The Grand Vacuity

To my American readers:

Have you, fellow citizen, been waiting 200 years for anything? I think not. But what about America? Has it been waiting for some incredible event for over 200 years? Apparently it has been waiting, even chafing at the bit, for one very important thing: the ascendancy of a woman to the position of Speaker of the House.

Of course, I use the word ascendancy with a wink to irony, for to be Speaker of the House may indeed be a descendancy: these allegedly lofty posts supporting the dome of human ambition may actually be dehumanizing idols that mean, ultimately, nothing. To be priest or president, king or queen, may be the least humanizing and wondrous roles on the planet. But I digress.

America yesterday apparently made history. In the United States House of Representatives, a U.S. citizen who also happens to be a woman, was given a gavel, a chair, a title, and the keys to a new house. For 2oo years America has been waiting for Nancy Pelosi to become the first woman to speak in that esteemed house -- with authority and control and dominance.

According to this morning's New York Times, Ms. Pelosi had this to say about her elevation:

“This is an historic moment ... It’s an historic moment for the Congress. It’s an historic moment for the women of America. It is a moment for which we have waited for over 200 years.” [emphasis added]

I wonder if there are any women in America who might disagree with Madame Speaker. I am sure there are not a few. It would be fun to hear from them. But one also wonders where this sudden ebullience over feminism's success comes from. Has there, for instance, been a longstanding movement afoot to have a woman Speaker of the House? And even if there was, is this really that terribly historic? We have women CEOs and women astronauts; we have women university presidents and women surgeons general; we have women attorneys general and women presidential candidates. We have had two women secretraries of state, Madeleine Albright and Condoleezza Rice. OK. So a woman holds a gavel in a house of Congress. Should I care? Should I care as much as Representative Loretta Sanchez, D-CA, who said she voted for Ms. Pelosi “for the empowerment of all women in the world”? (Wow, Ms. Sanchez.) Even Ms. Pelosi spoke of equality with some hyperbole (as reported by the Victoria Advocate), declaring, "By electing me speaker, you have brought us closer to the ideal of equality that is America's heritage and hope. For our daughters and granddaughters, today we have broken the marble ceiling." (Wasn't that ceiling really broken years ago?)

Specifically, should I care about all this if men and women are equal? Are they? How so? If men and women are indeed equal, then why do I care if a woman is Speaker of the House, for is not a woman speaker equal to a male speaker? Moreover, even if I accept that men have far too long forged laws which affect women -- with nary a sense of what women need or want -- how is it any historic gain whatsoever to have a woman forge laws which affect men with nary a sense of what men need or want?

Of course, I am merely having fun here poking at certain American sacred cows. I am grateful that women have found "higher" stations in life. But there is a problem intrinsic to the language we use about equality that peeves me a bit, with such peevishness described more fully in my essay on equality and the former president of Harvard, Larry Summers, posted in 2005.

Other thoughts on yesterday's historic turnings:

• The New York Times' headline today could not be more apt: Jubilant Democrats Assume Control on Capitol Hill. Emphasis, of course, on the word assume.
• Democrat Harry Reid, the new Senate majority leader, said (according to The New York Times), “Guided by the spirit of bipartisanship, Democrats are ready to take this country in a new direction.” The final roll call for the Pelosi-for-Speaker vote in the House? "233 to 202, the 31-seat margin of the new Democratic majority," or so reports the NYT. So much for bipartisan cooperation.
  
• Since the Democrats "assumed" control of America's destiny, one American soldier has been killed in Iraq. I shall keep count from here on in, since it is clear any death on the Democrats' watch is their fault, no? Don't hold your breath counting on these folks to resolve the Iraq conflict any time soon. They would rather raise minimum wage than lower the death count. Apparently they are concerned our soldiers are not getting paid sufficiently.

Lastly, I am reluctant to ask Mr. Reid if he believes that the "new direction" in which he plans to take America is distinguishable from the old one.

Peace.

PS. What is Ms. Pelosi doing in the photo above? What is she trying to convey, express? Just wondering.

©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

Speaker Pelosi, Nancy Pelosi, Equality