September 10 2008

The united $tates has had a watershed moment with the opposition of the National Organization for Women (NOW) to Sarah Palin in the 2008 presidential election.(1) According to NOW:

"Sen. John McCain's choice of Alaska governor Sarah Palin as his running mate is a cynical effort to appeal to disappointed Hillary Clinton voters and get them to vote, ultimately, against their own self-interest.

"Gov. Palin may be the second woman vice-presidential candidate on a major party ticket, but she is not the right woman. Sadly, she is a woman who opposes women's rights, just like John McCain."

Up to now, only academics and kooks like MIM have said that feminism is not only about biology. For example, the discussion of Lynndie England as a gender oppressor circulated in rarified circles, while oafs laughed at MIM when MIM said that some males are turned into gender oppressed wimmin.

Yet, here we are in 2008 and the largest self-described U.$. feminist organization just took a stand against Sarah Palin; although, the Democrats have no female on their ticket for president. NOW had no choice but to argue that males would do a better job advancing female interests. There is a big disconnect from individual biology, and rightly so.

MIM has long held that NOW is just a special interest group in the Democratic Party. Its ideology has but one overall end--the partisan support of Democrats and pressure on those Democrats. Hence, the NOW announcement does not surprise us, but it does mark a moment in which a nine-digit figure of Amerikans will enter a debate. The mainstream leaders must now admit that feminism is not about biological identity.

We Maoists agree that it is not the biology of Palin that matters but her political line. NOW has done little to develop the theory necessary to identify the self-interests of females that can unite a feminist movement. We find it narrow that NOW centers the question on abortion. By opposing Palin, NOW proves that it is not interested in having females promoted to higher ranking positions. Ironically NOW and similar Democrats such as Obama will say that the Republicans divide the so-called workers with "cultural issues," but then the Democrats end up taking a firmer stand on abortion than ever before, for Liberal "choice," at the expense of attacks on the "glass ceiling."

We know there is almost less to NOW line and theory than there is to conservatism. From here on though, we can dispense with certain identity politics postures. It is custom among relativists and subjectivists to start discussion with "speaking as a womyn . . . ." Now we know the real meaning is "speaking as a female Democrat. . . ."

The credit for ending the farce goes to the Republican Party. It finally found a candidate that is not a white male. McCain has received a boost of 20 percentage points from white females by running with Palin according to one poll.(2)

Some such as Susan Estrich wrongly believed that the vice-presidential pick does not matter, but it does for sociological patronage. The tricky part is that running Palin against Obama would not have worked for the Republicans necessarily. The effectiveness of the gender guise depended on the race and class situation being already set.

By class, McCain and Obama represent very similar forces as millionaires themselves and politicians for global exploitation comforting to a wide swath of Amerikans. With the class question dulled--as it has to be in a country of 95% exploiters and only two major parties-- the context became race, and in that context, gender does play a strong role in the united $tates, once we recognize the dialectical interconnections. Palin vs. Obama would not have worked, but Palin as the tipping factor in a racial context does work for the same reason that lynch mobs often get started on rape questions. We saw the same thing when Hillary Clinton was down 11 points in New Hampshire but won after crying and Bill Clinton's various gender references.

Kmart moms for Palin is a real possibility. NOW has defined feminism almost as a kind of word game for the college-educated and into the vacuum evangelical Palinism can rush, especially since Palin herself defines herself as a feminist, just an anti-abortion "pro-life" feminist.

In NOW's "hall of shame" for media sexism we see over and over again that certain words are not allowed. It were as if females are never guilty of anything and all that we need to change the power structure in the country is to stop using certain nasty words of criticism in the media (not just names like "bitch" either). NOW thus obliterates national and class injustices. In contrast, MIM says that Lynndie England certainly deserved to be called a "bitch."

NOW also does not have any method to its work. The following is an example from NOW:

"Keith Olbermann has been giving Matthews a run for his money lately, even naming Katie Couric his Worst Person in the World for speaking out against media sexism and taking on one of his MSNBC bosses."(3)

Yet, Olbermann has also called Karl Rove "worst person ever."(4) It seems to be a favorite joke, because Olbermann says the same of Fox News's O'Reilly.(5) On this, Olbermann is right and NOW is wrong. Olbermann has some sense of enemies still. NOW has some culture of political correctness it learned in college but which does not apply in the real world of struggle where there are still enemies. The difference between MIM fanaticism and NOW fanaticism is that there is a systematic comparative materialist method behind MIM's work, which produces theories and then corresponding strategies and tactics for advance in the here and now. NOW has only a one-stage wishful thinking in which we all go to college political correctness classes, play word games and then all problems disappear. That is why NOW has no consistent approach to Olbermann.

Since we have not reached communism yet, there are extremely evil females still. Running from oppressor accountability and turning everything into a matter of not criticizing females reflects on the unfortunate influence of anarchism on political correctness. With such a vast detachment from reality by so-called feminists, almost anything can fill the vacuum left as a result.

What NOW says flies with some college-educated people who share a cultural pseudo-feminism. NOW did not undertake a systematic analysis of the media with its "Hall of Shame," because having a method would be too difficult and deep for the milieu NOW aims at. Yet feminism badly needs method and theory along with a corresponding decrease in fascination with language and story-telling for their own sakes. The Republican nomination of Sarah Palin will have some slight benefit in raising questions of theory and method--how to identify the interests of the oppressed gender.

Notes:
1. http://www.now.org/press/08-08/08-29.html
2. http://uk.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUKN0941498020080910
3. Sexist "Media Hall of Shame," http://www.now.org/issues/media/hall_of_shame/index.html?open=1&page=1
4. http://blogs.reuters.com/trail08/2008/03/10/rove-heckled-in-iowa-over-iraq-war/
5. http://mediamatters.org/items/200703260002