Reading and thinking about Harriet Miers all week has left me conflicted. I’m not keen on her political stance on gay rights and women’s reproductive rights, but on the other hand we have a woman who, during the 2nd wave, not only walked through doors that feminism opened, but opened a few herself.
While I am not comfortable with someone whose experience with interpretation of Constitutional law is next to nil and whose stance on abortion is that women are murderous, and thus do not want her to be the newest member of SCOTUS, there are several things that make me like her against my will.
For one, she was the first female president of Texas State Bar and first female president of Dallas Bar Association. As feminists have been critical of the lack of women in political leadership posts, we ought to recognize her key roles in these positions. Further, and I find this very interesting, she used her posts to start conversations between warring interest groups, and developed a record for being “unafraid to take on controversial issues, sometimes even to her own political detriment.”
On one hand, she was willing to meet with pro-abortion rights groups, gay rights groups, and AIDS activists to hear them out on their concerns.
Miers told gay activists that she could not support the repeal of a Texas law banning sodomy. On the other hand, she stated in a questionnaire for the Lesbian/Gay Political Coalition of Dallas that she supported equal rights for gays.
Abortion rights activists asked Miers if she supported an ordinance that protected abortion clinic patients from harassment.
“‘She said, well, I’m sorry, it’s murder, and that’s that,’ said Joy Mankoff, founder of a local women’s political action network. ‘There was no room for any discussion.'”
In other words, “I sympathize, really, but y’all are SOL.”
Nonetheless, the idea that she was willing to meet face-to-face with political opposition is fairly rare anymore. More interesting is that Miers eventually left this post essentially stating that civil service was too political instead of working toward doing the “right thing.” And frankly, I want politicians who are willing to conversate, compromise, and moderate, more than I want politicians who will say the “right thing” to score votes.
Although the women left the meeting convinced that Miers was completely opposed to abortion rights, one, liberal lawyer Louise B. Raggio, continued to support Miers and still does. Miers, for her part, has raised money to promote a lecture series on women’s issues bearing Raggio’s name. The first speaker was feminist Gloria Steinem.
“The abortion issue is a bad issue for me,” Raggio acknowledged, “but overall you look at the whole, and there are many issues I could agree with her on.”
In the late 1990s, while Miers was on the advisory board for Southern Methodist University’s law school, she helped create and fund a women’s studies lecture series named after pioneering Texas lawyer Louise B. Raggio, who was a mentor to Miers. As stated above, the first speaker was Gloria Steinem, a fact that drives conservative pundits batshit crazy.
But in the context of Miers’ life and the lives of other successful women in her age bracket, feminism plays a crucial role. How quickly it is that people forget that feminism used to be quite acceptable, and for the most part, still is. Most people can recognize that the efforts of Steinem and Co. have led to greater rights and opportunities for American women, and because of American influence on global social and economic spheres, on the rights on women worldwide. Despite the most infamous of feminist rhetoric*, second wave feminists were quite moderate in their political advances, knocking down walls that would have kept women like Miers in second-rate positions for a lifetime. Miers, who was in college during the civil rights movement and the first woman lawyer at a firm during the early 1970s, no doubt recognizes that the feminist movement of her early adult years was about common sense civil rights, from which she no doubt benefitted. It follows that Miers would logically agree to be a part in starting this women’s rights consortium.
Other than on the issue of abortion, and possibly other reproductive rights issues, it is quite easy to argue that Miers is feminist in several ways, but especially in her style of leadership. Judging from the WaPo article and elsewhere, Miers’ record shows she was committed to empowerment, community, social action, and reflexivity, values that are at the crux of feminist leadership and pedagogy. Her post in positions such as the ones detailed above shows that, despite her reservations on abortion and sodomy law, she served as a catalyst for setting a political tone based on thoughtfulness, reflection and cooperation, a tone for which her critics branded her wishy-washy on rather potent issues. Instead of telling her constituents what was best for them, she often asked them how best to handle an issue, acknowledged that she did not have all the answers, and did what she could to find a remedy that would please all parties even to the detriment of conservative interests. With Miers, we have an authority who acts as a non-authority, whose primary interest is building and maintaining a sense of community.
But despite the flickers and flames of feminism that I see in Harriet Miers, what troubles me is a woman who has plainly stated that she believes that abortion is murder, who refused to advocate for the end of the Texas sodomy laws, someone whose political loyalty has been characterized as adoration, and whose Constitutional scholarship doesn’t exist, has been nominated as the next Supreme Court justice. We have a person ready to enter a lifetime appointment who doesn’t seem to believe in the value of citizens’ legal privacy.
Despite my hunger for her kind of leadership style, I have to advocate for a negative vote on Harriet Miers for far more reasons than I have detailed here. But part of me believes that she might be the best to come our way. If not her, who?
* Despite the negative connotations that have been attached to feminist thought and movement since the public exposure of the most racidal feminist rhetoric, it is still necessary to recognize that this language and thought was critical because it did in fact make everyday women look at themselves so differently. It is a perfect example of moving to a more radical sphere in order to shift every day politics, thus gaining the most simple of civil rights for American women.
** Not so interesting fact: Harriet is my middle name.
UPDATE It seems freakin’ Deepak Chopra agrees with me.
In Ms. Miers we seem to have someone who is a blank slate, but whose private inclinations are tolerant, cautious, compassionate to the underprivileged, and politically flexible. On the surface her nomination is unfair, in that she seems to have a private agreement on ideology with the President and no public trail; therefore, she is immune to being examined. Matters are made worse by Pres. Bush’s wink-and-a-nod comments implying that she has her marching orders and will be a loyal foot soldier. That demeans both Ms. Miers and the Court itself.
If indeed her flaw is rigid loyalty to the right wing, we are no worse off than if the President had nominated another Scalia. But if Miers grows to the left, which is to say, if she begins to empathize with America’s vast, diverse population instead of the rich white males who have determined her fate so far, the country will be well served by her.
But unlike the nutcase, I don’t think she’ll be moving leftward.