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The Democratic Party Platform: A Feminist Document?

Cara

That’s what Dana Goldstein argues. I personally wouldn’t go so far, but I do have to say that I’m very pleasantly surprised. From Dana:

The draft of the Democratic Party platform, principally written by Obama’s Senate policy director, the estimable Karen Kornbluh, is a remarkably feminist document, one befitting of a political party that, this year, came exceedingly close to nominating a woman. In the summer of 2006, I heard Rep. Carolyn Maloney of New York speak on the Hill, lamenting that the lily livered John Kerry team had, for the first time in decades, removed support for the Equal Rights Amendment from the party platform. Well, this year the ERA is back, alongside a truly unequivocal statement of support for reproductive rights, an unprecedented statement in opposition to sexism, and new sections on equal pay, women’s economic struggles, work-family balance, and violence against women. Read the whole platform here.

It’s clear that care was taken to involve members of Hillary Clinton’s circle in the document’s drafting (perhaps Dana Singiser), or to at least take their concerns to heart. Clinton’s run is presented in the document as a feminist historical feat, and in the foreign policy section, the draft borrows the language of Clinton’s celebrated 1995 speech to the United Nations Conference on Women in Beijing: “Our policies will recognize that human rights are women’s rights and that women’s rights are human rights.” Reflecting Obama’s own long-standing interest in international development, the documented continues, “Women make up the majority of the poor in the world. So we will expand access to women’s’ economic development opportunities and seek to expand microcredit.”

Now, I haven’t had the time to read the whole 55 page document (pdf), and probably won’t for some time, but I did jump to the relevant bits that directly mention women, and I am fairly impressed. First of all, the acknowledgment of the women-poverty link that Dana mentions greatly pleases me. As does support for ERA being back, the statement against sexism, and of course, what everyone is talking about — the new statement on reproductive rights. Not only have they dropped the “safe, legal and rare” bullshit, they’ve strengthened their support for abortion rights for all women, the right to access birth control, and services for rape survivors. They’ve also supported the right of women to have a child in a way that doesn’t come off as attempting to appeal to conservatives as much as it does a genuine attempt (and of course, only a start) to employ a reproductive justice framework:

The Democratic Party strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to choose a safe and legal abortion, regardless of ability to pay, and we oppose any and all efforts to weaken or undermine that right.

The Democratic Party also strongly supports access to affordable family planning services and comprehensive age-appropriate sex education which empowers people to make informed choices and live healthy lives. We also recognize that such health care and education help reduce the number of unintended pregnancies and thereby also reduce the need for abortions.

The Democratic Party also strongly supports a woman’s decision to have a child by ensuring access to and availability of programs for pre- and post-natal health care, parenting skills, income support, and caring adoption programs.

Okay, I’ll admit it . . . that kind of thrills me a little bit. Notice how it doesn’t say that they promote or want to encourage women to make the decision to have a child, but instead they simply support that decision and want to make it easier on women who make it? Notice the lack of implication that having a child is a more moral or better choice than abortion, but instead how they treat it as an equally valid one? Impressive! The “safe, legal and rare” bullshit has always rankled me, and I’m glad to see it gone. And I can’t tell you how pleased I am to see that they chose to include a bit, even a tiny one, about sexual assault in the reproductive health care platform (another unquoted bit on page 12). I do think it belongs there — and I have a post more about this area coming soon.

Though I’m not sure how unprecedented it is, I also like the additional bit they have on violence against women:

Ending violence against women must be a top priority. We will create a special advisor to the president regarding violence against women. We will increase funding to domestic violence and sexual assault prevention programs. We will strengthen sexual assault and domestic violence laws, support the Violence Against Women Act, and provide job security to survivors. Our foreign policy will be sensitive to issues of aggression against women around the world.

I’m happy with what I’ve read so far. And feeling a little bit better about voting Democrat. But I also wouldn’t be at all surprised if there were complaints, and valid ones. As I said, I’ve only read what I’m talking about right now. So what do you think, dear readers?

Via Feministing

24 thoughts on The Democratic Party Platform: A Feminist Document?

  1. Pingback: The Democratic Party Platform: A Feminist Document? : The Curvature

  2. This isn’t directly relevant to me, since I’m not a USAian, but I do have one question: why do you refer to “safe, legal and rare” as “bullshit”? I had always understood that phrase as coming from the idea that women and men should be given adequate and plentiful information concerning contraception, so that the unwanted pregnancies are greatly reduced, thus leaving much less need for abortions? That is, my understanding is that the phrase is more to do with opposing “abstinence only” sex education.

    I would guess from what you’ve written that perhaps some US politicians have used the phrase to suggest that women should choose to carry to term as much as possible? But the phrase itself is not bullshit, since by all accounts, abortion is (to say the least) an unpleasant process, and I can’t imagine a rational person wanting there to be more abortions taking place, if they can be avoided by better use of contraception (including free availability of the morning-after pill).

  3. For many women, abortion is an unpleasant process. Other women describe the pain of childbirth as an unpleasant process. I’ve never been through either, so I can’t say, but I agree that avoiding surgery because you don’t need it is better than needing to have it. The implication, at least in the US, that comes along with “reducing” abortion isn’t because it’s healthier for women to prevent unwanted pregnancies in the first place, but because abortion is a bad choice and a horrible thing. This is emphasized by the 2004 platform, which Dana quotes in her piece. It doesn’t speak of contraception, but it does speak of incentives for adoption and includes the “safe, legal and rare” language without explaining how they propose to make abortion “rare.” In any case, we shouldn’t be talking about making abortion rare, but about making unplanned pregnancy rare, if that’s what we’re really trying to prevent, rather than trying to prevent one possible outcome of that unintended pregnancy. That is my interest.

    And I have personally never heard the phrase used as an argument against abstinence-only sex ed. I have in fact never heard the phrase used by someone who identifies as strongly pro-choice and who is not a politician.

  4. Allow me to clarify: I bring up child birth simply because I dislike hearing abortion referred to as unpleasant as though it’s the only medical procedure that we want to avoid. Of course, we don’t want to make childbirth rare for the obvious reasons of continuing the human race and the fact that people want to have babies. But my gall bladder surgery was extremely unpleasant, and I’ve never heard of anyone talking about making that rare, and it’s because there’s no value judgment that goes along with having or performing gall bladder surgery, not because it’s necessarily any less desirable to avoid.

  5. That’s funny. Growing up during the Clinton administration in a liberal family in a liberal town, I just always assumed that the “rare” in “safe, legal, and rare” meant better sex ed, better safety net, etc.

  6. Snowdrop, Cara has already responded to you pretty well, but I wanted to add something. You say:

    abortion is (to say the least) an unpleasant process

    which to me overemphasizes how “unpleasant” it is. I had an abortion at ten weeks, and due to some slight variation in my anatomy, mine was a little longer than most and I took antibiotics for a week afterwards as a precaution. No, I didn’t enjoy the process, but it was not all that horrible either. Definitely less arduous than having a tooth pulled, though in many ways comparable. An abortion is a minor, outpatient surgery with a very low rate of complications.

    In comparison, a Cesarean section, which in this country is performed on a third of women who carry to term, is a major inpatient surgery with a much higher risk of complications. I haven’t had one, but I have been in labour, and labour is much more arduous than an abortion. Should a Cesarean be “safe, legal, and rare?” Well, yes, it should be, and I’m all for reducing the rate of Cesareans in this country. But the phrase has all sorts of baggage implying judgement on the woman undergoing the procedure, so I’d rather not apply it to either abortion or surgical birth.

    Cara has it right: working to reduce unplanned pregnancy is a better way to frame it. Once that unplanned pregnancy happens, there’s no need to have coercion either way, either to “reduce the abortion rate” or “reduce the unplanned birth rate.”

  7. I am glad it is such a feminist platform but I am kind of surprised that in a 55 page platform document for the Democratic Party, queer people get only one mention that I can find.

    “We support the full inclusion of all families, including same-sex couples, in the life of our nation, and support equal responsibility, benefits, and protections. We will enact a comprehensive bipartisan employment non-discrimination act. We oppose the Defense of Marriage Act and all attempts to use this issue to divide us.”

    I suppose that is something.

  9. They’re still supporting Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell? (I’m at work and can’t open the PDF now.) I knew there would be something . . .

  12. How is it on protections for LGBT people? The disabled? From the perspective of someone with an autistic brother, the Bush administration has been much better on funding for programs that benefit children like my brother than you would expect, given its record, but I see a great deal of room for improvement in an Obama administration. And obviously legislation protecting LGBT people (Okeechobee GSA, anyone?) has a very long way to go. I’m still mad at the Democrats for selling out the transgendered on ENDA.

  13. Pingback: The Democratic Party and Pro-Choice Issues « This is What a Feminist Blogs Like

  14. i may just be overemotional from adjusting to new meds, but seriously reading the quoted excerpts i started to get teary eyed. it shouldn’t be so exciting, but it is exciting to have someone say in writing that i matter, and not just some fellow feminist blogger or my best friend or my mom or anything, but one of the big 2 political parties in the country.

    the democrats make me just as angry as the next progressive/radical, but this still makes me feel good.

  15. “That’s funny. Growing up during the Clinton administration in a liberal family in a liberal town, I just always assumed that the “rare” in “safe, legal, and rare” meant better sex ed, better safety net, etc.”

    You’re mixing methodology with motivation, I think- yes, it means fewer abortions via better sex ed etc., but the implied reason for even including it with “safe” and “legal” is that “rare” is a desirable result.

    Hell, if you want to analyze it even further, separating it at the end emphasizes it as the most desirable of the three: “safe, legal and RARE” as opposed to “safe, rare and LEGAL.” It was the democratic party’s riposte to the right’s attack on abortion rights. I don’t particularly think it was much of a cave, and it doesn’t really bother me, but there’s no mistaking why “rare” is even mentioned.

    As for dealing with LGBT issues- I dunno, what they mention would be a big step forward from where we are now, but that’s not exactly very ambitious, is it? I’d feel a bit slighted myself.

  16. I remember when Carol Moseley Braun ran in the 90s. Where were all these women then? Lemme guess they were too young, right? I’m still sick of touting “women” but focusing on Hilary Clinton or issues affecting certain women as if they speak for/relevant to all women.

    I’m from the inner city of Chicago. For the last 5 years Big Pharama companies have been flooding the hood with these 4-period-a-year samples in clinic sleft and right and getting poor black and brown girls to sample them. They make sure their parents don’t have to know and they hype the benefits without outlining any of the dangers in the name of getting the largest sample pool possible.

    The result?

    Massive numbers of black and brown girls getting sick, bloated and suffering a whole assortment of side effects. I’ve watched 15 year olds gain 50lbs because of the way the patches and pills destroy their metabolism and mess with their pituitary glands. I’ve watched girls have strokes, develop baldness, you name it. Nevermind the trauma of having 4 periods instead of 12. a nice adjustment for a 13-18 year old who barely knows what it means to be a woman without medical altering your most personal aspects of your biology. All she knows is all th women in her family are having 12 periods a year and they can’t say anything about it.

    But you don’t hear anything about this from “women” because it’s not their daughters. It’s Black daughters, Hispanic daughters by and large. And if they’re the ones getting hosed and used as guinea pigs, for the benefit of “women” then so be it.

    Far as I’m concerned, Obama and the DNC don’t owe “women” anything until “women” recognize that “women” is bigger than white middle class and up, (which is one of the many reasons) HRC lost, and start fighting for all women all the time, not just a few or acknowledging “poor women” when it’s convenient.

  17. While I’m really happy to see the DP grow a backbone and actually taking a positive stance on many of these issues, I really want to scream “WHAT TOOK YOU SO LONG?!”

    Did it really take a woman nearly winning the candidacy for the Democratic party to go “Oh, umm… maybe women’s issues are important to some people, and we should probably address those.”

    Of course, I’m still peeved from reading about Illinois FINALLY allowing judges to put GPS tracking devices on stalkers violating their restraining orders. It only took a few women to die for them to think those little details were important to some people…

    It’s about time the Dems stop pandering to the right and stand up for those issues, including the ones that are a little uncomfortable to talk about.

  18. “But you don’t hear anything about this from “women” because it’s not their daughters. It’s Black daughters, Hispanic daughters by and large. And if they’re the ones getting hosed and used as guinea pigs, for the benefit of “women” then so be it.

    Far as I’m concerned, Obama and the DNC don’t owe “women” anything until “women” recognize that “women” is bigger than white middle class and up, (which is one of the many reasons) HRC lost, and start fighting for all women all the time, not just a few or acknowledging “poor women” when it’s convenient.”

    Black Canseco, you are assuming the “women” know about this and ignore it. I don’t think that’s necessarily true, and it would be good to have more factual info on this.

  20. Re: Big Pharma pushing 4 times a year pills on inner city kids:

    Can you cite a link? Because this middle aged white woman had no idea this was going on and would love to publicize it in her blog.

    Thanks.

  21. I’m confused. While the highlighted parts of this platform are pretty great comparatively, why has Obama been floating the names of DINO bigots like Webb and Biden? Why cozy up to religious groups on limiting abortion rights and then turn around and issue a platform statement that advocates free access? Yes, I like the platform, but I’ll believe its implementation when I see it. I’m still friggin’ skeptical.

  22. Far as I’m concerned, Obama and the DNC don’t owe “women” anything until “women” recognize that “women” is bigger than white middle class and up, (which is one of the many reasons) HRC lost, and start fighting for all women all the time, not just a few or acknowledging “poor women” when it’s convenient.”

    You mean like HRC’s statement at the debate at Howard on the rates of HIV infection among African American women? Has any other candidate, including Obama, or member of the DNC made any similarly pointed statement regarding an issue affecting women of color?

  23. Platforms are nice and parts of this look really nice but what about action? I mean, the Dems were all for civil rights in the 2000 election but still the vast majority of elected Dems lined up with Republicans to vote in the Patriot Act. I don’t recall seeing that in the platform anywhere nor where they planned to support voting out of reactionism.

    And I don’t support the wall on the border which they don’t mention except through some vague enforcement of the southern border but the Dem candidates did say they supported it. The fence or wall will just cause hundreds of more deaths like Operation GateKeeper did and has.

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