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Something Missing in CA Green Party Statement of Purpose

This is the California Green Party Statement of Purpose, from the California Presidential Primary Election Official Voter Information Guide

GREEN PARTY

Voting Green for president is voting for the only national party that:

* Supports immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq, closing Guantanamo, and ending the anti-civil liberties Patriot Act.
* Supports immediate, strong measures to address climate change through efficiency, conservation, and clean renewable energy.
* Supports universal healthcare.
* Openly acknowledges the 2000 Florida election process was stolen and led the 2004 Ohio recount.
* Supports voter verifiable auditable paper trails and open source coding for computer voting machines to mitigate future election fraud.
* Supports abolishing the outdated Electoral College and replacing it with a national popular vote.
* Supports instant runoff voting to allow voters to rank candidates, protecting majority rule and voter choice.
* Supports 100% public financing of campaigns; free time for candidates on our publicly owned radio and TV airwaves; and repeal of unfair ballot access laws that privilege major parties and obstruct third parties and independents.
* Supports proportional representation, same-day voter registration, and a constitutional right to vote.
* Opposes the early primary scheduling shuffle that rewards big money/media campaigns at the expense of community-based, grassroots organizing.
* Supports more than just two voices in the general election presidential debates.
* Supports living wages, immigrants’ rights, and education not incarceration.

Most of those ideas I would also support, but there is a glaring omission here. Missing in action is any specific mention of rights for women, unconscionable for a party claiming feminism as a key value. Is recruiting Cynthia McKinney and (presumably) Cindy Sheehan supposed to be enough to satisfy feminists? The Democratic Party statement mentions they will continue fighting for a woman’s right to choose. The Peace and Freedom and Libertarian parties mention equal rights for all. Are these supposed to be too obvious to merit any mention for the Greens?

Perhaps progressive really is the new mainstream, so rights for women are too controversial for such a progressive party to make a top priority. The Greens put the priorities of the male left up front and center. What else is new.

I am a bit heartened to see the Democratic Party statement include a woman’s right to choose, since the national leadership has been lukewarm on that issue, too keen on swing voters to take a strong stand.

This entry was posted by Aletha on Friday, January 4th, 2008 at 12:32 am and is filed under Aletha, Fake Allies, Feminism, General, Impositions, Myths, Isms and Misrepresentations, Rant, Rights, Social Construction, Strategy, Values. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. (Visited 2210 times)

One Response to “Something Missing in CA Green Party Statement of Purpose”

  1. Aletha Says:
    August 12th, 2009 at 9:18 pm

    Maryrose Asher, a former Chair of the Green Party of Washington State, explains why she would like to see feminism replaced by gender equity in the ten key values of the Green Party, about halfway down the page of the August 3-9 issue of Greener Times

    Un-Spinning the Spin: Time for Re-Thinking of “Feminism” as a Key Value
    Maryrose Asher is a former Chair of the Green Party of Washington State and a tireless activist of many causes.

    In the news this past week was a statement of support for the war in Afghanistan by the Feminist Majority, a prominent US women’s organization, and a rebuttal statement by Sonali Kolhatkar, Co-Director of Afghan Women’s Mission.

    Since Feminism is one of the 10 Key Values of the Green Party, it may be time to re-think keeping “Feminism” as one of the 10 Key Values.

    I looked at the websites of several Washington State Green Party locals. Notice the consistency of wording under the Key Value of “Feminism:”

    SKAGIT COUNTY GREEN PARTY
    The Green movement is profoundly inspired by feminism. The ethics of cooperation and understanding must replace the values of domination and control.

    GREEN PARTY OF KITSAP COUNTY
    The Green movement is profoundly inspired by feminism. The ethics of cooperation and understanding must replace the values of domination and control.

    GREEN PARTY OF SOUTH PUGET SOUND
    The Green movement is profoundly inspired by Feminism, with its ethics of cooperation and understanding. These ethics must replace the values of domination and control.

    VASHON-MAURY ISLAND GREEN PARTY
    The Green movement is profoundly inspired by Feminism, with its ethics of cooperation and understanding. These ethics must replace the values of domination and control.

    I question whether we should continue to attach a value to feminism as if women inherently have a higher morality, are more in tune to nature, or hold to a different value system then men.

    Feminism promotes the thought that if there were more women in position of power that this would end the present corruption and power of the military-industrial complex. Yet, the examples of Golda Meir, Margaret Thatcher, and others female leaders around the world negate the idea of women in power guaranteeing a kinder, gentler world.

    Elimination of “feminism” and substituting simply “gender equality” as one of the Ten Key Values would be much more in line with the reality that females hold no special skills and are no more nurturing or empathetic than males. The idea that “feminism” is a value to emulate unfortunately has been besmeared by the reality that women in power hold to no greater good than their male counterparts. A comparison of values held by Dennis Kucinich to Hillary Clinton or Russ Feingold to Mary Landrieu illustrate this point.

    There is no question that women must be afforded equal rights in the workplace. My argument is with the attachment of misleading feminist values behind the philosophy of “feminism.”

    Gender equality should be the ideal we strive for, not promoting one sex over the other.

    An example of what I am addressing is found on the Green Party of Seattle website. As part of the Ten Key Values is

    Minbashian argues that “feminist values” mean more than simply equal rights for women and goes into the philosophical aspects of feminism.

    Clearly, one can observe a connection between domination and destruction of nature and the oppression of women. Carolyn Merchant, in her book the Death of Nature, does an outstanding job of revealing the roots of this connection. In her analysis, Dr. Merchant found that the image of nature as female to be controlled and dissected through experiment legitimated the exploitation of natural resources. She quotes Francis Bacon (1561-1626), a celebrated “father of modern science”: “The technological discoveries of printing, gunpowder, and the magnet in the fields of learning, warfare, and navigation help us to think about the secrets still locked in nature’s bosom. They do not, like the old, merely exert a gentle guidance over nature’s course; they have the power to conquer and subdue her, to shake her foundations. Under the mechanical arts, nature betrays her secrets more fully than when in enjoyment of her natural liberty.”

    Although the image of the nurturing Earth popular in the Renaissance did not completely vanish, it was superseded by this new controlling imagery. This imagery is still with us today, although it is more subtly referred to as “natural resource management.” This theme, however, is not just prevalent in science. We have also inherited a social system based on male domination of politics and economics.

    We cannot expect to free ourselves from the ills of our society, whether we are addressing the environment, poverty, or corporate welfare, until we have all embraced feminism and the end of domination as inseparable components of all these issues.

    Does anyone else have a problem with this metaphor of feminism? Adopting a feminist philosophy would not mean the “end of domination.” Feminism played a major role in bringing attention to the inequalities in the workplace but the time has come to move beyond the idea that any one sex has superiority over the other. The Ten Key Values should embrace full gender equality with no attachment of a greater morality or a lesser humaneness on the part of either male or female by emphasizing the word “feminism.”

    Two locals (Seattle and South Puget Sound) did add “gender equity” to “feminism” as listed in their Ten Key Values. Below is from the Green Party of the United States website where gender equity is also added:

    FEMINISM AND GENDER EQUITY

    We have inherited a social system based on male domination of politics and economics. We call for the replacement of the cultural ethics of domination and control with more cooperative ways of interacting that respect differences of opinion and gender. Human values such as equity between the sexes, interpersonal responsibility, and honesty must be developed with moral conscience. We should remember that the process that determines our decisions and actions is just as important as achieving the outcome we want.

    However, even references to male domination in politics and economics should be removed as sexist statements. It is true there are more males in politics and economics, but majority does not necessarily correlate with abuse of power. It could be argued that the “system,” i.e. capitalism, has more to do with domination of one class over another, then the imbalance in the number of males vs. females in positions of power.

    I have also questioned, for example, why Laura Bush would let George get away with what he did during his presidency so we also have the cooperation of females in this “domination.” Groucho Marx once joked, “Behind every successful man is a woman, behind her is his wife.”

    Unfortunately, greed and the thirst for power which dominate politics and economics cross gender lines and will only end when humankind evolves to the point where everyone is viewed as equal in every respect.

    If we accomplish gender equity, then we have de facto accomplished the stated goals of the mainstream feminist movement.

    I strongly support “Gender Equity” as a Key Value. “Feminism” is outdated, simply wrong, and should be removed. This is especially timely now that “feminism” is being absurdly used to justify the war in Afghanistan.

    When prominent women of the Green Party show such astounding miscomprehension of feminism, it is no wonder that party puts such a low priority on feminist issues. Is the Green Party only interested in stated goals of mainstream feminism? Eleanor Smeal nor the Feminist Majority speak for feminism, and never have. Nobody speaks for feminism, least of all its Democratic or Green wings. Men do not dominate politics and economics? What planet is Maryrose Asher living on? Presumably a planet where capitalism is the source of all evil, men having nothing to do with it. Capitalism as we know it is certainly riddled with corruption, but it is only part of the male-dominant social structure, which is corrupt to the core.

    Ms. Asher says, adopting a feminist philosophy would not mean the end of domination. What does feminist philosophy mean to her? Evidently it means promoting one sex over the other. That was never the point of feminism, though some separatists might disagree. The point of feminism as I understand it is to abolish the system of male dominance, and revision everything derived from that system. Attaining equal rights for women is only a first step, yet that appears to be the only aim of feminism Ms. Asher can support, and the other aims seem either beyond her comprehension, or taken from the extreme fringe of feminism.

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