Marcotte, Amanda. "With Republicans in
Charge, Women are Losing Leadership Positions in the Senate." Slate. The Slate Group, LLC, 2 Feb 2015.
Web. 9 Feb 2015. <http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2015/02/02/women_in_the_senate_losing_commcommi_chair_positions_with_republicans_in.html>
This article discusses the fact that women
will be found in fewer leadership positions now that the Republican Party has
the majority in Congress again. The author claims that the Republican Party
picked a female congressional member to respond to Obama’s State of the Union
addresses the past two years in an effort to “kill off the ‘war on women’
narrative.” This narrative that she refers to is shaped by the media and by
Republican opposition. The message of the majority of this narrative is that
harsh abortion laws and insensitive comments from mostly Republican men means
that the Republican party is not friendly to most women and their needs.
I thought this use of the word narrative was
interesting because the author is essentially talking about two narratives: the
one told by Republican opposition and the way that the Republican Party is trying
to combat it. The use of this particular narrative to the wider media is to
polarize and anger voters in order to woo them toward a more liberal voting
position. The author of this Slate piece then invokes this wider narrative to cast
doubt on the reasons why Republicans appointed a female congressional member to
respond to the State of the Union. Instead of picking these women based on
their qualifications, they were picked to specifically to be an example that
there is no Republican war on women. Later in the piece, the author proves this
more subtle analysis of the second narrative by quoting a New York Times piece that explains that leadership positions are
aligned tightly with seniority, and many female Republican members are junior
staffers. I would think that the response to a State of the Union would go to a
more senior member, like most leadership positions and therefore most likely a
man. This logic supports the idea that the women picked the last two years were
picked specifically to pay lip service to the denial of this war on women
narrative.
Marie,
ReplyDeleteYour article, I would say, goes hand in hand with our readings for this week. In deed, narrative is so much more than I assumed in the past. Narrative, like stories, has multiple elements at play. The Republican example you give above certainly suffices; the voice that women (all women) share is a narrative of its own -- a narrative with many components.
Best,
Aida
I feel like you suggest that the act of calling out a narrative in itself constructs another alternative narrative. I'm intrigued by the direction this could go in!
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