Am I the only one who is finding the election (specifically the Democratic primary contest) too painful to watch these days? Not only is it pitting two people with only one “ism” to fight against one another (aside: wouldn’t it be more interesting if Michelle Obama were running instead of Barack?), it brings up all the “first woman who fillintheblank” stuff for me. For any among us who were the first woman to do whatever, it is a media-saturated, can’t-get-away-from-it reminder of how painful our own “firsts” were and are. For any of us who were first, there was some kind of fishbowl, some kind of publicness to it. I was the first woman pastor in a specific small town in North Carolina. And even if but a microcosm of what Hillary Clinton is facing, I can’t help but take it personally, to feel the heat of the 24-7 scrutiny, and be reminded of what those days in that town were like. I find myself paralyzed by my pain and unable to give voice to my opinions, silenced by my own pain, my own inability to have dealt fully with how hard it really is to blaze a trail. Because, really, who has support groups for being the first whatever? It’s a bit impossible seeing as how there aren’t any others due to the mathematical fact you are the first/only one.
Is this just one more way that “patriarchy works” (works meaning succeeds, not operates)? For me (or for the feminists who taught me in women’s studies classes) the very definition of patriarchy working is to pit one member of the underclass against another, thereby leaving the patriarchs above the fray.
As candidates, I like Barack Obama, and I like Hillary Clinton. For that matter, I liked John Edwards. But I wonder, am I the only one for whom this election is deeply and purely painful?
Posted by journeymom 