NO MORE ANGRY FEMINISTS
No More Angry Feminists Culturally, anyway, if not always on a policy level, the Democrats are a far more appealing crowd than the Republicans—more racially diverse, more populist in their...
...One speaker after another reinforced Waters's point: The welfare bill is a disaster for poor women and children, but we must line up behind Clinton anyway...
...Clinton ran for President four years ago on a pledge to "end welfare as we know it...
...R.C...
...The speakers listed everything that is wrong with the legislation Clinton signed: It will increase child poverty and homelessness...
...Talk about a hollow triumph—the Clinton Administration abolishes welfare, and feminists score a public-relations victory...
...But Democrats calculate that it was the women voters who stayed home in 1994 who gave the Republicans their victories in Congress...
...Waters, Steinem, Smeal...
...she said...
...Huerta said...
...Eleanor Smeal, and Bella Abzug all spoke...
...Gloria Steinem asked, and then answered her own question: "What happened was an outrageous rightwing Congress...
...it will make an enormous difference to the country...
...In his second term, with the help of a Democratic Congress, Clinton will pass legislation that will undo the legislation he just signed...
...On that theory, the bombing of Nagasaki was a great victory for the peace movement," muttered Marc Cooper of The Nation, who was standing next to me...
...It made me nostalgic for the angry radicalism of the Democratic convention in 1968—and I was only just born then...
...It was a profoundly schizophrenic event...
...Clinton is a victim of Republican politics...
...said Tammy Baldwin, a Democratic assemblywoman from Wisconsin who came to the convention in Chicago...
...Or we must have second thoughts about the Democratic Party...
...That access, and the symbolism of a President who can say the words 'gay' and 'lesbian,' is extremely important...
...she told reporters, "is that it has gotten the press to cover welfare...
...More than any other compromise of his Administration, Clinton's act of signing the bill that abolishes the federal entitlement to welfare just before the convention presented progressives with a moment of truth: At what point do we decide that it isn't worth maintaining a united front...
...The most affecting speaker at the press conference, and the only one to challenge the pro-Clinton line, was Dolores Huerta of the United Farmworkers...
...No More Angry Feminists Culturally, anyway, if not always on a policy level, the Democrats are a far more appealing crowd than the Republicans—more racially diverse, more populist in their rhetoric, more open to a wide range of people, and certainly a lot more attuned to women's issues, from reproductive rights to the struggles of single mothers...
...We must reelect him so he can undo the compromises he made with the Republicans in his first term...
...Thank you for reporting that I am not angry," Waters replied...
...For all the "celebrate-diversity" rhetoric and the happy-family atmosphere on the convention floor, for all the delegates waving rainbow flags and holding up union signs, the Clinton Administration's record of turning away from progressive goals and compromising with a rightwing Congress makes it hard to feel good about falling into line...
...There was a time when people would write a story about those angry feminist women...
...Another reporter asked Maxine Waters why, when the President had just signed into law a bill that everyone present agreed was an abomination, was there not a hint of anger...
...If they vote this time, it will be overwhelmingly Democratic...
...Yet the same theme was repeated throughout the convention...
...it will harm poor women who are trying to escape domestic violence...
...In 1996, the promise of "access" and good PR...
...We must insist that it be changed...
...The topic at the top of the agenda was the welfare repeal...
...But "we are not going to leave our party because of this bill," Waters said...
...A press conference during the convention organized by liberal Democratic con-gresswoman Maxine Waters addressed just this question...
...Over one million farmworker families who are legal residents and qualifv for food stamps will be affected, she pointed out...
...We're talking about the working poor . . . farmworkers who have spent their entire lives putting food on American families' tables, and will now not be able to get food stamps...
...Women are so inclined to vote Democratic that a Republican drive to get out the women's vote may actually redound to the Democrats' advantage...
...Yes, he screwed up royally on a couple of issues that matter a lot, but there is this feeling that we can go to the White House and talk about it...
...it will precipitate a huge fiscal crisis for local governments...
...We never had access to a White House before in the entire history of the United States," says Baldwin...
...vanquished progressive ideals...
...While the Dole campaign does its peculiar dance to attract women and close the gender gap...
...Feminist luminaries Gloria Steinem...
...the Clinton campaign can take it easy...
...But it's not quite that simple...
...There is no way to say what has happened here is in any way positive...
...If we've done nothing but to bring the spotlight to this issue...
...But now, Waters said, she and Gloria Steinem were delighted that they had managed to get the press out to cover the issue of welfare...
...One good thing about this...
...Despite this feeling of inclusion, which a lot of feminists and other leftwingers share, many progressive women in the Democratic Party were having an agonizing time at the convention...
...Baldwin, who is an openly lesbian state official, is not thrilled with all of Clinton's policy decisions, but she is pleased with the Administration's openness, especially to gays and lesbians...
...The opportunity to correct this bill lies with Bill Clinton and the Democrats...
...Huerta said...
...and Abzug all said...
...Pretty hard to swallow...
...Gloria Steinem would certainly have attacked it...
...The National Federation of Republican Women is asking each of its 115.000 members to try to bring in ten new women to vote Republican, and the group is planning an election-day voting drive...
...This is a defining moment for us," said Waters, "not to be called angry feminists and to be here with all these cameras...
...But Steinem doesn't seem terribly troubled today...
...No one would even let us in the door...
...We were in shock when this bill was signed...
...According to liberal Democrats...
...Liberals everywhere would have objected vociferously to such a move by George Bush or Bob Dole...
...Today, the Democratic Party platform trumpets the new welfare-reform legislation as evidence that the President has made good on his promise...
...it will strand legal immigrants—especially the elderly and the disabled—when they suddenly lose their Supplemental Security Income...
...What happened to this man who is the only President in history to know what it's like to grow up poor with a single mother...
...In fact, many people believe that a Republican President could never have accomplished what Clinton did: dismantling a cornerstone of the New Deal...
Vol. 60 • October 1996 • No. 10
