In 1878 an
amendment to the Constitution was introduced in
Congress to give women the
right to vote. It was defeated. It was then reintroduced in every session
of Congress for the next 40 years. It finally passed the
House of
Representatives in 1918 where it was introduced by Jeannette Rankin of
Montana, the first woman elected to Congress; it passed the
Senate in 1919
and was ratified by the States the following year. Women voted for the
first time in the presidential election of 1920, nearly 100 years ago.
And only now do we have a viable
woman candidate running to be elected to the highest office in the land.
You could say we’ve “come a long
way, baby."
Right?
Wrong!
This is a country where working
women earn an average of 80.4% of men’s weekly median earnings;
where women are the majority of poor people in America; where women’s health
care standards pale compared to men’s; where there are 143.5 million
women vs. 137.9 million men and yet women make up only 16% of the U.S.
Senate and 16.3% of the U.S. House of Representatives. There are only 9
female governors in 50 states.
Knowing this, you would think
that women would recognize the need to gain control of their
country by voting a woman into the Oval Office.
You would think.
Instead a recent poll cites 80%
of Republican women declaring that they won’t vote for
Hillary Clinton. (Clinton
did win over almost a quarter of women GOPers in the 2006
New York Senate
race: 22 percent of Republican women voted for Clinton –
OH BOY!) And an
October Gallup Poll cites 52%
of women who identify themselves as Democrats, or lean to the
Democratic
Party, rating Clinton as their top choice for the party’s
2008
presidential nomination. Only 53 percent? What’s up with that?
By the way, Clinton’s support is
slightly higher among unmarried women (55%), women without a college
education (55%), and younger women (54%), which might be interpreted to
mean that unmarried women, un-educated women, and younger women are smarter
than other women. Or could it be that they are more independent thinkers
than married women? Maybe, having to fend for themselves they better
understand the reality of women’s lives outside the traditional home.
Democrats residing in
low-income
households (56%) also rank among the subgroups showing the highest levels
of support for Clinton. Can these statistics be interpreted to mean that
people in low-income households better recognize the need for a woman
president? Could these be women who understand the need for a program like
The Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIPS), the program President Bush recently trashed so that children in
low-income homes no longer have medical care?
Of course, women as a demographic tend to want to expand the role of the
Federal government in American lives versus men, who would statically
rather spend America’s money on guns and ammunition.
So what’s going on here? Why
aren’t women shouting from the rooftops “ELECT HILLARY!” when polls show
that women consistently refer to Hillary Clinton as competent and
accomplished, even in comparing her to her fellow candidates?
Well, sisters, here’s the 411: Women don’t trust other
women, particularly when they are dynamic and powerful. But that’s only
half of the reason why so many women haven’t tossed their feminine hats
into the Hillary ring.
The real dirty little secret here is that Hillary may be up against that
last bastion of female dependence, the hidden need to be taken care of,
The Cinderella Complex, (so eloquently named by
Colette Dowling in her
1981 groundbreaking book of the same name) -- that part of women secure in
knowing that every four years we elect a new Father of our country.
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