Women and Hillary Clinton

[question everything]

Jonathan Chait, a senior editor at the New Republic, had an op-ed in the LA Times (perhaps it was already posted here) about how many women, especially older feminists, view Hillary as a stand-in for their lives, their struggle to be recognized in the workplace and in public life.

I found his concluding comments right on the mark:

I'm 36. My female classmates attended college looking for careers, not husbands to support them. My mother forged a career in business. People of my generation tend to have a less personal view of Clinton. She's not us, she's not our ex-wife, she's just a politician.

It looks pretty crazy to those of us not old enough to fight in the second-wave feminist wars. If I spent years being disrespected and discriminated against in my household chores and my workplace, though, maybe I'd see it differently.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-chait21-2008may21,0,2243133.story

[GarbagemanLB]

1. Many women feel it is best to vote on issues rather than gender. Good for them.

[DJ13]

2. When someone holds themself up as a surrogette for a disenfranchised group...

...its always best to question if that person is capable of using other people for their own selfish goals.

When it comes to Hillary, theres no doubt the answer is yes.

[grassfed]

3. oh fer fecks sake

Ego, pride and narcissism is all it is.

Hillary hitched her wagon to a man, screams sexism when convenient, has an abysmal pro-war and torture voting record and has displayed an abominable lack of character for months now. This is not an acceptable role model for our daughters.

[Triana]

4. Thank you grassfed. And as a 48-year old woman...

....who saw a lot of discrimination in her life/career/personal relationships, Hillary is NO role model for any of us - first or second-generation feminists.

She's a disgrace.

[saltpoint]

5. While there's no question that many women may feel they are "disrespected

and discriminated against" in households and workplaces, projecting their personal narratives onto Hillary Clinton is a questionable strategy.

Where were these folks when Senator Carol Moseley-Braun ran for president in 2004? We didn't hear much from them then. What was the problem?

But now, with Hillary Clinton, we hear how sexism has driven the nomination contest. If one rejects discrimination based on gender that does not compel one to vote for a female BASED on gender. Does it? How does it? "I have suffered, therefore I have to vote for only female candidates BECAUSE they are female."

This pro-feminist male ain't buyin' that hash.

[question everything]

10. She became a role model when she was attacked by sexist terms

"bitch" and "whore" and comments about her makeup, hairdo, clothes, cleavage.

When she shed a tear and was viewed as either weak or manipulative, while men do this all the time.

When she stood up in debates and answered questions directed at her precisely and concisely, while the men just hemmed and evaded the questions and got away with this - just as it is in the workforce.

When women were attacked for supporting her because she is a women, while blacks were praised for doing the same for Obama.

When women came out criticizing her for her marriage, her sexuality, her lack of pets (I think), just trivia, and were praised.

This was when women saw themselves in her.

Just as that poetess characterized Clinton as the "black president" because the attacks on him reminded her of the way blacks have been treated.

[saltpoint]

16. I'm sorry, but you're slinging barnyard byproduct.

Your post posits that sexism exists, which no one I know has questioned, during this campaign or before it for many centuries, and I do mean MANY centuries, back to the usurpation of the sky gods over the round, womb-creator female archetypal goddesses.

But that is not the point at hand.

Senator Clinton did not lose the nomination -- and she has most certainly lost it -- because someone made jokes about her cleavage, which most of us boys by the way stopped smirking about in junior high school.

She lost the nomination because she ran a piss-poor campaign.

Her lack of pets? Her lack of pets? What the hell are you talking about?

Since a whole hell of a lot of women are supporting Obama, or other candidates when 8 stood on the debate stage, your point falls apart like a tinkertoy model.

My suggestion, not that I harbor hopes of your taking it, is to drop the Victim meme. And fast. It's unpersuasive and irritating in addition to being dead wrong.

[question everything]

17. "slinging barnyard byproduct"

From Newsweek, way back from February

This is the shit that has been thrown at her from day one, from "intellectual" women, like many who post on DU:

The essays—written mostly by New York intellectuals, and edited by Susan Morrison, The New Yorker's articles editor — dissect Clinton's femininity, sexuality, clothes, mothering, marriage, mystique and, of course, likability. Or, more precisely, why so many educated, middle-class women have a visceral response to her. "My generation definitely has a Clinton problem," writes Amy Wilentz in an essay on Clinton's clothes, or "costumes."

The reasons for their suspicion outlined here are mostly personal — she doesn't have a hobby, aside from cleaning closets and completing crossword puzzles. She doesn't appear to have been deeply attached to her family pets. She lacks sensuousness. She showed a hint of cleavage. She wore turquoise earrings with a yellow pantsuit. She liked prim headbands. She changed her maiden name. She married Bill Clinton. She stayed married to Bill Clinton. She is still married to Bill Clinton. Even her voice, Marie Brenner writes, "reminds us of the fifth grade teacher we despised."

http://www.newsweek.com/id/105587

[saltpoint]

18. Well, I'm sorry, but in my deepest blood and bones, I do not give

a flying crap in Bolivia whether she bonds with her pets.

Jesus.

[eridani]

20. I would not call any of those authors particularly feminist

They seem to be obssessed with totally trivial bullshit.

[GoesTo11]

21. The emotional bond was forged earlier than that

She became the sympathetic victim wife icon when Bill received oral sex from an intern (what was her name?) in the oval office.

[ShortnFiery]

6. Don't paint older women who have faced sexism, up close and personal, with a broad brush.

I've attended military schools where only 1 in 30 soldiers were women.

Yet, after paying a dear price to help young women integrate more smoothly within the military - I'll be damned if I will support a woman for President who is devoid of a moral compass. Yes, I'd rather wait for a truly worthy woman candidate that my daughter and I can be PROUD of.

Again, there are SIGNIFICANT numbers of older career women who are supporting Barack Obama.

Please hesitate to lump us ALL in HRC's camp? ;) :hi:

[Howler]

8. Shortnfiery said it all

I'm a 48 year old woman who will passionately support a worthy female candidate when given the opportunity.
Clinton's own voting record in the senate prohibits me from doing that now.

[question everything]

11. This is fine. She should be judged on the merit

but, as I just posted, above, when she was attacked by sexist terms that had nothing to do with her candidacy, this was when women saw a reflection of their own lives in the workplace.

[anonymous171]

7. This whole "stand-in" theory could explain why some hillaryists continue to espouse

the belief that Obama is some kind of raging sexist, despite having no evidence to support their accusations.

[question everything]

12. The truth is, it is not Obama; it is his supporters

who could follow his example of being gracious and civil toward her and her supporters.

If the nomination is his - and I believe it is, have done so for many months now - why can't his supporters be patient and be patient and tactful? Why the, yes, verbal lynching of her?

Why, all of a sudden the trashing of Bill's presidency?

He was the first Democrat to be re-elected since FDR; the economy expanded across all income levels when he took on the huge deficit and ended up with a surplus. He nominated two - call them moderate - Supreme Court Justices that make it possible to hope for a better balance. He left office with the highest approval rating of any president and, were it not for the Constitution, he would have been re-elected to a third term.

But Ted Kennedy, who probably helped ushered Reagan by going after Carter, and whose own baggage would have made it impossible to be a president, cannot stand that Bill accomplished what he could not, and was a major force in recruiting a non-Clinton candidate.

[Marrah_G]

9. I think she presumes to speak for alot of people

I am her age, I have a career. I disagree with her on having less of a personal view of Hillary.

[NC_Nurse]

13. I am 47, I have worked, then stayed at home with kids, then worked again.

I think it's true that many women are seeing this as a feminist battle. I don't.
I don't see Hillary as being at all like me. She has let her ambitions get in the way of her principles.
She's simply a politician, not a martyr of some sort...

I have never found her answers in debates to be clear or concise - she panders in the worst way, evades and
dodges pointed questions.

I don't see where calling her a bitch is any different than people calling male politicians assholes or any of the other epithets that
are thrown out around here.

[papapi]

14. Define 'many women'. Six, twelve, thirty-six?

Opinions are like you-know-whats, everybody has one.

[Raine]

15. I'm a 57 woman and have faced plenty of discrimination

along with sexual harrassment but that doesn't mean I support Hillary. I don't see Hillary as a role model or a way of making up for the discrimination etc. I went through. I proudly support Obama

[Lugnut]

19. I'm 62

I've seen plenty of discrimination in my lifetime and would love to see a woman in the Oval Office. Hillary is not that woman.