For Esther Rose, a Vote for Hillary

If Esther Rose Abrams (nee Cramer) had been born in 1978, she might have been a politician, instead of a career volunteer and activist.  If she had been born in 1948, she might have been a dentist, instead of marrying one.

But she was born in 1918, and so, even though she did graduate from college (and later got a master’s degree), she never had much of a chance to pursue her professional interests, at least not as the men of her generation did.

Now, I don’t think she was unhappy with her life at all.  She raised four strong-willed, educated (and did I mention strong-willed?) daughters.  She was happily married to the love of her life for more than 55 years.  And she was a royal pain in the ass to New Jersey lawmakers who challenged a woman’s right to choose (more on that later) and the rights of the elderly.

But if you want to talk about a system that was rigged, as many Bernie Sanders supporters do, you could do a lot worse than pointing to sexism in the workplace and broader American society in the first 75 years or so of the 20th Century.  (And today, too, but again, more on that later).

The last extended conversation I had with my grandmother in January 1998, before the cancer took what was left of her, concerned my ninth-grade non-Western Civilizations class. We discussed the tendency of even well-meaning westerners to treat the third world with a sense of paternalism, without having any background knowledge of the cultures they were discussing.  She was among the most well-read people I knew.

And when Grandma died that February 15, 18 years ago today, the Rev. Albert Davis, a minister and leader in Ardmore’s black community, came to pay his respects. Despite living in the Philadelphia suburbs for less than five years, the Jewish grandmother from Princeton was the most connected member of her family.

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Trying to predict how a dead person would vote is challenging, at least for those who never lived in Cook County.  My guess is that Grandma would have liked a lot of Bernie’s ideas and admired his doggedness.  Her favorite politician was Bill Bradley, who played the Left-Wing Darling to Al Gore’s Guy Who Is Actually Going to Win back in 2000. 

That said, she also spent enough time around cranky, loud, old, liberal Jewish men in her life to be a bit skeptical of his current demigod status among college students.  There is about an 85 percent chance that any conversation between them would have ended with her saying, “That’s nice, dear.  Please finish your soup before it gets cold.”

Bernie’s chief appeals are that he Says What He Believes and Doesn’t Compromise. I think Grandma would have liked that, too.  I also think she would have recognized that those are traits we’re much more likely to tolerate in men than women. And on the compromise front especially, I think she might have pointed out that life and politics are both full of trade-offs.  Some people just have to get used to it earlier than others.

If Hillary seems craven because her entire political career was built on the back of her husband’s, consider what her options were when she came out of law school in the mid-1970s.  If she seems duplicitous, consider what it takes to stay politically relevant for 40 years in a country capable of voting for George W. Bush and Barack Obama in consecutive elections.  If she seems like she’s been angling for this moment her entire career, ask yourself when was the last time we had a president who didn’t—and whether anyone really cared.

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In 1993, on the 20th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, my grandmother went on NPR to tell her story of traveling to Puerto Rico to have an abortion after the birth of her fourth daughter.  (Corrected from earlier version).  Why had she, after all these years, decided to share her story with a nationwide audience, which presumably included friends and colleagues who might disapprove?

“I have three granddaughters,” she said, referencing my sister and two of my cousins.  “And I want them to know that it’s their choice.”

Thankfully, it is their choice today. And thankfully, women of my sister and cousins’ age can pursue choices largely unavailable to their mothers and grandmothers.

But if the doors are more open to women, it’s only partially.  Only 20 of the S&P 500 Companies have women CEOs.  That’s 4 percent. Which is the same percentage of women who are managing partners at the 200 largest law firms in the country.

And it’s not just in corporate boardrooms or white-shoe law firms where sexism reigns. The dirty little secret of the movement left (trust me, I’ve been a part of it since I was 5), is that it’s plagued by the same strains of sexism and racism that infect so much of our culture.  That’s why the BernieBro phenomenon, and in particular its more misogynistic and racist elements, haven’t surprised me.  (Some day, I will go back in time to let John Lewis know that white college students will be explaining racism to him on something called Twitter in 50 years).

This isn’t Bernie’s fault.  He has an impeccable record on civil rights and seems legitimately frustrated by the Reddit Tough Guys giving him a bad name.  But it may go part of the way to explaining why Bernie’s coalition has gotten deeper but not much broader as the election has progressed. 

“Whitesplaining” and “Mansplaining” are annoying Internet jargon, but they address a real problem.  Bernie’s supporters are good at talking.  Listening?  Not so much.

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A Hillary Clinton presidency won’t end sexism any more than the last seven-plus years have ended racism.  The people who never accepted that America voted for the black guy probably won’t like the idea of “Madame President” much better.  And bigotry is not solved by symbolism anyway.

At the same time, when I look at my 5-year-old daughter, Rebecca Esther, who spends so much time trying to figure out what is a “girl color” or a “boy color”, a “girl game” or a “boy game,” I want her to know that being at the heights of power—and all the good and bad that entails—is a “girl thing,” too.  Yes, I want her to question authority.  But if she decides she wants to be the authority, I want her to believe that can happen.

It’s not enough, of course.  It never is.  But it’s one step closer to the world the great-grandmother she never met would have wanted for her.