Why This Socialist Feminist Is Not Voting for Hillary
By Liza Featherstone
Socialism, it turns out, can be a form of identity politics. Some feminists, including Suzanna Danuta Walters, brandish a “red-diaper baby” heritage or some other cultural or sentimental affinity to hint that supporting Hillary Clinton’s candidacy doesn’t just represent some corporate gloss on feminism; it’s a genuinely radical position.
But no one who makes this argument can articulate what, beyond her identity as a woman, qualifies Clinton as a passable candidate for socialist feminists. That’s understandable because, in a primary against an independent socialist who has been attracting an astonishing level of grassroots support, there are no socialist-feminist reasons to support Hillary Clinton.
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In a normal election season, all of this would be reason to agitate, but not necessarily to work or vote against the candidate—after all, what’s the alternative? This year, however, there is an inspiring reason to vote against Hillary: an actually existing socialist-feminist candidate in the Democratic primary. I’m talking, of course, about Bernie Sanders. He’s no Marxist revolutionary—if you’re waiting for someone who will expropriate the expropriators, you’ll have to wait a little longer—but he has spent his life fighting, consistently and without apology, for social-democratic policies that would improve the lives of a majority of American women. In contrast to Clinton’s devotion to imposing shame and austerity on poor women and their kids, Sanders helped lead the Senate opposition to Republican efforts to cut the WIC program, which provides nutrition assistance for mothers, babies, and pregnant women—and he has said that, as president, he would expand it. Other prominent planks in his platform that should be of interest to feminists include free college tuition, single-payer healthcare, high-quality childcare for all Americans, and a $15 minimum wage. In contrast to Clinton’s waffling on Planned Parenthood, Sanders has said that he would increase federal funding to the organization; and as part of his single-payer plan, he would expand support for women’s reproductive-health services.
Of course I’d like to see little girls—still besieged by the pressure to be pretty at the expense of being powerful—to be inspired by the image of a woman president, as they have been by the rise of the US Women’s World Cup team. But unless those girls are part of a small elite, most will never grow up to enjoy equality with men absent the kind of reforms that Sanders is advocating. A Clinton presidency would be symbolically uplifting, even as it slammed the door on the possibility of genuinely improving the lives of most of the world’s women.
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http://www.thenation.com/article/why-this-socialist-feminist-is-not-voting-for-hillary/
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