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Sexuality Witch Hunts Insult All Women
There are a number of questions we should ask when two of nine Supreme Court justices are women. If nominee Elena Kagan is confirmed, she will be the fourth woman justice of 112 total justices in the history of the Supreme Court. It is possible, but unlikely, that a broken calculator would call this proportional -- making it understandable that chatter might go beyond views and qualifications when a woman is nominated.
Is she a lesbian?, however, goes too far.
Declaring Ms. Kagan a lesbian, or encouraging the media and/or senators to ask her to identify her sexual orientation, as former Bush speechwriters, FOX News commentators and the American Family Association have started to do, is inappropriate at best and a sort of pornographic McCarthyism at worst.
Powerful women are often dragged down to a sexual level, whether it's lesbian-baiting as in the case of Solicitor General Kagan, being called a "ball-breaker" or having a face digitally imposed on top of a scantily clad model. Using words (or even Photoshop) to create sex tape-like imagery for women in the public eye is insulting and degrading to all women, period. Such behavior sends a message that women who dare to try to be the "first, "second" or "third" in a field will have to pay a price.
There are many, many important questions that must be asked as Ms. Kagan goes through the nomination process, especially relating to equal opportunity for all people, including fundamental rights to self-determination. We must focus on those questions, and let the suggestion that sexual orientation affects employability serve as a reminder to redouble efforts to pass robust employment non-discrimination guarantees on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.
I understand what you mean Erin but I never know quite what to say about lesbian baiting. If we agree that calling someone a lesbian is bad do we also say that being a lesbian is bad? Or should we say so what, who cares?
Thank you for writing about this issue.
I recent joined the Air Force and will be leaving in July but I got in trouble because I shaved my head. My recruiter said we like our women to look like women.
I don't understand really as to exactly what this means...
Are all job applicants going to be expected to tell whether they are heterosexual, homosexual, or both, during every job interview now?
I've been asked some odd questions during job interviews, and sometimes the questions seemed a bit discriminatory. Are you married, have children, have cancer, have a bad back, or any problems with your female organs, what is your age, etc. They haven't questioned me regarding my race yet though at all.
I wonder if HR departments will just start wording a sexual orientation question on their employment applications.
"Powerful women are often dragged down to a sexual level"
You speak as if men in government face no sexual scrutiny. These sorts of politics are as much a women's issue as a men's issue.
Letsbefair, I agree that lesbian-bating is a ridiculous political ploy. Conservatives and most of the general (heterosexual) public as you suggest are scared of people with a different sexual orientation than their own, and don’t believe want such people should have any position of power (much less live in their neighborhoods or frequent their same churches, etc.). The right wing and the mainstream media that they control go on the attack and imply that she is unfit to be on the Supreme Court because she may be a lesbian. Ridiculous, but effective outside most major metropolitan areas of the USA.
I respectfully disagree that this tactic has nothing to do with her being a women. On the contrary, in most areas of society and culture, in just about everywhere on planet Earth, there are different rules that apply to women than to men, and within the gender divide, distinct sets of rules based on race and class. Gender, race, and class to an extent are all things that are used to keep power away from people. This is the case for politics, too. There are people who have most of the power and authority, and they usually want to maintain their power and authority, and act accordingly. They decide what is worthy of scrutiny, and what issues are important and deserving of our attention. The majority of the decision-makers, law makers, law enforcers, judges, government officials, heads of corporations, and key political influencers are NOT women. Being a woman, Ms Kagan is therefore an outsider and poses a potential threat to the status-quo, so she is not treated as a man would be treated in the same boat. She is instead subjected to a different level of scrutiny precisely because she is female. Some men don’t mean to, don’t realize it, or don't want to face that this kind of sexism still exists, which makes sense since they have never experienced things as a woman. Reality outside the club when you’ve been a lifetime member inside the club is hard to grasp.
If the tables were turned and most of the people in positions of power were women, do you think as much time or any time at all would be wasted discussing a nominee’s sexual orientation? Or would the focus be more on topics that actually pertain to a person’s ability to hold a Supreme Court Justice position i.e. credentials, background, points of view concerning laws? I would hope the latter. What do you think?
By your own admission, men and women suffer different societal rules and standards. But can we say which has it worse in this day and age? We might be able to say that overall women have historically had it worse, and I think you'd find very little disagreement with that (although I would contend that men were expected to treat women well under most general circumstances).
But let's take another step away from gender for a moment. First, to imply that men are incapable of basing their opinions on a system of merit is simply silly; our historical understanding of the merit system points to men having created it. Second, to imply that women would be more effective at running the country echoes a notion of feminine superiority, which betrays a lack of ethical honesty on the part of a Feminist.
Simply put, this is not a question of "What can we get this woman on?" It is, as I tried to point out previously, "What can we get this liberal on?"
And because she is a liberal, she will be scrutinized for ANYTHING that might keep her out of office. As you admit, men and women face different standards, so the arguments used against women might be different than those used against men. Typically, we only see accusations of infidelity in politics against men (something SC has worked hard to change). Remember that many men have also been forced to resign for their homosexual relations.
Again - this is a matter of keeping a liberal out of office. We don't call "birthers" racist (unless they actually are) for implying that an African-American was born in Africa. We don't call the media sexist for accusing men in politics of infidelity without substantiation, nor do we call the media sexist for accusing men in politics of homosexual relations or solicitation of prostitutes, which may be just as unfounded. Why, then, would we call the media sexist for an unfounded assumption about Kagan? I don't like it any more than any of you, but I certainly don't think it is an issue of gender. It might be related to an issue of gender but we at the very least cannot look at it in a simple "cause-and-effect" manner.
http://www.aolnews.com/nation/article/elena-kagan-gay-rumors-didnt-start-with-conservatives/19471930
I'm sure Justice Ginsburg has also always had 'NOW's support despite her "racist" reasoning for "Roe-v-Wade". "Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/16/AR2009071603485.html
I am curious as to the criteria 'NOW' uses to decide which women are acceptable to them and which aren't? (besides, of course, if the name is followed by a R or D)
NOW has even defended Sarah Palin, whose politics we strongly disagree with, from sexist comments. It's not a question of who is "acceptable" -- NOW's job is not to decide who is acceptable or not. Our mission is to promote full equality for women, and we can't achieve that by politically supporting women with whom we don't agree on how to achieve that mission. However, we can support their right to operate in the public sphere free from discrimination.
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