Kathleen Parker from the Washington Post just published an articled explaining why Obama is our nation's "first female president" much like how Clinton was our "first black president" according to Toni Morrison. But there lies a vast gulf in meaning in both articles. Morrison's sets out to show similarities in the social experience of Clinton and a typical black person in America (i.e. single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald's-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas). Parker's article, in inexplicable boneheadedness, just reaffirms gender stereotypes and illuminates her own internalized oppression in regard to the position females should take in America.
She writes, "Our enlightened human selves may want to eliminate gender norms, but our lizard brains have a different agenda." She's saying that gender norms are biologically grafted into our brains. A delusion that was practiced with much fervor by misogynists and racists during most of the 20th century. This is the kind of thinking that gave way to phrenology and other psuedosciences that attempted to disprove the aptitude of women and people of color.
Almost everything Parker says about the way women do things is choked with an air of inferiority. She goes on to describe the president's actions during the oil spill as "passive" and his "lack of immediate, commanding action". So this is why he is our first female president? Because he's passive and lacks action? From the way she describes women in authority, you'd think she never wants to see a real female president in office.
For attempting to erase 40+ years of women's lib and social progress, the Bonehead Op-Ed of the Week goes to Kathleen Parker. Kudos.
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