Politics and gender equality haven't always gone together in the course of American History. We've never had a female president, we have very few major female political figures in our overall history, and women weren't even allowed to vote until relatively recently. So in Cheryl Crow's song "Woman in the White House" she explains all the reasons why a female president should be elected: a little bit of female common sense, a woman's knack with money, the general loving, cooperative attitude a woman has with dealing with issues, among others. Now is it just me, or is there a bit of stereotyping going on here? She says a female president needs to be elected because men have obviously messed it up for 230 years. Stereotyping on top of the fishnet-and-high-heel clad legs she has plastered on the cover art for this song paints an interesting picture.
The idea that the cover art gets across to me is one of a no-nonsense attitude; the woman in the picture is about to storm in (looking great, mind you), tell some people how it is, clean things up, and start running the country by sheer force of will because dang it, that's how things are gonna be. That's the idea that the image gets across to me. The song, however, is just so stereotypical. I don't know how to take it seriously. Although, perhaps she is running along the same lines as Pumped Up Kicks? Maybe the addictively simple banjo line and melody are the best ways to get the idea of a female president into the minds of a majority of our nation? The stereotypical woman as described by Crow, who does sound like an amazing president, on top of the "Here's how it's gonna be" image on the cover art makes us think that, hey, maybe the next time we have a battle-of-the-sexes on the ballot, maybe we should vote for a member of the fairer sex? The methods used are crude and stereotypical, but hey, they worked. Who knows? Maybe in four years we'll have a Mrs. President. It could happen. And I kind of hope it does. It's about time that our nation is truly equal. At least on the gender front.
-Kaleb
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Hey Kaleb, how's it going? I agree with you that there definately is stereotyping going on in this song but I think that Crow intended for this to go on. Probably she did this because using the stereotypes of most women would be valued in our country's current situation. As I said in my post I really don't think it matters who is in the Oval Office because with the President being a Democrat and I'm pretty sure the House of Representatives and Senate are mostly Republicans so nothing the President writes up will be vetoed by political views of each other. On the other hand, I do think that Crow picked a good melody with the song. Like you said it did remind me of the Pumped Up Kicks song we wrote about earlier. I personally think it will be a long time before we have a female President.
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