Renee Rosenow

For obvious reasons, this year’s elections are big. Some huge issues need to be addressed, and some huge barriers in politics are about to be broken, either on the race or gender line. One of the things that has interested me has been the way people have responded to women in the campaigns.

Among the sweatshirts and backpacks passing along the campus mall on the way to class you can now see a black T-shirt with pink writing that says, “I don’t endorse just any vagina.”

UW-Eau Claire student Catherine Emmanuelle, creator of the t-shirt said the goal of the eye-catching phrase is to create discourse and get voters talking about voting beyond gender. Emmanuelle said she wants women to move away from feeling like they are indebted to vote for a woman candidate solely because she is a woman and start actually researching candidates, according to a Sept. 22 article in The Leader-Telegram.

I absolutely agree that people need to research any candidate they endorse, regardless of gender or political view. I for one am happy to have seen Hilary run for the democratic nomination and to see Sarah running for the veep. It’s time for women to have a place and a voice in national politics, besides in the supporting roles.

But that does not mean I did or will vote for these women based on their gender. I will not give up or ignore my values to vote female. If a woman running is, in my opinion, the most qualified and has ideas I feel will benefit my country, then give me that felt-tipped marker. If not, my check mark is going elsewhere.

The discussion these shirts raise is an important one. Voting solely along gender lines is a cop out. Voting on gender is just like voting solely based on the pro-life or pro-choice issue, or voting along the same party lines as your parents just because they adhere to a particular party. It is un-researched voting. An excuse to get you out of actually having to pay attention and figure out which candidate you support, which candidate addresses the issues important to you. It’s time we all look beyond gender and do a little more research.

But are these shirts the best way to prompt this discussion?
No.

The goal of the shirts, according to Emmanuelle, to get people thinking about candidates beyond their anatomical parts. And yet the slogan is, “I don’t endorse just any vagina.” Vagina. Isn’t that an anatomical part? On the deeper level of the shirts is a discussion about not voting on gender lines. But the surface level, the part everyone sees, possibly without taking the time to have considered the discussion, the shirts equate female candidates to their vaginas.

Now I have no problem with the word vagina. I don’t find it vulgar or offensive, just like I don’t find the words penis, flange, elbow or neck offensive. But what I find interesting, is that in the search for moving beyond viewing women as their anatomy, these women chose to demote female candidates. Whether Clinton or Palin, from the status of “candidate” to “vagina.”

“I don’t endorse just any vagina.”

Women, in a culture where we are constantly referenced as objects, as bitches, as our anatomy, isn’t it time we had enough? Whether or not you think Sarah Palin is the best or worst thing that has happened to politics, or even if you are indifferent, we should never reduce a woman to her anatomy.

The discussion is an important one and it is time we have that discussion, but, women, we need to be able to have the discussion and “stir up the pot” without relegating the political candidates, or ourselves, to the anatomical level. In a culture that already objectifies women, we shouldn’t be doing it to ourselves, or our representatives in politics, regardless of political stance.

It is OK to disagree with a woman candidate, it is not OK to revert back to calling women just vaginas. If we want to be treated as more than just a vagina, it’s time to stop placing ourselves on that level. A vagina is a vagina. If you want body parts out of the discussion, stop bringing them up.

Schneider is a senior English and Spanish major, and editor-in-chief for The Spectator.