While Geraldine Ferraro is claiming that Barack Obama is "sexist,"
and
many female voters who voted for Hillary Clinton in the primary are
threatening to vote for McCain, it becomes valuable to look at what
Barack Obama's influences are, what his experiences have been, and
what these as well as his actions stand to say about his character.

Barack Obama was raised by a woman who would be seen as fulfillment
of
liberal womanhood. Not only was she a major motive force behind the
highly successful international microloan program, but she was a
white
woman who married a black man; who supported her son by herself when
her husband decided to go to Harvard; who got a PhD in anthropology
while living in Indonesia; and whose work and activism made it
possible for millions of people around the world to rise out of
poverty using their own actions. This woman has been the main
formative female influence on Barack Obama, and to claim that he is
somehow backward in his attitudes toward women is ridiculous. This is
not someone raised by a backward woman, but somebody raised by a
woman
who was significantly more intelligent, more free-thinking, more
accomplished, and more dedicated to improving people's condition
around the world, than many who call themselves feminists. Barack
Obama has not only gained from her real strength and vision, but also
more enlightened attitudes toward women than are practiced by the
same.

There have throughout history been many forms of feminism, and some
have been better than others. I speak of a form that has been most
loud and most destructive, having faith that people can recognize
that
there are better directions that women's rights can and should take.
Gender feminism - the ideology that claims that all differences
between men and women are culturally determined, and that there is
nothing inherently different between women and men - is fundamentally
misogynistic and totalitarian at the same time. First it attacks the
woman's right to all the qualities that are natural to women more
than
they are to men - to female physicality and all that comes with it,
which gender feminists claim to be a cultural construct but which
biology, anatomy, anthropology, social history and experience of
anyone who's been a parent knows to have a natural component, and
which natural component has expressed in it many beautiful, positive,
profound and life-nurturing qualities that are not found - or not as
easily found - in males. Then, having taken away from the woman the
right to her physical nature, it goes straight for her individuality,
using its claim of having liberated women from patriarchy to dictate
what women can feel, what they can think, how they can behave, how
they can look, and what kind of lives and relationships they are
allowed to have.

In the first step, such feminism eviscerates women by denying them
the
right to their physical nature as women and to all the valuable,
strengthening and positive qualities that come with this nature. In
the second step, it disempowers them still further by denying them
the
right to their human nature - the nature as beings of volitional
consciousness, capable of meaningful individuality, meaningful
selfhood and meaningful choice over their lives. To such feminists,
not only is expressed femininity loathsome but so is expressed
individuality, both of which pose a threat - the first by threatening
their central ideological claim; the second by threatening their
claim
that they represent the best interests of all women. And it is women
at the receiving end of such ideologies who have been most injured by
their self-proclaimed leaders - the self-proclaimed leaders who aim
to
take away from those they claim to be serving, but in fact are more
interested in controlling, both the right to their physical nature as
women and the right to their general human nature as beings of
choice.

That many aspects of "traditional" women's roles are wrongful,
oppressive, insulting and inapplicable for many women, is undeniable.
But to claim that there is nothing inherently different between women
and men, is absurd. And while there are naturally tomboyish females
and naturally effeminate males, the ideal of unisex is one that makes
people into robots rather than into free women or free men. To abuse
in the name of women's empowerment both the women who seek to express
the feminine nature and the women who seek to practice meaningful
individuality - in the process destroying beauty, culture, romance,
passion, and freedom, without creating anything better - is something
that would be expected from Maoists during the Cultural Revolution.
And while this type of feminism has been branded by those on the
Right
as "feminazism," a more truthful name would be femi-Maoism; which,
like Maoism, is misconceived and results according to its own nature
in great wrongs. Not only do women deserve better representation, but
so does America; and that means moving American feminism away from
this direction and toward directions that are more democratic, more
life-affirming, more based in human reality, and thus more capable of
affectuating real improvement in women's lives.

Feminism would do a far better service to women by working with
instead of against the letter and spirit of American constitution and
acknowledging, supporting and protecting, at every meaningful level
and to the same extent as for men, the women's constitutional rights
to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. The first clause (life)
means being able to be themselves - both in their physical nature as
women and in their human nature as beings of volitional consciousness
with ability to choose who to be and how to live. The second of this
(liberty) means freedom to express both natures without violence or
discrimination, and with meaningful protection against the same. And
the third (pursuit of happiness) means being able to strive for
happiness and fulfilment - as a woman, as a person, as her individual
self - likewise without violence or discrimination, either from men
or
from other women. This should fulfil all the rightful demands of
feminism - the right for women to have equal rights and freedoms with
men; the right for women to be in control of their minds, their lives
and their bodies; the right for women to shape their own destiny; the
right for women to have protection against all who would mistreat
them
- while doing away with the wrongs that have come with feminism as it
has been practiced in recent years. At which point feminism will move
away from a negative misdirection and become again a movement
consistent in every way with America's founding principles. And then
it could rightfully claim a place that it has had in the past - the
place as part of the true progressive agenda of constitutional
democracy and human rights.

In Obama, we are seeing superior influences, superior experience, as
well as superior choices as to what to do with the preceding. He has
been raised by a woman who very much thought for herself, acted with
courage and initiative, and affectuated a great and profound
improvement in lives of many; he has also himself seen many ways of
life and many aspects of human experience and has made the choice to
understand and make most of them all. He has lived in different
settings and knows first-hand the experience of different places and
different cultures; he has knowledge and experiential understanding
possessed by different cultures and distinct individuals; he cares
about people in all these positions, and he has an amazing ability as
a unifier as well as a drive to improve matters for America and the
rest of the world. He is someone rich both in intellect and
compassion, who not only can understand people in far more positions
than most politicians have ever made a serious attempt to understand,
but also know what they need to do to improve their condition and not
be shy to say so outright.

As someone who's written extensively on social issues in public
forums, I know what is faced by those who speak honestly about
matters
of society and culture. From the Southern-style see-no-evil-hear-no-
evil-or-you-are-evil, to politically correct-style you-cannot-say-
anything-bad-about-any-cultural-group, to pseudoacademic-style do-
not-
ever-make-generalizations-even-when-they-are-reflected-in-statistics-
and-explained-by-root-causes, to Midwestern-style there-is-no-such-
thing-as-society-so-we-will-create-an-extremely-controlling-society-
and-hope-you-don't-notice, to spiritualist-style whatever-you-say-
about-another-person-is-a-reflection-of-you, the public discourse is
full of distortions designed to keep things from being clearly stated
or clearly addressed. And here is Obama coming forth and straight to
tell black fathers to take care of their children, to tell lower-
class
white people to kick their scapegoating habit, to tell American
elites
to pay attention to their constituents, and to tell the
schoolchildren
to do their lessons instead of beating up on the classmates who do
theirs. Breaking through doubletalk and into actual understanding,
Obama has been able both to clearly see the issues and masterfully
communicate them while skillfully avoiding the traps. With
brilliance,
compassion, broad-based experience, curiousity, courage, piercing
honesty, and drive to improve matters for people, this man speaks
truthfully and knowledgeably about what many would want
unacknowledged
and silenced and hidden beyond the veil. It is this attitude that
makes possible not only to actually understand situations, but
likewise to propose effective solutions that resolve matters to the
core and completely - instead of partially and with tons of negative
side effects, as have such solutions as patriarchy and political
correctness.

Being who he is, and having been raised by whom he has been raised,
Barack Obama knows first-hand, and at a very profound level, that
women, like men, do not have a single "place" or come in a single
typology. Which puts him in better category than either traditional
patriarchal men or the women who claim most loudly to be feminists,
both of whom create totalitarian coercion to either one or the other
concept of the preceding, Instead his own life, as well as the life
of
his first female influence, show a much superior path to that
preached
by both parties: The path of thinking for oneself and creating not
only situations that are beneficial for oneself and one's immediates,
but also of going far beyond the call of self-interest to understand
others - many of them people from whom one has nothing to gain, or
who
are not part of one's social group or ethnicity - well enough to
develop and implement informed, insightful and highly successful
solutions for them.

Barack Obama's mother is in many ways a more interesting, more
individualized and more impressive woman than Hillary Clinton. As for
Obama himself, he is a man who can bring into the White House the
kind
of brilliance and visionary courage that has been missing from it
since the days of Theodore Roosevelt or at least FDR. And while
Hillary Clinton is an extraordinary person in her own right, coming
this close to being nominated is hardly a humiliation. Yes, she hoped
to make history by becoming the first woman to lead a major party
ticket; but she would also make history if she were to become the
first female vice president. And given the influence that Hillary
Clinton was able to exercise as First Lady, the influence that she
could exercise as Vice President would be that and more.

To Obama, I suggest picking Hillary Clinton for his running mate.
First of all, that would unite the party and bring behind Obama all
the people who participated in the primary, including those Clinton
voters who think of voting for McCain. Secondly, it would put on his
team an experienced, knowledgeable and skillful insider who would not
only add gravitas to the ticket, but also refute the claims by McCain
that he knows everything and that Democrats know nothing. And
finally,
it will convince the electorate that Democrats of different wings can
reconcile after a bruising campaign and work together and be
effective, competent and disciplined leaders - along with being
directly knowledgeable of both internal experience and external
effects of the civilization in its different aspects, and thus
capable
of making and implementing truly informed decisions calculated to
benefit people on all sides of life.

Hillary Clinton still has a chance to become the first female
President. She is neither old nor sick, and she has enough brains and
political capital to become President anytime in the next two
decades.
As for Barack Obama, his working together with Hillary Clinton should
convince any person of any kind of sense that he has enough respect
for women to collaborate with a brilliant, strong-willed and extremely
non-
traditional woman on a political campaign and to work with her in the
White House. Which would also show that there are viable alternatives
besides patriarchal traditionalism and political correctness, and
that
some highly effective people practice such alternatives with great
success.

Copyright Ilya Shambat.