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"The issue of gender is, obviously, a big one in this election. For this week&amp;#x27;s post, I interviewed the women of Feministing, a blog aimed at young feminist women&amp;amp;#8212;and one that I read a lot lately, even though I don&amp;#x27;t really consider myself a feminist (see below). I love the way they&amp;#x27;ll call offenders out on sexism, and the way they&amp;#x27;ve been tracking the issue of gender and race in the election. Note: The answers to my Q&amp;#x27;s came from Feministing as a collective response&amp;amp;#8212; they wanted to be credited as a group, &amp;quot;the women of Feministing.&amp;quot; They are: Courtney E. Martin, Jessica Valenti, Samhita Mukhopadhyay, Ann Friedman, Celina De Leon, Jen Moseley, Vanessa Valenti and Deanna Zandt. Thanks all! Q: I am intrigued by the idea that America is or isn&amp;#x27;t &amp;quot;ready&amp;quot; for a woman president (or a black president, etc). What do you think? As young feminists, we are all too aware of the ways in which some Americas aren&amp;#x27;t &amp;quot;ready&amp;quot; for a either a female or a black president. (Ever heard some meathead guy say, &amp;quot;What would a female president do when she got her period?&amp;quot; Um, continue to lead the country, dumbass). Sexism and racism are both alive and well, despite the profound progress that has been made. On the other hand, a lot of Americans&amp;amp;#8212;particularly the young and fed-up among us&amp;amp;#8212;are totally excited about the transformation that is happening in this country. Imagine how much our global reputation, not to mention our national identity, could be changed by having a biracial or female president as our leader. Q: This is something that&amp;#x27;s come up a lot on Glamocracy: What&amp;#x27;s your take on the &amp;quot;race versus gender&amp;quot; question? Our take is that the &amp;quot;race versus gender&amp;quot; question has been simplified into ridiculousness. Jen said it best in a recent post: &amp;quot;Obviously the electoral process in this country forces an either/or decision. Isn&amp;#x27;t it depressing that what was so exciting, a woman and a black man poised to be the Democratic presidential candidate, turned into a battle over race and gender? But this battle is between the candidates, not their struggles and backgrounds. We can&amp;#x27;t let the game of politics become the oppression Olympics. That doesn&amp;#x27;t help anyone.&amp;quot; Q: I consider myself a pretty bad feminist. I find that I don&amp;#x27;t get as worked up as the generations before me about sexist jokes or sexist comments. I think it might be because I&amp;#x27;m haven&amp;#x27;t really had to struggle because of my gender. Plus, I feel that there is much more to my identity, such as race and nationality. Is feminism losing power because of women like me? Wow, that&amp;#x27;s a whopper. First of all, what do you think of as a &amp;quot;gender struggle?&amp;quot; Too often our generation sees ourselves as individuals operating in a vacuum (Facebook profiles, competitive college admissions etc.) and the result is that we mistake racism/sexism/classism etc. as personal failings. For example, have you ever felt pressured to make inauthentic choices about your own sexuality? Have you ever known anyone with an eating disorder? Do you know that you&amp;#x27;re still likely to make at least a quarter less than a man in an equal position? Now on to the idea that feminism is losing power. We feel strongly that feminism is transforming to be even more powerful and inclusive. Feministing, for example, gets over 150,000 hits a month from young women all over the nation. That&amp;#x27;s higher than the circulation of some of the nation&amp;#x27;s most famous magazines (we won&amp;#x27;t name any names). Because we&amp;#x27;re online, we reach girls in small towns in Iowa, as well as urban loud-and-proud feminists. Sometimes people find our site as a result of a Google search on Paris Hilton. Those are our favorite readers because their lives are really transformed by this online space where young women are prioritized and encouraged to make their voices heard. And they just wanted a glimpse of the sex tape! Q: Do you think that Clinton&amp;#x27;s candidacy is changing the way that people think about women and power? What would a Clinton presidency mean for women? We don&amp;#x27;t think Clinton is a particularly galvanizing figure for a lot of young women, but at the same time, she&amp;#x27;s certainly forcing this country to face issues of gender and power. That&amp;#x27;s always a good thing for feminism. If Hillary Clinton wins the presidency, she will&amp;amp;#8212;no question&amp;amp;#8212;forward human rights and feminist values (or at least some of them). Would her leadership reflect that more than other candidates? Not necessarily. One of our convictions, as young feminists, is that women can be just as oppressive as men towards other women. Likewise, men can be committed feminists. Just as all of us are responsible for combating racism, all of us are responsible for and capable of creating a more just world when it comes to issues of gender. Again, the symbolic power of having a female president would be paradigm-shifting. No one would ever be able to make the argument again that women aren&amp;#x27;t ready for the presidency. What do you guys think about their responses (and my questions!)? What is feminism&amp;#x27;s role in this process? &amp;amp;#8212;Fernanda"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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