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

[LulaMay]

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