Update: Planes, Trains, & Attack-Dog Feminism

Note - there are a few factual changes and some explanatory info is added

Landing at National after 5 days at the NOW conference in Indianapolis, I decided to save a few dollars and took Metro home. Blue line to orange line, then a bus. Smooth and fast, while elsewhere on the red line, people were mangled and dying. So arbitrary - you're on one line, you live; another, you don't.


Anyone who thinks that because they've planned and worked and saved and been good citizens and good parents, they and the ones they love are safe - is in a dreamworld. Life doesn't make sense.


For example, all of those who thought the "dream team" of Latifa Lyles, etc., would win the NOW presidency and vice-presidencies...because we needed a youthful, fresh face for the aging, tired women's movement...were wrong. Eight votes - that's all it took for Latifa, a woman of color in her early thirties, to lose to Terry O'Neill, a mid-50s white woman. (Race does matter - a lot - in the women's movement.) Terry and her team may succeed in turning NOW around - I hope so - but I'm worried. There's nothing fresh there. Policy ideas are stale and positions are delivered in a rote, scripted fashion. The veterans on the ticket - Terry and the Illinois NOW prez - do not inspire me in terms of vision or practical skills or ability to deliver. The "new" faces on the ticket - two women in their late 20s, early 30s - have a lot to learn. A lot.


Eight votes. The red line.


A few people have asked me to write more about the NOW elections. Both teams - Latifa Lyles and Terry O'Neill - had strengths and weaknesses. But it's not about ideals or visions or even skills - it's about who can turn out the most voters. Total numbers of voters - 404 (really). [There were more people than that at the conference - but 407 were credentialed to vote and 404 voted. You must be a member for a certain period in advance of the conference to vote.] Late Saturday, people were coming in from California to vote for Terry - she was supported by a woman named Shelly Mandell of Los Angeles, who supported McCain-Palin publicly after Hillary lost the nomination. Shelly says she didn't support McCain-Palin as a NOW person - but the press thought otherwise.

Because this is the women's movement, we want to build a feminist culture. Not just win votes or elections or pass bills, but empower women - and men - to think and behave with equality and for justice.


Really! The people who won were nasty. I wish I had been in the plenary when the vaunted Patricia Ireland (Terry's treasurer) lashed out at Kim Gandy, questioning her budget figures - while supporters of the Terry team lined the back of the room, shouting at Kim to "tell the truth" - in reference to the budget situation. (I was working on credentialling so wasn't in the plenary.) Financially, NOW is in bad shape. So we have reason to be worried. But is this feminism? Perhaps this is a new version - attack-dog feminism. How does that distinguish us from every other political group? It doesn't.


The anger and bitterness of this crew - desperate to hang on to power, refusing to believe anyone else could run the organization - was shocking. (You've got to remember - these folks have a lot of history together - they're like Chicago politicos - byzantine alliances - cross them at your peril.) There were people I like and respect on Terry's side - people who felt she had the brains and experience to turn the membership decline around and that Latifa was just not ready for prime time. But they didn't sway many voters (although granted, Terry was only in the race about 3-4 weeks!) - all they did was win by eight votes. And what the hell were they doing in the past eight years to stop the hemorrhaging of members and money - or - as one Terry supporter said - the "death throes" that NOW is in? Come to think of it - what was the person who said "death throes" doing during the past eight years?


In addition to PI (as Ireland is known), another vaunted figure - Carol Moseley-Braun - embarrassed herself by storming down the aisle and interrupting Kim's "farewell" remarks. Apparently she thought she had been labelled as anti-Obama and pro-Sarah Palin and that was just too much for her. But did she have to interrupt the NOW president of eight years to make her irate and (as it turned out, incorrect) statement?


Ireland and Moseley-Braun both apologized on Saturday for their outbursts. Ireland admitted it was the wrong way to behave at a NOW conference - it would have been ok to be rude and disruptive, she said, at a congressional hearing on the ERA (maybe that's what's wrong with NOW - its obnoxious outbursts) but not at a NOW conference. Mosely-Braun said she had misunderstood what people were saying about her. Now she's a person who served in the Senate and was an ambassador - is she really that confused?


That wasn't all - there also was the sideshow of the Hillary Clinton supporters who remain permanently (apparently) pissed off about her loss. The so-called "PUMAS" - Party Unity My Ass. Clinton seems to have gotten over it - why haven't they. Some of these ladies are angry at NOW for not being supportive of Sarah Palin; apparently, the fact that she's a woman is sufficient qualification. A few blame Kim Gandy for EVERYTHING they don't like. I'd dismiss them as idiots except they are contributing to the anger within the women's movement and the splintering of the women's movement and they are very good at getting publicity.


It's too soon to tell whether younger feminists - those who were crying over Latifa's loss- will leave NOW and find another organization...or get over it... or take up the guitar, yoga, meditate, whatever. As for me, an "older feminist," probably the best thing I can do at the national level is be an active board member for the remainder of my term (over in Nov. 2010) and be watchful as to what the new officers do.


Will they keep their promises? Will they be transparent? Will they find something new to say and do? Will they lead?

Who cares? With only 404 voters in this "watershed" election to guide the women's movement, there doesn't seem to be a lot of enthusiasm or interest in NOW, I fear.


As for our state chapter, I think Virginia NOW has a lot of promise and can do a lot of good work - members are supportive and caring and good people. So if anyone reading this wants a progressive, feminist "home," Virginia NOW is that.