You’ve got to be kidding me; I didn’t hear about this.
I was away for the past few days so I missed the footage of Hillary’s teary-eyed declaration, but caught it on You Tube last night while watching the returns on CNN. I had heard about this from NPR, but in a manner that incensed me. The report was that many linguists were going to be hired to determine if her display of emotionality was in fact real.
Everyone is aware that the stereotype that women are born liars is a standard sexist trope. But there’s something more to it. It’s more that women’s emotional reactions to sexism and oppression and mistreatment by men tend to get rewritten as lies, in order to justify the existence of that oppression. Rape victims are taken to be liars for that reason.
Check out this Google search for “crying is blackmail“.
That the narrative quickly shaped up that Clinton was only pretending to cry says to me that her choking up was understood by her sexist critics to be a direct reaction to their abuse of her. It’s possible that she was tired or whatever, but it was understood as an emotional break under sexist pressure.
I’m more convinced than ever that her good showing with female voters was inspired by sympathy; it wasn’t smart of the assholes to remind women of every man who deflected his own responsibilities by making fun of you for caring.
80 Responses to “Faked crying?”
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Amanda, you’ve nailed it in one short post.
aimai
I have to admit: the first thing I thought about was Broadcast News.
Now it is getting beyond stupid. As I said below, much of this speculation is based on the assumption that otherwise apathetic females got up Tuesday morning, registered, and voted for Hillary in droves because she showed “emotion they could relate to” (to paraphrase).
This is a far more palatable fantasy than the reality they are avoiding - the reality that Clinton seems to be a viable candidate that women will vote for, despite the theoretical conflict in the patriarchal hivemind between having a vajayjay and not submissively baking cookies.
Well, apparently the undecideds broke for Clinton; women vote more than men, put the two together and you’re seeing women who were undecided breaking for Clinton.
How many women posting here have been accused of faking tears “to get what you want” or “to manipulate me”? God knows that I have (not in my current relationship, which is why it’s my current relationship).
Question: How many men who would not otherwise vote, will register to vote and vote for Obama or Edwards (or an R in the general) JUST to see to it that a woman does not win the White House?
God dang it, now I’ve wasted half an hour of my life reading those rules.
I’ll go you one better than that, Mnemosyne — I’ve been accused of being manipulative for really crying, and by another woman at that. The woman in question knew I wasn’t faking, but was saying that I was crying to make her feel bad. (The reality of the situation was that I was in danger of failing a course in grad school and taking my entire study group down with me. Yeah, no downer or pressure there at all.)
This whole Clinton crying meme disgusts me. I can’t even vote in your elections (Canadian citizen/resident) and before today, I wouldn’t have said I even liked Hillary Clinton (too much of a Republican for me), but shit, I feel like I want to vote for her now anyway, just to kick the misogynists in the vulnerable parts.
Mnemosyne,
The first time I was accused to crying to get what I want, I was about eight. The accuser was my brother and I suppose it kind of worked for him since I stopped crying when other people were around. It wasn’t until I was in my early twenties that I met someone who made me feel safe enough to honestly express all of my emotions including the ones that make me cry. So yeah, I’m not surprised by this.
As many reservations as i have about Hillary, i want to vote for her just to make Chris Matthews cry.
I’ve heard that it was actually her Q & A sessions in NH that really sold people on her. I wasn’t there, though…*shrug*
“As many reservations as i have about Hillary, i want to vote for her just to make Chris Matthews cry.”
Well, picturing that did make me smile just a little.
Linguists?I’ve heard of cryonics, but I didn’t think this is what it meant.
I adore his whiny little “I’m not obsessed” at the end of this.
And the linguists will determine what she was feeling and thinking by watching this tape?
Sounds like they are not linguists but psychics.
She wasn’t crying. That’s what smart women sound like when they are unbelievably furious, the kind of angry that when men feel it they are entitled to break stuff and yell at people.
Amanda is right that it’s about making women liars, but it’s also about making women’s anger unacceptable.
What I don’t understand is why people are saying she was crying?
SHE WASN’T CRYING! HER VOICE WAS STRAINED FOR 15 SECONDS!
What the hell? Does EVERYONE in the media need to get their eyes checked? Why the HELL do they keep saying she was crying?
I’ve got a clip of Jon Stewart calling Tweety insane. Will that do?
And we thought this campaign was going to be about the issues, right?
Ah, nice to know that time is being wasted on whether the tears are real rather than the misogynistic reaction to them in the MSM.
What the hell? Does EVERYONE in the media need to get their eyes checked? Why the HELL do they keep saying she was crying?
‘Cause she’s, like, a chick, man, and everybody knows that chicks cry at the drop of a hat.
No, seriously, that’s what it is. Welcome to this season’s “Dean Scream.”
I think a lot of people’s reaction to the tape is like my initial one: “They’re making a deal out of that?!” It’s amazement.
After the initial moment of, “You’ve got to be fucking with me,” when we realize what’s going on, it becomes, “Those worthless shits.”
I think that’s why this one resonates more than a lot of other incidents. It’s soooooooooooo obvious they’re making a huge issue out of what was nothing, and the “she’s a girl” is the only reason why.
I hate the way they say “Oh women voted for her now because she displayed emotion and women love that shit”. No, I think women voted for her because the media gave her a really hard time for doing something (not even crying, really, just getting a little crack in her voice) that a lot of women get a hard time for - she was damned if she didn’t “display emotion” and damned again if she did. I find Clinton too conservative, but I was outraged at the vitriol directed at her and so were a lot of women.
I’ve never been accused of crying to manipulate people. That’s because I saw my best friend raked over coals for such a thing at the tender age of six, and vowed then and there that I would never allow that to happen to me. From ages 8-20 I never shed a tear in public, and from about 12-19 I literally never cried at all, even in private, because I had tamped my negative emotions down so far. By an astonishing coincidence, I had a major depression starting about age eight that didn’t lift until well into adulthood.
Yeah, that’s healthy and stable and exactly what we want in a president. Pfui!
ditto Tapetum.
For what it’s worth, to me she sounded more like she was channeling her husband than anything else. An unmistakable undertone of intensity under sweet, positive, passionate words.
The reaction pissed me off, but I’m certainly not voting for her in the primary. A liberal president will be even more of a kick in the teeth to most misogynists, anyway.
She could also just be loosing her voice. Her post NH speech gave that impression
Also, to share a little something from one of NPR’s shows that shows the sexism out there. One of the callers talked about how so much sexism was targeted at Clinton, giving the example of how everyone simply refers to her as Hillary. Briefly after that one of the quests rather pointedly calls her “Misses Clinton”. But there’s no sexism, nuh-uh.
Yeah, Senator Clinton shows that she’s a human being with emotion and it becomes either “she’s faking it” or “she can’t be trusted because of emotions”.
I do wonder how certain talking heads have her as a cold heartless calculating B*tch who is too emotional.
Of course, these are the same folks who were saying that the radio shock jock stunt about ironing was a set-up by the Clinton campaign.
The other side of that is …If she’s calculating enough to fake tears to get votes then maybe she can find Osama bin Laden.
Her own site says “Hillary for President”, “Team Hillary”, etc. so I wouldn’t blame any reporter for how they refer to her.
Oh I don’t think so. Considering many liberals are, in fact, misogynist.
Here’s what really kills me.
She was a college Republican, so it’s normal that she’d have a sense of entitlement.
Yeah, I had a boyfriend once who accused me of blackmail when I was crying, much to my astonishment.
I was crying because I was overwhelmingly unhappy at that moment — a normal, human emotion. While his seemed blackmail to keep me from reacting to his acting like an asshole.
But it reminded me of my emotionally abusive father’s “I’ll give you something to cry about!” threat when I was a child.
It must just be a coincidence, but I’ve since refused to have anything to do with, or speak to, either.
That’s… um… wow.
Does anyone know if any sources covered this besides NPR, or if NPR archived the story on their site?
My dad always got angry at me for being manipulative– not only for outright cried, but looking remorseful, downcast, or anything but complete neurality whenever he was telling me off. BOTH he and I have a huge physiological reaction to emotion– you can tell by how red or pale we turn, anger shakes, etc. It was completely unreasonable of him NOT to understand than I would respond to being yelled at with emotion.
At the same time, I can say that being able to keep a total deadpan was pretty useful to be in the corporate world.
But like Tapetum, I went through a period when I trained myself so completely not to cry, I couldn’t, even in private. I knew I was headed for a total breakdown, because that’s also when the sexual assaults at school began, so I retrained myself to be able to cry, not through the unallowable self-pity, but by dwelling on photos from the Ethiopian famine. Once I could cry for them, I could reclaim an emotional outlet.
I am not a Hillary Clinton fan, let me say that right upfront. But in the clip that’s being played endlessly, I saw a different Hillary Clinton. Not “emotional” not “teary eyed”…but human and accessible. Her real concern and care for the country *finally* came through, and in that less guarded moment, the steely candidate melted away and the *person* came through. Finally, we could see she *did* care. See for ourselves, not just hear mouthed words.
That’s why undecideds broke for Hillary. We got to see what’s underneath that carefully constructed campaign facade…and people liked it.
Sirkowski
“She was a college Republican, so it’s normal that she’d have a sense of entitlement.”
Yeah, and of course nobody changes over 40 years.
CRYONICS!
Bitter Scribe, That is absolutely brilliant!
Sort of on topic, it’s pretty sad when Pat Buchanan is the one pointing out that Chris Matthews is being racist.
(swiped from Digby, o’course.)
Hillary Clinton, as the woman in the primary crowd, is damned if she do.. damned if she don’t. If she doesn’t show emotion, she’s cold. If she shows emotions she’s either faking it or too emotional to be President. What the media and the men, and even some women are saying, is that they just aren’t comfortable with a woman in charge.
The fervor over her “crying” moment shows how hard people will work to proclaim her unelectable. Though the pundits and fans of the other candidates thought this would be her “Dean Scream”, it backfired on them. It became a strength in the eyes of those that could vote for her, and it created a righteous sense of indignation in plenty of others.
The sad thing is that it took a random question, and the media trying to sensationalize her response, for reasonable people to see that she is a warm and caring human. I know people who have worked around her, and said she is just the warmest and most geniune person you’d meet in politics. Not at all the way she’s been portrayed and villified in the Country for 12 years or so. The pundits are pissing off the women at their peril.. I’m sensing a resurgence of the feminist lately, and it’s a beautiful thing.
setting aside the crying thing completely because…. #@$*!@&#!@&!
on to that google search: i like the “rule” or whatever about a 17 month headache. Is it just the assumption now that every guy who reads those rules isn’t going to get laid? Because that assumption would be correct.
HRC is going to be live on “Meet The Press” for the full hour on Sunday (according to Tim Russert, it’s only the seond time she’s been on the show and the first time was a 20 minute remote interview). Talk about “must see TV”!
The sacrifices that that woman has had to make for her country- she’s my hero;)
Now the media is obsessing about the woman who asked the question. Described as the “woman who made Hillary cry,” she voted for Obama and somehow that is supposed to be OMG BIG CAMPAIGN NEWS. But I thinkt hey only want to quote her because she echos the exact same sexist tripe that the pundits have:
“I took a walk on the beach and all I though was how Obama made me feel and I thought about Hillary’s response to me, and I thought she was a soft feminine woman for seven seconds,” she said. “When she turned, she adapted this political posture again, the stiffness and the rhetoric, and I said I really want to vote for Obama.”
About crying… my dad treated crying as proof of irrationality, meaning that he won whatever fight he was having. So he would be as cruel as possible to make whoever he was against (mother, me…) cry, and then be colder and crueler when presented with his proof that we were so very weak.
When men complain or make judgments about women crying I get pretty angry. It makes me question the kind of people those men are. When the person doing the judging is a politician it makes me question his fitness to lead.
You know, that’s exactly what I saw. For the first time, I saw a really likable Hillary: the one her friends talk about.
She wasn’t the tightly controlled candidate. She was just exhausted enough to relax to the point that her real self appeared, if only momentarily. It was the opposite of a calculated response, and that is what was appealing about it.
Either that, or she deserves the Oscar for all time. And I don’t think she’s that great an actress.
And what kills me most was her emotion was for this country, and not wanting it to backslide anymore. Damn, if any of the Republicans had reacted like that, we’d be hearing about their “passion” and patriotism.
I was taunted merciliessly by my brothers for any tears, so I fucking hate crying. Especially in front of men. Unfortunately, it’s a normal reaction I have to frustration and anger, and the more I try to suppress it, the more tears come out.
I haven’t been accused (yet) of being manipulative, but then I haven’t been in that many relationships where this kind of thing might come up.
I’m a cryer, and I always have been… my mom’s outlet when she gets really upset is to cry, but I think that because I was raised by two very rational people, I have learned that it’s just my body reacting to the chemicals that stress generates in my brain.
I’m known to keep up rational, logical conversations when I’m upset and even in tears. It floored many of my friends in highschool. Particularily when I was decimating their argument when in a “girly” (belgh) mode. Recently the wife of one of those old friends thanked me because was willing to address her problems while she was visibly upset instead of blowing her off like her father and brothers had always done, when she asked him about it the next day, he said that she should talk to me when they were visiting the next time.
Tears of frustration aren’t blackmail, tears of anger need to be addressed if a relationship is going to stay healthy (or at all), and tears of pain or sorrow should be given what comfort we have. The more people learn that not all tears are the same and that they have to be dealt with in appropriate manners (and that none of them = lose) the better our society will be.
bah, I put a pseudonym for my friend in triangle brackets and they were read as non-acceptable code… oops… shoulda read:
Recently the wife of one of those old friends thanked me because guy-I-knew was willing to address her problems while she was visibly upset instead of blowing her off like her father and brothers had always done…
Based on a totally unscientific sample of people I work with, it seems like a lot of the people who think she faked it DIDN’T EVEN SEE THE CLIP. They don’t like her anyway, and they are just extrapolating that dislike and gender stereotypes and the inaccurate portrayal of the “incident” to say she’s a big phoney.
I have a lot of beefs with Hillary and she is not my first-choice - still isn’t. But she seemed really genuine in the clip, and for the first time, I got a sense of why she wants to be president, other than for the power. (And I don’t mean that in an overly negative way. They all want power. I just want to see what else they have in mind while they’re at it.)
I like Obama, and would happily vote for him if he gets the nomination - what bothers me is that so many women, who identify themselves as feminists, don’t support Clinton. That’s what I’ve been reading a lot of online, lately. It seems to me that there probably are not a lot of black male civil rights activists who don’t support Obama, despite lack of experience, moderate positions, weak health care plan, etc., so why do so many feminists not support Clinton?
Also, Jesse Jackson Jr, Obama’s campaign chair, suggested that Clinton was crying about her hair and how self-centered of her that she would cry about that and not Katrina. Video on Feministe.
I am now officially ignoring all Democratic primaries blogging for the rest of the year for my own emotional wellbeing.
Word to this. More than that, if they saw it, they probably saw a tightly edited clip prefaced by smarmy “journalists” implying the fakery.
It’s the same with Edwards’ sexist remark.
If you see the whole clips, Hillary is not whining about the difficulties of the campaign trail, but is actually being open about her love for the country. Edwards is bullied by the press several times, at first he doesn’t answer at all, given as he didn’t see the clip, but when he sees they aren’t going to stop, he flips off a quick, ‘campaigning isn’t as hard as Presidenting’ response. All he has to go off of is the reporters telling him Hillary cried about how hard the campaign trail is. He’s just come off the bus after a 36-hour marathon and undoubtedly had visions of W’s “being a President is HARD” floating through his head adding to the ire.
It was a dumb response, but understandable. Hillary’s response was the first genuine thing I’ve seen, and I wish I could see more of that candidate, but she’s too tightly controlled and controlling to risk it.
It seems to me that there probably are not a lot of black male civil rights activists who don’t support Obama, despite lack of experience, moderate positions, weak health care plan, etc., so why do so many feminists not support Clinton?
Actually, Obama hasn’t gotten a huge amount of support from civil rights leaders, at least at the beginning of his campaign. There was a lot of talk about how he wasn’t “really” black because his father was an immigrant from Nigeria. He got Oprah’s endorsement, but there aren’t a lot of black politicians rallying to his side.
I don’t support Hillary Clinton because I don’t like her policies and the fact that she’s so tied into corporate interests. If she wins the nomination, I’ll be happy to vote for her, but I don’t like her policies enough to vote for her in the primary.
Are we sure they really meant linguists? I’m a linguist, and I’m pretty sure analyzing emotion isn’t what any of us are trained to do…
Kenya, not Nigeria, but point taken. I don’t know if the gap has narrowed but for a long time Clinton polled much better with blacks than Obama did.
My feelings precisely. I would add that Hillary, as a candidate, would likely motivate a high turnout by Republicans, since they despise all things Clinton. She’s a strategically poor choice.I disagree with the earlier poster who remarked that feminists should feel duty-bound to support Hillary. Would they be duty-bound to support her if she were a Republican (which she damn near is, anyway)? In a perfect world, the female candidate would be the best candidate for feminists — the best candidate, period — but alas, such a world doesn’t exist.
It’s worse than that, Astraea, I’ve heard people claiming the woman was a plant because she has former ties to Democratic campaigns. So there’s a conspiracy theory floating around that the entire event was staged to help Clinton.
Ugh, I’m SO SICK of hearing about this! Personally, I’m not crazy about Hillary’s politics. Obama seems to be the one whose beliefs most closely match mine.
And as much as I think it’s ridiculous how the media is obsessing with Hillary’s “emotional breakdown” (eye roll) and the outrageous treatment she’s getting because she’s a woman, I am not going to vote for her to “get back” at all of the media jerks who are treating her badly.
I am going to vote for the candidate whose values and believes most closely match my own, regardless of their gender.
There is a great link on Alternet of Jon Stewart talking about what a non-event this was. He includes a montage of crying male politicians, starting with Nixon. I wonder if any of them were dissected for crying the way Hillary was? I’d LOVE to be able to research media reactions to them.
To the extent it helped Clinton with female voters, I think it was a backlash against the sexist coverage of her emotional moment (I don’t even know what to call it), not the actual display of emotion. So that would be a pretty complex plant. Let’s plant a woman to ask a question to which Clinton will give an emotional response to which the media will grotesquely overreact, thus swaying women to our side! It’s brilliant! In this version of events, if the media had not taken the bait, there would be no benefit to Clinton. Of course, the national media may just be that predictable. (The local New Hampshire press didn’t really pick up the story, by the way.)
Kenya, not Nigeria, but point taken. I don’t know if the gap has narrowed but for a long time Clinton polled much better with blacks than Obama did.
Whoops, sorry — I was posting about Carol Moseley Braun’s troubles in another discussion, so I had Nigeria on the brain. Kenya, not Nigeria.
I hate the “crying is blackmail” stereotype. Hate it.
First, because it insults both sexes: women are manipulators while men are so emotionally stunted that we can’t deal humanely with someone who’s upset and stick to our guns at the same time. We are helpless before Teh Teerz.
Second - and more importantly - because I have a personal grudge against it. My wife does, in fact, cry easily, so she tears up whenever we have a moderately serious argument. I’m a soft-hearted fellow, so in the early days of our relationship, I would always give in immediately when that happened. As you can imagine, it didn’t take long for some resentment to set in. That resentment was just made worse by the fact that I, like everyone else in this culture, had been stewing in the “crying is blackmail” stereotype from birth. It took me years to discard that stereotype and start relating to the woman I was actually with rather than the manipulative strawwoman I’d been taught to expect, which means it took me years longer than it otherwise might have to learn how to…just imagine it!…deal humanely with someone who’s upset and stick to my guns at the same time.
It took posts like this (and a similar one over at Shakesville, where I made similar comments) to explain to me just what was wrong with my head during those years.
People need to know just how good feminism is for relationships.
If that’s a plant, then I WANT this woman as president. You know how HARD it is to pull off such a complex sceheme in real life???? You WANT this kind of success in the White House!
Godmonkey, don’t you think the Republicans would get their pitchforks ready for any female candidate nominated by the Dems?
They don’t like women who seek power - period. They’ve just had a few years to stew in their hatred of this particular woman.
How will we ever find the “perfect” female candidate? I am truly curious about people’s views.
If that’s a plant, then I WANT this woman as president. You know how HARD it is to pull off such a complex sceheme in real life????
On top of that: The “plant” actually told the press afterward that she wasn’t all that impressed with Clinton’s answer and ultimately wound up voting for Obama. I guess just to throw us off? I don’t think even Machiavelli could have formulated the crystalline perfection of this scheme.
It seems that many women are so afraid of being called all girly and dumb and shit that they have to preface every remark with “She’s not my first choice, but” and “Of course I’d never vote for a woman just because she’s a woman”. But everyone has carte blanche to vote for Obama and say “we need a black man in office”.
There is NO, repeat NO, rational reason for the severity of the Hillary hatred. Not one. Other politicians have committed the same sins she has and nobody blinked. There’s an irrational reason, and it’s called institutionalized misogyny.
The same institutionalized misogyny is evident when the men pat the girls on the head and tell them Hillary will mobilize the Rethugs, so voting for her is doing what the Devil WANTS them to do. It’s the same reason for the “faked crying” horseshit.
We’re not really people to these people. Why on earth do we take these arguments seriously?
Fifty-one percent of the population does not constitute a special interest group. It’s time we made that clear.
Sigh. That being said, I’m still not sure who I’m voting for in the primary. Blecch.
Yeah, six brothers here, I’ve heard all my life about crying as blackmail. Or better yet, while bawling over breaking it off with my then fiance, I was asked by my mostly-feminist-ally Dad (he falters a bit sometimes) if I was suffering from PMS.
When I think back over crying in public, it’s almost always been rage and frustration that got me there- which is a facet of crying that people tend to forget.
This bears repeating.
Thanks for the link to the Reclusist Leftist. Her story knocked my socks off.
“I don’t think even Machiavelli could have formulated the crystalline perfection of this scheme.”
But, but, what the typefaces?!?! They didn’t even come from the same typewriter! And the bad Photoshop job! And what about JAMIL HUSSEIN!!! And there’s only a few Small Holes In The Burnt-Out Hulk Of That Mosque! IT’S NOT COMPLETELY DESTROYED!!!1!1!!
BESIDES, AMANDA MARCOTTE HAS A DIRTY MOUTH!!! AND SHE HATES RELIGION! AND WANTS ALL RELIGIOUS PEOPLE KILLED!!!
…oh sorry. Wrong bogus Reichwing outrage story…
I too am annoyed by the perception/allegation that if we, as women, vote for someone who’s experienced the same frustrations as we have and who’s had to fight against the same misogynist culture as we have (i.e., a woman) that that is somehow not a rational informed voter choice. OF COURSE I want to vote for someone who views the world similarly to the way I do. Doesn’t everyone do that? Somehow it’s considered reasonable for white men, for black people, for the uber-religious, for the wealthy, for whoever else to vote for someone like themselves on the assumption that such a person will better understand their interests and concerns, but it’s uninformed irrationality is gender is the basis for the similarity. As if gender didn’t inform my interests and policy concerns, as if government policy has no particular bearing on my life specific to my gender. Considering how much gender influences the way we are perceived by and move through this world, why on earth shouldn’t that factor into our voting behavior?
I am one of those who finds myself moving more toward Clinton the more she is attacked in gendered ways because it feels REALLY FUCKING FAMILIAR TO ME! As a brainy woman (who always excelled in math & science no less), I know just how hard it is to be taken seriously despite having boobs.
Also, you can count me among those who cry when angry and frustrated. I hate that my body does that, because people (esp. men) then stop listening to what you are saying, just dismissing you as hyperemotional. I have actually said, through tears, “Pay no attention to these tears! My body is just reacting with my anger, but it doesn’t mean my argument is any less valid! Listen to my words please!”
I think women cry when they’re angry more than men because men are allowed to get mad but women aren’t. I just watched the Simpsons movie for the first time last night, and the mob is coming for them after learning that Homer destroyed Springfield Lake. Simultaneously, Lisa learns of her father’s role in the environmental disaster and she’s flipping out at her dad as the family tries to escape. Marge tells Lisa that now is not the time. Lisa says: “But Mom! I’m so angry!” and Marge grabs her by the shoulders and shakes her and says “Honey, you’re a woman! You can keep it forever!” And Lisa gets a distinctly constipated look on her face, tamps it down and the family escapes. For some reason, when I saw that I immediately thought of this whole thing with Clinton.
They don’t always listen when you’re coldly, quietly, logically angry, either, Beth. Often then it’s “ooh, look at the mad gurl”.
I don’t cry when I’m mad, but I cry when I feel like it. When I’m pissed I’m pissed, no crying. I know that most women have been more heavily socialized to “be nice” than I have, though, so I know why they cry when I don’t. (One small advantage to having a misogynist father and no brothers–they tend to try to create a son out of the oldest girl).
Er, you do realize that you went and negated your whole argument that women should automatically support Hillary, right?
I think the biggest reason that people preface their comments with “I’m not a Hillary supporter” when they defend her is that we’re trying to point out that we’re not planning to vote for her in the primaries, and yet the sexism directed against makes us sick. That’s the reason I do it. I’m not an Obama supporter, either (not after his “ex-gay” and Social Security scaremongering) but I can still recognize that Andrew Cuomo went way over the line.
My point exactly.
Cara, I wouldn’t write off all opposition to Clinton as nothing but misogyny. She’s in bed with all the same people as her husband, and given a chance to vote for Edwards or Obama over Bill Clinton, I would in a second.
Count me as another woman who cries when she gets angry and hates that she can’t control her physical reaction. Fortunately, I’ve never gotten the blackmail accusation but definitely gotten the “don’t be such a big baby” and “why the hell are you crying about such a non-issue” type reaction.
And Hillary wasn’t crying. If that was crying, then Mitt Romney was bawling like a baby on Meet the Press.
Check out this video of Bill Clinton emoting for the camera immediately after the funeral of Ron Brown, Clinton’s United States Secretary of Commerce who died in a plane crash in 1996.
This has to be seen to be believed.
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_011008/home.guest.html
Meanwhile, of course, the truly disgusting sentimentality gets a pass - I mean, the sentimentalizing of toughness. Being a tough decision maker. Once upon a time, if you were leading a horde or a phalanx, it might have required a little toughness - nowadays, decision makers are so insulated in their little bubbles that it simply requires a lack of imagination and narcissistic absorption - two qualities that are always in supply in the governing class - to make the “tough decisions.” The people who are really tough, in America, are those who have to get by raising kids and stuff on lowpaying, deadend jobs, living close to mass layoffs and debt collectors. There are no tough people in the glittery upper echelon world at all - they don’t exist there. This is a world that gains its virtues by proxy, though - it is brave by ordering soldiers to die for nothing, it is tough for decisions that will never effect it, etc. Whenever a politician or talking head starts talking about toughness, I reach for my bullshit meter.
This is so making me flash back four years to the “Dean scream”. REmember what a huge deal that insignificant 3 sec expression of joy was analyzed and pronounced the end of Dean’s presidential aspirations?
Pablo, welcome to The Magic of Editing.
One of the things they should teach in “Media Literacy” is how we should insist on seeing ten seconds before and after any incriminating clip that gets heavy play in the media.
This idea obviously has problems, but at least we could say “withhold judgment until you see it ALL.”
@Emma #51: Yeah, speaking as another linguist here, I feel I can say with authority: “I do not think that word means what they think it means.”
Which makes me ask, “How the hell else would a woman in this country get so far?” It doesn’t have to be ALL misogyny to be enough misogyny that it’s beyond fucked. Does Obama not have any questionable people he’s “in bed” with? Is Edwards lacking in connections?
I don’t think Hillary or Obama are exceptionalists. I don’t think they’re going to sell the rest of us out. (I don’t think Edwards would, either). I maintain that the reason for such close scrutiny and mountains made of molehills, beyond the MSM usual bullshit, is that she’s female. If Obama gets nominated, he’s next (see ’shuck and jive’ and ‘cocaine use’). If it’s Edwards, see ‘hair’ and ‘forgotten your roots, boy’ and ‘wife sick, he’s too emotional to lead’.
I thought Hillary’s teary moment was really rather sweet.
Even if it was faked (which I very much doubt), then her presidential diplomacy will be simply splendid, if she can act that well.
I’d sell that line to the GOP for an attack-ad, if I were you!
I’ve been mocked throughout my life for showing any emotion. So, I do everything I can to never show emotion. It’s counterintuitive, but I think this makes me more likely to break down when under a lot of pressure. If Hillary had cried, it would be completely understandable. When you bottle everything up, you’ll eventually get to a point where you can’t hold anything in. That’s my experience anyway.