Saturday, July 26, 2008

Women and men

I had not planned to post anything today, but AnnaBelle's recent piece, Dreams from our mothers, deserves your attention.

First, she tells a moving bit of personal history, a family story that addresses issues of racial and sexual politics. She goes on to connect that history to Barack Obama's Dreams From My Father -- a book written (as AnnaBelle notes) by a son clearly resentful of his father's absence.
Why all this demonizing women and chasing after fathers who clearly don’t give a damn, as in the case of Obama’s father? Why didn’t he write a book about his mother’s great sacrifices and the dreams she gave up because she was the only parent willing to do the work of raising him?

Instead, Obama, like so many others in our culture, paid little attention at all to Stanley Ann’s contributions and sacrifices, or his Grandmother’s for that matter, choosing instead to focus on his obviously lazy grandfather and his absentee father, while the women toiled to support them all.
We're playing psychohistorian here, an avocation some hold in disrepute. Yet writers since Herodotus have attempted to understand the thinking of the notable. The most interesting parts of Shakespeare's history plays involve psychological insight, as opposed to the dry recounting of who-stabbed-whom. The proper study of man is man -- the mind of man.

As we study Barack Obama, we can't ignore the fact that he spent his life surrounded by, and controlled by, women. His father evaporated into legend during his infancy. He was raised by a mother and grandmother. The only sibling he knew while growing up was his sister Maya. His only children are daughters.

I can't blame him for formulating an idealized vision of his absent father, even though I've read little good about that man. The younger Obama's recent speeches decrying absentee fatherhood in the black community have angered many within that community, yet they make perfect psychological sense.

On this score, Barack Obama has my empathy.

I tend to have a romanticized view of my own father, who died before my seventh birthday. He was a brilliant scientist associated with the space program; he was also a semi-professional jazz pianist and a gifted painter. He introduced me to Beethoven and Bach, to the Renaissance masters, to reading, to politics, to history, to the dream of space travel -- to everything I revere.

Yet Mom once cryptically told me that my father and I might not have gotten along, had he lived longer. Apparently, he was not an easygoing person. His penchant for insulting those he considered intellectual inferiors (i.e., most of the human race) injured his career and caused needless rancor. (And if you make the obvious crack, you're a dolt.) Over the years, I've toyed with the idea of tracking down people who knew him -- only to think better of the project. Best to keep my romanticized portrait intact.

Unlike AnnaBelle, I can understand why Barack Obama wrote a book titled Dreams From My Father, as opposed to a similar volume about his mother (an admirable woman in many ways). A boy who grows up surrounded by the feminine will always see the female not just as That Which Nurtures but also as That Which Confines. We seek the lost king. That's the lesson of the Arthur legend -- at least, that's one of the lessons.

On that level, I get Obama.

What I cannot understand is this: Why did Barack Obama countenance a primary campaign which history books will damn as sexist? Although the paranoia directed at Hillary Clinton was driven primarily by "Clinton Derangement Syndrome," misogyny also played an undeniable role. Some of the insults directed at Hillary were also directed at Ann Dunham -- and at Malia Ann and Natasha Obama, and at my mother, and at yours. Yet Barack Obama could not find it within himself to denounce those among his followers who called Hillary a "cunt" and a "bitch."

Why?

9 comments:

madamab said...

My theory is that Obama resented his caretakers for being so clearly superior to his father in "judgment" and "character."

Furthermore, they were white, and did not give him the connection to his black heritage that he so craved.

By the way - I love your blog. Keep up the great commentary!

OTE admin said...

It is obvious to me why he never bothered to write about his mother, who along with her family was far more admirable than his father. It's because her racial background. Obama couldn't use that to help his political career, while his dad's rather exotic background was perfect to exploit.

Unknown said...

Because he shares it? Because he sees everything through his need and resentment?

I saw clips of the Access Hollywood interview at the birthday party. It was shockingly clear that Michelle and the girls have no respect for him, that he's the outsider in the group. He's away from home most of the time -- himself another kind of absent father -- and I bet the girls hear Michelle and her mother talking about him.

Joseph Cannon said...

madamab and susan -- I'm sory, but I can't share your basic idea.

"My theory is that Obama resented his caretakers for being so clearly superior to his father in "judgment" and "character.""

That they WERE fine people is clear. And I see no reason to hold a high opinion of Barack Obama Sr.

But we are privileged to look at the matter with some objectivity.

That's why I told the story about my own Dad. I'm a bit like Obama, in that I tend to idealize a man I never truly got a chance to know. If he had lived, we might have ended up hating each other.

That's why "Le Roi perdu" is such a powerful myth -- one which must have had a special resonance with every boy whose father was slain in early youth.

Every young man seeks a father figure. And at a certain point, the mother who raises such a youth is seen as a restrictive, stultifying figure -- even if she is, by any objective measure, doing a superhuman job of raising a kid (or kids) without a husband.

So I don't think young Barry saw his Dad as in any way inferior. To the contrary. The elder Obama probably became a mythic figure in the child's mind.

Take it from me.

I'm not sure if the elder Obama's heritage was exploitable or a political hindrance. He was, after all, a socialist bureaucrat in a corrupt government. That sort of parentage is not usually considered politically helpful -- at least, not in America.

Anonymous said...

Misogyny sells.

Anna Belle said...

Joseph, great post and thanks for the traffic. I have to address one issue though, which I did not clearly articulate in my post, but which is part of this whole tangle (that post is really a series, if you want to know).

First, let me say I am sorry for the loss of your father. Seven is so young!

That said, what I'm trying to say at the end of my post is that the very thought that something is missing because one parent abdicates their responsibility is a sexist thought perpetrated by a sexist culture. When you say this:

Every young man seeks a father figure. And at a certain point, the mother who raises such a youth is seen as a restrictive, stultifying figure -- even if she is, by any objective measure, doing a superhuman job of raising a kid (or kids) without a husband.

you make my point. EVERY child at a certain point sees their PARENT(s) as restrictive and stultifying. It is the very definition of adolescence. It has nothing to do with an absentee parent.

But you, like everyone else in this culture were told that because you lacked a parent that others had, something was fundamentally being denied to you, when in fact, it wasn't. You need not be fixed because your father died when you were seven. You need not seek the lost king, for there never was a king. That fathers are kings is another crap lie your culture told you.

I should interject here that I do not blame people like you for thinking like this. I blame the culture and the stupid lies they tell to keep women down, unappreciated, and working their fingers to the bone on the way to their deaths. It's fantasy, and since this entire culture is created to engage male fantasy, it's not surprising that you find yourself operating under this dynamic.

I hope that makes sense. Thanks for the great discussion.

Anna Belle said...

I wanted to add that I used the phrase "the entire culture" and I realize in hindsight that that is hyperbolic. It's not the entire culture, but a significant portion of it. Of course the culture also designs lies and techniques to engage female fantasy too, but they are not as overt, or as prevalent, IMO, mostly because men are still by-and-large in charge of media, which is the biggest vehicle for such engagement. Just wanted to clarify that. Thanks.

Anonymous said...

Did BHO really play Jay-Z's "99 Problems(but a bitch ain't one)" at a rally??. Maybe it is daddy issues, but i think it's more just good 'ol sexism.

Is this a shock? Seeing how the 15th Amendment was ratified in 1870, and the 19th amendment was only passed 70 years later, in 1920 (only 164 years after Lydia Chapin Taft voted in an official New England Town Open Meeting). Maybe in another 70 years a competent woman can run for POTUS without being called a cunt and a whore.

Where's my "Obama ain't never been called no cunt!" Tee Shirt???

====================
on a different note:

"Apparently, he was not an easygoing person. His penchant for insulting those he considered intellectual inferiors (i.e., most of the human race) injured his career and caused needless rancor. (And if you make the obvious crack, you're a dolt.)"

[insert obvious crack here]

But Joseph, be it through writing or 2-dimensional representation, your job is not to be liked, but to express yourself. Fully. That is what is needed, and that is why we come here. Warts and all....

gendergappers said...

His comment about his grandmother being "a typical white woman" revealed both his contempt for women and all consuming anger that he was not white.