:: Jayanthi Natrajan

Palin is no poster girl of woman power

Jayanthi Natarajan

It may not be a very productive political exercise to compare an Indian election with the US presidential race, feverishly being fought and discussed in political circles and the media. Naturally, as politically conscious citizens, and as politicians, we frequently discuss the impact that Hillary Clinton vs Barack Obama or John McCain may have upon India-US ties, upon how Indian concerns, both geopolitical and economic, would be impacted. This particular Democratic party nomination process was followed with hysterical interest, and many of us, who have as much interest and commitment to women’s rights as to racial discrimination, found it hard to choose between Ms Clinton and Mr Obama. My own conviction is that Mr Obama’s message of change swung the election his way, and his speech at the Democratic primary will surely go down in history as one of the most path-breaking and profoundly thoughtful speeches of all time. Hillary Clinton lost, but her fight was good and valiant. As all women know, whether in politics or business, or bureaucracy or movies, profession or household work, male domination is alive and well. And despite all the undoubted progress that has been so painfully gained, discrimination on the basis of gender is a cruel reality that has an impact upon all women. Of course, our Constitution guarantees equality for all, and no discrimination on the basis of gender, and there are several laws that seek to further promote the cherished goal of equality. However, when all is said and done, the sad reality is that the utopian goal of women being equal citizens in this country is still a distant dream.

Witness for example the struggle to pass the Women’s Reservation Bill. The fact that women need reservation of seats to even aspire to a meaningful representation in legislature is evidence enough of their lowly status. But the ongoing controversy over whether the bill should even be passed speaks eloquently of the fact that in every way, in every class and community, at every stage of life and in several different permutations, women are, and continue to be, second class citizens in this country. The debates, arguments and public discussions on the bill is an example of the entire gamut of opposition to women’s rights — from openly reactionary and chauvinistic to downright silly and supercilious. On the parliamentary committee studying the Women’s Reservation Bill, I watched in horror as a young and educated woman spoke passionately about why it would be undemocratic to reserve seats for women. She is perfectly entitled to have her own views on the subject but my horror arose from the realisation that it is possible for any important issue, such as this one, to be subverted by a false and pernicious but apparently reasonable argument — one that does not go to the root of the matter but draws upon some other non-negotiable fundamental to try and negate a particular argument. In this case, the young woman spoke eloquently about democracy, and how sacrosanct it should be while arguing against women’s reservation, all the while ignoring the most basic reality that there can be no true democracy where there is discrimination and inequality. In this case, both men and women. But that is a different argument, and a different article.

I find it astonishing how, at a much larger level, and in a very different way, the US presidential election has dramatically changed the rules of gender discourse in the US, twisting and garbling the fight for women’s rights. Many of us women, whether in India or in the US, have firmly believed that politics, and in fact society, should be gender neutral. Without doing violence to the more fundamental argument, that having been discriminated against for centuries women who suffer equally in every cross-section of society now deserve a helping hand to enable them to scramble up the ladder of development, we believe that a person’s gender should not amplify or diminish their essential virtues or defects, whether of intellectual attainment, efficiency or attributes of character. Therefore, it is easy for us to firmly declare that the new Republican vice-presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, has the capacity and every right to be a leader as well as a mother. Why then are we suspicious and uncomfortable with her new champions? For it is a fact that although a die-hard and aggressive campaigner for women’s rights, particularly in the political arena, I feel very uncomfortable with the rise of Sarah Palin. Not, I hasten to add, on a personal level, or even on account of her Republican ticket.

At some level, I believe that the vocabulary of feminism is being subverted with the elevation and celebration of Sarah Palin. At some level, Sarah Palin represents (obviously) what Hillary Clinton was not — utterly digestible feminine power, acceptable to those who have no intellectual or political use for women. A sort of dystopian universe, where feminism will prevail without the irritating feminists. Hillary Clinton was tough and no-nonsense. She fought her way through the ranks of the party and spoke her mind about issues. That she was a woman was besides the point for her. Of course, she was attacked more savagely because she was a woman, and more openly than Mr Obama could have been attacked for his colour, as people are not afraid of being sexist although they would not dare be seen as racist. Thus, although she might have been tough as nails, and aggressive, Hillary Clinton blasted through the glass ceiling and forced people to do business with her in spite of wide prejudices against women. As she herself famously remarked, 18 million cracks appeared in the glass ceiling. And then she lost to Mr Obama. But she had already pioneered the revolution and prepared America for a woman leader.

It is therefore particularly ironic, that Hillary Clinton’s polar opposite, Sarah Palin, should waltz in and have the very same reactionary forces who savaged Hillary Clinton hail her as the poster girl of woman power. Palin has done nothing to further the fight for women’s rights. In fact her record as governor of Alaska shows that her views and policies are quite often reactionary, whether in relation to reproductive rights, or climate change and drilling for oil in Alaska.

One American writer has commented that perhaps the US political parties have "not cared enough, or were too scared, to lay its rightful claim to the language of women’s rights, that Sarah Palin will reach historic heights of power, under the most egregious of auspices, by plying feminine wiles, and conforming to every outdated notion of what it means to be a woman. That she will hit her marks by clambering over the backs, the bodies, the rights of the women on whose behalf she claims to be working, and that she will do it all under the banner of feminism. How can anybody sleep?"

And although this particular comment may seem unduly harsh, the fact remains that the discomfort that underlies the remark is all too real for many of us.

Jayanthi Natarajan is a Congress MP in the Rajya Sabha and AICC spokesperson.

The views expressed in this column are her own.