The Glass Crack: Mom in Chief

(originally posted 12/08 at wordpress)


by Gwen Davis

I knew when Michelle Obama announced that her first priority would be her children, acknowledging she was not interested in the two-for-one mentality of the Clinton era, there would be mixed opinions. One US News reporter called this choice a “shame and setback” for women. Apparently Hillary didn’t get it right, and Michelle won’t please the masses either.

My mother worked a lot. I remember going to dental school with her as a little girl and sleeping on the floor of her office if I was too sick to go to school. We did not see much of each other. I had many friends whose mothers stayed home, and I remember thinking how nice it would be to come home to family.

Last year at this time, I was teaching preschool. Many of the children were at the school longer than I was, and I worked overtime everyday. Who is raising children these days? It sure isn’t parents. If Michelle Obama wants to be home with her kids through what will inevitably be a stressful, busy, and chaotic four—hopefully eight—years, then I say good for her. Women cannot expect her to represent each one of us.

The Glass Crack: Painfully Palin

(originally posted 10/08 at wordpress)


by Gwen Davis

The Glass Crack is a new weekly column from PSU Grad Student Gwen Davis that revisits the previous week’s news stories and looks at them through a feminist eye. Granted, personal opinions, bias, rhetorical questions, and perhaps even a few logical fallacies will appear. At times it may seem like the author is confused, and that assumption is totally correct because many ways of the world—especially people—do not make sense. Comments, suggestions and guest columns are welcome and encouraged. Let this be an honest place to discuss the unfair, the beautiful, the perplexing, the wrong, and the right.

The title of the column is a reference to those 18 million cracks in the ceiling Hillary Clinton spoke of in her concession speech:

Although we weren’t able to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to you, it’s got about 18 million cracks in it. And the light is shining through like never before, filling us all with the hope and sure knowledge that the path will be a little easier next time. That has always been the history of progress in America.

- Hillary Clinton

With the presidential election mere weeks away, I have become increasingly interested in the Sarah Palin debacle. One news organization postulated that the initial excitement that surrounded the Republican Vice Presidential nominee was a result of voters considering her to be an answer to a non-existent Hillary Clinton Democratic ticket. Unfortunately for Republicans, hopeful women, and many swing voters Sarah Palin is not Hillary Clinton — to the relief of Democrats.

I recently received an email from a very good, liberal friend of mine from Colorado. The email contained an article written by Eve Ensler, playwright best known for The Vagina Monologues. The article expressed Ensler’s disgust over the McCain/Palin ticket. “I am a Feminist and have spent my life trying to build community, help empower women and stop violence against them,” she writes. “It is hard to write about Sarah Palin. This is why the Sarah Palin choice was all the more insidious and cynical.”