Obama fever

Can someone explain the Obama craze that has gripped our nation, please? Don't get me wrong, if he wins the nomination and is on the ballot come this fall, I will without a doubt vote for him. But what am I missing? Why do I not find his message of change and hope particularly captivating? Isn't being the first female president EVER the biggest change of all? A WOMAN PRESIDENT.

Following are quotes from two op-ed pieces in the New York Times that I've read recently that resonated with me.

Women Are Never Front-Runners by Gloria Steinem

"Gender is probably the most restricting force in American life, whether the question is who must be in the kitchen or who could be in the White House. This country is way down the list of countries electing women...

...the Iowa primary was following our historical pattern of making change. Black men were given the vote a half-century before women of any race were allowed to mark a ballot, and generally have ascended to positions of power, from the military to the boardroom, before any women....

So why is the sex barrier not taken as seriously as the racial one? The reasons are as pervasive as the air we breathe: because sexism is still confused with nature as racism once was; because anything that affects males is seen as more serious than anything that affects “only” the female half of the human race...and because there is still no “right” way to be a woman in public power without being considered a you-know-what.

I’m supporting Senator Clinton because like Senator Obama she has community organizing experience, but she also has more years in the Senate, an unprecedented eight years of on-the-job training in the White House, no masculinity to prove, the potential to tap a huge reservoir of this country’s talent by her example, and now even the courage to break the no-tears rule. I’m not opposing Mr. Obama; if he’s the nominee, I’ll volunteer...to clean up the mess left by President Bush, we may need two terms of President Clinton and two of President Obama.

But what worries me is that he is seen as unifying by his race while she is seen as divisive by her sex.

What worries me is that she is accused of “playing the gender card” when citing the old boys’ club, while he is seen as unifying by citing civil rights confrontations.

...We have to be able to say: “I’m supporting her because she’ll be a great president and because she’s a woman.”

It Takes a Family (to Break a Glass Ceiling) by Kerry Howley

"If you’ve ever wondered why India, Indonesia, Myanmar, Pakistan and the Philippines seem readier to elect women than does the United States, here’s your answer: Societies that value a candidate’s family affiliation, and therefore have a history of nepotistic succession, are often open to female leadership so long as it bears the right brand. Benazir Bhutto, Indira Gandhi and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, among many others, slashed through gender barriers on the strength of their family names...

To some voters, Hillary Clinton’s husband provides reassurance that the “calculating” senator from New York won’t degenerate into a feminine hysteric if she is elected to the White House. Yet Mrs. Clinton, the first woman who is a serious contender for the presidential nomination of one of the nation’s two major political parties, still has to work overtime to prove herself non-threatening. She clings to the political center like a life raft and rarely ventures from the shallow waters of establishment predictability.

Social psychologists have found that women in leadership roles are typically seen as either warm, likable and incompetent, or cold, distant and competent. To be a strong, competent woman is to be something culturally unattractive, which probably says something about why few American women even aspire to political office. Worldwide, even popular female politicians — Margaret Thatcher, Golda Meir, Angela Merkel — are slapped with the moniker “iron lady."...

The best way to convince voters that women leaders are fully human — likable and competent at times, unlikable and incompetent at others — is to fill the world with more of them."