political campaigns

Three Things:

1. Barack Obama appeared as ever very cool, very collected, very smart. McCain appeared, just like his campaign, rather erratic, all-over-the-place, and definitely a stream-of-consciousness man.

2. Both gave their stock answers on the Roe v. Wade question; though it is worthwhile to take a close look at McCain’s answer:

SCHIEFFER: But even if it was someone — even someone who had a history of being for abortion rights, you would consider them?

MCCAIN: I would consider anyone in their qualifications. I do not believe that someone who has supported Roe v. Wade that would be part of those qualifications. But I certainly would not impose any litmus test.

That’s my bolding, call it the bolding of shock. McCain directly contradicts himself within two sentences. Deciding whether a candidate is qualified for the bench by looking at whether he/she supported Roe v. Wade is a litmus test.

3. Sex Ed, anyone?

It got a brief mention by Obama:

But there surely is some common ground when both those who believe in choice and those who are opposed to abortion can come together and say, “We should try to prevent unintended pregnancies by providing appropriate education to our youth, communicating that sexuality is sacred and that they should not be engaged in cavalier activity, and providing options for adoption, and helping single mothers if they want to choose to keep the baby.”

And… that was it. I’ll have more to say on this tomorrow. Sex and Sensibility is, per usual, running a bit late but will be up tomorrow.

And yet again today, Girl with Pen is extremely pleased to bring you the inaugural post from Veronica Arreola. Veronica will be posting her column, Science Grrl, which brings you the latest research and press on girls and women in science & engineering the second Wednesday of each month. Here’s Veronica! -Deborah

“While we were working to eliminate these pork barrel earmarks he (Senator Obama) voted for nearly $1 billion in pork barrel earmark projects. Including $3 million for an overhead projector at a planetarium in Chicago, Illinois. My friends, do we need to spend that kind of money?” –John McCain

The first project I worked on after I graduated with my bachelor’s degree in biological sciences was called “Women & Scientific Literacy.” Its goal, put simply, was to infuse humanities and social science courses with science and “warm” the cold lab projects in introductory science courses. While the project had an eye on bringing more women to science, we also kept a sharp eye on how these changes might bring more underrepresented men and women to science. Look in your bag and you most likely will find many examples of technology that permeates our world without much thought on our part – Your MP3 player, mobile phone, smart phone/PDA, age-defying lotion, lip-plumping gloss, SPF 35 sun block, and a smudge-proof pen. This was part of the underlying message of our project, that to be a true democracy, we as citizens needed to be literate in science because so many decisions were being made and we all needed to lend our voices and opinions.

The current Presidential campaigns of Barack Obama and John McCain highlight the need for scientific literacy. Well, their campaigns don’t say it too loud, but look at some of their campaign promises and you see discussion about stem-cell research, space exploration, and global warming. How can voters decide who represents their views if they don’t understand the science or even the basic need for, say, space exploration? This is why it struck me as odd that McCain, who touts space exploration on his campaign site, decided to use the Adler Planetarium’s need for updated technology as an example of earmarks gone bad. (You can read about the space program here on McCain’s campaign site.)

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What do women want from the candidates? GWPers ain’t holding back. Here’s what some of you are saying:

# Katka Says:
October 14th, 2008 at 1:06 pm e

I *definitely* spend more on daycare than food. I not only want affordable daycare, I want great daycare, with informed and well-compensated teachers, where kids are loved and taught respect of others and themselves, along with chances to explore art, music, and other languages. NOT TOO MUCH TO ASK!

# Virginia Says:
October 14th, 2008 at 4:12 pm e

This will be a great panel. Here’s what I’ve got on it: Where 3rd-wave, girlwithpenner style feminism leads us is down a path towards all kinds of equality, all kinds of social and economic justice. I want us not to destroy the planet; I want us not to do violence abroad; I want us to reduce economic inequality. These are women’s, men’s issues, family issues, too! I’m a little utopian at the moment, but if I’m leveraging identity (as a feminist) that’s what I’m thinking about when I think about our new Obama administration! (Here it comes! Here it comes!)

Keep it comin. Tell us what YOU want!

Tonight is the This Is What Women Want Speak Out here in NYC. So here is what I want, what I’d like to tell the candidates, what I want them to hear. And a bigtime thanks goes to the National Council for Research on Women for their Big 5 website – a motherload of information for those of you similarly wanting to put it out there and help bring our issues to the candidates’ attention.

As a woman hoping to bring a child into this world, I have a lot of wants right about now.

As a working woman, I want guaranteed leave. Yes, it’s true, some limited unpaid leave is made mandatory under the Family Medical Leave Act. But I find it pretty disgusting that the United States is not among the 168 countries worldwide that provide paid maternity leave. And did you know, dear candidates, that mothers without paid leave in our country take fewer weeks off from work after childbirth than women with leave benefits, putting both mothers and infants at risk for health complications? And while we’re at it, nearly half (47%) of private-sector workers and 22 million women workers do not have any paid sick days. Nearly half the women who take off from work to care for a sick child give up their wages to do so. Three-quarters of women living in poverty sacrifice wages to look after sick children. If I sound frustrated, it’s because I am. Fix this, puleese?

When I become a mother, I’m going to want affordable childcare. Did you know, dear candidates, that nationwide, nearly 12 million children under age 5 are in childcare each week and, in every region of the United States, childcare fees surpass the average amount families spend on food? And of course, childcare costs are particularly weighty for poor and low-income families, who pay a significantly higher share of their income for care than higher-level income groups. Providing childcare subsidies reduces work schedule-related problems for single working mothers by about 56%. So why not supply more of these?

As the future mother of a future daughter or son, I want a personal promise from you that Roe v. Wade will never be overturned. And I want you, dear candidates, to take the lead in promoting women’s reproductive rights and health, especially the preservation of reproductive rights and health for low income women and women of color. I want honest sex ed in our schools, and an end to this federally-funded abstinence-only hoohah.

That’s for starters. What do YOU want? Tell it to mic tonight at LaGuardia Community College if you happen to be in the NYC vicinity. The “This Is What Women Want Pre-Debate Speakout” is taking place tonight @ 7:00 PM and it’s free: Mainstage Theater, 31-10 Thomson Avenue, LaGuardia Community College, Long Island City, Queens. More info available here.

Now, I am not one to trust the polls or to stop from knocking on wood every time a little flicker of hope rises in that maybe, just maybe, we’ll see President Obama in office come January. But in the spirit of things that may brighten up the day a bit, take a look at this analysis from the super-analyzers over at the FiveThirtyEight blog, which does some intense number-crunching and analyses of these way-too-many-too-confusing (ok, at least for me, who in studying for the GRE last night made some pretty red-faced math mistakes) poll numbers. According to their analysis, John McCain only has a 5.9% chance of winning the electoral college. Now this may seem overly optimistic even to the most glass-full of us, but take a look at their reasoning. You may find a little smile tugging at the corner of your lips.

UPDATE: Hey, is this the first time Gawker and Girl with Pen are on the same page?

In the excitment of our launch here this week, I–oops!–forgot to post my own column, XY FILES (myths and facts about a new generation of men).  So here we go…

Remember all that stereotyped talk during the primaries about how Barack leads like a woman (meaning, collaboratively) and Hillary leads like a man (meaning, I suppose, pantsuits)?  In a Boston Globe column last Feburary, Ellen Goodman described Barack as “the quality circle man, the uniter-not-divider, the person who believes we can talk to anyone, even our enemies.” He finely honed a language “usually associated with women’s voices,” she said.  Goodman quoted political science professor Kathleen Dolan, who saw Obama as “the embodiment of the gentle, collaborative style without threatening his masculine side.”

Well now that it’s Obama vs. McCain, the gender of leadership has become, well, a little homogenized.  It’s dude v. dude.  Again.  And one of my newfound heroes Jackson Katz (educator, author, filmmaker, bigtime FOF — that’s friend of feminism, mind you) is currently working on a book about “presidential masculinity”  that I can’t wait to read.

According to an article in UCSF Today, Katz says this election is nothing new when it comes to the important role that race and gender have historically played in campaigns for the White House.   While the level of diversity among this year’s crop of candidates is of course unprecedented, Katz suggests that the battle between the two presidential contenders still boils down to a question of who best represents the stereotypically masculine qualities of a leader: strength, steadfastness and vitality.

“This year, it’s still about masculinity,” he says. “It’s just white masculinity versus person-of-color masculinity.”

Or is it?  Isn’t the Hillary/Sarah effect (ew – I hate putting them so close together like that) still having an impact on the way we talk about leadership’s gender these days?   GWP readers J.K. Gayle and Renee Cramer had some interesting comments on this all back in February, when HRC was still in the race.  I’d love to pick up the thread again, now that the debates are all black man vs. white man.  Read the rest from Katz, and let me know what you think!

You GOTTA hear this. Ok, a little juvenile, but LOL funny. Highlights:

“Just because I can see the moon
doesn’t mean I’m an astronaut, you loon!
Your foreign policy expertise is poo.”

And, the chorus:

“Oh, if you become VP
Oh, it’s Canada for me…”