The Wrong Ideal

Here's one more angle on the political atmosphere in which this shooting happened, from Jessica Valenti writing in the Guardian:

This is not the kind of history we want to be making. US Representative Gabrielle Giffords, the youngest woman to be elected to Congress... is believed to be the first female politician in America to be the subject of an assassination attempt...

Without obvious answers at the ready, Americans are focusing on the culture of increasing vitriol in US politics...What's not being discussed, however, is that a fair amount of this violent language and imagery is coming from female politicians on the right..."

She offers the examples of Sarah Palin and Sharron Angle: "And in an interview with a local Nevada paper, Angle said: "The nation is arming … If we don't win at the ballot box, what will be the next step?"

Stephen Ducat, author of The Wimp Factor: Gender Gaps, Holy Wars and the Politics of Anxious Masculinity, says that masculine and violent language is often used in elections and campaigns – especially by men on the right – because of a fear of being perceived as feminine. In a sexist society, what could be worse than being called a girl? So it doesn't seem unlikely that conservative female politicians feel the need to peddle their ideas in gendered and violent language in order to fit in with the masculinised right.

After all, the phrase – and sentiment – "man up" was one of the most popular in the 2010 elections. In the Colorado Senate primary, Republican Jane Norton accused her opponent of not being "man enough"; in the Delaware Senate primary, Republican Christine O'Donnell said that her opponent was "unmanly"; Angle told Harry Reid to "man up"; and Palin praised Republican Arizona Governor Jan Brewer as having "the cojones that our president does not have" to enforce immigration laws.

In a country that sees masculinity – especially violent masculinity – as the ideal, it's no wonder that this type of language resonates. But it's a sad state of affairs when women in politics have to resort to using the same gendered stereotypes that kept all women out of public service for so long. "

Apart from the mixed agendas within the feminist movement (which have always been present since the 1970s) or the loaded charge of sexism, the salient point here is one I've been thinking about since I first read this opinion piece a few days ago. We do seem to have gone backwards to a sense that physical force and the expression of uncontrolled violent emotions are the proper answer to almost everything. We've lost the sense that those with the courage to use peaceful means, or to struggle for reconciliation and take the hard messy path of resolving conflicts honestly but without violence, can be masculine role models--like Martin Luther King or Bobby Kennedy--as well as proper leaders of any gender, race, class or sexual preference.

It has become standard in the media to use vulgar terms and reductive, simplistic analysis to explain political positions and behavior that are not overtly confrontational. It then becomes easier for political opponents to make outrageous and insulting remarks, which also get widely reported and become part of the dialogue. This past campaign certainly was a humiliating example.

At a time when we need all the complexity of thought and feeling we can muster to face the complex and emotionally unusual crises that test the evolutionary fitness of human civilization, we seem to be falling back into habits and states of mind we worked hard to overcome, and thought we had. This is one more indication of that sorry prospect. It's also a further distortion of masculine virtues, for the young who are going to need them.