AJC.com > Opinion > Woman to Woman > Archives > 2007 > August > 18
Saturday, August 18, 2007
Can a man be a better advocate for women than a woman?
Shaunti Feldhahn, a right-leaning columnist, writes the commentary this week and Andrea Cornell Sarvady, a left-leaning columnist, responds.
Rebuttal
Shaunti’s colleagues are probably less puzzled by her question than by her willingness to grab Elizabeth Edwards for her debate team. I fiercely admire Mrs. Edwards yet take with a grain of salt her realization that the best woman’s advocate for our country would be her own husband. Any smart, good guy committed to the marital cause has convinced his wife of that.
So let’s instead look at men who aren’t personally affected by our happiness — in fact, let’s look at the world before women had power in the political arena. We didn’t have the vote, we didn’t have legal recourse in the event of rape, we didn’t have equal work, much less equal pay for it. Can we agree that those are women’s issues, Shaunti? Now let’s throw in abortion (both sides of the issue), funding for ovarian and cervical cancer and work policies which take into account the need and desire for women to support themselves and their families. There, plenty of “women’s issues” and we didn’t even have to get near global warming or Iraq.
What all these issues have in common is that they affect women first, not only, but first, and that issues like these languished in the purgatory of “We’ll get to that, Little Lady” until women educated each other and made themselves heard.
I’m not opposed to seeking male counsel on many intimate issues — why, I’m pretty sure my crackerjack male gynecologist doesn’t base his sage advice on personal experience. Yet as much as I, too, hate being put in a box, I must concede that nature, not other women, put me there.
Women aren’t going to pick a leader just on the basis of gender. Yet are we going to make sure that the big, rancorous tent of sisterhood is strongly represented in today’s government? You bet your sweet voting rights we are. After all, who wants to return to the days when a powerless woman just had to hope and pray that her leader was a smart, good guy who cared about her welfare?
I mean, can you imagine?…
Commentary
By Shaunti Feldhahn
When I asked several liberally-minded female associates this week’s debate question, they all sounded puzzled why I would even ask. In their minds, apparently, gender defines what makes the best women’s advocate; everything else is secondary.
I totally disagree. On this issue, I find myself in a rare moment of accord with Elizabeth Edwards, who in July told Salon that a man - specifically, of course, her husband John Edwards — could actually do more for women than a female candidate such as Hilary Clinton. Ms. Edwards pointed out than ambitious women like Hilary may feel they “have to behave as a man and not talk about women’s issues. I’m sympathetic — she wants to be commander in chief. But she’s just not as vocal a women’s advocate as I want to see. John is.”
The question, though, is what does it really mean to be an advocate for women?
Elizabeth Edwards - further stoking the controversy on Larry King Live - defined it as being “an outspoken advocate for the issues that women care about.” That may be part of the equation, but it also begs the question: who defines what women care about? Ms. Edwards’ list (universal health care, poverty, environmentalism) is important, but I know plenty of women who would prefer an advocate for the unborn, lessening divorce, and championing higher educational standards for our children. Or what about national security? Why is that not a “woman’s issue?” It’s frankly a bit offensive for someone else to tell me what issues I should find most compelling, just because I’m a woman.
In the end, I think it is far more respectful of women to avoid putting us in a box, and instead treat us like the individuals we are, without assuming we all think the same way. Thirty or forty years ago, simply to be heard, we as women may have needed to try to break out “women’s studies” at universities, “women’s rights” at work, and “women’s issues” in policy. But its time to integrate all of that back into the mainstream. Otherwise, we simply continue to marginalize ourselves instead of consolidating the gains that earlier “women’s rights advocates” worked so hard to obtain.