The Most Powerful Super-Feminist has a Penis
By Tim Goldich
President Barack Obama is a powerful man. But when it comes to gender politics, he too is largely a mouthpiece for female power.
In January 2009 he was pictured on the cover of a special issue of Ms. Magazine. There stands Obama in an iconic Superman pose ready to come to the rescue of women everywhere. But opening his shirt and jacket to reveal his chest, he is not Superman, but rather “Super-Feminist.” The editor of Ms. Magazine explains: “When the chair of the Feminist Board, Peg Yorkin, and I met with Barack Obama, he immediately offered, ‘I am a feminist.’ And better yet, he ran on the strongest platform for women’s rights of any major party in American history.”
From his 2008 Father’s Day speech: “Too many fathers… are missing,” Obama said, “missing from too many lives and too many homes. They have abandoned their responsibilities, acting like boys instead of men. And the foundations of our families are weaker because of it.” Too many fathers are missing, that much is certain. But, are men solely responsible? Again on Father’s Day 2009 Obama proclaims, “I had a heroic mom,” but:
Growing up without a father left a hole in his heart, President Barack Obama told boys at the White House Friday in a remarkably personal Father’s Day weekend message. He implored fathers everywhere – and the kids when they’re older – to be involved in the lives of their own children . . . “Just because your own father wasn’t there for you, that’s not an excuse for you to be absent also. It’s all the more reason for you to be present,” Obama told the young men in his audience.
Abandonment by his father may have left a hole in his heart, but only where men and fathers are concerned.
I for one have learned not to automatically accept the female interpretation of events. I want to hear Obama Senior’s side of the story before passing judgment. Does Obama see his father through his own eyes, or, like countless other men, does he only see his father through the eyes of his mother? Obama tells us he got a basketball from his father and little else. Is that why he’s so misandric?
What if Obama were not a devotee of the all-fault-is-male and zero-empathy-toward-men rules? What if Obama loved men enough to lend them some empathy and respected women enough to hold them accountable?
Mark Silva reports on the Obama household:
President Barack Obama acknowledges that, in his own marriage, he and his wife, Michelle, have faced some sensitive “negotiations” in the past as to who does what, and why – the woman or the man? He also says that men tend to be “obtuse” about these matters – and “need to be knocked across the head once in a while.” He “absolutely” had to learn to be more sensitive . . . “Five years ago, six years ago, we were having a lot of negotiations… because Michelle was trying to figure out, OK, if the kids get sick, why is it that she is the one who has to take time off from her job to go pick them up from school, as opposed to me. What I’ve tried to do is to learn to be thoughtful enough and introspective enough that I wasn’t always having to be told that things were unfair,” Obama said.
Does Obama reflexively bow to the woman’s presumed Moral Authority? Does he automatically look to a woman to be told when things are “unfair”? In a world where both sexes have heads filled with feminism, while masculism remains a word not found in the dictionary, could it be in the realm of men’s issues and men’s perspectives that both sexes tend to be a little “obtuse”?
Could it be that Michelle isn’t more righteous as much as she is, within the intimate realm, simply more powerful? What if in response to the question: “why is it that she is the one who has to take time off from her job to go pick them up from school, as opposed to me,” Barack had said, “Because that’s how you earn the parental primacy that you as the children’s mother insist upon.” Could we imagine any man enlightened enough and empowered enough to stand so resolutely within his own male perspective—and withstand the “righteously” enraged rebuke that follows? Is being “knocked across the head” all that men need? Or would a little compassion be in order?
“I’m surrounded,” says Obama regarding his wife and two daughters. Could it be that when it comes to gender issues, Obama is a mouthpiece for the women who surround him and, in this regard, his male power is only female power in disguise?
Knowles, David, http://news.aol.com/political-machine/2009/01/12/ms-magazine-posits-obama-as-super-feminist/, January 12, 2009.
Stephney, Bill, “Black Fatherhood In The Age Of Obama,” 02/11/09, http://newsone.blackplanet.com/celebrate-44/black-fatherhood-in-the-age-of-obama/
Feller, Ben, “Obama to fathers: Be involved in your kids’ lives,” Columbia Daily Tribune, June 19, 2009, http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_OBAMA_
FATHERHOOD?SITE=MOCOD&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
See: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jun/21/obama-urges-men-to-be-better-dads-than-his-was/?feat=home_headlines, June 21, 2009
NCFM NOTE: see the articles on Ms. Magazine about President Obama: http://msmagazine.com/search.asp?q=obama
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