One for the ages

     People have pigeon-holed politics as dry, dull and never changing. The predictability in politics has kept some people from paying attention. Taylor Barton is a sophomore early childhood education major who described her vision of politics.
     “I don’t follow politics closely because of the slander,” Barton said. “It seems to be a bunch of crusty, old men that run around digging up stuff about their opponents.”
     The 2008 election, however, has brought up questions in peoples’ minds of race, gender and viability. The upcoming elections have been deemed historic as a female candidate, Hillary Clinton, and a minority candidate, Barack Obama, have stepped into the democratic spotlight. The press has isolated them from the other candidates, clouding the merely traditional candidates, image from the media radar. Even if voters don’t say it out loud, they are asking themselves if any of this makes a difference.
     Dr. Stephanie McClure is an assistant professor of sociology at GCSU. She cited entrance polls that revealed how people like to think of themselves as more open minded than they are.
     “People would say that they would vote for a black candidate (going into the polls),” McClure said. “Then, the results would show that what they said they were going to do and what they actually did could not have matched.”
     Now, change is showing its face, and voters are sifting through all the reasons to elect a person for president. The two candidates that spark these questions are said to be blazing trails.
     Contrary to the belief of some, though, this election is not the first to see such change.
     “Hillary (Clinton) is nowhere near the first woman to run for president, or even to be a pretty viable candidate. Yet, that’s all you hear. It’s like (the media) has no other way to pitch it-that this is historic,” McClure said. “It isn’t historic. It has been historically true that other people in these groups at a pretty high level have stepped up. They just haven’t been in this media spotlight.”
     For decades, women have been vying for party nods in hopes of being elected the first female President of the United States.
     The first was Victoria Woodhull in 1872 when she was 34 years old. She ran under the Equal Rights Party. Needless to say, she was unsuccessful at being elected president, but she may have opened doors for women after her.
     In 1972, Shirley Anita St. Hill Chisholm put in a bid for the Democratic Party nomination. She was the first black female member of the House of Representatives where she served from 1968 to 1982.
     These are just two names in a list that continues to grow. In most presidential campaigns, at least one woman has placed a bid for nomination. Some of the other past candidates include Margaret Chase Smith in 1964, Sonia Johnson in 1984 and Elizabeth Hanford Dole in 2000.
     America is not the first to have a woman step out to take the lead at all.
     In Iceland, a 50-year-old Vigdís Finnbogadóttir ran in the 1980 election and won becoming the first woman president in the world. She was reelected unopposed in 1984 and 1992. Finnbogadóttir was in office a total of 16 years.
     America is often seen by its citizens as the most open minded and forward thinking country in the world. In reality, it lags way behind other nations in terms of the diversity of leadership.
     “The public is so concerned with having a woman in power. They are afraid they won’t do the things we need women to do like birth babies,” McClure said.
     The Philippines, for example, have now had two female presidents including current President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo who took office in 2001. Her predecessor was Maria Corazon Aquino. She was president from 1986 to 1992.
     This is not to say that there should be a female chosen in the upcoming election solely based on gender. The point is simply that there is room for thought. America lives off the notion of progressivism. The thoughts and voices of her people are what keeps her moving and changing.
     Susan B. Anthony was a supporter of women’s rights in the nineteenth century.
     “The day will come when men will recognize woman as his peer, not only at the fireside, but in councils of the nation,” Anthony once said. “Then, and not until then, will there be the perfect comradeship, the ideal union between the sexes that shall result in the highest development of the (human) race.”

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Feb 1 2008. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry