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Our First Unisex President? Obama, Critical Race Theory, and Masculinities Studies Frank Rudy Cooper* During the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries and general election, there was a discourse in the media about Senator Barack Obama’s femininity. When he faced Senator Hillary Clinton in the primaries, the head of a women’s nonprofit said, “He’s the girl in the race.”1 The magazine Marketing said, “In swept Barack Obama with what could be described as a classically feminine campaign.… The values he represented contrasted with Clinton in being more collaborative, more human, more feelings-led and people-focused.”2 While Clinton was tough and hawkish, Obama was empathetic and inclusive.3 As Carol Marin wrote in the Chicago Sun Times: If Bill Clinton was once considered America’s first black president, Obama may one day be viewed as our first woman president.While [Hillary] Clinton, the warrior, battles on, talks about toughness, *Copyright © 2010 Frank Rudy Cooper, professor, Suffolk University Law School. I thank Ann C. McGinley,Angela Onwuachi-Willig,Andrew Perlman,Song Richardson,Jessica Silbey,Catherine Smith, and Devon Carbado’s Critical Race Theory Colloquium class for incisive feedback. I also thank Ann Brown, Eddie Crane, Diane D’Angelo, Ami Dave, Lia Marino, and Lisa Parker for assistance with research and production. A version of this chapter was originally published in the Denver University Law Review. I welcome comments at fcooper@suffolk.edu. For more on masculinities studies, see Masculinities and Law: A Multidimensional Approach, ed. Frank Rudy Cooper and Ann C. McGinley (New York: New York University Press, forthcoming 2011) 1 Amy Sullivan, “Gender Bender,” Time, June 16, 2008, 36 (analyzing why Hillary Clinton did not win Democratic presidential primary) (quoting Marie Wilson). 2 Philippa Roberts and Jane Cunningham, “Feminisation of Brands,” Marketing, September 3, 2008, 26. 3 Martin Linsky, “The First Woman President? Obama’s Campaign Bends Gender Conventions,” Newsweek, February 26, 2008, http://www.newsweek.com/id/115397/page/1 (accessed August 28, 2010) (arguing that Obama advocates conversation and collaboration while Hillary Clinton supports realism). 153 The Obama Effect and out loud considers nuking Iran, it is Obama who is full of feminine virtues. Consensus. Conciliation. Peace, not war.4 For those reasons, a number of people (half-jokingly) refer to Obama as our first “female” president.5 In order to evaluate Obama’s status as our first “female” president, we must ask, what does it mean to say that a presidential candidate acted in a “feminine” or “masculine” manner? Even someone who believes in a version of cultural feminism has to acknowledge that “masculine” qualities are hardly limited to men, and “feminine”qualities are not limited to women.6 Cultural feminism posits that women tend to have certain cultural traits that are most prevalent among women, such as focusing on nurturing relationships.7 Still, “masculine” and “feminine” qualities are nothing more than shared understandings about what it means to act like a man or woman.8 They are not reflective of stable essences of man or woman as such.9 Nonetheless, the popular media used these concepts to describe the presidential candidates.Accordingly,I will analyze what it meant that Obama displayed qualities the media called “feminine” during the campaign. I argue that Obama was more feminine than most mainstream candidates because he is a black male.10 I base this argument on my theory of the “bipolarity” of media representations of black men.11 We are typically described as either the completely threatening Bad Black Man or the fully assimilationist Good Black Man. The Bad Black Man is a criminal you might see denigrated on the local news or a race-conscious black leader you might see criticized 4 Carol Marin, “Thanks to Hillary for Being a Winner at Heart,” Chicago Sun Times, May 11, 2008, A17. 5 Lucy Berrington and Jeff Onore, “Bam: Our 1st Woman Prez?,” New York Post, January 7, 2008, http://www.nypost.com/f/print/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/bam_our_st_woman_prez_ gtyYtI3muhgCg8g7zrrfNK (accessed August 28, 2010) (noting Obama’s feminine style); Linsky,“The First Woman President?”; Marin, “Thanks to Hillary,” A17; Roberts and Cunningham, “Feminisation of Brands,” 26. 6 Nancy Ehrenreich,“Disguising Empire: Racialized Masculinity and the ‘Civilizing’of Iraq,”Cleveland State Law Review 52 (2005): 131–32 (noting both sexes can bask in reflected masculinity). 7 Martha Chamallas, Introduction to Feminist Legal Theory, 2nd ed. (New York: Aspen Publishers, 2003), 53–60 (describing the rise of difference feminism). 8 Michael S. Kimmel,“Masculinity as Homophobia,” in...

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