Beltane Moon of the Summer Solstice
Hillary. Not my candidate. Not my politics. Though. A hell of lot closer to me than that one with the hair. Even so. A woman.
Back in the early seventies I was in seminary in New Brighton, Minnesota. It was there that the feminist movement and I made solid contact. My girlfriend of the time, Tina, and my then best friend’s wife, Carol, began going to conscious raising sessions. Still drinking at that point I would grab David and we’d head out to the bar for what I called conscious lowering sessions. It took me a while to get it. But not too long.
Once the notion of patriarchy and sexism became clear to me I began to change. The sixties and the anti-war movement had not been a feminist moment, but those of us involved back then, men and women alike, had been self-educated in criticism/self-criticism. Not the Marxist variety, but the internal, self-directed challenges to establishment thinking which made many of us say no to the draft, avoid careers in business, and fight the government directly through marches, guerilla theater, saying hell no, I won’t go.
Another fundamental shift in our thinking, our behavior, was possible, I believe, because of those years struggling against the military-industrial complex. This time the foe was not Congress, not the President or the Selective Service, but ourselves. We were all children of the fifties, Leave It to Beaver and Father Knows Best. A time when women appeared with fond affection for kitchen appliances in magazine and television ads. A time when, still, women changed their minds just because, you know, they were women. Women, no matter how well educated, stayed at home once children, their primary mission, came into the family. These were our mothers, the models for what a woman’s role was.
Hillary was one of us. So was Bill. Hard as it is to imagine the early seventies are now forty years in the past. Forty years is not so long in the life of a culture and its bedrock assumptions, but over those forty years women’s lives opened up, blossoming into the sort of possibilities appropriate to those who hold up half the sky. Yet our political culture proved very resistant, especially at the presidential level. Now, though, Hillary is the first female candidate for president representing a major political party in the U.S.
The fact that she is so disliked is a raised fist for the success of the feminism. She’s disliked for actions she’s taken as a person wielding power. She’s not being dismissed because of her gender. She’s being disagreed with as a person of significance. Of course, there is much sexism in resistance to her candidacy, but it needs to be cloaked in the phony Benghazi incident or her use of an email server-while Secretary of State.
Even though Hillary is not my first choice, even though her politics are more centrist than my own, I’m excited and proud to have her running for the presidency. In fact, thinking of first Barack Obama, then Hillary as candidates of the Democratic Party almost restores my faith in party politics. Almost. I will not vote for Hillary because she’s a woman. I’ll vote for her because she’s the politician left standing that most closely represents my politics.
But that she’s the one left standing makes me proud of our country. It makes me as proud of our country, ironically, as Trump makes me ashamed and bewildered.
