[i-man-suh-peyt]
–verb (used with object), -pat·ed, -pat·ing.
| 1. | to free from restraint, influence, or the like. |
| 2. | to free (a slave) from bondage. |
| 3. | Roman and Civil Law. to terminate paternal control over.
(source: www.dictionary.com) |
In his column in El País 22.03.2008, Carlos Fuentes comments on the battle of the minorities within this year´s race to govern in a modest white shack on a hill in Washington DC, the United States of America.
According to Fuentes, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, a symbol of the emancipation of women, and the hope for the emancipation of the blacks respectively, stand neck-to-neck in the final Democrat spurt to stand up to yet another competitor, the Republican John McCain. More backstabbing and spite has gone into the Democrats' vicious dogfight against each other than against the Republican camp. Interestingly, the Republican candidates went through their scuffle in relative peace and harmony, diplomatically dropping out one by one like rotten fruit, until only one shrivelled apple was left dangling from the Republican tree of The Knowledge of Good and Evil. That apple could buy the Republicans four more years of presidency.
But should a Democrat win the rigorous battle, which will see "emancipation" first - the female population or the black population? Is it Hillary's time to flourish or will it be Obama's moment of glory?
(Please note that, like all writers and journalists and political experts, I too am on first-name terms with the female candidate but I choose to use the surname of all the male candidates. "Barack who? John who?")
What is this fancy buzzword "emancipation" that resounds in the chambers of the political heart of the United States? Like most political themes, it is definitely not a new concept: Western European historians talk about women's emancipation in reference to women's suffrage in the late 1800s; the British writer Mary Wollstonecraft was portrayed as one of the first defenders of the emancipation of women, with her no-nonsense "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman" that was published in 1792 in which she claimed that women were not inferior to men but simply seemed to be because of their lack of education.
Take a look at Pakistan, a Muslim country that had its first female head of state in the 1980s. What kind of liberty has Pakistan allowed women since then, or as a result of the brief reign of Benazir Bhutto? Very little, if any. Where was emancipation in Benazir? (Again, please note Benazir, not Bhutto.)
How, then, would Hillary's victory emancipate women? America the Free will continue to be the haven of underpaid immigrant women, unpaid women on maternity leave, brusied and beaten pop princesses and insecure maidens with facelifts and boob jobs. No shortsighted, Yale-educated 60-something-year old woman with a bad haircut will change that.
The female emancipation that refers to Hillary´s possible presidential victory is nothing more than yet another male consturct of the female. How many times do women have to be emancipated in Western male dialogue?
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