Saturday, February 09, 2008

Here's A Woman Who "Gets It"

I've been bemoaning the fact that so many women of my generation are in lock step with Hillary. A woman for President regardless of the woman.

Previous posts have certainly shown my leaning toward Obama. That's pretty concrete at this point. As I was skimming headlines this morning, I was happy to see that I'm in some pretty good generational company.

Kate Michelman is a staunch feminist and former heat of NARL Pro Choice America. She had announced her support for Obama after John Edwards dropped out of the race. Chris Matthews had her on Hardball and tried to back her into the "feminist" corner of having to support Hillary. She had answers for him but wasn't happy with the time allowed so she took it further in an article on salon.com. Being a feminist, no, being a woman, means you have to march to no one's drummer other than your own. It means you can and should think for yourself. Forget labels. And forget feeling you need to explain why you feel the way you do.

Hopefully there will be a day when the Chris Matthews types, with their snarky, condescending questions, will disappear. Until that time, thank heavens for the Kate Michelmans, who know themselves and are secure and comfortable with that knowledge, are able to put them in their place.

We women can all do that, you know. And we should.

3 comments:

Betty said...

Chris Matthews really irritates me. I can hardly stand to watch him. MSNBC should have suspended him a long time ago over the things he has said about Hillary.

By the way, turns out that story about Leprosy in Northwest Arkansas is not true. There have been a few cases of leprosy over the years, but nothing recent. I read this in the state paper today. Don't know where the story got started.

Mari Meehan said...

Betty,

Donna in Arkansas sent me a good explanation of the leprosy story - overzealous reporting. That a story so inaccurate got national attention is frightening. Makes me wonder what standards reporters are held to these days.

Same for talking heads like Chris Matthews!

Anonymous said...

The central problem resulting from Hillary bashing based only on gender is, that it may tend to energize women previously not in the Clinton corner. And as such, is an excellent political tactic for the ethics challenged Hillary. As a woman, I think a female president is a bang up idea. Just not "that" particular woman. To elect Hillary based only on gender, is to reinforce the spurious attitude about women and their thought process.