If I hate Clinton, will you like me better?
James Wolcott draws my attention to this kick-ass review by Susan Faludi* of this new book Thirty Ways of Looking at Hillary: Reflections by Women Writers. I was wanting to read this book, because I think it would be awesome having 30 different women talk about how Clinton’s achievements and the sexism that impedes her affects them personally, but unfortunately, it seems that only a handful of the writers went that way. According to Faludi’s review, far more common was the attempt to distance one’s (female) self from Clinton, perhaps in a pissing-in-the-wind hope that by doing so, you’ll escape the same pressures put on her. Same as why a prosecutor doesn’t necessarily want a bunch of women on a jury in a rape case—they’re just as likely to victim-blame as men, because they hope that by blaming the victim, they can somehow escape being the victim.
I’m not endorsing Clinton in the primary, but should she win, I’m behind her, and the sexist abuse of her has made me like her more, not less, because she prevails under it. To me, she’s a role model. Her willingness to stand by an adulterer is not something I hope to emulate, but it’s understandable, and in the grand scheme of her accomplishments, it strikes me as both a small thing and none of my business. It seems so straightforward, and yet Faludi reports that the dominant tone of the book is something like, “I just don’t like her, and I can’t explain it, probably because to do so would reveal how much misogyny I’ve internalized.” Faludi explains that this sort of opinion arises in a culture where young women can gain some semblance of power by becoming ciphers for the anti-female opinions of sexist men.
If any female demographic exerts force in American culture, it’s not moms, it’s girls—and it’s been that way since the possessed teens and ’tweens of the Salem witch trials were trotted out to attack the society’s independent matrons. The American girl’s power, of course, is limited, derived from powerful daddy sponsors, aimed typically at other women, especially those whose 30-years-old freshness date has expired. Grown women, so often without patriarchal backing, are out of luck—there’s no matriarchy to step in to offer wisdom and hand over the reins. We have no female establishment invested with the power to bestow authority, to pass clout from “mothers” to “daughters.” The only clout comes from attacking mothers to establishment applause in the public square.
Reading this book, I’m reminded that we’re essentially a distaff nation of motherless daughters, who operate on a marriage metaphor of power. Only one woman gets the prize, and the others must be knocked out of the ring so that she alone can grab the ring. With no real foundation for female strength, the much-vaunted “sisterhood” is destined to degenerate into a Lady of the Flies scrum—with, in this case, Hillary as Piggy.
The second paragraph describes Mo Dowd’s bizarre obsession with Clinton to a T. She can’t get out of the mode of competing with Clinton for some elusive male approval, as if she’s the Snow White to Clinton’s stepmother queen. The inclusion of Kate Rophie in this analogy points to this interpretation, as well. Roiphe has built her entire career on being a Salem witch-accuser, cozying up to the male-dominated publishing industry by being the cute young thing that is a powerful tool to wield against women who want actual power, not the pretend power you get by being a witch-accuser. It’s unbecoming to continue this schtick into middle age, not that it’s attractive on younger women. But at least in very young women, the combination of naivete and feeling the sexual power assigned the witch-accuser can understandably overwhelm reason. In someone over 25 or 30, it begins to really seem grasping.
How much does Roiphe annoy me? I can’t ever seem to get to the bottom of her cluelessness.
The essayists’ reasons for their rancor at Hillary are as immaturely nonspecific as those of that poor girl’s adolescent tormentors. “I have yet to meet a woman who likes Hillary Clinton,” Ms. Roiphe sniffs. “We just don’t like her,” she says, channeling the women she has met. “We like her husband, but we don’t like her.”
Roiphe pulled this same schtick in her “rape victims should just shut up about it” book. She didn’t know anyone who was raped in college, she claimed. I think it was Katha Pollitt who pointed out that there was a feedback loop going on—Roiphe is a rape apologist, and rape victims don’t exactly go to rape apologists for consolation. Same story here. It’s not like you can’t tell what women are going to squirm when you say, “You know, I like Hillary Clinton.” For some women, that’s like ripping their underwear off in public. It’s depriving them of a major tool in the kit of Ways To Charm Gentlemen. I’d probably hesitate to make Roiphe uncomfortable by telling her that I like Clinton, because I’d feel bad embarrassing her, but should I ever meet her, as a public service, I will.
*I am usually not one prone to major girl crushes. I make exceptions for Kathleen Hanna, Margaret Cho, and Susan Faludi.
119 Responses to “If I keep bashing the queen, I’ll get to be Snow White forever”
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Indeed Media Matters reminds us who the real witches are - everyone whose skin is lighter than a brown paper bag:
From the February 3 edition of Fox Broadcasting Co.’s Fox News Sunday:
BILL KRISTOL: Look, the only people for Hillary Clinton are the Democratic establishment and white women. The Democratic establishment — it would be crazy for the Democratic Party to follow an establishment that’s led it to defeat year after year. White women are a problem, that’s, you know — we all live with that.
[laughter]
JUAN WILLIAMS (National Public Radio correspondent and Fox News contributor): Not me!
HUME: Bill, for the record, I like white women.
KRISTOL: I know, I shouldn’t have said that.
Funny you should say that. Rebecca Trainster’s column about Should I Vote For Hillary or Obama? has one letter writer accusing those who vote for Hillary because they want to see a woman President as guilty of (guess who’s?) “vagina politics” that “brought the first scandal to the Edwards campaign.” So Hillary’s a witch, and everyone who’s a voice for women is a witch. Witches everywhere! Arrrgh!
So so so so true, Amanda.
Men are never accused of voting with their dicks.
But women live in fear of accusations that we’re voting with our vaginas. So to avoid it, many women chose men. That way, they stay on patriarchy’s good side… for now.
Fun fact: in the original version of “Little Snow-White” collected by the Grimm brothers, it’s Snow White’s biological mother who tries to kill her, not her stepmother. But the sentimentalization of motherhood came into full flower and it was changed to being a stepmother because, after all, a real mother would never become jealous of or try to kill her own child.
That’s why they call them fairy tales …
Clinton’s style annoys me thoroughly, and I only recently put my finger on why:
She’s a vagina-equipped northeast coast old boy. I get totally sick of the “I don’t know shit but I’m going to have an opinion with authority” types in state and local government, both male and female. It is an old paradigm and it is a broken one in the modern era. Just seeing the establishment types in Massachusetts bully anyone (like or governor) who support anyone else is reason enough to not vote for her. They are totally antidemocratic about their “do as I say because the machine says so” bullshit. I’m not voting for more of the same on a national level.
Clinton is fit to govern should she be nominated. I would support her over any driver of the clown car, even though I loathe her style. However, I won’t be told that I should vote for her in the primary by a bunch of similarly demogogic hacks who prize their personality cults and machines above effective participatory government leadership.
Snow White? Forever? Eww. That makes my skin crawl - my daughter has recently found the Disney Princesses, and Snow White is by far the most annoying of them all.
But the point is solid.
I don’t like her personal manner, nor am I inspired by her politically, and it doesn’t mean I’m misogynist. Somewhere along the way, it became accepted as a truism that powerful men are lauded for traits for which powerful or would-be-powerful women are excoriated. This may often be true, but it’s not an equation that plugs into any given set of variables to arrive at an explanation. Hillary Clinton is a perfect example: a cynical, self-centered political animal with plenty of intelligence, but little vitality outside of her own ceaseless self-promotion. Not traits I have ever admired in a man. Not the right person to inspire a nation sorely in need of inspiration. Obama’s much, much better, provided he’s willing to play hardball, rather than just issue bland palliatives, when the time comes for it.
Also, Clinton’s voting record is pretty conservative, in large part. The political sphere is rife with people like Hillary Clinton, and here’s to her for having intelligence and plenty of nerve, but no thanks. To accuse women who don’t like Hillary Clinton of having internalized patriarchal sexism is just so much name-calling.
It almost goes without saying I’ll support her if she’s nominated, which seems likely. I mean, come on.
That’s not the “I don’t know, but I just don’t like her. I like her husband, though” tapdance, Godmonkey. Still, it’s worth wondering why it’s so much easier to latch all those criticisms onto her and not her husband.
How do you feel about Yoko Ono, if I may bring up another hated older woman who had the nerve to marry a well-liked man?
Bill, I grew to personally dislike over the course of his presidency. Gotta admit he was quite the charmer in 92. He was inspiring, if falsely so.
Yoko Ono? Not sure how to answer. I always felt sorry for her, because she was unfairly maligned on the world stage, and I thought she had courage and more talent than people allowed. But. The lady’s so pretentious as to be ludicrous. I mean, really, really, really pretentious — insufferable.
Janine, though, completely ruined Spinal Tap — meddlesome harlot!
Part of the woman hating by women I think is fear related. An oft-unmentioned aspect of the witch trials was the sexual torture of the accused “witches”. I think of the rank misogyny that must have been on display then (and now) and sometimes think these women are engaging in self-preservation versus outright dislike (or if they truly dislike women like Clinton, it’s probably somewhat rooted in how “uppity” women can increase the dangers against all women by rocking the boat and angering the patriarchy).
Is there a certain amount of internalized misogyny in
?
It makes me think of “mutton-dressed-as-lamb” comments rather than the “by the time you’re older, you really ought to know better” that’s (I think) the point of the comment. (And further complicated when the person being criticized probably does buy into the patriarchal assumptions about sell-by dates.)
I’m not even sure how one would say something like that without willy-nilly drawing in a sexist subtext…
Whoh! Interesting.
I think too much is put on Yoko, personally. I think she successfully levereged her privileged background and her country’s post-war chaos to escape a life that didn’t suit her and seek free expression and unconventional situations. I also think that she is seen as “controlling” Lennon and hiding him away from the world as a result, when that may have been exactly what he was looking for given his mother’s transient interests in him and in parenthood.
Right on, Kate. Lennon wanted a controlling mommy figure, it seems obvious. Plus, the Beatles were breaking up anyway. Plus-plus, Lennon was insufferably pretentious himself — thing is, his body of work speaks for itself. Yoko’s “installations” were well ahead of their time, they sometimes showed wit, but that’s about all you can say for them.
And I promise that’s the last I’ll say about Yoko!
Men are never accused of voting with their dicks.
But women live in fear of accusations that we’re voting with our vaginas. So to avoid it, many women chose men. That way, they stay on patriarchy’s good side… for now.
In fairness, at least in terms of this campaign, we’ve heard a lot more abourt how Blacks vote one (obama) of their own, than the fact that whites are voting for one their own (when backing Hillary)
Wow, that was excellent, both Faludi’s writing and Amanda’s…I do see one big gap in both, though–maybe it just isn’t a widespread enough thing for it to seem obvious to anyone else, I don’t know. But I do know at least two women who don’t like Hillary Clinton because they think that *she* has done exactly what you’re referring to above as what many women do in regards to Hillary, as in, *she* has sold out to obtain the elusive male approval. Both these women really admired her all the way through Bill’s first presidency and well into the second; though they both don’t think that her marital woes and internal resolutions are anybody’s business, they were first a little disillusioned by the political-wife way she seemed to cave in when it all came to light, and they think she’s gradually become more and more of also a “woman-apologist” in deeds if not in words over the past several years–that she’s the most hawkish about Iraq of the current Dem frontrunners now is something they’d never have imagined the Hillary of most of the 90’s being.
If we step back from the gender issue and look at Hilary solely as a candidate, aren’t we looking at a perverse paraphrase of the Oscar Wilde quote on Shaw? That Hilary has all the enemies in the world, and none of her friends like her?
I mean, think about it. Isn’t the Democratic Party’s passion for self-destruction neatly encapsulated in the fact that after eight years of George Bush, when the GOP is in free fall, when people are screaming for something different than what we had, the Democrats are likely to nominate the one political figure in America guaranteed to galvanize the GOP base and alienate many others to the point where we might actually have a GOP win in November? Yes, there are people out there who despite Hilary because she’s a woman. There are also hundreds of thousands who won’t vote for her because she is Shillary, the corporate sell-out and Iraq war enabler.
Don’t forget, it isn’t enough for the Democrats to win. Gore won. A win must be a win big enough to clear two other hurdles: the ancien regime stupidity of the Electoral College and the likely level of GOP fraud and vote suppression. The latter was one of the most damning criticisms of Gore in 2000: he ran a campaign so execrably bad that the election was actually close enough to be stolen.
This comment in particular struck me:
“Faludi explains that this sort of opinion arises in a culture where young women can gain some semblance of power by becoming ciphers for the anti-female opinions of sexist men.”
This resonates with my experience in graduate school, and I have an anecdote to accompany that. My department had a guest speaker, the representative for our discipline from the National Science Foundation - in other words, the guy who decides whose research gets funded. He talked about how to write a grant and so on. It was fine.
At the end, a professor asked him, “So, X, what do you think about the state of [discipline] these days?”
X replied, “I’m glad you asked. I think [discipline] has gone dramatically downhill since the 1960s. It’s the fault of [famous scholar] and the women’s movement, which was inherently anti-male and anti-science.”
There was an awkward silence. The facilitating professor chuckled and said, “I’m surprised there’s no comment about that…”
The woman grad student sitting next to me whispered, “That’s because we all agree!” She wasn’t kidding.
My grad school experience has shown me that there’s a huge percentage of young academic women who actively repudiate feminism. Putting aside the undergrads (”But men really are smarter than women!”), the grad students and faculty are also on board. There is a very widespread sense that women individually and collectively are better off rejecting feminism, politics, culture etc. and just becoming the best scientists possible, on exactly the “boys terms.” This perspective is accompanied by a great deal of bitterness and resentment towards those of us who do practice some form of feminism, or questioning of the science and politics done in “boys’ terms.”
It’s just my 2 cents, but I think they’re wrong. I don’t think there’s actually any power to be gained by becoming a cipher for the patriarchy, in the long or the short term. But it’s a common and influential position.
“Her willingness to stand by an adulterer is not something I hope to emulate, but it’s understandable…”
No. It’s not. That right there is an absolute deal-breaker for me. As a very wise businessman once told me, a man who will cheat on his wife will cheat on his business and on everyone who depends on him. It shows a lack of personal integrity.
I won’t cheat- and I demand that my partner be the same way. Otherwise, why be in a relationship? There’s something very broken in the ego of a person who knowingly stays with someone who cheat on them.
So my point still stands, socraticsilence.
Women are accused of voting with their vaginas and blacks are accused of voting with their melanin.
Men are never accused of voting with their dicks.
I think Ms. Kate has nailed it for me. I’ve been struggling with the whole Clinton thing for years now — feeling wistful for the “I don’t bake cookies” woman I knew and loved from ‘92. She’ll never have the “Elvis” — to quote Molly — that Bill has, so the constant swimming toward the middle and right side of the pool seems more cynical and calculating. But it’s the same formula. It just feels like more of a betrayal since it seems to directly contradict so many issues she embraced then. But it’s the stench of establishment inevitability about her that keeps me from trying to ignore the other crap and embrace her with my oh-so-powerful vagina. As with everyone else, I’ll pound the pavement for her if she’s the nominee, and even enjoy the thought of my daughter seeing the first woman president elected, but it will still seem like a battle half won.
ClenisGate occurred when I was in my mid-teens; I remember thinking that she should leave the bastard high and dry while he was still in office. I was a young, stubborn idealist feminist from nigh-birth, and quite resolute that if I were in her situation, that’s what I would do.
Then I grew up. I have had someone cheat on me, though I didn’t know about it until we had already broken up, so I don’t know if I would have done as I had pledged to myself - though, likely, I would have. (On the other hand, I did ignore plenty of warning signs and indulged in a little more denial and giving benefit-of-the-doubt than I ought to have, so maybe not.) I know people who have cheated on their boyfriends, their girlfriends, their wives. Some have worked through it; some have not. It depends on the relationship, the people involved, the ramifications on the lives of the family. I liken judging women for staying with a cheating husband not all that far off for judging a woman for having an abortion; you don’t know their lives, so you really can’t judge their decisions in matters like this.
I also remember that Hilary would have been damned as not placing her family first if she left him, and God knows she’s already been accused of being a cold, heartless bitch; she was really damned either way. Can’t we just all agree that Bill and his penis were unhonourable, and stop persecuting the woman for her husband’s mistakes?
So much of the Hillary hatred that is filtering around comes straight out of the media. I’ve seen opinion shows (Mainstream Media! Not just Fox News and Rush!) in which people make comments like (paraphrased),
“Oh, and of course Hillary is just a horrible human being. Everybody knows that.”
And then the next day, you see people walking around saying,
“Of course I hate Hillary. She’s horrible.”
If you ask them why, they can’t articulate it, because they have no evidence. They have simply internalized a message that they have heard over and over. It has become “common knowledge” to them.
Not saying that Hillary doesn’t have her faults politically and personally (just as every candidate does). But I am saying that all those who parrot that “I’m not sure why I hate her but I hate her with all my soul” bullshit are bleating sheep.
“Men are never accused of voting with their dicks.”
And they (we) do, all the time. How many men vote Republican primarily because they are buying into the whole phony-macho self-image that the Republicans have fashioned for themselves with the aid of the media?
I thought one of the best movie lines in recent memory was in “Superbad,” where this kid asked a cop what it was like to carry a gun, receiving the candid reply, “It’s awesome! It’s like having two cocks, and one of them can kill people.” That is 3/4 of Republican politics right there, IMHO…
“Her willingness to stand by an adulterer is not something I hope to emulate, but it’s understandable,…”
and Louise’s follow-up.
I think this line of criticism is one of the biggest tools of the patriarchy. It seems to be what one can accuse Clinton of, even if nothing else fits.
Guess what? My dad cheated on my mom and vice versa. Most of my friends parents cheated on each other at least once. Most of the people in long term relationships I know have not been able to stay faithful, although they cherish staying together. The way I see it, is that unfaithfulness is part of most long-term relationships. The grown-ups face the facts and choose whether or not it’s a deal-breaker for them.
If you think that infidelity = cooties and staying with someone who cheated = unsanitary, you simply have no idea of long-term relationships in the real world.
Long story short: I see it as a sign of misogyny and immaturity to judge Clinton on her choice to stay with her husband. Isn’t feminism assuming that women make grown-up choices? And don’t give me “she is just being a political opportunist” shtick. Most spouses would have done the same - heck, maybe you would have done the same.
You are assuming a closed marriage, aren’t you? It is possible that the Clintons have an open marriage, but, like atheists, keep quiet about their choice because it is political suicide.To be frank, the Clintons have always struck me as having a cool, logical, practical view of their marriage as a vehicle for mutual objectives very akin to spouses of royal eras gone past. That would be seen by most American voters — wholesale, near-total consumers of the Romance & Fidelity models of marriage as a loathsome arrangement. Personally, I don’t have a problem with such an arrangement between two consenting adults and don’t feel that the are obliged to conform to traditional marital expectations.
I find it interesting that their shared friend, Blumenthal, has harped on a mantra that nobody knows what goes on inside the marriage of others. Frankly, I think possible that Blumenthal is telling us something by telling us that we don’t know something.
But, for the record, I also concede the possibility that Bill is a cheatin’ horn dog.
I also disagree with thinking that Hillary staying with Bill somehow hurts her feminist creds (as anyone who has been there can tell you, sometimes it’s much more challenging and brave to stay in the relationship than it is to walk away).
We really do have no idea what the nature of their relationship is and what they do or do not allow (and therefore have no right to judge).
Jeez, if we liberals aren’t going to bury the whole Bill The Adulterer narrative, who the hell will?
Hillary’s husband’s proclivities (no need to kid ourselves, she was an intern and the whole thing was unseemly, squalid even, albeit nothing more) shouldn’t reflect on her at all. Not one bit. The fact that she’s John McCain in drag should.
Two words:
Margaret. Thatcher.
Hey. I went to Wellesley, and I consider myself an unabashed feminist. The sexist treatment Hillary gets bothers me as well. Still, I don’t support her, because her positions on the issues are crap. She supports DOMA, her healthcare plan is nothing but shilling for the insurance industry, she’s never apologized for her idiotic stance on the Iraq invasion, her stance on NAFTA is terrible. In addition, she keeps pulling the “experience” card, when she’s had 2 terms as a disappointing Senator in my state. Spare me. She doesn’t have my vote, and there you go. I am so so sick of the whole trope of being a “bad feminist” because I disagree with Clinton.
This is what gets my goat- Shillary, Hillbillary and all the other histrionic name-calling idiocies that are spewed for the sole reason of tearing someone down. She is a seating Senator and due the dignity that that entails. You are not an Democrat/Republican/Independant when you act like that, you are an oppurtunistic infection in the social fabric. That is what the misogynist backstories that are spread are all about, they infect the public discourse and raise the fever of discontent.
Senator Clinton is conservative on some issues, progressive on others. She has a solid history of working towards children’s rights, education and healthcare. She has a good record on many, if not all women’s issues and guess what, I don’t back all of them either. Senator Obama has less of a record because he is younger and has fewer votes to be analyzed. I find it interesting that she was accused of intending to parlay her Senate seat into an immediate run for President but he actually did it and nary a peep about that. She is accused of bad choices on her votes where he just avoids voting at all. She townshalls, he orates. I don’t want her for a best friend but she is a good candidate for President.
Whoever wins is probably not getting elected in four years, the entire government needs to be fixed, the economy is wallowing, the wars need to be dealt with and all those things mean that the way taxes are levied will probably need to be changed. Whoever deals with this mess is looking at a one term Presidency and raw hatred at the end of it. I think Senator Clinton is probably the best to walk into the furnace and Senator Obama is the best to get a second term of Democratic-held White House in 2012. By then the government can hopefully afford happy happy joy joy.
“Margaret. Thatcher.”
…a woman from the “right” side of the political spectrum, so it was okay to support her. The normal rules don’t seem to apply when the Reichwing (here or in GB) is involved…
Has anybody else thought of this?
If it weren’t for Hillary Clinton, Barak Obama might be an assassination target - and vica versa. Any nutcase that fears a female president as being against God might likely be a race hater or have delusional anti-Muslim feelings too, and the other way around.
“The way I see it, is that unfaithfulness is part of most long-term relationships.”
that sounds like a sad justification for being a cheater.
“The grown-ups face the facts and choose whether or not it’s a deal-breaker for them.”
If you think that infidelity = cooties and staying with someone who cheated = unsanitary, you simply have no idea of long-term relationships in the real world.”
These statement contradict each other. Either we’re allowed to chose for ourselves if it is a dealbreaker, or we’re just misogynistic and immature because we don’t think like you. Which is it?
Kate: Nope.
Now this isn’t really on topic but. as a nerd and a gamer and generally speaking young person I dislike Hillary because she hitched herself hard to the Censorship Bandwagon, particularly during the whole Jack Thompson/Rockstar debacle. Now I hate censorship at an ideological level, but the problem is young people, nerds in particular, we see that as flat out insulting and vaguely hostile to the youth. Her “young people think work is a four letter word” fuck up didn’t help at all either.
So yeah every time I see her I see old people bitching about how music wasn’t so violent “back in my day” and the same lack of faith in the next generation that only serves to make things worse and make people try to legislate regressive tradition.
““The way I see it, is that unfaithfulness is part of most long-term relationships.”
that sounds like a sad justification for being a cheater. ”
Nope, just realistic. I happen to be monogamous - but it’s easy for me. I also happen to be not-so-judgmental: if people cheat on each other, but want to stay together anyway, I happen to believe they might know what’s best for them.
” “The grown-ups face the facts and choose whether or not it’s a deal-breaker for them.”
If you think that infidelity = cooties and staying with someone who cheated = unsanitary, you simply have no idea of long-term relationships in the real world.”
These statement contradict each other. Either we’re allowed to chose for ourselves if it is a dealbreaker, or we’re just misogynistic and immature because we don’t think like you. Which is it? ”
Betty, you can choose for yourself. You can’t choose for Clinton or anyone else - and you may want to abstain from judging them on their choices: you don’t live their lives. That’s all.
Kate: yup. I still think they might end up on a ticket together for just that reason.
Poor Yoko Ono. I’m so glad that the Insufferable Music Snobs of this generation are giving her the credit she deserves, while she’s still alive to take it. Most women unfairly maligned as witch-wives don’t get that chance.
olyamorousness certainly works for some couples, but it ain’t for everybody. It sounds great on paper, since it accommodates “natural urges.” But sexual jealousy appears to be a natural, or at least primal, impulse, as well. Ah, an impasse. The one thing “grownups in the real world” know all too bitterly well.
Go around the block a few times, and you’ll see these dramas unfold. Polyamorousness often ends in much more bitterness than extracurricular “cheating.” Not always, of course. But often.
In addition to what Cassie says, even if you disapprove of Bill Clinton’s adultery, it’s unfair to hold Hillary Clinton accountable. I do believe she was what we call the victim. While a lot of us like to take other people’s adulteries personally, the only legitimate injured party was Hillary Clinton. She was the only person who had a promise in hand, and the only person who had a right to recourse that she declined. Lewinsky and Bill were after-the-fact victims to various degrees, but the only victim of an adultery is the cheated-upon spouse. It’s not our place to sit in moral judgment on how a victim chooses to cope. Most long-suffering spouses don’t get a shot at the presidency as consolation.
Also, what seeker said. Love and fidelity are okay things to build relationships on, but I’ll bet professional marriages are more stable.
Thanks, Amanda.
Am I the only one here who, in watching Bill and Hillary, is reminded of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine? (The first half, that is, before the kids and the inter-family warfare!)
Re: Godmonkey
Just to clarify, I’m definitely talking about garden variety cheating, not open marriages or polyamory. And many people stay together despite jealousy, somehow. Not claiming I always understand it, but you see, I’m not them, and moreover, it’s really none of my business.
As opposed to, say, domestic violence, which is just plain not ok. Infidelity != abuse, although I understand that in some cases they play well together.
At first I thought that that comment about Clinton and work being a four letter word for young people was a joke, a myth. I went and checked it out. It’s actually true! I don’t know what’s worse. That she was stupid and generational enough to say it, or whether the apology, when it came, was only to her daughter who called to complain.
“Nope, just realistic.”
According to the awful state of the relationships you describe yourself as knowing about. This is not the experience of everyone. So telling someone else they’re misogynistic and immature for not thinking like you do contradicts everything else you’re saying.
“I also happen to be not-so-judgmental: if people cheat on each other, but want to stay together anyway, I happen to believe they might know what’s best for them.”
Agreed. But then you followed it up with:
“If you think that infidelity = cooties and staying with someone who cheated = unsanitary, you simply have no idea of long-term relationships in the real world.”
meaning that if one doesn’t chose to believe as you do – that everybody, but everybody is a cheater so suck it up - then we’re clueless about the real world. Except you have no way of knowing what anyone else has experienced or their reasons for choosing the way they will behave.
So, the whole thing comes off as a sad justification for being a cheater.
Sigh. I left a comment over an hour ago, and it disappeared; since I’m logged in and didn’t have to type in any numbers, I didn’t think to save it, and now Amanda’s come and gone in this thread and let through comments from the spam filter, so I’m forced to conclude that my comments have been lost to the ether. It was on the long side, but the general points were:
1) I have always been rabidly anti-cheating, and thought Hilary should have left Clinton during LewinskyGate, when I was 16
2) I have since grown up and realized that while I myself am severely anti-cheating, relationships are complex, and much like abortions, everyone’s situation is different, and there are reasons why women may stay with a cheater that are her own, and not knowing her life as well as I know my own, I am in no position to judge.
3) Hillary Clinton was damned if she did (leave him) and damned if she didn’t; as liberals who can analyze a situation out of the normal patriarchal archetypes, let’s put all the anger square on the person that deserves it, shall we? Starts with a B, ends with “ill”, and was the person in possession of the active penis in question.
Then were do people like me fit in? Very well attuned to the real world but utterly clueless in our own relationships?No, wait, here it is… there’s already a word for it: the “majority”. Good word.
Whenever I see people complaining that HC is ambitious and “is just motivated by the love of power,” etc., I wonder what the hell they think every other politician is motivated by. If you just want to help people and make a difference in the world, there are dozens of ways to do that without enduring the innumerable hardships and humiliations of running for (and serving as) president. Anyone who does make it all the way to a presidential campaign has to have a huge amount of ego and ambition, or they would have given up long ago. But Hillary’s ambition seems to be either more noticeable or more objectionable. (Three guesses why.)
And I like Yoko’s solo work a lot better than John’s.
Yeah I never got why people are pissed at her because her husband cheated on her and she didn’t cut off his dick in the Rose Garden. Most people who go through that kind of shit, settle it privately.
I like Hillary, but I like Barack more. If she gets the nomination, I will be pleased, but not as inspired as if Barack gets the nomination. Most people I talk to feel similarly. My only misgiving about her is that she will probably fire up the wingnuts more than Obama would (though I am sure that his being black and having a strange African name would serve as a Republican “get-out-the-vote).
Don’t mean to thread-derail, so this is my last.
Betty, I’m pretty open and honest with people about bad stuff that happened to me and my family, including cheating in relationships. It’s usually only after people realize that I won’t judge them for it that they tell me what they went through. Many people you know might be going through this stuff without telling you - and they never will if they get the feeling you are not going to be sympathetic to them.
“So, the whole thing comes off as a sad justification for being a cheater.”
I would say more so for being non-judgmental. As a counselor, I prefer to allow my clients to make their own decisions on their lives — no matter how “bad”. If I think that someone would be much happier outside of a bad relationship, I try and help them see if that’s true for them. I could argue that, as a professional, I know what’s best for them from a clinical standpoint, but I would be way wrong. I can help them to see discrepancies in their goals and their realities and even give my opinion if asked, but to try and give them THE right answer would 1. take away their right to their own autonomy and 2. be doomed because if they took the advice without agreeing with it they would fail or more likely, would ignore it because it was offered in a manner that would encourage contradictory behavior.
The bottom line is that no one knows anyone’s reality but them. To presume otherwise might feel good and solid and righteous, but it’s not really beneficial to anyone.
“Whenever I see people complaining that HC is ambitious and “is just motivated by the love of power,” etc., I wonder what the hell they think every other politician is motivated by. ”
YES!!! Sycorax, my feelings exactly. Pretty much anyone running for public office must be pretty damn ambitious and at least slightly in love with power, so jeez, people just need to get over the fact that a WOMAN might be just like everyone else.
Shame your taste in music has to be so awful though
During ClenisGate (love that, BTW) I strongly felt that the whole to do should have been between The Clintons and nobody else. It also occurred to me that they may have had an open marriage arrangment, again all their own business.
I was also pissed off that there was no mention whatsoever about the rather serious security issues inherent in NOT practicing safe sex! Isn’t it a matter of national security for the president to protect himself from giving or receiving HIV, syphillis, etc.?
“Pretty much anyone running for public office must be pretty damn ambitious and at least slightly in love with power, so jeez, people just need to get over the fact that a WOMAN might be just like everyone else.”
If you described all politicians as “so slimy they’re covered head to toe in a thin layer of ectoplasm”, then you’d probably be right on the money. Funny how this is perceived as such a disgusting and unseemly thing from a female candidate, though.
The only critique (from feminist about the HRC campagin) that has bugged me a bit is, the one where conflating Bill and Hillary is seen asa misogynist ploy (something that it normally would be), while at the same time Hillary runs on the Clinton years. Pretty much all the other criticsim have seemed not just rational but well supported by the evidence to me.
So, the whole thing comes off as a sad justification for being a cheater.
And yet, the person under discussion was the cheatee.
Interesting that there’s been no mention in this thread of the other thing in Hillary that gets a lot of peoples’ hate on — and for which she really does need to take responsibility: her intellectual arrogance. She is the smartest person in the room in most cases — but is apparently not sufficiently intelligent to realize (or worse, she realizes but can’t control herself) that she’d do better not making people painfully aware of it. She really is Tracy Flick.
This anti-intellectualism is the common thread in the MSM loathing of Al Gore, Hillary, and Mitt Romney. (The fact that the village crowd are as visibly contemptuous of Mitt is the one thing that can be offered in their defense for the evils of the past seven years for which their propaganda and outright lies were largely responsible.) In Hillary’s case, of course, it’s taken up three orders of magnitude because of her gender — which makes it more vile, but also more predictable.
And while it’s appalling that the American electorate is this way, the fact is, most of them are, and any pol who can’t accommodate that reality and co-opt it (as Bill can do so brilliantly) is handicapping themselves terribly.
Then again, she’s not so smart as to have learned to step back and avoid authoritative statements based far more on her desire to be popular than on a basic understanding of the issue at hand. Then she comes back and makes a contradictory authorative statement when that first statement proves both wrongheaded and unpopular.
Just like the idiots from town government on up in Massachusetts. No wonder so many like her and declare that us wee proles MUST vote for her because THEY say so!
The great fest of Hillary-hating reveals our deeply-rooted misogyny and ageism — vote for Obama because he’s so new and shiny!
Hillary’s old! She’s wrinkly!
She’s too smart!
Dear smartalek — Did you really just say that Hillary should dumb herself down more? Yes you did. Jesus frickin’ Christ. Just shoot me.
Concensus:
She’s damn smart
Her integrity is somewhat questionable or as we say in my country “politician”
She lacks the suss for what makes people tick that Bill had
She somehow bears the brunt of Bill’s BJ; bummer
Misogyny is directed toward her but there are plenty of other reasons to dislike her.
This is digressing, but I have to respond to this:
The latter was one of the most damning criticisms of Gore in 2000: he ran a campaign so execrably bad that the election was actually close enough to be stolen.
We can’t make the mistake of blaming Gore for the 2000 campaign. The media really had it in for Gore throughout the whole campaign. A PEW study of press coverage of the candidates found that 83% of the stories on Gore were negative (613 negative stories out of 745 total) compared to only 45% of the stories about Bush (265 negative stories out of 585 total).
From Evan Thomas: “While Gore was getting picked apart in the press, George W. Bush seemed to be cruising along on a wave of favorable publicity.” Thomas wrote. “By mid-May, Bush sensed that he was winning the [war in the press]. His staff was amazed at how well things were going.”
Paul Waldman (American Prospect): “[R]eporters hated Gore’s guts,” he says. “Reporters decided before the 2000 campaign began that Gore was dishonest, and while he occasionally gave them support for this impression, he was also skewered for lies he never told.”
(You can read–in excruciating detail–about the press “War on Gore” at Bob Somerby’s blog The Daily Howler. Decent summary starts with this series but there is a ton of information there.)
Somerby’s main concern is that until Democrats really understand what happened in 2000 and why, elections will always be “too close to steal”.
Ruth:
Except, evidently, for Fred Thompson. Zzzzzzzz……
I certainly don’t love everything Yoko Ono has done (though I’ve only heard/seen/read about only a small part of it), but I have a great deal of admiration for her, especially in her willingness to follow her own judgment artistically, and even personally, and not (I infer) worry too much about pleasing every last person. She takes creative risks, her work is thought-provoking (and sometimes just provoking!). I’d be delighted for by daughter to grow up with her sense of self and confidence and centeredness (though if I get to choose, I might prefer that my daughter have Penelope Houston’s or Barbara Manning’s musical taste!).
It’s Hillary’s decision how to respond to Bill’s cheating. Everyone in a long-term relationship needs to think hard about our bottom-line needs from our partner. Those differ for each individual. To some, cheating violates a bottom-line need and ruins the relationship forever. To some, it doesn’t.
Last little pedantic question: polyamory is one of those “mixed” words (part Greek, part Latin). Why don’t we speak of “polyphilia” or “multiamory”? “Television” is only “television” because “telescope” was already taken.
Dorothy, it isn’t an either/or dynamic. Every thing that you say about the press’ hatred of Gore in 2000 is true; it was a despicable period in American journalism history. But Gore’s handling of his own campaign was abysmal, too, made worse by Bob Shrum and the choice and conduct of Joe Lieberman.
No blood for Hubris, it isn’t a matter of shiny, but a matter of political style. “I’m in charge here” machine politics versus willingness to build collaborations across multiple lines.
One is going to be too divisive to rebuild what has gone wrong. With the other, there is some chance for progress. Melanin and vaginas are secondary.
“Divisive.”
That’s Karl Rove’s propaganda frame you’re buying into.
Oh really. Tough shit.
Why does the adjective “hoopleheaded” spring to mind in these types of threads?
… and since when is having my own reasons to like or dislike a candidate make me a pawn or a tool of YOUR enemy?
Oh, since I disagree with YOU and that means I am stupid/used/brainwashed.
Exactly why I dislike the Clinton Machine - all the name calling and bullying aimed at those who aren’t drinking the koolaid - just like you are engaging in here.
Divisive is as divisive does.
(WTFTSTM)
Hillary does sometimes seem to me to be kinda tone-deaf in terms of having a good sense of how her statements play in the real world. And she seems to have a “my way or the highway, because I’m smarter than you and really thought through the implications way more than you ever could” attitude sometimes. But I saw her on Tyra Banks’ show a couple of weeks ago, and she was warm and funny and relaxed, and I have been wondering ever since why we don’t see more of that Hillary. Is she afraid that being charming would stick the wuss label on her, or what?
Ding, ding, ding.
(Pretty much every criticism I’ve ever seen of Hilary has either been intrinsically sexist itself, or is easily explained by her having to walk a very thin line to avoid the sexist grenade launchers. She voted for the war? Guess what - if she hadn’t, she’d have been labelled as a weak woman, anti-military, soft on terrorism unfit for the station of head of the US military, blah blah blah. So on, so forth.)
What Dorothy said. And though the press had a special hatred for Gore, let’s not kid ourselves here; any Dem candidate for President is going to have a target sign on his/her back the moment s/he clinches the nomination.
Yes, Obama’s had great press so far, but that’s because he’s been running against the hated Hillary. Once he’s knocked her out of the race, the GOP that’s cheering for him now is going to turn on him so fast that it’ll give you whiplash. We’ll suddenly hear about all the “skeletons” we never heard of before (like the Swift Boaters who didn’t get started until after Kerry won the nomination) and the press will decide, ya know, Obama’s changed and they really like McRomney more because (reason to be supplied later.)
That’s why I’ve been leaning Hillary. Obama can certainly run on a fast track, but I don’t know how well he can run on a mud track. Hillary’s been running through a mudstorm for the past two decades, and she still keeps going.
Original Lee, this is where the question of scrutiny comes in. Even people as schooled at being in the public eye as Hillary often have trouble “adjusting” to excessive scrutiny and, well, playing the right role at the right time. I’ve always found it a little insulting when politicians are called “actors” because real actors don’t have one-tenth the challenges that politicians do. Imagine being an actor where your worst critics — not your director — get to decide which shot to use, and then get to malign your performance and ensure that your best scenes don’t see the light of day.
Given that Hillary Clinton is one of the most harshly scrutinized figures in American political history, is hardly surprising that she is frequently caught performing imperfectly.
Like Illinois politics is a bubble bath?
I would like to see the primary season become a donkeyrace all the way to the end. That will keep the Dems honest and working on the issues that matter, rather than creating a singular target for the mud machine.
I won’t cave to the Clinton Machine, though. I was undecided after Edwards dropped from the race, but then the “with us or you are a traitor to your (party, race, gender)” crew fired up and, well, insulting my intellegence and insinuating that they should own my vote doesn’t get my vote.
What Robin Morgan says, here
Intelligence. Yeah. long day at the keyboard zzzzz…
But I saw her on Tyra Banks’ show a couple of weeks ago, and she was warm and funny and relaxed, and I have been wondering ever since why we don’t see more of that Hillary. Is she afraid that being charming would stick the wuss label on her, or what?
I’ve actually been wondering the opposite. I wonder where all the cold-hearted accusations come from. Anytime I’ve heard her speak she’s seemed relaxed, warm, and open.
Huckabee was all warm, fuzzy, relaxed — and somewhat incompetent/misled … and washed up as a presidential candidate.
I look at some of the “I’m in charge” stuff from Clinton and the “I bake cookies” stuff the same way - trying hard, sometimes too hard, to be liked. The difference is that she was “running” for first lady when she baked cookies, now she’s running for a far more powerful position that she actually wants!
I’m a-guessin’ 59.2% sexism and 40.8% anti-intellectualism. Regarding the latter, the only way that an American public figure can be forgiven brains is to be a good ol’ boy. So why doesn’t Hillary just do that…?Oh. Right. And back we go to the 59.2.
@Ms Kate
As others have pointed out here. She never tried to come across as the baking cookies type when she was running for first lady. She has done more to play up her feminine side since she’s been running for president.
It just occurred to me that the difference between Iowa and New Hampshire may have been more of a reverse “Bradley” effect. In that women are afraid to admit in a public caucus that they support Hillary but in a private booth are more inclined to go that way. Surely someone more intelligent than I has already analyzed the numbers on this…has anybody seen a study looking at that?
Hillary does try too hard to be liked, but she really doesn’t give a shit. That’s why her efforts seem tin-eared and miscalibrated. Bill actually wanted to be liked; it was part of his makeup; and so his bids for approbation were organic, however manipulative they may have been.
Hillary knows she needs to be liked, and it rankles her, and it renders her overall tone-color rueful. And rueful is political anathema.
Accept these ludicrous pontifications as fact; I’ve known this woman as an intimate confidante since her Little Rock days. (Joking)
She’s in a bind, though. Two Democrat candidates in a row lost due to “likeability” issues, and she’s inevitably in the shadow of the most adored shining star in recent Democratic history. And she’s kind of cold-natured. Nothing wrong with that per se, but there you have it.
She never tried to come across as the baking cookies type when she was running for first lady.
Oh really? Are you old enough to remember the recipe with photo op?
Of course not, but it’s not the national stage either. That’s what worries me. The GOP can afford to lose a Senate race here and there, but not the Presidency, particularly if Congress is going to stay Dem.
I would like to see the primary season become a donkeyrace all the way to the end. That will keep the Dems honest and working on the issues that matter, rather than creating a singular target for the mud machine.
Me too, Ms. Kate. The longer they keep on the issues (and keep being nice to each other), the less the mud machine will have. Once it’s finally over, I’d like to see the winner pick the runner up as VP. That will keep the assasination threats down to a minimum, particularly if it’s Obama in the top spot and Clinton as VP.
Of course, that won’t stop the MM forever. They’ll find something on Obama, even if they have to make the whole thing up themselves. The Swift Boaters were 99.99% fact free, but that didn’t stop a certain % of the population from swallowing it whole. They’d believe the sun rose in the west if Flush told them it did.
Pesto — because all of those words have different meanings in english.
Multi usually means “a large number” while poly means “a number greater than one.” Multiamory would be the extreme case of polyamory.
“Philia” already has a number of meanings, none of which is quite right. Most inconveniently, it appears in the clinical names of fetishes (necrophilia, paedophilia) the term for a fetish is paraphilia.
So “polyphilia” sounds like it should mean either “a preference for group sex” or “the state of having many fetishes.”
Would you want to spend the next four years riding herd on your VP’s husband?
“Would you want to spend the next four years riding herd on your VP’s husband?”
Get Carter to show Bill how an ex-POTUS should act, and what vital services to humankind he can perform…
Yeah. Listening is Bill’s real strong suit. Besides, would you want to spend four years listening to debates as to whether or not you or Bill was in charge?
@Ms Kate Wasn’t that a magazine publicity stunt, admittedly she agreed to pose for it but I doubt it was her (or the campaign’s)idea. I’m pretty sure Family Circle came up with the idea to pit the Clinton cookies vs. the Bush cookies. But I still maintain that Hillary has done more playing to her femininity in her presidential bid than her first lady bid.
Truthfully I had forgotten all of the media rigamorole over whose cookies win the blind taste test. But it’s not ‘cause I’m not old enough.
Ironically, I think it was Clinton’s cookies that won the day.
Well, she’s already spent eight years listening to debates about whether she or Bill were in charge, so four more should be a breeze.
Besides, as one VP put it, “the vice presidency isn’t worth a bucket of warm spit.”, so the voiume would be turned down much lower if she was living in Gore’s place. And Bill would get to go on all those world trips that Hillary and Michelle don’t want to go on. Might even help fix our image abroad, now that Shrub’s torn it to shreds.
Blue, I was talking about Obama having to listen.
And didn’t Garner call it a bucket of warm piss?
“And didn’t Garner call it a bucket of warm piss?”
Of course not. Everybody knows no POTUS ever used foul language before Nixon and his famous “expletive deleted”…
So, Clinton is a show-off about her smarts (Hermione Granger) and ambitious (every other politician) and willing to make political compromises (every politician who gets anywhere). Making the case for not liking her just isn’t working for me. Not wanting to vote for her in the primary for tedious policy-based reasons? Sure. But I don’t get the personal dislike for her that wouldn’t be aimed at male politicians with the same characteristics.
I think a lot of why Clinton is tone-deaf is the same reason that women can’t either not have sex (frigid) or have sex (slut). Is there a way she could be right? I think part of her choice to be policy-oriented is that it’s the least offensive. I see this a lot with female politicians, choosing the least offensive path instead of going the charismatic route available to men.
Not that it mattered in the state in which I live, but I didn’t vote for Gore when the selfsame cliquish party machine told me that they owned my vote and I was expected to surrender it. Nor did I vote for Tom the Slimeball Riley, nor did I vote for Martha “mooninites over there artists must pay big” Riley, either.
Sorry, Martha “we can’t investigate the parents - it HAS to be the uneducated working-class nanny that did it” Coakley.
@Blue Jean
I guess it is ironic that Hillary would win a bake-off.
But I’d be more inclined to believe that she’s actually baked a cookie as opposed to Barbara Bush.
Wasn’t the bake-off thing the result of Hillary saying something about “I’m not going to be sitting home baking cookies” and the press raking her over the coals for it?
Wikipedia says in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_Clinton#_note-74:
“So, Clinton is a show-off about her smarts (Hermione Granger) and ambitious (every other politician) and willing to make political compromises (every politician who gets anywhere). Making the case for not liking her just isn’t working for me.”
It’s the smae sort of framing that Gore recieved (literally to a “t” ); suer smart, no real persona, and deficit of charisma. while I have no doubt that much of the frame is misogynist, it is not solely so.
And y’know what? Gore would’ve been the better president over the “charismatic” “accessible” candidate.
Sometimes, I think Americans suffer from having so many movies made about your president; there seems to be some overwhelming expectation that the President be some real-life version of Harrison Ford or something, instead of what they should be: a dedicated, competent, diplomatic civil servant.
Al Gore won, too. George Bush was an unreformed fratboy who couldn’t form complete sentences in the debates. It seems to me Hilary Clinton is catching flak for anything and everything. First she’s a robot. Then she’s trying too hard to not be a robot. When she shows even more openness, then the baby girl cried (but by the way she’s really still a stone cold bitch who cried on purpose!)
Politicians put on a personality like a suit. It’s their public face. Everybody tweaks their image, but it seems to me Hilary gets spit on with a ridiculous amount of glee. I don’t know whether it’s media brainwashing to hate the name, or that she made her own damn choices about her marriage, or what. I want a president who’s a little reserved, listens to different opinions, and is a hell of a lot smarter than the average citizen (me). I don’t hope she’ll win, because I think bible thumpers will be obsessed with Hilary no matter what, and we’d spend 8 years in apoplexy about lesbian rumors. I also don’t like how she sided with Jack Thompson. But publicly she’s easily qualified emotionally, morally, and intellectually. When I see her I think Madeline Albright.
Mnemosyne: Fun fact: in the original version of “Little Snow-White” collected by the Grimm brothers, it’s Snow White’s biological mother who tries to kill her, not her stepmother.
Possibly so, but in the linked version you provided (at #4, above), it is her stepmother who is the enemy, her biological mother having died shortly after Snow White’s birth.
Sadly, you can see alot of comments here that are exactly as you write about. I think you are quite right. You can fit in with the big boys if you hate Hillary.
Gawsh, I couldn’t be because the Clinton presidential legacy is very frustrating because it forced us to defend a bad conservative president against rethugs who were even worse?
Good post, Amanda.
Jeezus. Hillary is a fucking Rorschach for these lunatics’ Mommy issues (thank you, patriarchy-mandated misogyny). Everything’s always Mommy’s FAULT. It’s nuts. Aren’t people supposed to outgrow this at some point? It’s embarrassing to watch some of these overgrown infants splatter their shit everywhere; they don’t really get called on it because everyone else is doing it, too.
Mommy can never do anything right, or ever be worthy of respect. Even if she IS the smartest person in the room, it’s not okay for her to act like it because she’s a gurl.
Possibly so, but in the linked version you provided (at #4, above), it is her stepmother who is the enemy, her biological mother having died shortly after Snow White’s birth.
D’oh! That’s what I get for trying to do a quick link from work. Didn’t have time to read it through.
Hey, wait, I re-read it and I think you may be a little confused, dr ngo. Here’s the first couple grafs of the story on the page I linked t0:
No stepmother, only biological mommy.
If you go to the 1857 version, it starts like this:
Cara,
Fair enough points, but acting like the smartest person in the room didn’t exactly make Al Gore’s stock soar, either. Or Kerry’s. Conversely, Nancy Pelosi (huge disappointment though she be) comes off as whip-smart and is not reviled for it.
It’s a warmth thing and an entitlement thing. Democrats keep putting these candidates out there who are icily remote and smart in an antisocial, wonky way, and who clearly feel the presidential race is about them deserving it, not what the American people deserve.
Hillary’s just more of the same. Other people’s Mommy issues aren’t yours to know, or mine to care about.
Go Obama. Okay, I’ll do it: !
I’ll know or care about other peoples’ irrational biases as I choose, thank you.
Especially where they affect me and my life.
Likability is an absurd issue and no reason to vote for someone. If the best people for the jobs don’t get elected because of unexamined misogyny, we deserve what we get. FSM help us all.
A few problems with that. First, the past eight years have established that vast swathes of the American electorate are not only brick-ignorant but also that they like it that way. And, surprisingly, they vote in startling numbers. Putting forth a candidate that they will despise seems ill-judged and electorally foolish, however intellectually meritorious the candidate. Wagging your finger and saying “I know it tastes bad but it’s good for you!” to children is one thing, saying it to de facto children who are de jure adults with the right to spit the medicine back at you is quite another.
Second, I note that some people who either oppose Obama and/or support Clinton frequently use words like “likable” and variants thereon. Personal connection to the elected official is an important part of the ability to inspire, which is still a key part of the Presidency. Sad fact is, many of the pro-Clinton people take positions which are, well, indistinguishable from bitter resentment that the Democrats have found an inspirational candidate who speaks out and taps ideals in people. In that sense they are being given an FDR, a JFK, a Reagan, and all they can do is complain that people actually like their candidate. Viewed from the outside it seems that there is a vigourous group within the American Democratic party which would prefer noble defeat (with its inspiring feelings of self-righteousness) to actual victory. Put in a classical metaphor, they’d rather be the Spartans et al. nobly slaughtered at Thermopylae in the hope that someday soon there may be a Salamis rather than be the Greeks winning Salamis.
The assumption that not voting for Hillary means unexamined mysogyny (rather than not thinking her the best person for the job) is antifeminist in the extreme.
Why? Because it assumes that any voter who does not vote for said candidate is doing so out of bias, not because a woman could possibly be treated equally and ever lose out. Telling me that I must be anti-woman because I’m a woman don’t pick your favored woman candidate is insulting to my feminist autonomy and intelligence.
If all Clinton’s staunchest supporters have to offer is name calling and insults toward people who might possibly vote for somebody else, then is their candidate truly the best one? I don’t think so. I don’t think that people are going to flock to candidates because their supporters hurl insults and belittling head pats. In fact, I think they are going to push people in the direction of candidates whose supporters are pushing the issues. Clinton either supports these dubious tactics of East Coast “With us or Against Us because You are Stupid” Clique politics or lacks sufficient leadership of her supporters to make it clear that such are offensive.
Ms. Kate, doesn’t it come down to something like, “yeah, I know I don’t have what you want, so my solution is to attack the competition, even when they’re better, rather than providing a superior product!” ?
Holy. Shit.
Hilary Clinton is Microsoft.
Well, I certainly agree with you there, Cara. The day that happens, I’ll supplicate the FSM right along with you.My point is simply that that’s not what’s happening there. Other people’s unexamined misogyny aside, Hillary is not the best person for the job.
And on a pragmatic note, look, a flattened squirrel should be able to beat John McCain, all right? But if there’s any adversary that will see him squeak through to a win, it’s Hillary Clinton. And you better believe we’ll both be giving the FSM a piece of our minds the day that happens.
oh for fuck’s sakes. can we fucking shut up about fucking obama vs. clinton? even just for a little while? it’s possible to support obama and not have mommy issues. it’s possible to support clinton without being a member of some elitist american-hating borg hivemind. christ alfuckingmighty.
Hilary Clinton is Microsoft
Well, she did gain much of her vaunted “experience” in corporate board rooms while Obama was cutting his teeth in Illinois state politics. Are we supposed to be surprised?
Ms Kate: I don’t see much point in this. The discussion has been framed, shrink-wrapped, and shipped in a cardboard box to fix it in place. No matter how you criticize Clinton’s politics or her bedfellows, someone is going to play the “internalized misogyny” card.
CBrachyrhynchos, I don’t think that’s a particularly fair judgment to make here. Maybe I’ve overlooked something, but I think that Amanda’s post and this comment thread all agree that it’s the women focusing on Hillary’s femininity as the shallow reason behind their dislike who are suffering from internalized misogyny. Women like yourself or Ms Kate, who can explain their dislike by bringing up policy issues instead of haircuts are clearly not the subject being talked about here.
Although it goes without saying that we are sure that Ms. Kate has a nice haircut.
Of course!
So, Clinton is a show-off about her smarts (Hermione Granger) and ambitious (every other politician) and willing to make political compromises (every politician who gets anywhere).
Different dynamic for female leaders outside the US; the impression I got from Shipley and Clarke here and from the Asian female PMs was that they had to show themselves to be twice as smart as their male peers to cement power (which for Clarke is difficult when your peer is Cullen - fortunately he’s loyal).
I’m wondering if this is relevant?