Symbols

I didn't vote in the last presidential election. In 2004 I voted for Ralph Nader. I'm registered as a socialist. I'm not a Democratic and voting for them makes me feel gross.

Yet Barack Obama's election had symbolic value that, I think, can be appreciated regardless of one's politics. The event, by definition, demonstrates that an African American can cobble together a majority of the votes in a presidential election. For someone whose head is as often in the nineteenth century as the twenty-first that fact almost defies comprehension. Every time I contemplate, even momentarily, the news footage of exuberant black women celebrating the election results, or the reality of an example for young black men and boys that demonstrates their potential, I get choked up.

Was it an example for young black women and girls? Something else happened in the last presidential election the symbolic value of which I believe I failed to appreciate. Yesterday morning I heard a clip of Hillary Clinton's concession speech. She said something like, "We may not have broken the glass ceiling, but we put about 18 million cracks in it." I started to recognize how momentous her race for the nomination actually was, it's significance I suppose drowned out by the significance of Obama's candidacy. The fact that an African American and a woman were the frontrunners for the nomination of a major American political party is a culmination of tectonic changes in American culture in just a couple generations. My own failure to recognize its significance is, I think, paradoxically, a kind of progress. I grew up in a household with a single mom who has held managerial positions since I was kid, and whose income represented all of the household income. Maybe 70 to 80 percent of my bosses and supervisors have been women. In fact, I currently work at a nursing agency so everybody I work with is a woman. And I'm by far on the lowest rung of the hierarchy. The fact is, I wouldn't know sexism existed if someone didn't point it out to me.

Hillary's achievement is further shadowed by the somewhat quizzical advent of Sara Palin. My thoughts turn more to class than gender when I think of Sara Palin, but perhaps again that's the point--the fact that she's a woman...it just doesn't feel relevant to me.

My perception is what it is. The various women bosses I've had have probably experienced sexism. Some of the older male patients use words like "honey" when they talk to the nurses. It's easy enough for me to chalk it up to an innocent residual reflex, but I'm not the one it's directed at.