who swear they will not vote for Obama in the fall, it's easy to wonder how someone who supported Clinton based on her anti-war, pro-universal health care stance, and her positions on the economy and foreign policy would now switch their support not to Obama, whose positions are virtually identical, but to McCain - who stands diametrically opposed to them.

Isn't this election about the issues?

Well, yes. But it's clear that it's about much more than that.

This election has been not just about policy, issues, and values - but about how far America has come as a nation in its two hundred-plus years. Many of the women represented in the WomenCount PAC ad - and their ancestors - have a deep emotional and historical investment in Hillary Clinton's candidacy that runs, legitimately or not, much deeper than this year's issues; just as blacks, with a centuries-old history of struggle and oppression, have a a similar investment in Obama's.

Here's another line from the ad: "We cannot stand by as a cacophony of voices demand that she step aside to smooth the road for another."

Democratic National Committee officials feared a massive backlash from American blacks at one point if Obama's pledged delegate-based nomination was overturned by superdelegates for a host of reasons - the popular vote, reversing the rules on Michigan and Florida, and so on. So the similar deep disappointment and hurt that Clinton supporters will feel at her loss - when she had come so close - shouldn't be surprising to Obama supporters.

It should be understandable, and relatable.

Now that Obama is all but the confirmed Democratic nominee, his supporters not only need to reach out to Clinton supporters, but also to begin - themselves - to look at Clinton's positives. And she does have them. The 70% of Obama supporters who said they'd vote for Clinton if Obama lost the nomination understand that. The other 30% need to understand that too if they want Obama to win in November.

Hillary Clinton staying in the race until the last vote is cast - as stated in the ad - is important for her supporters. She shouldn't appear to be "pushed" out of the race. At the end of the primaries, when the winner of the nomination is apparent to everyone, her choosing to withdraw of her own volition will let her supporters down easier, and make their transition to supporting Obama smoother. They will feel like they saw the race to its end; that there was closure.

Although Clinton's candidacy wasn't derailed entirely by sexism, it has had an undeniable presence throughout its course - just as racism has in Obama's candidacy, and ageism will likely have in McCain's. Rebecca Traister covered this really well in this Salon piece. Proper closure to the race will also help alleviate - at least partially - the concerns many Clinton supporters have had related to much of the sexist comments and remarks that have been directed against her.

To defeat John McCain in the fall, Barack Obama needs all of the Democratic party - including Hillary Clinton supporters - to stand behind him. It's up to the Obama supporters to welcome them back in - and that is not going to happen unless the Clinton-bashing lets up.