Where is Abigail Adams in Today''s Political Discourse?

In all the talk about encroaching autocracy in America and elsewhere, politicians, pundits, media personalities and others need to remember the words and wisdom of the revolutionary first First Lady, Abigail Adams, who admonished her husband to “remember the ladies.”

Another First Lady, Hillary Rodham Clinton, echoed her predecessor in a recent CNN interview with Christiane Amanpour when she called out the absence of misogyny in various analyses of forces at work when countries descend into autocracies and dictatorships.

She was right to do that. In the growing discourse about various factors that prevail when democracies slide into autocracy, white supremacy, race, class and caste quickly rise to the surface as identifiable and frightening factors.  But not a word is uttered about the systemic oppression of women, which has been part of dictatorial regimes and cultures throughout history. 

Examples abound from ancient times to now, with women being treated like second class citizens in almost every country and culture. In ancient Greece women were thought to hinder democracy as the weaker sex. Considered property, they lived in seclusion without rights, valued only as the bearers of male progeny. In medieval times religious institutions kept women quiet and voiceless while the idea of women as property prevailed into more modern times as women were “owned” by their fathers and husbands by virtue of economic indenture and lack of agency in male dominated societies.

Fast forward to the 20th and 21st centuries and consider the fact that women were denied the vote in America until 1920, and dictators like Hitler and Ceausescu mandated childbearing, rendering women nothing more than semen vessels and property of the state, something we are seeing emerge in our own country. Women continue to have limited access to leadership positions, economic parity, and agency over their own lives – largely legislatively ignored and increasingly court ordered.

The question is why.  The answer? It is intentional, overtly or unconsciously, because in a world dominated largely by (white) men terrified of losing patriarchal power, woman are immensely threatening.  The fact is powerful men know that women have different priorities than they do, and that those priorities are grounded in a profound commitment to human rights and social justice, not in greed, moral and financial corruption, massive profits, or overwhelming power. They also know that women are deeply intelligent, strategic, capable people and that they are organizing as never before.

One has only to look at the brave women of Iran who are willing to face torture, rape and murder for “Women, Life, Freedom”, or to consider the courage of Kurdish women who fought on the battleground and Rohingya women standing up to their oppressors.  Or to remember the abuelas of Latin America who never gave up the fight to find their missing children, the women of Liberia and India whose work saved lives and changed policy, the French and Ghetto resistance movement women who helped win a war. Then there were the women who shared their personal stories about rape and sexual abuse at global conferences and with local newspapers, the million women who marched in Washington, DC the day after Donald Trump became president, the women artists, writers, musicians, photographers, organizers, the mothers demanding gun legislation, the lawyers who raised an army of volunteer lawyers overnight to litigate on behalf of immigrants at airports or helped a ten year old raped child escape forced childbearing.  The examples go on and on and on.

That is why male retaliation against women in Iran is so violent, why rape is increasingly a war crime, why the Supreme Court of the United States has rendered women property of the state, why domestic abuse and gun violence against women are on the rise, why books by and about women are banned in such high numbers, , why women are going to jail for having a miscarriage and more broadly why teachers can no long teach history or talk about gay marriage or use certain words, or encourage girls to play sports or to dream of becoming president and so much more.

It all paints a portrait of misogyny at its most extreme because powerful men simply cannot abide a world in which women too are powerful whether in their homes, communities, states, or countries. The very thought of sharing the podium or the parliament or a pay scale with females is completely abhorrent because deep down powerful men know that women bring skills and experience to bear on pressing issues of our time, so they resort o to further and deeper methods of domination, exclusion, and abuse.

And that is why we must include misogyny in the public and private discourse surrounding our deep concerns and increasing acknowledgement that our democracy, and democracy elsewhere, are indeed in a precarious and perishable place. It is why women are choosing, and working hard, to revolt against the evils of autocracy that could well render them “a leaf blowing in the whirlwind,” a destiny that political philosopher Hannah Arendt warned us all against.

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Why Are Powerful Women So Frightening?

For First Lady Hillary Clinton it was wearing hairbands. Michelle Obama bared her arms, which (white) First ladies had done before her. First Lady Jill Biden, who earned two Masters degrees and a Ph.D. in Education was condemned by a Wall Street Journal writer whose sole academic achievement is an online Bachelor’s degree. He thought Dr. Biden presumptuous for being addressed as Dr. Biden, calling her “kiddo” and “Dr. Jill” instead.

As each of these women gained political legitimacy the insults escalated.  Clinton was called “messy, explosive, and politically clumsy” early in her political career by a pundit who conceded she was “formidable.” By the time she told the Chinese government that women’s rights were human rights at the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, she’d been labeled “unlikeable” at home. Still, she proved herself an effective Senator and Secretary of State before winning the popular vote for president in 2016.

Michelle Obama, now arguably the most popular woman in America, suffered not only misogynist attacks, but racist ones as well. “Women endure these cuts in so many ways that we don’t even notice we’re cut,” she told an audience of young women after leaving office. “We are living with small, tiny cuts, and we are bleeding every single day. The shards that cut me the deepest were the ones that intended to cut,” she said, including being referred to as an ape.

Now comes Vice President Kamala Harris, the first black and South Asian woman to be one breath away from the presidency. Called “too ambitious,” for demonstrating self-confidence in the ability to lead, she “rebukes news stories that treat her successes as evidence against her elevation,” as Megan Garber pointed out recently in The Atlantic. Harris has also been called “not loyal and very opportunistic,” “too charismatic,” “dominant,” and someone who “can rub people the wrong way.”

As a 2019 Huffington Post story noted, “Half the Men in the U.S. Are Uncomfortable with Female Political Leaders.” 

It’s not only in political spheres that women who exert their intelligence, agency, aspirations and innate power are trivialized, mocked and pilloried. A cursory look at women’s history reveals how endemic the fear of women has always been.

A fascinating theory of why women became objects of fear looks to an early agrarian time when men were warriors and women were gatherers and growers.  Their respective roles were honored equally.  But unlike men, women could bleed and not die. They could bring forth life. It was a mystery that became frightening as life became nomadic and men fought for land and commodities. One of those commodities was women, who were strangely powerful.

During the Industrial Revolution, as women became workers, began earning money, and sought to have fewer children, they started asserting themselves, leading to the historic question, “What are we going to do about the women?”

History is rife with examples of misogyny whenever men felt threatened by women. The popularity of midwives in the 19th century became threatening to the male medical establishment when doctors realized there was money to be made if they treated childbirth as a disease. The result was dramatically higher maternal mortality.  Nurses were recruited as lesser beings as an 1890s British manual reveals. “The best nursing girl is one who is tall, strong, and has a suppleness of movement. One who plays lawn-tennis, who can ride, skate and row, makes the best material. If she can dance, it is a great advantage …” A 1901 AMA statement added, “Nurses are often conceited and unconscious of the due subordination owed to the medical profession, of which she is a useful parasite.”

The male literary world’s fear of writing women was abetted by Freud who labeled their work a hysterical preoccupation with memory, thus a disease. A reviewer reacted to Vera Britton's wartime autobiography with this: "An autobiography! But I shouldn't have thought anything in your life worth recording!' And writer Gerald Manley Hopkins claimed that the pen was “a kind of male gift."

Then there were Rosie the Riveters in WWII. Provided with childcare and earning their own money, they were denied both when Johnny came marching home again.

Examples like these abound, Twenty-first century psychology articles still claim that pursuing power, especially in politics, “may signal an aggressive and selfish woman” who foregoes “prescribed feminine values of communality.”  In other words, a woman’s job is to stay home, stay quiet, and volunteer.

Geraldine Ferraro was onto this schtick when she ran for Vice President and was called “too bitchy” by George H.W. Bush’s press secretary. So are women like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who was called a “fucking bitch” by a House colleague on the Capital steps. “Our culture is so predicated on diminishing women and preying on our self-esteem, it’s a radical act to love yourself,” she proclaimed.

Women like Vice President Harris aren’t having it. After her nomination, she told a group of teenage girls to be ambitious without apology. The reaction of one of them was captured by Megan Garber in The Atlantic. Men “don’t fear Senator Harris for her ambitions,” she said. “They fear her because of a generation of Black girls who are watching and who will follow her example to pursue excellence.”

That’s one smart girl, and likely future politician.

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Elayne Clift is a writer in Saxtons River, Vt. She has taught Women’s and Gender Studies at various colleges in the US and abroad.  www.elayne-clift.com

The Look of Fear on the Human Faces of Misogyny

We hear the word “misogyny” so often in the litany of worries about a Trump administration that, like other words in that long list, it begins to lose meaning – although the silencing of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) was a great reminder. Behind that word, however, are the faces – and lives - of women, both inside the U.S. and further afield. We need to hear their stories, in their own voices, to remind us what’s at stake for women when a government is headed by a man who gloated over his own acts of sexual assault and called women “pigs.”

Writer Jia Tolentino recalled recently that “during the Obama Administration, I had begun to feel, thrillingly, like a person. My freedom no longer seemed a miraculous historical accident; it was my birthright.” She experienced her loss as a “woman-specific disaster,” captured in the words of a woman at a protest in New York the night after the election. “I’m afraid that a man will hurt me in public, and everyone around will think it’s okay.”

Women serving in the military and female veterans are feeling the potential threat of misogyny in particular ways that call for empathy. “Many of my close friends are survivors of sexual abuse in the military,” says advocate and filmmaker Patricia Lee Stotter. “Both men and women who have been raped and sexually harassed during the years they served their country are now enraged and despairing. It’s understandable. When Mr. Trump was asked about the problem of rape in the military, he said, ‘What did these geniuses expect when they put men and women together?’”

It’s a horrible trigger,” Stotter continues. “and it’s re-traumatizing survivors of military sexual assault. Their cases were adjudicated within the chain of command which was another act of violence. … For survivors of military sexual assault, the idea of a predator being commander in chief is devastatingly reminiscent of their experiences in the military.”

Speaking on the promise of anonymity, one woman veteran who suffered military sexual assault, told me that “women feel unsafe because Trump’s rhetoric is what many of us experienced in the military. I’m triggered. I can’t sleep. I’m having trouble focusing. I am nearly blind with anger. I feel unsafe.” Corroborating Stotter’s concern, she continued, “Both women and men that are assaulted while serving in the military may have very limited faith in the chain of command when the Commander in Chief normalizes abusive behavior. And otherwise decent people may be swept up in either participating in normalizing, or failing to oppose assaults or harassment fueled by the Trump Effect. When abuse is given a green light, nobody is safe.”

Here is a voice from abroad that illustrates how far-reaching the Trump Effect is. Annie Viets, an American business professor teaching at a private Saudi university, sent me these remarks. “I have heard a number of comments since the election from students who want to get their masters degrees abroad. In the past, the first choice of many of them has been the U.S. But now some students who were thinking of using their scholarships to study there are looking toward Europe. They say, ‘It doesn’t look like we’re going to be welcome in the United States anymore.’” And Saudi Arabia isn’t even on the restricted list, so far.

What make this so sad Viets says is that, “When students return from the U.S., they are forever friends of our country. Their experiences are inevitably positive and they develop a deep appreciation for our freedoms and way of life. Welcoming young people from around the world to study is essential if we want to spread the value of democratic principles peacefully. In turn, we benefit from their many lively minds and perspectives.”

Rula Quawas, a professor of Women’s Studies and Literature at the University of Jordan in Amman, says her students are afraid of coming to the U.S. on scholarships too. However, she wrote me, “the fear will not stop them from coming to be educated. I agree with them. This is the time when we should stop being afraid. We must be vigilant and push back when the need arises. But we are not going to let one man or his administration hijack our dreams. We are entitled to a good life and a good education.”

In this spirit, an American woman who asked not to be identified told me, “The venom being spewed toward women is stunning and terrifying. As a woman and an activist, I feel afraid too. I don’t think a lot of people – even the good men – are getting the level of trauma and threat women feel. But women are mobilizing and we will keep up our acts of resistance, whether they are marches, strikes, donations, letters to Congress and news outlets, or speaking out in public forums. We will support each other as we strike back in solidarity. We must remember to share our stories, pace ourselves for a long battle, marshal our resources, laugh when we can, feel the warmth of family and friends, honor what we have achieved, and trust in our own resilience.”

Writer Susan Chiva puts it this way: “The overall struggle is to stay relevant in the age of Trump.”

Take note, Mr. Trump: We can – and we will.

The Archetypal Journey of Hillary Rodham Clinton

Like many other feminists, I tweeted and posted to Facebook at a furious pace after the second presidential debacle that was billed as a debate. “Whether Trump did or did not do what the infamous tape suggested – and I think we all know which is true – the act of celebrating sexual assault as male prerogative and patriarchal power is deplorable,” I wrote. I addressed Trump’s stalking, stuttering and snorting in lieu of substantively addressing policy issues, and I shared my astonishment at his having received good reviews while Hillary Clinton was judged to be off her game for maintaining a calm, polite, focused demeanor in spite of being stalked, verbally abused, threatened with imprisonment, and confronted with the sick stunt perpetrated by her opponent.

Then I read Rebecca Traister’s stunning analysis of the subtext of the debate in New York Magazine and realized how much more there was to consider. Traister, a smart feminist analyst and writer, talked about Donald Trump’s loathing for any woman who might defeat him, and his hideous ways of showing that hatred, including being verbally and physically threatening.  “The worldview that Trump affirmed over and over again, during decades in the public eye, is one in which women are show horses, sexual trophies, and baby machines, and therefore, their agency, consent and participation don’t matter,” she wrote.

Traister continued, condemning Republicans as “a party that has been covert in its cohesion around the very biases that Trump makes course and plain,” referring to their anti-woman legislative agenda, including its attempts to shut down Planned Parenthood and much worse in some states. She pointed out that Republican legislation aimed at disempowering women, and the Republican response to Trump’s gutter talk, reveals a “fundamental lack of recognition of women as full human beings,” not simply mothers, daughters and wives, as they insisted when disavowing their candidate. In the end, Traister said, the weapons of choice among misogynists for beating powerful women are humiliation, objectification, shaming and sexualization. That couldn’t have been made more explicit than by how Donald Trump behaved toward Hillary Clinton during the debate.

No sooner had I finished reading Traister’s compelling article when my daughter called to make another stunning point. “I think Hillary is on an archetypal journey,” she said. “She has to go into that dark place and emerge on the other side intact.”

It was a brilliant observation. Think about it. Women have traditionally been denied The Quest or journey to enlightenment. Locked in their castles birthing future kings, or in convents, where they spent the better part of their lives invisible beyond the cloister gardens, they were denied their hunger for a wider world, their intelligence and courage continually hidden from sight and declared non-existent or illegitimate. Almost the same can be said of women relegated to post-war suburban isolation even though they were, in many cases, well-educated. Many of them who dared to seek a larger role than wife and mother were quickly admonished to go home and make babies when they bravely sought careers.

Two of the most easily recognized female archetypes are the Nurturing Mother and the Temptress. The nurturing mother sustains the warrior on his journey, while the temptress tries to seduce him away from his quest through her sexuality. But now, in Hillary, we have a new female archetype – a warrior woman equal to, and in this case surpassing her male counterpart. She is a warrior capable of undertaking the quest, and emerging intact to win the Golden Fleece.

Another key element of the archetypal journal involves entering into and surviving the Underworld, often a dark cave.  Hillary Clinton has had to survive the darkest of caves in an underworld full of deranged men and incipient violence. A good many male warriors might have given up in comparable circumstances, but she persevered, intent on making it back to the light. Luckily, along the way she has had good Mentors to help her overcome the ever-present obstacles of the arduous journey she has undertaken.

Among the many symbols of the classic Archetypal Journey are mountains, water, serpents and rainbows. Hillary Clinton still has some murky waters to wade through, waters that are home to snakes continually lashing out at her. But when she finally gets to the other side of the river and ascends the mountain there is likely to be a rainbow of colors there. Many of us will be standing with her, relieved and hopeful once more, able to see the world as a place of safety and beauty again.

We will all be changed by the experience. Sometimes that’s all it takes to reach a more enlightened way of being.