What has American feminists’ new poster child got to show for it?
Across the globe, people and women – crucially, young women have been rejoicing over the fact that Hilary Rodham Clinton’s on the way to becoming the first female president of the world’s most powerful nation. This surely means something. It means that women can be powerful; women can achieve what men have dominated, that women can lead. But, this lead is a mere juxtaposition of contradictory terms –women launching their careers in the governmental sectors adopt characteristics that define the perfect nature of how a man would lead the world in lieu of the woman elected. On a holistic view, Clinton’s journey to become the first female president of America has provided an array, a reflection of sorts to women-don’t fret, Hilary’s here.
But, on the contrary, the claim proves false and crackles as soon as feminism comes into the limelight from the grey zone. Clinton, on the domestic front, has to address a wide range of issues for women from wages to reproductive rights. But on policy matters which make America the greatest and the most indispensable nation on the face of this planet trigger what already has been present in the American foreign policy the hard-lined agenda and the hawkish decisions that have been vehemently endorsed by the soon to be President of the American nation. Skimming through her foreign policy decisions for the American security closely show how many of her decisions to-be are solely based on military confinements-invasions of Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon which clearly indicate the basics of what presents to be a view of what’s in store of the President to be. Following a path based on soft power can never be an ideal situation for America, as its sole reliant has been its exceedingly superfluous military power that has to be maintained and that demands some conflicts around the world too.
If a woman follows the notions of soft power or other discourse that subsides the possible use of arms and weapons-that remarks the tragedy of Aleppo and Aylan Kurdi and millions of refugees who haven’t survived, who are making it to dangerous routes to be safe-that woman then has to suffer at the hands of her gender.
Surviving the facts, if we observe how women leaders have made it to legacies-history often shows a different position for the fact. Taking the example of our own tumultuous underdeveloped South Asia-its women leaders have been foreign educated, with political families and histories that set them apart from the national stream that already provided them with a cutting edge advantage over women who had no say and no power in that context. Taking the example of Pakistan’s only female Prime Minister till date – Benazir Bhutto – her feminist legacy probably doesn’t hold much to satisfy the feminist icon title. Her years as Prime Minister often crumbled with political dissatisfaction-never having enacted a single law that could have demonstrated anything remotely close to women rights or their protection in a male dominated society. Our Eastern neighbour also flirted with the years of Indira Gandhi’s tenure as a female Prime Minister – on the contrary she too had the characteristics Bhutto possessed. A tall, empowering legacy of a political family’s scion, her years in the position only apprehended the catastrophic policies she adopted to sterilise and segregate the society into various fragments through the Anti-Sikh riot. Bangladesh had Sheikh Hasina, due to her father, Sheikh Mujib ur Rehman and Khalida Zia and Srilanka had its own share of the female legacy Sirimavo Bandaranaike and her daughter Chandrika Kumaratanga.
The Western counterparts provide female leaders with examples that altogether reinstate that women leaders do not symbolise feminism in a direction that can be helpful for young girls. Considering Margaret Thatcher-in this regard approached a war in the South Atlantic over the Falklands Islands with Argentina initiated Thatcherism-that eventually pulled off attention from Britain’s domestic front in a war that concerned an overseas British territory. Angela Merkel, Germany’s Chancellor, has always been on a side that is a contradictory notion to the very ideals of feminism-she has led Germany to be the fourth largest economy in the world, the strongest in Europe her policies have represented what a male perspective would have instigated in her lieu. Similarly, and presently Theresa May-the British Prime Minister post Brexit has adopted policies that have a consequential effect on immigrants and thus also poorly address the problems women face in the working force. The Western agenda on feminism describes what corporate feminism can imply, feminism in a truly globalized world is associated and cannot be detached from racial and ethnic groupings to decisions that affect women around the world.
What international community tends to forget is the fact that during conflicts women are the ones who suffer the most-sexual crimes, war crimes, hindrances that solely affect women and are never drafted in the form of a law that would bar the atrocities.
Thus, for America it took 227 years to figure out and to have a female head to lead the American people, but 227 years have still not provided women what they need in figures to empower the American system. 227 years have not made it possible to associate feminism in all its diverse perspectives with female rise to a position so detrimental in world affairs and for women around the world. Ideologies and theories in a multi-cultural and globalised world have to be open to appreciate and engage groups from all across the world and feminism just happens to be the most important of them all.
