by JESSA CRISPIN
IMAGE/Verso Books
riting this in late October, it seems clear to me that no matter what happens on Election Day there will be no feeling of victory. I will drink to forget, not to celebrate, whether the next president is declared to be Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump.
If Donald Trump becomes president, this will be an obvious disaster for Muslims, for women, for African-Americans and Hispanics, for those living below the poverty line . . . basically for everyone in this country who is not a billionaire. And it will be a disaster for the world, as Trump’s administration is sure to worsen, if not set off, humanitarian crises around the globe.
But as a feminist, I am offended by the idea that I am supposed to be excited about the possibility that Hillary Clinton will be our next president, and I am tired of people confusing “women” with “feminists.” Because with her neoliberal agenda, her history of dismissing the needs of women and children, and her internationally hawkish nature, Clinton’s election is a victory for one woman, not all women.
The fact that such a large number of prominent feminists, from Gloria Steinem of the second wave, to Michelle Goldberg of the third, to Millennial writers like Jessica Valenti, Lindy West, and Sady Doyle, indicates that feminism itself has lost its deeper, politically radical meaning. If we are to celebrate Hillary Clinton’s presidency as the epitome of the American feminist movement, then mainstream feminism itself has abandoned its priorities of fairness and equality for all women in favor of economic gain and power for the elite few.
Even if we use the very basic dictionary definition of feminism, “the advocacy of women’s rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men,” Hillary Clinton has consistently failed to show feminist loyalty. The recent Liza Featherstone-edited anthology, False Choices: The Faux Feminism of Hillary Rodham Clinton is a good reminder of all of the ways, through a long political career, Clinton has valued power over justice.
Hillary Clinton’s support for the gutting of welfare during her husband’s administration, hurting women and children the most, has been well documented and discussed. In the anthology, Frances Fox Piven and Fred Block do a concise and well-written summation of this disastrous attack on social services that created a precarious lower and middle class, leaving them even more vulnerable to the recession of 2008. Today, despite economic markers moving upward, many are left with inadequate support, hungry and forgotten, and ineligible for benefits thanks to the Clinton administration.
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