May 16, 2012--Obama at Barnard: Take 2

I woke up yesterday morning to the latest polling results:

Mitt Romney's support among registered voters who are women has grown and is slightly above President Barack Obama's, according to a poll released Monday. The CBS News/New York Times poll shows Obama's support among female voters dropping five points over the last two months, from 49% to 44%. Romney is up 3 from 43% to 46% within that coveted demographic, according to the survey. The margin is still within the survey's sampling error, however. 

What's going on here, I thought, well before I could get some caffeine into my system. Considering his policies that attend to women's issues, and Romney's opposition to them, shouldn't Obama be well ahead?

As I thought about this, I wondered that perhaps Obama's focus on equal pay for equal work, contraception, women's health care, and abortion, though these positions resonate for all the women I know, maybe that is his problem--they relate to the kinds of women I know more than to the kinds of women I do not know.

I was reminded of the possibility when I thought back over last Sunday's Chris Hayes' show on MSNBC. On first viewing I thought it to be excellent--on Mother's Day he had a panel of primarily feminist authors who spoke with uncommon insight (at least for TV) about the contradictions and tensions in women's lives as they struggle to balance work, family, and child-rearing responsibilities.

But on second viewing I realized that though from time to time Hayes or one of his guests speculated that some of these issues were class, race, and ethnically-based, and therefore not necessarily generalizable, his panel did not include any Latinas or anyone who could talk about women's issues from the perspective of the unemployed or working poor.

And then on Monday there was Obama's commencement address at Barnard College, one of the few remaining women's colleges.

My first take was that it also was excellent. For me he hit all the right notes as he challenged the nearly 600 graduates to think of themselves as roll models as they embark on careers and in doing that they should strive to seek seats at the head of the table.

He reminded them than more than half of all college grads are women as well as more than half of all those earning masters degrees and doctorates.

I couldn't have said it better, so I thought.

But then again I took a second look at it and came to feel that though he was attempting to speak to all women, and many men as well, if I were a women struggling to make ends meet, if I had never been able to go to much less complete college, if I were worrying about losing my house and my office job, I wouldn't be thinking about becoming the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, something Obama also referenced at Barnard.

From this perspective his speech seemed tone deaf and even politically counterproductive. This unconscious elitist attidude could help explain why he is losing ground with women while people like me find ourselves puzzled.

Better, the Barnard speech could have been his version of a Sister Souljah moment. 

Rather then concentrating so exclusively on the kinds of things on the minds of Ivy League graduates he could have said something that included the following:

Like you, I went to an exclusive college--Columbia right across Broadway. Like you, though we may have had to struggle to pay the tuition and do well, with our degrees, even in the current economy, we have significant advantages. For this we should consider ourselves fortunate. 

But, and this is a very big but, there are millions of young people in America who, though they are willing to work hard, do not have our advantages. 

In many cases they are again forced to move back to live with their parents because they can't find jobs or make enough money to pay rent and their student loans. There are millions more who never got a chance to go to college or had to drop out to work to support themselves or their families. 

There are further, millions of single mothers who are not any older than you who are facing even more daunting challenges.

In other words, you--and I--have done well and will most likely continue to do so. 

But let's not fool ourselves as to how far our privileged example can be thought to represent the truth. 

With that awareness what do I recommend?

First, acknowledge the complicated truth about your and other's lives. Understanding the truth is always a good place to begin. 

Then, do everything you can to help raise awareness about the implications of these inequalities. 

And, if you are inclined, and I hope many of you will be, find things to do--full or part-time--to show respect for and work to improve the lives of those less fortunate. The vast majority of Americans.

I am not a speech writer (as should be evident from this!) but Obama is an excellent one and has a brilliant staff to help him. 

What was missing at Barnard, however, wass an awareness that can reach those who are disenfranchised and are entitled to be heard and to feel an emotional connection to their leaders and to the rest of us who are, in spite of everything, managing to do well.

Like those of us who might have tuned in to Chris Hayes on Sunday or listened in on Obama at Barnard.