Feminist Currents

We at Frontiers are delighted to introduce our readers to a new interactive column, “Feminist Currents,” by Eileen Boris, Hull Professor and chair of the Women’s Studies Program at the University of California, Santa Barbara. In the paragraph below Boris poses a question to our readers and all interested feminists, whether they find this column in Frontiers or on any number of postings in cyber space. All are invited to e-mail Frontiers their answers, which Boris will edit by synthesizing and summarizing. Her intent is to cook up a gumbo out of our responses: mixing, seasoning, and throwing in her own ingredients, as she enables us to engage in feminist dialectic. Boris’s response will appear in our next spring issue along with another question posed by her. We see this exchange as a way to strengthen and enrich our feminist community. Or, in Boris’s words, “‘Feminist Currents’ is a place for feminists to debate pressing and not so pressing (sometimes whimsical but hopefully compelling) issues of the day, to share perspectives and thoughts, develop strategies, and connect scholarship and teaching to social justice.”

Question

Political theorist Anne Phillips offers the concept of “the politics of presence” to argue for electing representatives who not only share the ideas and beliefs of their constituents but also reflect their experiences. In light of the 2008 Presidential contest, assess the ways that group identity, race, and gender have played out—or should have. Or to put this question more concretely, was Elizabeth Edwards right when she claimed that her husband was more of a woman/feminist than Hillary Clinton? Who should Black women support, Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton? Was former presidential candidate Bill Richardson Latino enough for Latina voters? And do you have to be a real man to secure the Republican nomination for President and be elected to the highest office of the United States?

Replies

Email your reflections, up to 300 words, to <frontiers@asu.edu> no later than November 7, 2008. In your subject line please type “Feminist Currents.” Unless you notify us otherwise in your email, your response signifies that we may paraphrase your thoughts, quote directly from them, and use your name and affiliation.