Image via www.state.gov/secretary/

Poor Hillary Clinton. She never gets a break when it comes to the political rumor mill. Will she run against President Obama in 2012? Did she say she wanted to retire from being Secretary of State in a second-term Obama administration because she wants to make plans for a White House run in 2016? Maybe she has another reality-type show in the works?

The latest “will she or won’t she moment” that some are wishing for is a swap out in the current administration — move Vice President Joe Biden to the State Department and put Hillary on the ticket with the President for a new and improved 2012 race! Pundits who are suggesting that this could happen see it as a win/win/win scenario – Biden gets the job he’s supposedly really always wanted, Hillary helps Barack Obama win a second term, and Hillary has a launching pad for a 2016 White House contest.

I can almost hear the Howard Dean-like hooting and hollering of some Democrats now over that scenario!

But the problem is this. The former First Lady/U.S. Senator hasn’t given even one little inkling that she could be persuaded to sign on to that scenario. In 2010, she said, “I think I’ll serve as secretary of state as my last public position and then probably go back to advocacy work, particularly on behalf of women and children.” And in 2011, she was even more emphatic that a presidential bid wasn’t in her future — no, no, NO!

There is only one thing certain in politics – if there’s no real news going on, prognosticators will come up with something to grab our attention. And what better way to do that as we are begging for the Republican debates to finally be over than to spend a little time wondering whether Hillary has been harboring secret presidential fantasies since 2008?

Those who are stirring the pot on this one are forgetting that even though Secretary of State Clinton is wildly popular now, she was the target of unending attacks from a wide variety of political commentators during her campaign, even some of the ones who liked her. And are our collective political memories so short that proponents of an Obama/HRC ticket can’t see that the Republicans would have a field day with political ads talking about Obamacare AND Hillary-care? If Mitt Romney is the destined GOP candidate, he’s already on the record questioning her health care ideas from the 1990s. The Republican attack ads about a “socialist” Obama/Clinton ticket would be on the air before you could say, “What time is the next bus to Chappaqua?”

Even if the President wanted to trade Joe Biden for another vice president, Obama and his advisers know that has disaster written all over it.

It’s probably a good bet that Hillary Clinton, when she retires from her job as Secretary of State, won’t be hanging out at the local yarn store looking for baby bootie patterns. She’s made it clear that she’s committed to working on issues that impact women and girls globally. How better to do that than take a page from husband’s playbook and become an international ambassador for those issues? She’s seen that Bill Clinton’s star hasn’t faded and that the role of stateswoman who doesn’t need to worry about voters or political attacks could be pretty darn appealing

Sure, seeing Hillary Clinton on a road that could lead her to the Oval Office is a fantasy I’d like to indulge. But at some point every girl has to sit back, put her feet up and do something that’s just a little easier than wrangling with Syria. One thing I would bet money on is a Hillary Clinton-run Super PAC to get more women elected. After all, I hear some people are talking about Michelle Obama running for U.S. Senate from Illinois after 2016!

A version of this post was originally written for iVillage.com, where I’ll be working on election coverage through November 2012!

Image via Wikimedia Commons/(CC) Gage Skidmore

It was really just a matter of time until Michele Bachmann’s presidential race was over.  I had a sense that things were close when her children showed up with her on interviews right before the Iowa Caucuses.  When a candidate starts appearing with their extended family mid-campaign, it’s almost never a good sign.  Remember what happened when we started seeing Hillary Clinton’s mom and daughter Chelsea at election rallies in 2008?

Bachmann finished next to last in the Iowa Republican Caucuses last night.  And even though she said she was going to stay in the race for the South Carolina primary, no one was really surprised on the morning after that she announced she was dropping out.

Iowa-born Bachmann kicked butt in the Iowa Straw Poll last summer, coming in first ahead of all the men candidates.  But that was the high point of her campaign, even though many people thought those conservative “mama grizzlies” left over from Sarah Palin’s heydey would turn out for her.  But when the Congresswoman from Minnesota only ended up with a sixth-place finish and just five percent of the vote, barely ahead of Jon Huntsman who didn’t even campaign in the state, it was clear that her presidential dreams were at an end.

Whether you’re a fan of Bachmann or not, it’s hard to see the last woman in the race go.  One has to wonder whether Bachmann’s withdrawal from the campaign will cause women voters to feel less invested in the 2012 race now that the remaining events and debates will feature only men in suits.

Odds are that Bachmann knew the writing was on the wall for some time – she lost her advisor and political kingmaker Ed Rollins back in September, and then just after Christmas her Iowa Chairman defected for the Ron Paul campaign.  As the woman who created the Congressional Tea Party Caucus, when she didn’t convince Iowa tea partiers that she could win a race against President Obama there really was nowhere for her to go.  And one Iowa mom who caucused says ultimately Bachmann contributed to her own undoing because she was reluctant to take questions at campaign events and had little to say on the agricultural issues important to so many Iowans.

Bachmann spent most of her farewell speech waxing lyrical about the Founding Fathers, but she made sure to get in some jabs against President Obama and what she called his “socialist” ideas, saying that she would continue working to help repeal the Affordable Care Act, which she proclaimed had been the impetus for her to run for president.

So what’s next for the “Iron Lady” with the “titanium spine?”  Has anyone noticed she’s been going after the other Republican candidates except for Mitt Romney?  Don’t be surprised if you see her step up some lobbying efforts for some Romney/Bachmann 2012 bumper stickers.

A version of this was originally posted at iVillage, where I’ll be heading up their 2012 election coverage.

Are the “sex lives” of our teens any business of presidential hopefuls?  Should the Plan B pill, also known as the “morning after” pill or whether we give our daughters the vaccine that prevents cervical cancer even be on the list of debate topics?

That’s what I’m writing about this week at my Spin Cycle column at Babble Voices.  Let me know what you think!

The “new, old” Obama was on display this week in Kansas, invoking the name of another populist president, Theodore Roosevelt:

“I’m here in Kansas to reaffirm my deep conviction that we’re greater together than we are on our own. I believe that this country succeeds when everyone gets a fair shot, when everyone does their fair share, when everyone plays by the same rules. These aren’t Democratic values or Republican values. These aren’t 1% values or 99% values. They’re American values. And we have to reclaim them.”

He’s clearly in full rallying-the-base mode with this kind of speech and he’s going to need every last vote from that group to win in 2012.  Observers are saying this recent speech is reminiscent in tone of the one he made at the Democratic National Convention in 2004, when he was just a mere blip on the political radar as Illinois State Senator Obama:

“Now even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us — the spin masters, the negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of ‘anything goes.’ Well, I say to them tonight, there is not a liberal America and a conservative America — there is the United States of America. There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America — there’s the United States of America.

The pundits, the pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I’ve got news for them, too. We worship an “awesome God” in the Blue States, and we don’t like federal agents poking around in our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and yes, we’ve got some gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and there are patriots who supported the war in Iraq. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.”

So as a Democrat, I should be happy and excited that the President has gotten his political groove back, right?  Sadly, while his public appearances are great, there are some other headlines that suggest that the President doesn’t know which side his political bread is buttered on.

Two announcements from the administration suggest that the President’s 2012 campaign team has started a strategy of pandering to the conservatives.  First, a recommendation by the Food and Drug Administration to allow the contraceptive Plan B to be sold over the counter to all customers was shot down by Kathleen Sebelius, the Secretary of Health and Human Services.  News reports say that’s the first time that has ever happened.  Ever.

The FDA’s recommendation would have allowed teens under 18 to have access to what’s often called the “morning after” pill without a prescription, based on the research provided to the FDA.  According to a post at RH Reality Check:

[The Center for Drug Evaluation and Research] carefully considered whether younger females were able to understand how to use Plan B One-Step.  Based on the information submitted to the agency, CDER determined that the product was safe and effective in adolescent females, that adolescent females understood the product was not for routine use, and that the product would not protect them against sexually transmitted diseases. Additionally, the data supported a finding that adolescent females could use Plan B One-Step properly without the intervention of a health care provider.  [Emphasis added.]

As if that story about what seems to be a wavering commitment to reproductive rights isn’t enough to make me question what’s going on in those strategy sessions at the White House, there are now news reports that the Obama administration has launched a high profile investigation into food stamp fraud just as 2012 is upon us.    Banking fraud and Wall Street fraud that caused our economy to tank in 2008?  No investigation.  Possible wrongdoing by hungry Americans?  That’s SOOO much more important to fixing economy, isn’t it.

So in addition to populist-sounding speeches, the White House apparently has decided that the way to win re-election is to go on the attack against pregnant teens and food- stamp recipients.  Maybe polling shows those demographics don’t vote much, so the administration can ignore promises made in the past in order to woo some conservative voters who don’t like reproductive rights or Americans who need financial assistance.

So I have to ask — which Barack Obama is running for president?  The one who wants to lift all boats and make us a better nation by bringing us together and advocating policies that will benefit us all?  Or the one who seemingly is directing his administration to keep some conservatives happy?

Don’t get me wrong.  I don’t want any of the Republican candidates to become president in 2012.  But President Obama should be careful about playing with policy to allay conservative fears about teen sex or poor people on food stamps.   If he’s not careful, he’ll start alienating those who fervently supported him and campaigned for him four years ago.  He’s already slipping in his support numbers from that group.  If he doesn’t want to move back to Chicago until 2016, he really can’t afford to be seen as abandoning the philosophies of his base in favor of a handful of red votes.

Image via barackobama.com

Image via curvygirlguide.com

So my friends over at the Curvy Girl Guide (if you haven’t checked them out, you MUST) brought this movie poster to my attention for the remake of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  As Hollywood movie posters go you might think this one is par for the course — dark, brooding guy lusting after *ahem* scantily clad woman.  That is, if you didn’t know what the story was about.  My friend Melissa Silverstein at Women & Hollywood wrote about this several months ago, as well, in her great post entitled, “The Pornification of Lisbeth Salander.”

If you know even the littlest bit about the theme of this book-turned-movie, you know that this isn’t a film about sex.  It’s not a movie about a hot chick and her dude.  The book and the main character of Lisbeth Salander are about so much more on some serious topics, including violence against women. But I can only conclude from this poster that Hollywood wants us to think this is a sexy, smoldering story about a man and his woman, rather than one about political intrigue and extreme violence against women, out of fear that they otherwise wouldn’t sell tickets.

I weighed in on what on I thought of Lisbeth Salander last year shortly after reading the book, so as this topic has come again on the eve of the new movie’s release, I thought I’d reprise it here:

Yes, I’ve read The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. And I’ve seen the movie, even though it’s in Swedish with subtitles! I loved the book so much that I took it with us on our trip to China and finished it despite a massive head cold and serious jet lag.

Why? Because Lisbeth Salander rocks.

Of course, author Stieg Larsson is the amazing writer who made her rock. He had to be to combine Swedish political intrigue, alleged Nazi collaborators, and significant violence against women and turn it into an epic-length page-turner that’s become summertime must-reading.

But The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is much more than a summer beach read. It’s an inspiring tale that can help us embrace our inner feminists.

The current buzz surrounding the trilogy of books, the Swedish movie, and (of course) the inevitable rush by copycat Hollywood to make its own version is about whether it’s a stealth feminist tome or just a book that uses gratuitous sexual violence against women to promote sales. That aspect has turned into something of an uproar (and borrowing from the title of the third book, a “hornet’s nest“) from the grave (Larsson tragically died shortly after he turned in all three finished novels to his publisher). The first volume of his trilogy focuses on the details of a gruesome series of women’s murders, as well as sexual violence against Salander herself.

I was personally moved by TGWTDT and wasn’t sure why at first — it certainly was some slow reading to get through the parts about Swedish political intrigue. But as a woman who was the victim of domestic violence in my first brief marriage decades ago, I was taken by the strength of Lisbeth Salander when it came to controlling her own life, as well as by what seemed to be Larsson’s mission as an author to educate his fiction readers about the prevalence of sexual violence against women and how much of the world allows it to go on, seemingly unnoticed and unaddressed in any real way.

I was impressed that Larsson did not turn away or sugarcoat the theme of violence and depravity against women. Other critics don’t agree with me.

So the debate about TGWTDT has become this — is Salander a feminist avenger with a look that’s a cross between the new Wonder Woman and a teen boy punk rocker or just the character that allows Larsson’s publisher to exploit sexual violence for the sake of Amazon rankings? Many reviewers have been critical of the extreme descriptiveness of the acts against women, claiming that it’s unnecessary to write about sexual violence against women in such graphic detail.

I disagree.

I applaud Larsson for not turning away from the sexual violence and making his readers — especially his male readers — face what so many women have had to face in their lifetimes, but doesn’t often get the attention that might make it go away.

I don’t talk much about the period in my life when I had to deal with the fact that there was one person who thought I was deserving of being kicked, punched, pushed down stairs, and abused in a variety of other ways. For the most part, I try to keep that in the back of my memory.

All of that came rushing back as I read the tale of Lisbeth Salander and I felt that she spoke for me in a way I couldn’t when I was the victim of domestic violence. I hope that other readers, whether they consider this a feminist novel or not, don’t turn away from the violence against her and take it as an opportunity to think about why we seldom read about the real life versions of what Larsson’s written about.

So with that backdrop, what do you think of the poster for the new movie?  The producers and promoters have chosen to sexualize Salander in this way for ticket sales, but her character isn’t about being a sexy, hot chick.  And what does a misleading poster of this kind say about Hollywood?

Image courtesy Angie Lynch

GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain isn’t really making a name for himself as a champion for women.

With allegations from at least four women that he sexually harassed them, and possibly sexually assaulted one, you’d think he’d dial back the anti-woman rhetoric, especially in the series of never-ending debates the Republicans are having to highlight their somewhat sorry field of dreams candidates.  Not to mention that his wife Gloria has already gone out on a ledge for him and proclaimed that he’s VERY respectful of women.

But I guess it’s hard to help himself, as he demonstrated when, in attacking Nancy Pelosi in a recent GOP debate on her stand on health care legislation.  Instead of outlining their differences, Cain decided it was a red meat moment a good vote-getting tactic to refer to one of the most powerful women in Washington as “Princess Nancy.”

Oh yes.  He went there.

There are a lot of things wrong with that, not the least of which is that as someone who was Speaker of the House — the first woman Speaker of the House in American history, thank you very much –  Pelosi deserves the respect of the title of her office, even during the most heated disputes over the issues.  But Republicans have a history of not being respectful toward powerful Democratic women.  When Hillary Clinton was a Senator, her opponents frequently refused to call her “Senator,” opting for the more dismissive “Mrs. Clinton” or just rudely calling her by her first name in situations where the menfolk always got referred to by their official titles.

You know if any Democrat tried to refer to Michele Bachmann as “Princess Michele” the conservative talk radio machine would be concocting all kinds of reasons that amounted to treason.

Herman should be careful (I figure if he can call the Minority Leader and the woman who used to be third in line for the presidency a “princess,” I can call him by his first name).  Pelosi is tough.  But she’s tough in that “I was raised in the 1960s, Baltimore is a rough political town” sort of way.  When she cuts with an insult, you won’t feel it until she’s long gone.  When asked recently about Cain’s remark, Pelosi scoffed, dismissing him as “clueless.”

My friend Angie noted shortly after Cain’s snarky remark, that Pelosi would look great in a crown.  But if she chose to wear one, I don’t think it would be the Disney Princess kind.

She’d be the King.

If you’re going to be royalty, I say go for the position with all the power — just pronounce yourself King.  I know, Pelosi is a woman, so that should mean she’ d be a Queen if she actually were royalty, but everyone knows that the word “king” evokes more power, even if it shouldn’t.

So, as all good debaters, when being asked about this whole princess nonsense, Pelosi took the king-like opportunity to talk about the next big thing on her political agenda — child care.  Real, affordable child care for all American families who are just trying to make ends meet.  She knows she’s going to take major conservative heat for putting that on the agenda.  I have no doubt she’ll get called all sorts of new names, like socialist or worse.  But she doesn’t care.  She knows she has the real power by not buying into the whole princess silliness and taking this moment of attention to promote a more important agenda that she believes makes sense.

Long live the King.

Image courtesy Angie Lynch

via iStock Photo/Natalie Ozog

How would you feel if your doctor declared, “No more birth control for you!”  Or what if your life was at risk because you had an ectopic pregnancy and doctors wouldn’t operate on you for fear of being charged with murder?

Openly talking about and seeking treatment for our reproductive health with our doctors and then making decisions that we each individually decide are right for us based on that medical advice is something that pretty much every woman in America has done at one time or another.  We rely especially on our OB/GYNs as we navigate the variety of medical issues that arise over our reproductive lifetimes.

But if some people in Mississippi get their way this week, those decisions would be made by the state and some could become criminal acts.

On November 8, if the voters of Mississippi approve Initiative 26, which is also being called the “personhood amendment,” it would be the first state to alter its constitution to give full legal rights that its citizens currently have to fertilized human eggs at the moment of conception.

The language of the amendment may seem simple, but the implications for women and their health goes way beyond choosing sides in one of the hottest political debates in America.  Initiative 26 states:

“Should the term person be defined to include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning or the equivalent thereof?”

Proponents of the effort claim that passage of the amendment is merely the next logical step in their efforts to ban abortions to protect unborn children.  But the actual consequences of such a constitutional provision could eventually mean that various common forms of birth control, like the IUD, the morning-after pill and, possibly birth control pills, would be viewed as forms of abortion and could be outlawed.

Are you ready for that?

Reasonable people can differ on whether they support a woman’s right to an abortion or under what circumstances they should be allowed.  But women still have a constitutionally protected right to have an abortion, even though some state laws and Supreme Court opinions since Roe v. Wade, which was decided in 1973, have restricted the circumstances under which they can occur.  If Mississippi passes Initiative 26, not only would all abortions be outlawed in that state, even in the cases of rape, incest or the life of the mother, certain types of birth control could be outlawed, procedures related to ectopic pregnancies – a potentially life-threatening condition where a fertilized egg implants itself in a woman’s fallopian tubes rather than in the uterus – could be forbidden, and, if taken to its logical conclusion, women could potentially face criminal prosecution if someone deems their miscarriage as suspect.

The Mississippi State Medical Association has gone on the record as opposing the initiative because of the myriad issues it would present for women’s health, including a doctor’s ability to decide what’s in the best medical interests of his or her patient, and whether doctors could be charged with murder or wrongful death by performing certain, regular medical procedures.

Think that some of the darker scenarios sound extreme?  Do you believe that we would never live in an America where women’s lives would be considered less valuable than that of a zygote?

Obviously, each one of us can have different views on abortion, the Mississippi initiative, and the current political climate promoting it, as well as similar legislative efforts pending in several other states.  But with the potential passage of a state constitutional amendment that is as seemingly extreme as Initiative 26, I can’t help but remember the fictional world of The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, a novel that explored a future dystopian world where women’s choices about having and raising children were stripped from them and made by the

Odds are that even with a U.S. Supreme Court majority that’s not a friend to Roe v. Wade, if the Mississippi amendment is approved by voters, ultimately it would be ruled unconstitutional.  But that would still give Mississippi years to pass and enforce laws needed to implement the constitutional amendment that could, for a period of time, force hospitals to turn away women who are miscarrying, criminalize certain birth control methods, and suspend fertility treatments.

Stranger things have happened.  And we live in a country where extreme views are trumping rational thought more each day.  Keep a close on eye Mississippi, because of the Initiative 26 folks win, they’ll be headed to your state next.

Just don’t make me learn this dance to take part!

No one, probably least of all Cain, thought he would gain the kind of traction he currently has as the potential GOP nominee.  In reality, Cain has a book he’s trying to sell, and, well, tossing your hat casually into the ring for a political race is a great way to sell books, right?

Except that in the Republican ‘anyone but Mitt Romney’ dystopia, Cain is, at least for the moment in the polling, a frontrunner.

But whether he remains at the front of the pack will depend on how we, as voters, respond to the news that he may have had a little problem with sexual harassment.  Few of the actual details of the alleged incidents while he was the head of the National Restaurant Association are available — yet — because the women who accused him signed confidentiality agreements when they settled their claims against Cain.

But you know how we love a good story about personal failings and sex!  The reports about Cain are getting a lot of attention, but I’m wondering — will it ultimately matter?  I’d like to think that in the 21st century, that if the allegations against Cain are true, it would be a negative enough reflection on his judgment that he’d be out of the GOP race.  But I know better than that.

I’m not sure things have changed sufficiently enough in the last few decades that voters would say “no” to a candidate who made unwanted sexual advances toward his then-employees.   Are we still a country with a mindset that 20 years ago gave a pass to Clarence Thomas when Anita Hill came forward with reports of unwanted sexual advances?  Things really haven’t changed a lot when it comes to the level of respect, or disrespect, that women have in our society. And, we do have quite the history of giving powerful men a pass when it comes to their “indiscretions.”

Ultimately, the question is whether this is a story about sex or one of character and leadership.  Or maybe Cain realized he was truly in over his head and made sure someone stealthily leaked the information?  Presidential politics is always a crazy game — at this point, nothing would surprise me.

Image via hermancain.com

“You can’t be what you can’t see.”

That’s how the award-winning film Miss Representation begins, a movie that takes a critical look at negative portrayals of women in the media and how that undermines the ability of today’s generation of girls to see themselves as future leaders.

As the mother of a daughter, I’ve always been sensitive to the media imagery my husband and I exposed her to, from cartoons to commercials to Disney princesses, and how they would impact her view of the way women are valued in our society. But as parents, we can’t be everywhere or keep all potentially negative images away from our children. And to be honest, I didn’t think I’d have to worry about that in our 21st century world. As someone who came of age at a time when I thought the battle over women being viewed as less competent, smart or capable as men were over, I didn’t think I’d be worrying about whether women leaders were a rarity or would routinely be mocked with sexist criticism.

Miss Representation is the brainchild of Jennifer Seibel Newsom, an actress, mother and the wife of California’s Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom. Through interviews and stories of notable activists, women leaders and high school students, the film explores how the ways women are portrayed in movies, television, and pop culture seriously undermine their ability to achieve power. The film also explores how this phenomenon makes it tougher for young girls to even consider the possibility of being leaders themselves. Even though the teen girls in the movie lived through Hillary Clinton’s historic presidential candidacy, as well as Sarah Palin’s vice presidential nomination and Michele Bachmann’s current run for the White House, they speak openly about their concerns that women are still valued more for their faces, their bodies or their outrageous behavior, rather than their brains, their ideas and their abilities.

I have to admit, even though I was familiar with the statistics discussed in the movie that show women still lag far behind in positions of power across all professions, I was a little depressed that Miss Representation reminded me in such stark fashion that the world is not a friendly place for our daughters. And it doesn’t look like that’s going to change anytime soon – unless women step up to be more pro-active. For the girls interviewed in the movie, the idea of actually managing to break those stereotypes and becoming leaders for their generation seems almost too large a task to imagine in the face of pop culture portrayals of women as sex objects and a serious lack of real leadership options to change that.

Fortunately, the movie is more than a lament that nothing will change for our daughters and granddaughters until more women occupy the full range of leadership roles in media and across the full professional spectrum. “Miss Representation” is also a call to action, to take it upon ourselves to be the change that we want for the future. One simple way parents can start is by focusing on how much time our children are actually being bombarded by these themes and images. Consider yourself strict when it comes to media consumption in your household? Your children might be seeing a lot more than you think. According to the Miss Representation website, each week American teens spend “31 hours watching TV, 17 hours listening to music, 3 hours watching movies, 4 hours reading magazines, [and] 10 hours online. That’s 10 hours and 45 minutes of media consumption a day.”

After viewing an advance copy of the film, I want to watch this movie again with my daughter, even though as a sixth-grader she might be a little on the young side to really absorb the reality that despite the advances women have made, we’re still fighting an uphill battle. And I’ll be making sure that she does “see” the women who have blazed a trail so that her generation has more seats at the power table.

Originally posted at iVillage