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Dream On
On Saturday night I dreamt I was sitting at a canteen table similar to those in my old school. Opposite me was Hillary Clinton.
I appeared to be at some ad-hoc press conference where journalists got to ask Hillary questions. When it was my turn, I asked the US Senator why she thought she’d lost the Democratic ticket (in reality at the time of writing this, she hasn’t, but it’s not looking good for her). Her reply was, “It’s all because of the oil companies.” Before I had a chance to question her further and ask her to expand on this statement, I woke up.
I decided this cryptic dream was my unconscious mind trying to process my mixed feelings about wanting Hillary to become President. As I read the headlines that she’s almost certainly lost to Obama, I can’t help but feel a twinge of disappointment, possibly borne out of an innate sense of sisterhood.
I remember as a young teenager listening to my headmistress at the all-girls’ school I attended as she inspired us with the confidence that the world was our oyster and we could do whatever we wanted. Whether it was to become a doctor or a scientist, an actor or an artist, a scientist or teacher, our gender was no object. (Of course there were no warnings about how we’d have to work twice as hard as our male counterparts to break through the glass ceiling.)
The election of Margaret Thatcher to Prime Minister in 1979 only proved the headmistress’s point – we could run the country! I remained blindly caught up in the excitement of Britain’s first ever female PM until the mid-80s when I actually voted for her – solely on the basis that she was a woman.
I was so immersed in my own coming-of age melodramas and emotional angst that I pretty much missed the Falklands War and anything else that was happening outside my bubble. I had no concept of ‘left wing’ or ‘right wing’ or anything else remotely political. I even thought the ‘Iron Lady’ moniker was a compliment!
Suffice to say I eventually wised up. When I finally got my head round Thatcher’s desecration of the trades unions movement and the notorious poll tax, I was mortified that I’d helped keep her in power. So part of me is determined not to champion Hillary simply out of gender-based loyalty.
While the ‘first female’ thing is a landmark achievement in its own right, there are other criteria that are more important. Hillary’s not perfect: she voted for the war (then backtracked) and for the US Patriot Act, a nasty piece of legislation that all but obliterates a person’s civil rights (although she did attempt to remedy some of the dodgier aspects).
Nevertheless, I still can’t help wanting her to win so young girls in the US can stand in assemblies and know that one day, they too could have the top job in their country.
I suppose a girl can dream.
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