During our recent trek on a small island off the coast of British Columbia, the trail wound past a one-room cabin among the red cedars and Sitka spruces.
A handwritten sign nailed to the inside of the door offers “a bit of history about this cabin”: It was built in the 1970s by a man named Don McDonald, who lived in it for several years.
A third sign, nailed right above the second one, pointedly notes that the author of the history sign “seems to have left out of his account Sherry Stevens, who was Don’s partner in the building of this cabin in 1975-76.”
Just like that, the human world, which had seemed so far away from this place of wolves and wild beaches and thousand-year-old trees, came rushing back. Could anything underscore the momentousness of a Hillary Clinton presidency more than this reminder of the routine invisibility of women?
It makes one think of all the other “bits of history” we have read that tout the achievements of men while ignoring the women who worked beside them.
I don’t point this out as an endorsement of Hillary, though I place myself firmly in the camp of those who believe one must vote for her, whatever one’s misgivings, to prevent a Trump presidency.
To those who refuse to compromise their principles when they go to the polls, I say that I have unhesitatingly and unashamedly voted for the lesser-of-two-evils candidate for most of my enfranchised life. Since I don’t expect there to be too many candidates for state or national office whose worldview perfectly matches my own, I will gladly vote for whomever has the best chance of defeating the candidate whose worldview is utterly at odds with my own.
If you’re disgusted with the two major parties, work to break their stranglehold – between elections. But in a year like this one, keeping Trump out of the White House has to be the priority, and that means voting for Hillary, who may, like Lyndon Johnson, turn out to be surprisingly progressive on social issues. (She might also be disappointingly like LBJ in her handling of foreign affairs.)
All that said, I find it encouraging that many progressives who refuse to vote for Hillary would be thrilled to vote for Elizabeth Warren: It shows that their objections to Hillary have nothing to do with her gender and everything to do with the views she holds and the company she keeps.
If Hillary Clinton joins Germany’s Angela Merkel and Britain’s Theresa May at the pinnacle of political power this fall, it will be an epochal moment in the evolution of our attitudes about the role of women in public life.
Given what we know about these three leaders, however, their simultaneous occupancy of the world stage probably won’t usher in an age of nonviolent conflict resolution.
And it certainly won’t signal the dawning of a post-sexist world any more than the election of Barack Obama ushered in a post-racial world.
Just as post-racial euphoria evaporated in the barrage of killings of black men by police officers, the celebration of Clinton’s nomination this week as a victory for all women will have to be tempered by the barrage of sexual harassment allegations that brought down Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes last week.
As with the Bill Cosby case, one woman’s accusation of harassment has emboldened a multitude of other victims to come forward with their own tales of inappropriate comments and lewd propositions. Since former Fox News host Gretchen Carlson filed her sexual harassment lawsuit against Ailes on July 6, more than 20 women have shared their stories with Carlson’s attorneys.
Ailes has denied any misconduct, claiming that Carlson’s departure from the cable news powerhouse had nothing to do with rebuffing his sexual advances and everything to do with her disappointing ratings.
Defenders of Ailes have questioned the timing of Carlson’s suit. “If you’re in a hostile work environment,” Fox News anchor Kimberly Guilfoyle told Breitbart News, “…why wouldn’t you take it immediately, as a strong powerful feminist, to HR and complain to your superiors?”
In other words, Carlson’s suit is a face-saving move: By claiming sexual harassment she deflects attention from her failure to deliver the audiences Ailes wanted while also exacting a measure of revenge.
Perhaps. But such a line of reasoning overlooks the fear and ambition that routinely cause female employees to tolerate their male bosses’ boorish or bullying behavior.
The sign that ignored Sherry Stevens’ role in the building of the cabin the woods, dated 2013, reminds us of how entrenched our ideas are about the sexes.
The sign that corrected the oversight, dated 2014, tells us we have made progress — enough progress, even, to install a woman in the White House. But not enough to keep powerful men from running their businesses as if they were harems.
