Beyond Representation: Feminism Has Reached a Political Impasse
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“I ran for the presidency, despite hopeless odds, to demonstrate
the sheer will and refusal to accept the status quo.”
- Shirley Chisholm
March was Women’s History Month. Every year during this month, a slew of stories come out about American women who were the first in their fields or otherwise challenged contemporary gender norms. These stories are a celebration of how women actively fought against their oppression, but they also make the readers feel better about women’s present circumstances. Women have more representation in U.S. politics now than ever before; we even have a Vice President that is a woman of color. Still, the United States ranks 53rd for gender equality in the world. Americans remain politically divided on the substance of gender equality, and women are currently some of the most ideologically extreme members of our government. Additionally, the pandemic has disproportionately affected women in terms of employment and safety. Political representation alone has historical significance, but there is a problem in liberal, often corporate, feminism in treating it as the panacea for women’s oppression. Women’s History Month should not be a banal celebration that lacks critical discussion of what it means to have political power and, therefore, the capacity to change women’s lived realities. If the goal is only to have women occupy portioned parts of a broader patriarchal system of women’s oppression, then the cause of feminism is at an impasse.
Research shows there is a partisan divide about the reality of gender equality in America. Democrats are twice as likely as Republicans to say more has to be done for gender equality. Democrats are also more likely to see benefits in the changing roles of women and men and to say that men have easier lives than women. Therefore, it seems that a significant portion of the population denies the reality of gender relations in the United States, which is especially troubling within the current context of the pandemic. In terms of lived experiences, COVID-19 has particularly negatively affected women, especially women of color. Seven-hundred-thousand more women have left work than men because of the pandemic. Mothers, more so than fathers, have borne the brunt of balancing their own work and caring for and schooling their children. Rates of domestic violence against women have soared. Furthermore, these are only exacerbations of women’s previous circumstances. That gender equality ranking was from 2019, before the onset of the pandemic in the United States. If Americans themselves cannot wholly recognize the lived realities of women in this country, it is no wonder that political representation is not solving our problems.
Gender equality does not necessarily follow representation. Nominating Amy Coney Barrett, someone who hits the marks of representation for white women, in Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s former seat, was a direct blow aimed at legislation that helps women. Additionally, there is an obvious significance in nominating a judge as conservative as Barrett in Ginsburg’s seat. In Congress, two of the most prominent and extreme representatives are Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert. Boebert is the first woman to represent her district. She tried, after the January 6 riot at the Capitol, to bring a Glock, a semiautomatic pistol, onto the House floor. She also has associations with far-right militia groups. Greene is one of few women from Georgia ever elected to Congress, which itself is only 27.4 percent women. She has been the subject of much press coverage surrounding her online posts, some of which included her support for QAnon, 9/11 conspiracy theories, and that the shootings at Stoneman Douglas High School and Sandy Hook Elementary School were “false flag” operations. During her campaign, she shared an edited photo of herself holding an AR-15 next to images of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, and Ilhan Omar. She, a white woman, wrote that it was time to “go on the offense” against these women, all women of color, now her colleagues. It is worth noting that Greene has also made anti-Semitic, transphobic, and racist statements. She also said that “[t]he most mistreated group of people in the United States today are white males.” Greene’s extremism makes it excessively clear that white womens’ identities as women do not preclude them from participating in oppressing people of color and those of varying sexual orientations or gender identities. This is not to mention that they both oppose legislation focused on helping women. These women are the most extreme examples, but they help illustrate the point that representation should not be feminism’s end goal. Focusing on putting women in positions of power changes nothing about the status of women’s equality in America if those women are not in the business of helping other women.
The question of political representation can also be connected to pushes for having more women in positions of corporate leadership or more women as CEOs. These efforts often come after reports of workplace sexual harassment or otherwise unfair treatment of women within a company. However, this sentiment portrays women as emblems of their gender, who, by virtue of them being a woman, can cure the uneven dynamics between women in men. This is why the question of corporate representation, in particular, divides radical feminists, who include critiques of capitalism and class-based oppression into their feminism, and liberal feminists, who often don’t. There is an obvious difference between wanting to occupy the systems of power and wanting to overturn them.
Furthermore, treating gender inequality as a matter of unequal representation in federal offices undermines the realities women face. It is not just usual political efforts against reproductive rights, healthcare, or maternity leave that hurt women. The number of women murdered by their partners is rising, while the Violence Against Women Act expired in 2018. Though it was recently renewed by the House on March 17, it faces uncertainty in the Senate. In fact, Senator Marsha Blackburn, then a House member, voted against its reauthorization when the bill included protections for discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Additionally, the pandemic has disproportionately hurt women of color, who were already overrepresented in minimum wage jobs, financially. Yet, Senator Krysten Sinema recently opposed minimum wage increases. These women are part of a minority of women in their chambers, yet did not use their political power to help other women.
There are pieces of necessary legislation, which face opposition from predominantly Republican congresspeople, that could significantly improve women’s lives. In 2019, an all-woman group of Democratic congresswomen, including then-Senator Kamala Harris, introduced the Equal Access to Abortion Coverage in Health Insurance (EACH Woman) Act, which would lift the Hyde Amendment and ensure insurance coverage of abortion for those enrolled in Medicaid and other federal programs. The Hyde Amendment directly targets low-income women, particularly women of color, who are disproportionately likely to be insured through Medicaid, from having fair access to safe abortions. The Paycheck Fairness Act, which is meant to address the gender wage gap, has been introduced over and over again since 1997 and is currently in committee. The Women’s Retirement Protection Act, introduced in 2019, would expand access to retirement savings plans to include long-term, part-time workers, most of whom are women. The Equality Act, designed to “prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex, gender identity, and sexual orientation” by amending the 1964 Civil Rights Act, passed in the House on February 25. The infamous Equal Rights Amendment, which only says: “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex,” was first introduced in 1923. On March 17, the House passed a joint resolution to remove the deadline for states to ratify the ERA. Arguably, the ERA would be particularly valuable in Supreme Court cases relevant to gender-based discrimination. The ERA could provide firm grounds to help victims of domestic abuse and sexual assault in court, as a 2000 Supreme Court decision struck down a provision of the 1994 Violence Against Women Act that allowed victims to sue perpetrators in federal court. It could potentially help tackle the wage gap and pregnancy discrimination. It would also provide additional aid to legal arguments against abortion restrictions. Every single one of these aforementioned pieces of legislation would help women, particularly low-income women. Furthermore, they were often invoked during the 2020 Democratic presidential primary campaigns, only to be often neglected during the Congressional session and probably to reappear on the DNC platform next election cycle. Perhaps if celebrations of Women’s History Month included pressure to pass some of this legislation, the United States might move up from being 53rd in the world for gender equality.
Feminism promotes the economic, social, and political equality of all genders. Representation matters, but it is not the cure. Feminism in politics should not begin and end with women performing the same exact roles as men; it should be more radical than having a seat at the table. Focusing too heavily on what women historically represent can devalue womens’ political beliefs and influence when it is treated as women’s sole political goal. Yes, Congress should better reflect the demographics of our country, but the members of Congress should also consider tangibly pursuing equality as part of the job. If the women we elect are not helping other women—if they are not challenging patriarchal oppression in their positions of power—then there is diminished value in championing representation. There is already a healthy amount of proposed legislation that candidates campaign on, requiring now the necessary political will for members of government to treat the matters that affect women as top priorities while in session. Representation is supposed to be the means for women’s advancement, not the end.