Feminism

Anchal Kannambadi
Article: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/09/14/carly-fiorina-the-accidental-feminist.html

Response #1

Clearly Feminism is a big part of this year’s candidacy. Donald Trump has consistently dissed the female candidates by using their sex and gender against them. Women have been treated differently since the start of the race. We are also introduced to the idea of Identity Politics in which people’s ideas are shaped by the communities it which they identify with. I don’t think that these sexist slurs are helping anything. Women in the government are constantly facing obstacles because of their sex. We live in a fairly masculine society, and women especially have a hard time trying to rise up. Earlier in the summer we saw Donald trump throwing out sexist comments during the first debate, as well as in many press conferences and articles. However, Carly Fiorina has been using these sexist comments to her advantage. She is ultimately telling everyone that she is being treated differently because she is a women, and women all around the country are seeing this and going “hey, that is not right” and they are banding together to support Fiorina in the run. Like the article says, each candidate in the race is using Identity politics to their advantage. Ben Carson is the candidate that opposes Obama’s ideals but is not a racist, Marco Rubio is the candidate that has supporters who are from ethnic demographics, and Hilary Clinton is appealing to women in the Democratic Party. In class we discussed how we felt about feminism in our country and how it affects many different aspects in International Relations as well as our lives. In my life I have definitely faced misogynistic people. When I am running for a position in a group, or I am taking charge during a project, I have been told not to because I was a women, and I would not be able to separate my feelings from what needed to be done. That is what discourages a lot of women from going after what they want, and that is unfair. We could also look at how Women can be natural born leaders, and by shutting them down we are limiting our full potential as a society. We have fought (as women) to be treated equally, but even people who are running to be our president, are separating us by gender and sex, not potential. If the candidates want to have something interesting to talk about they should focus on talking about what the other candidates have done or not done. Trump has been consistently degrading women in positions of authority, and if he were to stop and focus on the real issues at hand, more people would take him seriously.