Clara Jane Hendrickson | What's feminism got to do with it?

Praxis | Reflections on the Hillary Campaign from an identity politics skeptic

By Clara Jane Hendrickson 01/24/16 11:58pm

This week’s issue of The Nation featured two cover articles: “Why this Socialist Feminist is for Hillary” by Suzanna Danuta Walters and “Why this Socialist Feminist is not Voting for Hillary” by Liza Featherstone. For me, the pieces raised some compelling questions about my priorities as both a feminist woman and a progressive.

I appreciated Featherstone’s sharp focus on Hillary’s policies and stances — an approach that reminds us that sometimes the ingredients matter more than the recipe. Suzanna Danuta Walters, on the other hand, writes, “I want a woman president ... I support her less for her specific political positions than for the iconic value of electing the first woman president of the United States.”

That statement might suffice for a large contingent of Hillary supporters, but the truth is, symbolic victories can fail to produce the most salient policy changes for the demographic supposedly being represented. But there is another problem with Walters’ logic. She contends that it is substantively different to have a woman advocating for women’s issues than a man. While a woman representing the feminist cause might be substantively different from a man representing the feminist cause, it does not then follow that a female leader’s policies will be substantively affected because she is a woman. I am much more interested in the substantive victory than the symbolic one.

While Walters insists it is not Hillary’s identity as a woman that qualifies her for the presidency, she still declares that she is voting for Hillary because Hillary is a woman. It would be misguided to say that Hillary is unqualified for the presidency given her extensive experience in various political offices. However, Walters still suggests that Hillary’s political qualifications are ancillary to her identity as a woman.

The most dangerous part of Walters’ piece, however, can be found when she voices frustration with liberals who critique Hillary “as if [Hillary] were the enemy and not ... right-wing Republicans.” You’d think in a democratic society we’d be allowed to voice frustration about our own political party. This kind of indictment frightens me. It suggests that in an era of deep political polarization, there is no room left for critical thought, or any kind of political affiliation beyond the unwavering support of the prescribed platform. However, we should remember that criticism does not necessarily shepherd antagonism.

The hysteria surrounding this unorthodox presidential primary is not too dissimilar to the rhetoric produced by the refugee crisis in Europe. When a group of recent immigrants into Germany groped and robbed women on New Year’s Eve in Cologne, the xenophobic and anti-immigrant crowd was all too ready to respond to the incident. However, the left was also too quick to deflect and did not address Germany’s failure to adequately integrate recent immigrants. It seems that the moment when our politics require the most effort towards self-evaluation is precisely when we become forced to pledge our allegiance to our respective extremes on the political spectrum.

But it is time to ask ourselves tougher questions. Socialist feminism maintains that economic redistribution will improve the lives of women. For those committed to the project of socialist feminism, the push for greater state involvement in the economy ought to come before the identity of the person doing the pushing. I will not whole-heartedly say that all gender issues stem from economic issues. Of course there are discrete gender issues. But, I think serious headway for women could be made through a commitment to economic change.

The Cologne example reminds us of the failed attempts of liberals to use identity as a way of justifying loyalty. The claim that one’s identity can produce good or bad behavior is reductionist. An endorsement of immigrant entry into Europe should not be threatened by the bad behavior of a dodgy cohort; it should be predicated on the ability of Europe to define and see out a vision for a multicultural society.

I’m hesitant to side with the logic utilized by the socialist feminist more ready to vote for a female non-socialist than a male socialist. While I appreciate the sentimentalism attached to electing the first female president, an identity politics that capitalizes on the social outcome of women’s oppression without addressing where it comes from confounds me. Improving the lives of women will have to be about more than the everyday battles against sexism.

Clara Jane Hendrickson is a College senior from San Francisco studying political science. Her email address is clara@sas.upenn.edu. Follow her on Twitter @clarajanehen. “Praxis,” previously “Leftovers,” appears every other Monday.

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