NOB - national organization of bullies
by Paige Cram
Published: January 30, 2008
A feminist fairy tale:
A long time ago, when the land was ruled by George Bush the First, there was a little girl growing up in a small farm town in a place called New Jersey. One day, this little girl’s kindergarten teacher asked a very important question.
“If you could be anything you want when you grow up, anything at all, what would you like to be?”
The little girl knew her answer right away, for she had already given it a lot of thought. With the conviction of someone twice her age, she responded without hesitation, “I want to be the first woman president of the United States.”
The teacher, expecting a common answer like figure skater, or ballerina, or veterinarian, laughed a little, put her hand on the little girl’s shoulder and said, “You know, there’s never been a woman president before.”
“I know,” said the little girl decidedly. “That’s why I said I’d be first.”
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I’ve dreamt of seeing a woman president of this country for as long as I can remember. Even after I gave up on becoming one myself, I always knew I’d be alive to see the day, and I wondered how long it would take. Now that we are finally facing an election with a serious woman candidate who has a real potential to win, I’ve made a somewhat surprising decision.
I, like many other people of my age, race, gender and geography, am voting for Barack Obama.
Yesterday, the New York chapter of the National Organization for Woman released a statement slamming Sen. Ted Kennedy for his recently announced support for the aforementioned candidate. In a rant that sounds like it was written on behalf of an indignant teenager, the organization’s statement read, “Now the greatest betrayal! We are repaid with [Kennedy’s] abandonment!”
Abandonment? Betrayal? Is this an election in a free country or a Jane Austin novel? Since when do free speech and the right to vote come with so many strings attached?
The statement then went one step further, asserting that it was our obligation as women “to promote and earn and deserve and elect, unabashedly, a president that is the first woman after centuries of men who ‘know what’s best for us.’”
Oh really? Silly me, and here I thought that when women were given the right to vote, it meant that our own educated opinions would count for something, and that we no longer had to believe what others told us to.
As someone who has always considered herself a feminist, I am offended by, and greatly resent, the state chapter’s decision to release this brash and insensitive statement that implies that my own decision about how to cast my vote is not the right one. And on behalf of women for Obama everywhere, I’d like to make my own statement:
I do believe that women in this country still lack complete equality. I firmly believe that one day a woman can, should and will be president of this country. I believe that we are stronger when we stand united, but that we should be united not as women or African-Americans or Democrats, but as concerned citizens. I believe that the right to vote is an honor, meant to be taken seriously, and that whom a person votes for is an extremely personal decision.
I believe that Hillary Clinton is a competent, strong and respectable leader, but that she is too bogged down in years of petty partisanship to bring us the breath of fresh air for which we are so desperate. I do not believe that by voting for someone other than Hillary I am doing a disservice to my gender, and I do not believe that bullying people of any gender into voting a certain way is feminist, fair or American.
I was glad to see that the national organization did not condone the state chapter’s statement. But they didn’t condemn it either. I can only hope that as this race gets tighter and uglier, as it inevitably will, we can remember to respect each other as Americans, rather than turn on each other like dogs. The right to vote, to free speech, to privacy - these are all things we fought hard for in this country. And we, as women, didn’t spend seventy years fighting for suffrage just to be told how to vote.
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