11/10/2023 0 Comments Geraldine ferraro(Though in 2008, three years before her death, she insisted she was being attacked because she was white after she argued that Barack Obama’s campaign was successful because he was Black.) It’s also hard to imagine a major television personality accusing a female politician of something as overtly sexist as being an absent mother, which Barbara Walters did during a pre-nomination interview with Ferraro. Were she to run today, Ferraro probably wouldn’t flaunt the law-and-order approach she took during her prosecutorial career in an apparent “effort to show she’s tough minded,” nor would she attempt to use her Italian American heritage to distinguish herself as a historic ethnic candidate. Much has changed in the three-plus decades since Ferraro’s historic nomination. She was shamed for being a working mother. She was also, as she later recounted in an interview with C-Span, “thrilled for women in the country because I realized what it was going to do was open a door that would never again be closed.” But with the historic honor quickly came an inordinate amount of egregiously sexist mistreatment waged against her from fellow politicians and the media alike. When the Queens representative received a call from then–Democratic presidential candidate Walter Mondale ahead of the 1984 Democratic convention, asking her to be his running mate, she was overcome with pride and humility. In bracing for this onslaught, it’s instructive to look to the first woman who ever ran for vice-president on a major-party ticket: Geraldine Ferraro. In fact, she already has: Before Biden announced her as his second-in-command, reports emerged that campaign insiders were concerned that Harris was “too ambitious” to be his veep. And yet Harris will likely still face sexist - and racist - attacks. In many ways, women in American government have come so far: Public opinion has shifted, record numbers of women have won seats at all levels of government, and the “likability” test has been written off as a sexist trap. While it has been a century since women’s suffragists clinched the right to vote, Harris is only the third woman to run for this office. With Joe Biden’s announcement that California senator Kamala Harris will be his running mate, we are facing the historic possibility that a woman could finally hold the office of vice-president. Photo: Wally McNamee/Corbis via Getty Images
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |