In an election with the potential to give America its first female president, an outcome both they and I long to see, they have cast their primary votes for Bernie Sanders. The decision comes down to a choice between two undeniable goods: a symbolic victory for “women everywhere,” or a measurably better life for those women consigned to nowhere. The person who watched my daughter when she was small so my wife and I could pursue our careers, the person who helps my elderly mother bathe, the people who cash my checks at the bank, take my cash at the store, wait my table, cut my hair, change my hotel sheets — all of them are women. A visitor from another planet who didn’t know about lactation might assume breasts were human insignia for underpaid service. Many of the women who do these jobs earn no more than a paltry minimum wage. Man does not live by bread alone, but working-class women are expected to live by acknowledgment: a rose on Mother’s Day, a folded flag at a son’s funeral, a woman in the Oval Office in 2017. A president who spares his opposition the trouble of branding him a socialist because he’s happy to own the brand.
Some people will insist that only a woman can say what I’m about to say. Probably most of them will vote for Hillary Clinton. Probably most of them should.
My wife and daughter have taken a different course. In an election with the potential to give America its first female president, an outcome both they and I long to see, they have cast their primary votes for Bernie Sanders. I’m hoping the women who vote in the California primary will do the same. They’ll be casting a strong vote for women if they do.
The decision comes down to a choice between two undeniable goods: a symbolic victory for “women everywhere,” or a measurably better life for those women consigned to nowhere.
I don’t have to be female to recognize who those women are. The person who watched my daughter when she was small so my wife and I could pursue our careers, the person who helps my elderly mother bathe, the people who cash my checks at the bank, take my cash at the store, wait my table, cut my hair, change my hotel sheets — all of them are women. A visitor from another planet who didn’t know about lactation might assume breasts were human insignia for underpaid service.
Many of the women who do these jobs earn no more than a paltry minimum wage. Many of them have no paid sick days or pensions. They cannot count on their children going to a functional elementary school, much less to an accredited college. Yes, their daughters can dream of becoming president; their daughters can also dream of taking wing and flying to the moon.
These are not the women who break glass ceilings; these are the women who are summoned to sweep up the shards. They don’t “lean in”; they bend down, often for little more than a pat on the back. Man does not live by bread alone, but working-class women are expected to live by acknowledgment: a rose on Mother’s Day, a folded flag at a son’s funeral, a woman in the Oval Office in 2017.
Women like these don’t need a president who looks like them so much as a president who fights for them. They need a president willing to take on Wall Street, militarism, and the billionaire class. A president who spares his opposition the trouble of branding him a socialist because he’s happy to own the brand. If some of these women wince at being called feminists, then they also need his example.
We lay so much emphasis on having a first female president that we fail to envision our best female president. She may be standing on a street corner even now. Her leadership in a time of crisis, her radical commitment to government “of the people, by the people, and for the people” — not least of all her roots among the working poor — will prompt comparisons with Lincoln. In time, historians may think it better to compare Lincoln with her.
The election of either Sanders or Clinton would undoubtedly ease that extraordinary woman’s passage to the White House. Our question in 2016 is this: Whose election would ease it more?
Garret Keizer is a freelance writer.
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