Iqra’i

Coates and Sullivan are both puffing this little paragraph from Dana Goldstein:

Sebelius, of course, would be the bold, unconventional choice — very Obama. But by choosing a female running mate, Obama would, unfortunately, thrust the Hillary die-hards and their ever-more marginal discontentment back into the spotlight. That said, anyone who believes that only Hillary Clinton deserves to be the first female president or vice president doesn’t deserve the designation “feminist.” So I’d relish watching the reactions to a Sebelius nod, not only because such a choice would double down on Obama’s most effective message — “change” — but because it would reveal exactly which Clinton boosters are ready to widen the lens and enthusiastically support women’s leadership as such.

Really? I’m surprised no one seems to be picking up that Obama appointing a female VP in these circumstances would mark a serious set-back for the feminist movement. It’s widely accepted that such an appointment would constitute an attempt by Obama to apologize to feminists for beating Hilary to the job that really matters. Goldstein herself draws her argument from the belief that it would “double down” on Obama’s message of change, i.e. remind everyone that he won’t let those nasty old white men keep all the jobs. So surely the great American public is quite capable of drawing the same inference - and then assuming en masse that Sebelius can dismissed as merely a token floozy.

While the VP’s job has long been little more than helping the candidate cover some demographic bases, it would be sad to see such a blatant confirmation of it. And the more superficial the VP job becomes, the less of a feminist triumph is it to see a woman in the post. Just as affirmative action inspires resentment, so parachuting a woman in to burnish Obama’s feminist credentials is only going to inspire the Rush Limbaughs of this world to claim that women are now doing down men. It might even give the naive cause to think that 2008 constituted a successful year for women in public life, instead of the year that exposed the endemic misogyny underlying media responses to strong women. So Goldstein is wrong to claim that feminists should be supporting “female leadership as such”. We want to see more women taken seriously on their own merits, not because they fulfill quotas. And we’d like to see it in jobs that actually count.