Who'd run the best daycare?

As I was browsing the internet last night, all of a sudden, a poll on the U.S. News & World Report website caught my eye. "Who'd Run the Best Daycare?" The poll went on to ask, "If you had a choice of four daycare centers run separately by Michelle Obama, Sarah Palin, Hillary Clinton, and Nancy Pelosi, which would you choose for your kids?" http://www.usnews.com/polls/whod-run-the-best-daycare/results.html Had this poll not proceeded the 2008 Presidential Election, I would have been utterly shocked that a major news publisher would have the audacity to allow such a blatantly sexist question to be posted all over their website. Unfortunately, this election seemed to pave the way for the acceptance of sexism as a form of discrimination which was no longer seen as very offensive.

Rather than looking at these four women as serious politicians, the media is once again shedding light on the fact that they are just that, women, and more specifically, mothers. Although this poll may seem like a very minute example, almost a joke, it's small things like this one that are looked upon as the building blocks for the perception of gender roles in America. Setting the tone that women, even those in high positions such as the four in this poll, should be looked upon as women and caretakers, seems to overshadow all the accomplishments they may have in the political world. Throughout the election, this same perspective pervaded media articles around the nation. Rather than being looked at as politicians first and foremost, the media began focusing more attention on personal lives of the female candidates, and on various occasions, the women vying for office were looked down upon for leaving their families behind in order to pursue political recognition, especially in the cases of Sarah Palin and Michelle Obama.

But putting all the criticism and gender stereotyping aside, I fell into the trap that this poll was setting up. I gave in, and soon found myself clicking the "View Results" button. Ironically, and much to my surprise, after all the mocking and harsh words of disapproval, Sarah Palin was winning overwhelmingly.

1. 36.38% First lady Michelle Obama's
2. 58.83% Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's
3. 2.58% Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's
4. 2.21% House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's

Obama's Plan to Revolutionize Politics

As we all know, Obama has proven to the world that fully utilizing the internet as a campaign tool can yield incredible, successful results. But how will he continue to engage the American public now that he has taken over as president? A New York Times article called "Melding Obama's Web to a YouTube Presidency" provided a description of how the White House plans to implement its goals using the numerous mechanisms the internet has to offer. 

Obama, a former community organizer, has made it clear from the beginning that turning his campaign's unprecedented usage of immensely popular new media into a functional government tool is one of his most important ambitions for the administration. By involving the public with its government through social networking websites and directly reaching Americans with YouTube videos, Obama hopes to break through the middle-man media and connect with citizens more directly and efficiently. 

However, legal barriers apply; the White House is unable to use the 13-million-person email list compiled during the Obama campaign due to the fact that it was created for political purposes, so instead the huge undertaking of updating American politics to a nation of YouTube and Facebook users has been delegated to the Democratic Party. The group in charge of assembling Obama's upcoming machine of video messages, blogs detailing administration policy, and other political resources is still fundraising and has not fully developed a website but has ambitious plans for implementation. 

While it's certainly important to keep up with the mainstream technology and news-gathering habits of America, it is also necessary to consider those who are being left out of Obama's project. The internet is expansive, but it's also not readily available to all American citizens, particularly those who don't own computers. Older generations who have computers but don't necessarily go online on a regular basis are also not being included in this internet-based political system.

Moreover, communicating information directly from the White House to the public eliminates the media as a moderator. If citizens rely unquestioningly on this discourse alone, they miss out on the press's criticisms and may interpret the administration's characterizations of events and policies as the absolute truth. 

So far, Obama's moves to convert the country to a pop media-based age of information have been incredibly effective (after all, he got elected). I was interested to see if this issue might be somewhat gendered, so I found another article printed by the New York Times almost a year ago regarding Hillary Clinton's contrasting political strategies. Entitled "The Audacity of Hopelessness," this article chastises her tendency to "[keep] to the Bush playbook," playing it old school throughout her campaign and failing to engage the public the way Obama did. The article reads:

Clinton fans don't see their standard-bearer's troubles this way. In their view, their highly substantive candidate was unfairly undone by a lightweight showboat who got a free ride from an often misogynist press and from naive young people who lap up messianic language as if it were Jim Jones's Kool Aid.

Once again, the media blames Hillary Clinton for playing the gender card. While Clinton certainly didn't employ innovative campaign tactics like her rival Obama, it seems unfair to blame her failure on whining about sexism. In this way, it seems that candidates' strategies for promoting themselves is at least somewhat tied up in gender. 

President Obama's plan to change popular politics and engage citizens to influence policy and increase their civic participation is certainly ambitious, but judging from the way he revolutionized the 2008 election, the administration's goals seems entirely possible. One just has to wonder if such formidable goals could have been accomplished by a woman with her own political strategy. 

More than Just the First African-American President

New York Times writer Jodi Kantor's article, "Nation's Many Faces in Extended First Family," highlights all of the diversity and history that is being brought to the White House through our new president.  Not only does Obama bring the title of "first African-American president" to the capital, but he also brings a detailed and very diverse past with him.  Kantor writes:

The family that produced Barack and Michelle Obama is black and white and Asian, Christian, Muslim and Jewish.  They speak English; Indonesian; French; Cantonese; German; Hebrew; African languages including Swahili, Luo and Igbo; and even a few phrases of Gullah, the Creole dialect of the South Carolina Lowcountry.  Very few are wealthy, and some- like Sarah Obama, the stepgrandmother who only recently got electricity and running water in her metal-roofed shack-- are quite poor.

I think this extreme diversity that Obama encompasses will be an asset to the White House and to his role as president.  Having grown up with a family born into slavery, limited resources, and no fame to his name (has no predecessor like the former president, George W. Bush, had), Obama had to make a name for himself.  In order to propel himself this far, he had to have some serious dedication to his education and to reaching his potential.  Obama's self-determination for success can probably only be a benefit to our nation.

Hard times help women in politics?

Sexism is a double edged sword, and in every imaginable situation, women seem to be getting shortchanged due to this concept. In a recent news article, the author suggests that in the political world, we see that in some cases, voters will point to a woman running for office and consider her to be weak because she doesn't live up to the masculine expectations society holds of effective leaders. In turn, voters refuse to accept her as a viable candidate. In other cases, a female politician might be looked upon as a caring individual that would be more concerned about the people and their issues. The latter seems to be the case with Queensland's Anna Bligh, who is on her way to becoming Australia's first elected woman premier. The article insinuates that during hard times such as those being faced by Australia seem to be the perfect conditions for a woman to come and and "clean up the mess" left behind by her male predecessor.

PhD researcher Mary Crawford was quoted saying that "research suggests that while women politicians don't pursue a different style, voters perceive their interests are different - that they are more likely to be concerned with the daily concerns of people, like jobs, food prices, education and so on." Unfortunately, the situation isn't that simple, especially when we take the recent United States presidential election into consideration. Taking into account the weak state of the economy and the hard times we are facing as a society today, why is it that Crawford's theory didn't hold true? Americans had two opportunities to elect a female candidate, and chose to cote for males in both situations.

Preconceived notions about how a female candidate would lead as a politician continue to thwart any progress our nation can hope to one day achieve in terms of gender equality. Women have always been looked down upon by men as the "weaker" gender. As much as the people of this country go on talking about equality and acceptance, the truth is that even though we are living in the 21st century, our underlying ideals and stereotypes seem to resemble those which Americans held almost a century ago. If we truly want to see ourselves taking a step in the direction of equality, we have to set aside this discrimination.

It was just Martin Luther King Jr Day: Let's discuss race in the election.

Even though our seminar is technically about gender in the presidential election, I think the issue of race is just as important to bring to the table. I found a great article by Michael A. Fletcher online at Washingtonpost.com regarding Obama being African American. It states that Obama did not call attention to the issue of race for most of his campaign, but that now that he is the President, he can talk more about how his racial identity can bring the country together. In speaking with The Washington Post about the fact that he, as an African American, is going to be President of the United States, Obama said, "I mean, that's a radical thing. It changes how black children look at themselves. It also chances how white children look at black children. And I wouldn't underestimate the force of that."

As a white person I could not be happier that we finally have a black President, and it is so difficult to imagine those who are resentful of this accomplishment. That sad fact goes to show that we have much more growing to do as a country before everyone will be able to look at others in the same way. Unfortunately we will not see that day for a long time, but I have hope that we'll get there eventually. This election will be one that we tell our future children and grandchildren about, and if this was just the spark of a wave of political diversity, then there will be many more elections like this to come. In Obama's inauguration speech he did bring up race, and I thought that to be very important. Though we don't want to think he was elected because of his color, it is still such an accomplishment to those who have endured discrimination in this country over the years and I think he truly reached out to those people with that part of his speech.

In the article I mentioned earlier, however, it stated that the fact that Obama is half-black raises questions as to whether he is "black enough." This is so racist in itself, and just because Obama's mother and grandparents (in the picture above) are white does mean this isn't still an accomplishment for the African American race, something in which they should have pride. After this point, the article began touching on the thought that since Obama is half-black, he is a "good compromise person;" he can feel and relate to the dilemmas of more than one race. I think this to be a strange assumption because anyone can be a "good compromise person," no matter his or her race.

This article is interesting to me because it is discussing the different racial issues that have come up regarding Obama and I would never have thought of them this way. I know that race is significant, but I do not think that it determines one's character or ability to run the country. The fact that people are seriously discussing that issue goes to show it will take some time for this country to reach complete satisfaction with equality. Michael Strautmanis, who has worked with Obama on his Senate staff and will be one of his White House aides, thinks and comments that Obama "just looks at people who would be divided by race and naturally sees what they have in common." He says that Obama "is so comfortable in his own skin that he makes you comfortable in your skin, so you stop thinking about the things that would divide you." This quote really stuck out to me, and I believe this is exactly what he need in a President. I am so thrilled for the era of Obama and I am hopeful for our country in the years to come.

An academic study of "Gender's Role in the 2008 Presidential Campaign"

Here is the abstract, which I just saw on ssrn.com:

Scholars, and even the presidential candidates, have described the 2008 election as an extended interview process for a high-ranking job. Following that characterization of the Presidential race, questions about sexism and gender bias along the campaign trail implicate the law. Title VII protects individuals from sex bias in the workplace. And while modern conceptions of how such bias actually operates, largely drawn from social and cognitive psychology, aids legal decision-makers in determining whether such bias indeed took place in any particular case, greater insight into the intersection of psychology and the law is needed. Here, we explore the role of sexism and implicit (subconscious) gender bias in the Presidential race through the lens of Title VII. Further, we buttresses the proposition put forth by a growing body of legal scholars that the role of implicit attitudes in decision-making has significant implications for Title VII jurisprudence.

Download the full paper by Quinetta Robertson and Gregory Scott Parks here.