Ann and Hillary -- Where Did Feminism Go?

When Ann Richards was running for Governor in 1990, she ran as a charismatic statewide elected official who'd successfully modernized the state Treasury. She was experienced and qualified to be Governor. But there was also a feminist subtext that was part of her critique of the other candidates, and it went something like this:

Men f*uck things up. They think with the little head, and get themselves into endless games of "¿Quien Es Mas Macho?" They view the world through blinders that obstruct theie vision of alternate experiences, personalities, and approaches to problems. They prefer confrontation over compromise and construct zero-sum solutions to problems. Our world is too complex and interdependent for that kind of leadership style to succeed anymore.

Now, Ann never got on a podium and gave that speech, but the sentiment was there: electing her as Governor would not only be history-making, but it would change the way government operated, and for the better.

History will ultimately decide whether she brought about any real change in the way things operated. However, her greatest accomplishment -- diversifying forever the numerous boards and commissions a Governor appoints -- bears some signs of that reconfiguration of social reality.

What's interesting to me is that that sort of thinking is nowhere to be found in Hillary Clinton's campaign. (Maybe it's there and, being a man, I am not admitted to the Secrets of the Sisterhood. But I've not glimpsed it or heard from it her supporters.) She's running as a woman, to be sure, but she's also running AWAY from her femininity: her balls are bigger than Barack Obama's, she wants us to know; bigger even than John McCain's. In the end, the argument for her as the first woman President is: It's time. I'm entitled. We're entitled.

In a column that In the Pink Texas pointed me towards, Ellen Goodman talks about how Old Feminism of the 1970s evolved in the New Femininism of the 1980s that Ann preached:

Women of Hillary's generation were taught to don power suits and use their shoulder pads to push open corporate doors. In the 1970s, the lessons on making it in a man's world were essentially primers on how to behave like men. As University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee political scientist Kathleen Dolan says, "They had to figure out a way to go undercover. They could only be taken seriously if they filled the male model with XX chromosomes." But the next generation of advice books urged women to do it their own way. The old stereotypes that defined women as more compassionate and collaborative were given a positive spin. They were framed and praised as women's ways of leading.

Goodman goes on to describe the next evolution of thought:

Today's shelves are still full of titles -- from "Seducing the Boys Club" to "The Girl's Guide to Being a Boss (Without Being a Bitch)" to "Enlightened Power" -- that tell us to act like a man or act like a woman. But in many ways, the transformative inspirational, collaborative, "female" style has become more attractive. Especially to a younger generation. And -- here's the rub -- especially when it is modeled by a man.

Which is why, she concludes, Barack Obama is "the Oprah candidate ... the quality circle man, the uniter-not-divider, the person who believes we can talk to anyone, even our enemies. He [has] finely honed a language usually associated with women's voices."

And is why, with precious few exceptions, no woman under 40 I know is a Hillary supporter. This is a political and, potentially, an electoral problem for Hillary Clinton, but it is also a problem for feminism.