Archive for gender

Feminists Urge Women: ‘Vote Your Politics, Not Your Gender’

I recently received some interesting and timely correspondance from a questioning reader. She writes,

I have spent some time this summer talking to my mom and her friends about politics.  These older women, mostly of Hillary’s generation, say that they see her as the most unethical of the candidates, someone who would lie and cheat and stop at nothing to get her way.  No matter how much they would like to see a female in the White House, they would never vote for Hillary.  I think that most people would agree that political candidates in general are far less moral than we would like.  Is Hillary really any worse than the others?”

These questions are timely because they remind me of a recent cover story in The Nation, which focuses exclusively on the way women, and more specifically feminists and/or her generational peers, view Hillary Clinton. The article addresses many of the questions that my reader asks.

So, is Hillary really more unethical or ruthless  than the other candidates?

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so which candidate wears the pants?…and is the skirt more appealing?

To start off today’s lesson: the difference between ’sex’ and ‘gender’, as defined by academia:

Sex =  the biological signification of femalehood or malehood

Gender = a social construct that exists outside of biology and the body; has more to do with subjective terms like ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ which can be applied to a person regardless of sex

so why is Salon  saying that Hillary is the male-gendered candidate while Obama is the female one?

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