It looks like the Discovery Channel is letting people vote, American Idol-style, on the country's greatest American and the top Five Greatest Americans are all men.
It's undeniable that Benjamin Franklin, Martin Luther King, Jr., Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan, and George Washington made incredible contributions to country and to the world. (I'll bite my tongue about how much damage Reagan did to women, especially women of color, just this once.) Which of the men nudged Susan B. Anthony, who worked to empower half of the country to vote out of a spot in the top five?
And in the Top 100, why does Hugh Hefner make the list but not Gloria Steinem? And why Tom Cruise and Christopher Reeve but not Joan Baez or Marie Curie or Shirley Chisholm or Chief Wilma Mankiller or Ani Di Franco? AND WHY RUSH LIMBAUGH ON THE LIST AT ALL?
The initial 100 people on the Countdown were overwhelmingly men. Here's how the list breaks down as best as I could tabulate (thank you, biography.com):
- 19 of the 100 are women
- 6 male athletes and no women
- 6 male inventors and no women
- 5 of those 19 are first ladies
- only 3 of the 19 are of color and they're all African-American
- only 1 woman - 2 if you count Eleanor Roosevelt - is not heterosexual
Not that First Ladies haven't made awesome contributions to the country - like Jackie O helping to preserve great old buildings and Hillary Rodham Clinton advocating on behalf of healthcare, children's rights and choice - but I've never thought it was very feminist to pat a woman on the back for being married to someone else.
I probably shouldn't take these silly lists seriously, but these are NOT who I think a list of the greatest Americans should represent.
Contributed by Jess Wakeman
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"but I've never thought it was very feminist to pat a woman on the back for being married to someone else."
This is one of the great secrets of the upper class and successful. Who you marry is one of the most important decisions you can make. You should marry for MORE than love. It takes a team effort to accomplish greatness. I suppose you could do it by yourself, but most great people have a great partner. I believe it's truly feminist to give credit to a wife for the success of her husband and vice versa. Many of todays (marriage is a tool of the patriarchial oppression) feminists don't want to give credit to the woman who supports her husband and so achieves much more as a couple than the husband or wife could on their own. Could Bill have been President without Hillary? Could GW have been President without Laura?
If you understand this, then you understand why Hillary forgives Bill's indescretions. She loves him as a person and as a member of "their" team. When you're part of a team you understand and forgive your teammates weakness and they yours. You have a larger goal and purpose.
Hugh Hefner????
Many of todays (marriage is a tool of the patriarchial oppression) feminists don't want to give credit to the woman who supports her husband and so achieves much more as a couple than the husband or wife could on their own. Could Bill have been President without Hillary? Could GW have been President without Laura?
Note who has suffered the humiliation being married to an alcholoic and a serial adulterer. Could they have made it that far without a woman on their arm? Probably not. Could Hillary have become Senator without Bill? Probably. Could Laura have become more than a housewife with two wild child children without George? Probably. Can a woman be of value without enduring a man who cheats and drinks just because they manage to become successful in the end? Probably. For every woman married to a Bill or George, there are others living in shelters and/or poverty because they "stood by" too long.
Problem is, every time somebody's made a huge, legendary fight for equality, they've made it on behalf of some people, and once the equality in question has been granted, there has been some people who still didn't have it.
Therefore it's impossible to say that Thomas Jefferson is a better American than Elizabeth Cady Stanton, or vice versa, with any objectivity.
Making this country great has been a team effort, a sort of relay race. The founding fathers, the abolitionists, the feminists, the civil rights workers, the ACLU, the gay rights groups, and so on, not always in that order.
Greatest American is a misnomer. Without Jefferson and Franklin, Lincoln and Stanton would have had very little to go on, and without Susan B. Anthony and Margaret Sanger and Cesar Chavez and Martin Luther King, the freedoms that Washington and co. fought for would be meaningless to a majority of Americans. And there's nothing more UNamerican than freedom and equality for SOME of us.
Umm....
Madame Curie was Polish and French. Gloria Estefan is Cuban. Last I checked, they reserved positions on 100 top Americans for Americans.
Oops, sorry I misread Gloria's name.