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|9.28.04 @ 10:23AM|#
Now I, an anarchist, have one more reason not to vote.
I'm supposed to go into the booth and flip a lever that has just been flipped by a what?
name|9.28.04 @ 10:33AM|#
I saw a sign that said "When Women Vote, Democrats Win." I don't quite know how to take it. Seems most like a petty ploy at identity politics.
|9.28.04 @ 10:34AM|#
Cathy's thesis is that it is wrong to consider women as a dinstinct segment of the voting public, and try to appeal to them in particular, because this an insult to the principles of equality that undergird democracy and the movements to expand it, including early feminism.
She sums up with, "To think that our suffragist foremothers spent seven decades fighting for this."
Except that the distinct feminine point of view that Yound argues doesn't exist was the dominant rallying cry behind the suffragist movement. The early feminists behind women's voting rights pushed for their inclusion in the electoral process for both reasons of individual autonomy, and also for the need to include the feminie take on politics in the public conversation.
|9.28.04 @ 10:36AM|#
Is the Republican strategy to appeal to women and their safety concerns emotionally manipulative? Sure it is.
No more so than claiming the Republicans will destroy abortion. It's only a valid point if you feel like women need special protection from said "manipulation," above the apparently emotionally strong and stable male population. Any kind of "My opponent will do such and such..." campaigning is by design targeted towards your amygdala; it's not entirely fair to single out this instance of it as uniquely "manipulative" just because it's directed towards women.
I think -- and/or I hope -- the notion that a woman must vote Democrat to be an "independent thinker" or whatever has gotten old. Is the conservative woman still an Uncle Tom amongst the voting vaginas?
|9.28.04 @ 10:48AM|#
"our suffragist foremothers"??? Prosti, Katya, ne vypendrivaisya. U tebya ne bylo "suffragist foremother" i ne moglo ee byt'. U nas sovershenno drugie liudi "osvobodili" zhenshchini.
fyodor|9.28.04 @ 11:30AM|#
I essentially agree with Joe here. Maybe there's some condescension and dumbing-down involved with the appeal to women voters, but is it any more so than the appeal to any other group of voters? Most or all campaigns of mass appeal are likely to look kinda stupid to someone of above-average intelligence such as Ms. Young, but as Alai Stevenson pointed out, they need a majority!
Kevin Carson|9.28.04 @ 11:31AM|#
Egad! As if we didn't have enough problems with hanging chads and whatnot when people voted with their hands!
|9.28.04 @ 11:31AM|#
Damn, that's some fancy typing Vanya.
|9.28.04 @ 11:40AM|#
Fred, if Vanya would just use cerrulic characters, I'm sure we could get her drift.
|9.28.04 @ 11:47AM|#
Cathy's thesis is that it is wrong to consider women as a dinstinct segment of the voting public, and try to appeal to them in particular, because this an insult to the principles of equality that undergird democracy and the movements to expand it, including early feminism.
Did you read the same article I did? Cathy's point seemed to me to be not that politicians shouldn't address issues important to women, but that they shouldn't condescend to women.
fyodor|9.28.04 @ 12:03PM|#
"Cathy's point seemed to me to be not that politicians shouldn't address issues important to women, but that they shouldn't condescend to women."
But that just begs the question(s), are they condescending to women anymore than to anyone else? Is it better campaigning strategy to appeal to voters' intelligence or to appeal to their perceived psychological profiles? Are there any psychological differences between men and women that call for different strategies in appealing to either group?
|9.28.04 @ 12:07PM|#
A minor kibbitz, not really with CY but with an interviewer she cites--should one blame women who don't vote if it seems like women's issues are neglected by politicians? Well, granting the premise that those issues are ignored, that doesn't seem terribly satisfying given that (unless I'm grossly misremembering) women have voted at higher rates than men in every presidential election of the last 20 years. The question makes it sound as though the opposite is true.
|9.28.04 @ 12:17PM|#
"Did you read the same article I did? Cathy's point seemed to me to be not that politicians shouldn't address issues important to women, but that they shouldn't condescend to women."
Except that, in both her arguments and examples, she defines "condescending to woman" as "addressing issues perceived to be important to women." She argues as if recognizing the difference in voting patterns between men and women, and tailoring your message to appeal to women, is de facto condescention.
|9.28.04 @ 12:37PM|#
Most or all campaigns of mass appeal are likely to look kinda stupid to someone of above-average intelligence such as Ms. Young,
Does intelligence have much of anything to do with it? Most people are plenty smart when dealing with things of importance to them. Considering how much a single vote is worth, one can rationally consider politics to be a force of nature like the weather, and not put much focus on it.
|9.28.04 @ 12:58PM|#
joe-
I won't defend every statement made in Cathy Young's article, but a lot of it seemed to be railing against the absurdity of some of the female-targeted campaigning. I think she was mostly saying that if women are going to be treated differently by campaigns, at least do it with a little dignity.
OK, scratch dignity. God knows neither campaign has any of that. Well, at least do it with something other than "chicks rock, vaginas vote."
As a poll worker, I'd just like to report that I've never seen any vaginas voting. Everybody in my polling place has done it with their hands. The closest we ever came to removing clothes was when I sent a few people to the bathroom to turn campaign shirts inside out. (No politicking inside the polling place, unless the slogan is really funny and strokes a poll worker's ego. But for some reason nobody ever wears a t-shirt saying "Screw the candidates, vote for the awesome poll workers!")
|9.28.04 @ 12:59PM|#
From the article: Fonda went on to stereotype women as caregivers who are concerned about the future because they bear the children: "The issues that women carry in their bodies are the issues of the future." Asked if women who don't vote are themselves to blame if politicians ignore their issues, she replied, "It's like blame the victim. We live in a patriarchal society where women are 'less than.' " (Did she think she was talking to women voters in Afghanistan?) Ensler chimed in with some psychobabble about how women in our culture "don't feel the right to what they know."
Sound pretty condencending to me. But I don't think Joe gives a rat's ass as long as women pull the "Kerry" lever.
|9.28.04 @ 1:17PM|#
Wow, Don, quite the critical thinker, aren't you? The author gave an example that demonstrated her point? You don't say! Well, that's good enough for me. Clearly, there aren't any counterexamples, or Young would have used them.
"I think she was mostly saying that if women are going to be treated differently by campaigns, at least do it with a little dignity." Had she given examples of how it could be done better, I'd find this interpretation more credible. But she clearly went out of her way to choose absurd examples and push buttons, without even acknowledging that any politics designed to appeal to women could be any more dignified.
fyodor|9.28.04 @ 1:51PM|#
I've decided Joe's detractors on this are more correct in that Ms. Young's focus is indeed on how women are being appealed to rather than i>that they are being appealed to differentially. Yet because she doesn't offer alternatives (as Joe has pointed out) or any comparison to how other groups are appealed to (as I've previously pointed out), her analysis lacks the context to make it meaningful.
My own take is this: just like with all other forms of equality, the right to vote entails taking the good with the bad, which in this case means being treated like a dumb-ass! :-)
|9.28.04 @ 2:18PM|#
Don't know what Vanya said, but it's very cool.
|9.28.04 @ 2:35PM|#
What are "women's issues"?
The Economy?
Foreign Policy?
What issues are in this voting cycle that are gender specific?
I'm confused...
-seeker
|9.28.04 @ 2:47PM|#
seeker,
it's not that the issues are different, but that different aspects of the issues are prioritized differently, and framed differently.
|9.28.04 @ 3:23PM|#
First, Joe generalized Cathy's argument, leaving out the details showing the condescention:
Except that, in both her arguments and examples, she defines "condescending to woman" as "addressing issues perceived to be important to women." She argues as if recognizing the difference in voting patterns between men and women, and tailoring your message to appeal to women, is de facto condescention.
Later Joe responds to one detail showing the condescention: Wow, Don, quite the critical thinker, aren't you? The author gave an example that demonstrated her point? You don't say! Well, that's good enough for me. Clearly, there aren't any counterexamples, or Young would have used them.
Clearly, if Joe knew of any counterexamples he would have used them. Instead he generalized her argument, and then attacked the resulting generalization. A form of strawman, really.
|9.28.04 @ 3:31PM|#
I've decided Joe's detractors on this are more correct in that Ms. Young's focus is indeed on how women are being appealed to rather than i>that they are being appealed to differentially. Yet because she doesn't offer alternatives (as Joe has pointed out)
Funny how Joe hold Cathy to a much higher standard than his party's presidential candidate.
or any comparison to how other groups are appealed to (as I've previously pointed out), her analysis lacks the context to make it meaningful.
I was think how Jimmy Carter's latest antics try to manipulate blacks in a similar way. But I don't see Cathy's lack on comment on other groups as a weakness in her article. One could write a seperate article on blacks, or hispanics, and so on. Or one could write something that compares and contrasts the manipulation of different groups.
|9.29.04 @ 3:44AM|#
I won't defend every statement made in Cathy Young's article, but a lot of it seemed to be railing against the absurdity of some of the female-targeted campaigning.
Exactly. I mean, just try turning some of these slogans around -- think how ridiculous it would sound if the Democratic Party tried to increase their support among male voters by using the motto "Vote with Your Foreskin". Or "become one with your penis, and let your penis vote". Some men would find this amusing, most would find it deeply weird, and the rest would probably be offended that the Democrats were buying in to the whole "men think with their dicks" cliche. And Andrew Sullivan would go off on another month-long binge of Male Circumcision posts.