The Invisible Women: We Are the Majority, We Are Hillary

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The Invisible Women: We Are the Majority, We Are Hillary

The Invisible Women
by Pamela Leavey
March 9th, 2008 @ 11:29 pm

The Democratic Daily

The �Invisible Women� know that they are �Not Invisible� to Hillary Clinton and that is what draws them to her candidacy:

Much has been written about how boomer women have rallied to Hillary�s cause (she won an impressive 67 percent of the white women voting in Ohio; they were 44 percent of the total). It�s fashionable to write off this core element of her base as rabid paleo-feminists fighting the tired old gender wars of the past. But Hillary�s appeal to the boomer gals is wider and deeper than that. Cynthia Ruccia, a grass-roots political organizer in Columbus, told me that in these last beleaguered weeks, women started showing up in waves at Clinton headquarters�women who told her they had never volunteered in a campaign before. �There was just an outpouring about the way she was being treated by the media,� Ruccia said. �It was something we hadn�t seen in a long time. We all felt, as women, we had made a lot of progress, and we saw this as an attack of misogyny that was trying to beat her down.�

It�s a revolt that has been overdue for a while and has now found its focus in Clinton�s candidacy. In 1952, Ralph Ellison�s revelatory novel, �Invisible Man,� nailed the experience of being black in America. In the relentless youth culture of the early 21st century, if you are 50 and female, the novel that�s being written on your forehead every day is �Invisible Woman.� All over the country there are vigorous, independent, self-liberated boomer women�women who possess all the management skills that come from raising families while holding down demanding jobs, women who have experience, enterprise and, among the empty nesters, a little financial independence, yet still find themselves steadfastly dissed and ignored. Advertisers don�t want them. TV networks dump their older anchorwomen off the air. Hollywood studios refuse to write parts for them. Employers make it clear they�d prefer a �fresh (cheaper) face.�

The �Invisible Women��

We�re the ones who fought the battles for the Equal Rights Amendment for decades only to see it not be ratified and be made part of the U.S. Constitution.

We�re the ones who remember when �women�s studies� was not offered at colleges and universities across the nation.

We�re the ones who remember when women sportscaster�s weren�t allowed in the men�s locker room.

The list goes on and on. For many of of the �Invisible Women,� her scar tissue is our scar tissue. And some look deep into their souls and suddenly realize �I am Hillary.�

Sadly we are �Still Stuck In Second,� and the �double standard is alive and well; it�s just more nuanced.� And here�s the rub that progressive men in the Democratic Party who are among those wielding the sexist memes against Hillary Clinton should remember, �Make no mistake about it: if we�re going to continue to have elections that excite and engage, we need the women.�

We need the women. The women in politics give the �Invisible Women� hope. It�s not the hope that floats from pictures of change sung on speeches filled with rhetoric � no it�s the hope that �Invisible Women� can hold on to because they get that Hillary Clinton she�s and hear�s them. They get that she�s listening. And that�s something that Barack Obama hasn�t told them