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Great White Hope 2008, Women's Edition
Over at another major blog site run by Arianna Huffington, I've read several posts throughout the primary season by women (womyn?) writers like Gloria Steinem and Erica Jong to name two, who have repeatedly cried foul.
Hillary, they say, is the victim of unchecked, unreported, unbridled sexism. Ms. Jong, best known for the fictional sex-romp "Fear of Flying," wrote that she was pissed off that this was the last chance that she would ever have in her lifetime to vote for a woman. She begrudgingly said she would vote for Sen. Obama. I could just imagine her: shoulders slumped, scuffing her feet, rolling her eyes, monosyllabically mumbling, barely audible, like some petulant teenager.
Ms. Jong's reaction to Hillary's defeat is hardly different than that of the angry, vocal distaff segment of the 17 million or so persons who voted for Sen. Clinton. The reactions range from those tinged with racial bias ("I won't/can't vote for a black man") to defiant feminist ("I'll only vote for a woman") to those who will stay at home or those who vow to vote for John McCain.
This group of Clinton's core demographic -- white women -- is an interesting mix of what has been described as "second wave feminists" (the Steinem era bra-burners) most of whom are financially stable, past childbearing age, well-educated. The other end of the spectrum are the "working class," less financially stable, less educated, younger, more conservative, and less likely to describe themselves as "feminists."
It is puzzling to me that Hillary Clinton is seen as the "Great White Women's Last Best Hope" to put a woman in the White House. From a "feminist" perspective -- that is, from a perspective where the gender of a candidate is pre-eminent -- Hillary Clinton is one of hundreds of women who are fully capable of running the country. In fact, there have been women pursuing the nomination from both parties in recent years. Women who could have cracked the so-called glass ceiling if only their sisters had given them a leg up.
Every time Ralph Nader has run for President (and he is fast approaching if not overtaking Harold Stassen's status as perennial candidate), Nader has chosen a female running mate. The late former Sen. Eugene McCarthy (who famously ran against Hubert Humphrey and Bobby Kennedy in 1968 and again 1972) ran as recently as 1988 with a woman as his VP on the Consumer Party ticket.
Granted, running as an independent minimizes your chances of changing the locks on the Oval Office doors. But if issues are what drives your the polls, wouldn't a woman on the ticket be a motivating factor?
But let's take a look at the major parties -- Republican and Democratic. We know the history of Geraldine Ferraro as VP running mate to Walter Mondale in 1984. But did you know that there were 8 women running for Vice President on a variety of tickets that year?
Did you know that since 1964 there have been 8 women who ran for the Presidential nomination on either the Republican or Democratic ticket? From Margaret Chase Smith (Republican, 1964) who challenged Barry Goldwater to Carol Moseley-Braun in 2004 as a Democrat, onstage alongside John Kerry, Howard Dean, John Edwards, Al Sharpton and others.
Moseley-Braun could have been a two-fer had "feminists" supported her. She was the second African-American Senator elected since reconstruction (Edward Brooke, Republican of Massachusetts and one-time love interest of Barbara Walters, was the first. Barack Obama is the third.) But women did not rally around her candidacy. Here is a self-made woman, who did not rely on a resume written with her husband's accomplishments, who did not lean on a political machine built by her husband. A woman who is every bit as progressive as Clinton. A woman, a Senator, a candidate that the white feminist establishment ignored. Shame on them.
If a woman President is your goal, you also could have voted for Senator Elizabeth Dole (R-NC) in 2000. Ellen McCormack would have appreciated your support in 1976, and so would have Rep. Patsy Mink, Rep. Shirley Chisholm and none other than Rep. Bella Abzug in 1972.
So to suggest that Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton is the last best hope in your lifetime to see a woman President is silly hyperbole. And worse, it is damning evidence of unwillingness to really put your vote where your mouth is. Talented women have come forward to run, and women of both parties have failed to support them.
The undercurrent to this story is in part the continuing friction between white women and black women and men as competing political constituencies. As newly freed black men were struggling for political recognition, so were white women. The suffrage question was one that would not have been satisfied for black women: if black husbands were denied the vote in favor of white women, black wives were unrepresented by extension through their husbands.The suffragettes weren't fighting to extend enfranchisement to their black sisters. It was white women before black people.
There will be more women running for national office. They all will not be white women. But remember that if your goal is to put a woman in the White House, you need to support the women who run. All the women.
Not just a former First Lady.
Comments (63)
Interesting point. No Hillary bashing. I Rec this.
June 7, 2008 1:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
Insightful. I only remember Chisholm and Mosely- Braun.
Do I get two recommends?
June 7, 2008 1:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
Great post! One of my biggest issues with feminism is that it always seems to boil down to: What does the white female get out of this? I did a similar post on this same thing and the responses were typical. Older white women, especially if they were SAHMs or had little experience in the work place were adamant that a black person (no matter how half) should come after a white female. To them, it's fairness. ???
Younger women, particularly us women of color, don't get that tribal mentality, simply because those white women, generally exclude us from their talks, save using us as examples of the poor, uneducated and perennially pregnant. To top it off, they thought they had the right to tell us that we're being "traitors to our gender". Ugh.
June 7, 2008 1:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
I believe Hillary benefited because she's a woman. This is not trashing HRC - but the truth is she got the 'womens' vote and intense support based simply on gender. (Yes, some may say the same thing about Obama and AA's.)
However, these are the facts:
1. Her claims of experience were based solely on being Bill's wife/first lady.
2. She graduated in the bottom of her law class.
3. Her main focus and drive was to get her husband to the top of the political ladder - she did not put her efforts into accomplishments that would have benefited women's rights, goals or needs.
The list goes on. I strongly recommend:
http://online.wsj.com:80/article/SB121269958227749853.html?mod=todays_columnists
It tends to put things into perspective.
4.
June 7, 2008 1:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
You know, you undercut your argument when you say that her sole experience was as a First Lady. She has more years in the US Senate than Barack Obama. All that you show when you make that argument is that you don't think of her as an individual but as a wife - and not even an independent free-thinking wife, but as an appendage. To me, that just reeks of sexism.
June 7, 2008 5:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hillary would not have gotten to the Senate if she hadn't been First Lady. Prior to that all of her "experience" was non-political.
June 7, 2008 11:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
You don't know that. Did you ever read her CV? I might point out to you that Barack Obama couldn't have gotten to where he is without "hitching his wagon" to Michelle Obama. There doesn't have to be one inferior and one superior partner.
June 7, 2008 5:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
How on earth do you get sexism? The stance is that she historically has exerted the most time and energy on securing her husband's position/future, not her own. It started after she failed the Washington Bar and then followed her boyfriend Bill, subsequently changing her focus on to furthering his political career. In choosing this path (which was in late 60's, time of the launching of our most militant feminist movements) she, in essence if not effect, became another 'woman behind the man'. What she has attained is only because of the positions she helped him obtain (I've always believed she was/is the 'smarter' one of the pair). Not an appendage per se, but a woman who by hitching her star to 'her husband's' forfeited her right to claim she achieved current status based on anything else. I believe it was because of the Clinton cachet she made it to the Senate - not toiling in the trenches alongside other women who can honestly tout their successes were realized because of more evolved and better positioning.
Not sexism, but surely realism. Just because I or anyone else differs with Hillary's choices or choosing to support Hillary's candidacy - does not automatically equate to sexism.
Full disclosure - I am a middle-aged white women whose professional career has suffered from true sexism and stood up to it, spoke out about it and worked hard to quell it. I know what sexism is and we must not dilute the term by claiming this whenever a woman's goals are not secured. It's sometimes, perhaps too often, for very different reasons.
June 7, 2008 2:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
You know, just because you're unaware of her record as an activist, it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
June 7, 2008 5:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
I applaud and value her activism for health care rights, etc. However, that has nothing to do with the basis of what I wrote. We'll never know what goals/successes she would have realized if she had put her energies and time into an agenda where she took as good of care of herself, career and goals as she did Bill's processes. We each have our 'own' experiences and factual history cannot be rewritten.
June 7, 2008 7:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
I get sexism out of the repeated false statements that her sole experience was as first lady. She was a political activist. She worked for the Watergate Committee for Pete's sake. And just because your a woman does not mean you do not internalize sexist stereotypes that limit your perception of her ability. To denigrate her years of activism as just being some man's wife is ridiculous and reveals that you totally buy the sexist stereotype that women are defined by their husbands, not by themselves. Either that, or you are just a vindictive Clinton hater who deliberately distorts the facts so you can bash her.
He had 7 years legislative experience in Illinois - and in November will have had 4 years in the Senate. Of those 4 years, he has spent the last two campaigning. Obama began asking for early endorsements in November and December 2006. I know because I was asked in December.
She not only worked for the impeachment and migratory labor committees, she also was active as a child advocate. She was a lawyer-activist in child advocacy and helped formulate much of the legal groundwork for child advocacy including the idea that minor children can be judged competent to speak for themselves in child custody cases - on a case by case basis. She chaired the Legal Services Corporation - the first woman to do so and defeated Reagan's attempt to undermine and destroy indigent defense.
But go ahead, keep saying her only experience was being Bill's wife. It just reinforces again and again and again that far too many of Obama's supporters are irrational haters.
June 8, 2008 9:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, but Senator Obama, has more legislative experience that Hillary Clinton.
June 7, 2008 2:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Really? Even with his time in Illinois senate? (I assume you are referring solely to her US Senate experience.)
June 7, 2008 3:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry, it was the IL state leg. He was Absent from 90% of the votes......what legislation?
June 7, 2008 6:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Check your facts again. This isn't what records show.
June 7, 2008 7:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree with your premise, but I disagree with your facts. While Hillary was in the senate a tad longer, the truth is Obama has held elected office longer than Clinton and did it without any sort of name recognition. As a matter of fact, after 9/11, his name was a serious liability that needed to be overcome.
June 7, 2008 10:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
I voted for Obama because he is a good candidate, not because he is a good black candidate. I am always shocked at this narcissistic identity politics.
June 7, 2008 2:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
What a good point you make about the other female candidates there have been over the years --each of whom has been dismissed with a yawn. And it is hard to tell what's up with Gloria Steinhem and Erica Jong, as they seem surprisingly unclear about what they think or feel.
So I'd like to hear what other people think about something else that struck me, not just about Hillary, but also about the Hillary supporters who have been both a subject of interest and dismay: I took a good look at a photograph of Hillary's so-called feminist posse outside the DNC meeting and I don't think they are feminists at all, at least not as many of us would define the term -- in ERA terms, as equality without respect to gender. What these women share is an awareness of a sexism that is entirely gender dependent, but they don't get the feminist bit that personal responsiblity is part of the package of equal opportunity.
If you look closely at the photographs, it is pretty clear that the age of the women is polarized: either they are women who are 60-65+, or they are much younger women, 20-40+. Missing in this action are the late-40's to late 50's women who -- at least here at TPM -- see Hillary's feminism as a faux feminism, and think that her posse is being hoodwinked.
Maybe, then, we shouldn't be so baffled by the posse's outrage.
Women who are 65+ were, for the most part, already established in traditional wife and mother roles before our wave of feminism took off in the 1970's. That we, just 5-10 years behind them, got to ride that new wave must have been truly demoralizing to them -- by the luck of a birth order draw, they missed that boat of opportunity. So finally, here's their chance to get a belated piece of the action -- never mind that they never really understood what the action was about.
The younger women in the photograph are like them, in the sense that they don't understand what feminism is about, either. Why should they? They grew up during the backlash, when our increasingly conservative culture added pejoratives to the term feminism, thereby distorting its meaning and purpose. Who among them wanted to be known as a "radical feminist" or, worse, a "FemiNazi"?
What this suggests to me is that Hillary's die-hards are not feminists at all; rather, they have just been dubbed that by the press, because they are female and they are visibly protesting something.
The sorrow is that they don't know this, in part because their heroine is not a true feminist either -- but, instead, just an opportunist.
What do you think?
June 7, 2008 2:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
Dear Wendy: I was actually at the Marriott the day the RBC met, in side meetings with a Maryland delegation. But we spent most of our time in the lobby outside the meeting room. You are correct in observing the odd assortment of women carrying on. There was a large group of older white women, who were the most strident and offensive. They even followed a bride into the ladies room who was there for her reception, pointing their fingers in her face and demanding that she say who she supported. (Obama...and later the DNC sent the bride and groom a bottle of champagne with apologies). I'm not sure where these women came from, but they all had badges and were credentialed. Then there were younger women, who I suspect were part of the campaign staff, or staff to the DNC members supporting Clinton. They were more laid back, and even tried to pull the banshees off of people. So, in HRC's defense, I suspect the campaign was trying to keep some semblance of order--although they condoned the rude outbursts. The older women were there as representatives of various women's groups and seemed to have no clear message other than unbridled anger. It was fascinating, and as a slightly older woman myself (53) I was embarrassed.
June 7, 2008 10:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
You sound like Rush Limbaugh....nice.
June 7, 2008 6:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
That would be Gloria Steinem, not Steinhem. Now I'm a rusty feminist, as well as a rusty writer.
June 7, 2008 2:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
Nothing rusty about you!
Speaking from conversations I had with my 79 yo, decidedly traditional irish-italian RC mom, who dropped out of college after a year because she needed to support her family...
She lives in Massachusetts too, which for all its liberal reputation still sees politics and power as man's world. (Evelyn Murphy anyone? Jane Swift? Shannon O'Brien? I wouldn't include the last gov race as evidence, because the repub candidate was as bad as Deval Patrick is great).
I heard my mother put forward both personal and professional points. On the personal, she admired her toughness, that she remembered clearly the humiliations she endured as the wife of the president, that she considered them brutal and unfair (hard to disagree with that when even Dana Milbank admits to the glee even mainstream press had with vilifying her), and that she never let them get the best of her, even in the public eye. My mother is no feminist, but she'd like to be. And she wishes she herself was a fighter, and brave.
On the professional side, she read accounts of her ability to get things done and master policy areas. I don't think she read the article in the atlantic (forgive me, I don't have the link), but she felt she was more than professionally competent - she felt she could do a great job. Again, something she never had a chance to do due to the circumstances of class and tribal expectation as much as anything else.
So, I don't think she has some ulterior motive; I think she would have liked to see it happen (a Hillary presidency) while she still reads a broadsheet every day.
As for younger women, I first banged my head against a wall when working at a startup 12 years ago, my female colleagues who were only 5 years or so younger thought feminism was the freedom to pierce their noses, paint their nails blue. Oh, and Camille Paglia was the Bomb! *sigh*
My own opposition to Hillary was simple; I do not support the DLC, and I didn't like the company she kept. That doesn't mean I didn't fiercely object to how sexualized, women-hating remarks kept making their way into critiques of her. I think she's a complicated person, with plenty of decisions and positions to question. But her ovaries have nothing to do with it, and yet, it's where both media narratives and commenters decided to dive.
June 7, 2008 3:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
Also, after being unsure about Obama as recently as 6 weeks ago, she'll be voting for him in the fall.
June 7, 2008 3:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
Nice to see someone talking Policy and not getting down into personal politics.
June 7, 2008 6:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Since we're listing POTUS-worthy women, let me add a shout-out for my favorite, congresswoman Barbara Jordan -- an intellect and a silver tongue of near-Obamaesque potency.
In the 1970s, Jordan was the trifecta of unelectability -- a woman, a black, and a Lesbian (although the latter fact was not then public knowledge).
Her impassioned defence of the constitution during the Watergate hearings led many (including Jimmy Carter) to put her on their short list of VP candidates.
It never happened, and illness cut short her legislative career.
But it's something Hillary -- and for that matter, Obama -- should always remember:
They did not get where they did on their own; they stand on the shoulders of giants.
June 7, 2008 3:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
I still have my Shirley Chisholm campaign button that I wear on election night every four years in tribute. If we're talking all women, I sure would have liked to have seen Ann Richards in a presidential race. Now that would have been fun.
June 7, 2008 5:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
Wish you could have done this without describing Erica Jong as some sort of petulant teenager. Just usually not a good idea to use dimmunitive terms to describe intellectual and cultural heavyweights. At least not the intellectual and cultural heavyweights who are basically on our side.
June 7, 2008 6:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
Let me suggest that you go to HuffPo and read some of Erica posts lately. She's been in what can only be described as a "pissing contest" with one of the younger male writers, she's cried foul and whined about all manner of things related to Hillary. And her last post, to which I refer, does read like a petulant teenager, not at all like the adult she is. Her mention that she would support Sen. Obama is given grudgingly at best.
I'm not saying she is immature, merely acting so.
June 7, 2008 11:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
And you go read some of the bullshit written by Obama supporters that was just as crazed an over the top as any impassioned Clinton supporter was.
You can't seem to bear the thought that anyone can admire both candidates for what they've accomplished - it has to be either/or for you. You don't know anything about the women's movement, you assume that the only goal has or ever was to get a woman elected and you're still promoting your petty, meanspirited remarks about Clinton dismissing anything she has ever accomplished in her life, any kind of hope or dreams that women might have had for electing a competent and driven woman to the White House and you are completely bereft of any empathy or compassion for anyone who isn't you.
Unlike you, I don't have the need to run down one candidate in order to promote another candidate. I can recognize that many groups had dreams and hopes running high in this campaign and I can empathize and feel compassion for and with all those who have been disappointed or had their dreams dashed during this season. That's what it means to be human - to empathize and feel compassion for the other human being. It's just too damned bad that you can't think of anyone else as a human being with the same emotions you have.
June 7, 2008 5:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
BevD, you're being an ass.
I haven't read anything as assinine as that put forth by Erica Jong and Gloria Steinem from similarly situated Obama supporters, except for a hastily penned missive by Shelby Steele.
That you and I disagree on the relative importance of the "women's movement" is not spectacular news. Hell, if you knew anything at all about history, you would have a wider base of knowledge on which build your flimsy arguments.
The point of this post is that women who claim this is the ONLY time in their lifetimes they could have voted for a woman are wrong. Because there have been numerous times they could have but didn't.
I don't begrudge them voting for Clinton the candidate -- not even Clinton the woman -- but suggesting that it has never happened before or won't happen again, is simply ludicrous and does a grave disservice to women who run for office, and do so not on some feminist mission, but simply because they want to get things done.
Pity you can't wrap your brain around that. I'll be waiting to read your first post here at TPM.
June 7, 2008 9:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, nice. This is coming from someone who doesn't know the difference between the Equal Rights Association or the National Women's Suffrage Convention and conflates the two because she found an article on google that did the same. Wikipedia doesn't count, Jade, why don't you read the minutes of the ERA, read the minutes of the WSC, read the issues of the "Revolution" and then we can have an intelligent discussion about the events that precipitated the split, what the meaning of universal suffrage is and why it was a betrayal to those women who worked so hard and so long for the abolitionist movement and the ERA.
"Universally white" - you don't have a clue.
June 7, 2008 10:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Always have to get that meanspirited, degrading remark in there somewhere.
The new enemy, those educated white women who thought that universal suffrage was more important than male suffrage.
June 7, 2008 10:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
As a black man, you know what my biggest fear was about an Obama loss? That certain VOCAL black people would lose their minds and start acting like jackasses. That one man's bid loss would get spun as some sort of race war (which is GREAT TV, no?).
This, of course, would lead to an inevitable backlash towards ALL blacks, and just sort of make my life more annoying and/or difficult in general.
See, I've been there. I distinctly remember thinking "oh shit" at the Rodney King verdict, and then putting up with MONTHS of "why would they!??" because some idiots half a country away burned their neighborhoods down.
With a Clinton loss, and the strength of the reaction, there *will* be some inevitable backlash against women. Nothing unifies people like pointing out their biases. The best counter to that is to humanize the victims, rather than demonizing the perpetrators. People simply prefer feeling compassionate to feeling guilty.
June 7, 2008 11:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
"I calls 'em like I sees 'em."
Except, it wasn't "universal," it was "universally white" and that, you see, is a big difference.
(And -- just to set the record straight -- Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Frederick Douglass DID DEBATE side by side in the same room at the same time. She spoke, and then he stood up to rebut her argument.
Secondly, Victoria Woodhull "ran" unsuccessfully for President in 1872 with Frederick Douglass as her running mate.
--from Wikipedia
In short, it had been a "one or the other proposition": Black males or white women. Not both.)
But I note, BevD, you argue with the long ago past, and not the recent reality of women who could have -- should have? -- earned your support if you were concerned about really putting a woman in the White House.
June 7, 2008 11:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
And just to set the record really straight, Stanton made her comments at the Jan meeting of the National Women's Suffrage Con. and Douglass was referencing those comments when arguing back and forth about a MOTION at the Equal Rights Assoc. They never "debated" anything. Many people besides Douglass and Stanton argued the motion to set aside women's suffrage to promote black men's suffrage. Unfortunately, Douglass's side prevailed, and it was another 50 years until women gained suffrage.
And I remember quite a few feminists working for Moseley Braun and supporting her campaign. NOW (which until this election had only endorsed two candidates, Mondale and Braun) endorsed Moseley Braun and contributed quite a bit of money from their PAC and organizational members - shame on you for not knowing that. It's not about getting any woman elected, it's about getting the right woman elected.
June 7, 2008 12:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Having the right to vote and actually being able to vote are two different things. When women won the right to vote 50 years later, they could actually show up and cast a ballot right then and there. They didn't have to worry about being lynched for exercising their Constitutional rights. It wouldn't be until 1963 that blacks of either gender could claim the same rights as white women in all 50 states.
Shame on you for now knowing that. (Sounds ridiculous, doesn't it, to have one adult say "shame on you" to another adult?)
Every one of the women Jade referenced were as, if not more, qualified to be president. The majority of American women didn't support them, nor did they take their candidacies as seriously as this year's female candidate. Nor did many men for that matter. It shows an enormous amount of growth in this country that Hillary could have gotten the support she did from all quarters, but that doesn't make the historical record change with regards to this blog's main point. That history is what it is.
Many women have come before Hillary and a plurality of women voters in this country didn't charge out and demand they be put in office. Any one of those women could have been the "right" woman. Just like Hillary could have been the "right" woman this year.
To say that another woman who is even more dynamic and capable won't come along in all of our lifetimes is intellectually dishonest and not in keeping with the facts on the ground. There is even a real possibility that Barack's vice president will be a woman, though probably not Hillary. I would rather have her breaking legs in the senate as Majority Whip or Majority Leader anyway.
Hillary's obvious talents and political acumen would be wasted as vice president.
June 7, 2008 1:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Unfortunately, Douglass' side prevailed..."
????? What was so damn "unfortunate" about it? That black men got the right to vote? Before white women??? I see where you're coming from... it's U-Turn time.
June 7, 2008 1:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
What the hell do you think I mean? Universal suffrage should have been the goal, not one group favoured over another. Douglass was wrong, Stanton and Anthony were right. What Douglass and the Equal Rights Association did was a betrayal to the women's suffrage movement.
June 7, 2008 4:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
For a self-described "liberal" from Ohio... never mind... no ad hominem attacks required.
But I do notice BevD, you comment but not post.
So if you are the "expert" on women's suffrage, enlighten us. Share your own opinions fully, instead of just snarking and trolling.
There is a serious discussion to be had about the confluence and the divergence of the rights of racial minorities, gender politics and the segmentation of both. Even in the "second wave" of feminism, the "battles" were not without a race-based divide.
There is a great debate to be had about the hierarchy of the disenfranchised, the exploited, the left behind, the left out.
So tell us, BevD... give us your full opinion in a post... if you dare.
June 7, 2008 5:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh that's right. I'm not a liberal because I don't believe that one group should have been favoured over another. Imagine, someone who believes in universal suffrage pretending to be a liberal. What next, huh, Jade? Snarking and trolling is what you call it when someone calls you on your bullshit. Jong doesn't speak for anyone but herself, we don't all goosestep to one ideology, one view or one opinion.
You want to look at this as black/white, women/men and I see it as people on both sides who are emotionally invested in this race, some are elated at the outcome and some are disappointed. I can feel for both sides and I have done so without saying one cruel remark, snark, smear, lie, innuendo or repeating one rumour about either candidate and because I defend one it doesn't mean that I can't admire the other one or see both as accomplished persons who should be admired for fighting a good fight and sticking it out until we had a resolution.
You don't have a clue about the women's movement or what those women did or what they went through or what the history is and was. You think that this is all about women supporting a woman just because she's a woman and probably because that's the way you think. You can't make one blog entry without making some kind of derogatory, meanspirited remark about Clinton, white women and the feminist movement which is too damned bad because you're making this into something it doesn't have to be. People are always so much more magnamamous in losing than they ever are at winning.
June 7, 2008 10:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
[Ghost who walks] Keep kicking. They think holding a Senate seat for Ted was "earned". Hillary signs on for writing one chapter after another. Way back they thought one train was enough - the menfolk would take care of the womenfolk. In the 60's they thought the women and free love were part of the prize. Just keep kicking. It's getting closer. bb. e-stuffus.blogspot.com
June 8, 2008 4:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
"unfortunately," wtf???
June 7, 2008 4:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
There are two currents in this campaign is just don't get. I'd love an explanation.
#1 From Obama supporters: "Hillary should have dropped out a long time ago"
Why? She was trying to win. She played a lousy first half, but came back hard in the second. Since PA she campaigned hard, consistently and occasionally a little ugly but that's what she should have done. She hinted at the race card but I'd have expected her to. She wanted to win. If it's worth a few votes, so be it. You don't drop out just because you're behind, you fight harder. She did. It wasn't enough, but it was pretty close. She behaved exactly as anyone who really wants to win would behave.
#2 From Clinton supporters: "Hillary has been a victim of sexism in the media."
Yeah, so? It surprises you that pro Obama pundits and journalists might point out her negatives and in so doing make generalizations about women that aren't completely true. Oh my gosh. Remarkably Obama himself steered clear of this, but in a nasty fight for votes, supporters are going to say what they think will get votes. The notion that anyone would hold some kind of grudge against Obama, because some supporter made a sexist comment is ridiculous. Are you really going to vote for McCain because of some insult you read in a blog?
This was a good Democratic primary. Both candidates had to fight like hell and based on the current set of rules, Obama won fair and square. This residual anger of Clinton or Obama supporters makes almost no sense.
June 7, 2008 10:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'll admit to falling in your first category. I wanted her to drop out, but NOT because of any disrespect. Exactly the opposite.
She was hurting him. She was winning, BUT - she was too far behind to actually *win*. I knew as soon as the popular vote argument became current, that they had ceded the delegate count. That was, simply, an acknowledgment that she couldn't win.
Once she couldn't win, all that could happen was more damage to both of them. The current *incredibly* divided party reinforces the opinions I had then.
My opinion was never due to lack of respect, if anything it was nearly fear.
June 7, 2008 11:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
I know that sports analogies seem apropos with this election, but those with quarters, halves, periods and innings, may not be fitting.
It is common in political primary campaigns that there comes a point when the winner is known. Candidates routinely drop out when their odds grow longer than their shot at victory.
I had written earlier here at TPMCafe that a more appropriate sports analogy is golf. Match play golf. If you are behind, there is a point where it becomes impossible to comeback and win more holes than your opponent. You can play on. You can wish for a Greg Norman style collapse. But a good sportman -- er, sportswoman -- knows when to concede graciously.
I do not recall any pundits, news anchors, eidtors, writers, "experts" or other talking heads on the news channels that I watch or read making any generalization about women or women candidates. I do not recall hearing anything like, "women can't be commander-in-chief, women can't lead, women are too emotional, women aren't tall enough, women don't have the upper body strength..." It has actually been the reverse, with her supporters remarking on her "testicular fortitude," and the number and quality of her cajones.
Clinton set her self up to be the girl who could play in the "all boys club of Presidential politics." So the critique of her candidacy is not a generalization of women in politics. And no one should make it so.
June 7, 2008 12:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think the sexism in the campaign was highly overplayed by Hillary and friends. As stated many times, Obama never brought up race unless he had to. Hillary turned gender into an issue too often. If she was able to use to her advantage so many times, it sure smells a bit when she wants it the other way also. That made her look weak to many feminists. Several prominent critics of her campaign are women. Maureen Dowd one and Huffington another. I don't think either one was using the media in a sexist way, they just don't like her politically and they don't like what she shows about them as successful women.
June 7, 2008 11:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
Erica Jong an intellectual heavyweight??? Don't make me laugh! Jane Austen is a more honest feminist than she is!
June 7, 2008 12:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Jane Austen was also a lot smarter than Erica Jong. Fear of Flying isn't exactly great literature.
June 7, 2008 1:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree with both of you...
However, Jong has a gig at HuffPo... based largely on her celebrity -- er, notoriety -- over one book, decades old.
June 7, 2008 1:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Huffpo has been smart in combining politics with sleaze. Hard to fault them I guess. And hard not to click on the good sleazy stuff. But Jong is worse than paparazzi fare, she's just stupid.
June 7, 2008 3:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
[Ghost who walks] Try "Daughter of Persia.
June 8, 2008 4:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Jane Austen was also a lot smarter than Erica Jong. Fear of Flying isn't exactly great literature.
June 7, 2008 1:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Austen
and
Jong should not be in the same sentence.
In the early 90's I found both on my mothers bookshelves, along with Hollander. I moved all her Austen and took them into my room. I also took her Hollander.
June 7, 2008 4:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Snobbishness should not be confused with profundity, nor particular taste mistaken for acute understanding.
"If it sounds good, it is good." -- Duke Ellington
Thanks.
mp
June 7, 2008 6:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
ZOMG!!!!
Who knew....
June 7, 2008 8:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry, my reaction is "what rot." In case anyone hasn't noticed, the last time a woman was on a major ticket for the White House was 24 years ago -- 1984. While it is certainly true that there are plenty of capable women who could run the country, the indisputable fact is that none of them are within missile-launching distance of competing for the job, let alone waiting in the wings to get it.
Hillary Clinton got a toe in the door because of her position as a credible political figure who had been in the White House as First Lady. That says more about the political processes within the Democratic and Republican parties than it does about her. It took a rare confluence of talent, work, grit and luck for HRC to get as close as she did.
It will certainly be another 24 years before another opportunity arises. Based on behavior I've witnessed over the past four months, I'm quite certain that a majority of Obama supporters were motivated as much by misogyny as by conviction.
What's done is done. Obama supporters were able to keep the WH as an all-male preserve, while giving women a fair warning of the kind of public fragging they could expect if they dare again to challenge the gates to that preserve.
Congratulations.
Thanks.
mp
June 7, 2008 5:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Had Hillary Clinton run a better campaign she might have been the nominee tonight.
The point, Michael, is the claim of so-called feminists like Jong that they will go to their deathbeds without the opportunity to vote for a woman running for President is bogus.
Had putting a woman in the White House been a real agenda item in the feminist manifesto, 51% or 53% of the population could have made it happen. If it was important, the women of the Democratic party could have made it so. And did it before Hillary Clinton. Presidents do not govern from solutary confinement, and the same brilliant minds (many in the present administration excluded) that advise male Presidents would also be available to advise a female President.
This is not an Obama versus Clinton issue. It was strawman argument for you to try to make it so.
June 7, 2008 9:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Great discussion -- which I don't have time to properly contribute to at the moment. I'd like to correct one very minor detail, and I don't think this alters the main point at all, but this year Nader's running mate is Matt Gonzales (not a woman).
June 7, 2008 6:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Jade: Let’s not forget that Jesse Jackson also won South Carolina. But at least Bill Clinton was gracious enough to point out that Obama is a good candidate who ran a good campaign.
Your remarks are, if anything, more dismissive of the significance of Hillary Clinton’s candidacy as a woman than anything Bill Clinton said about Obama. That they are dressed up in the garb of feminism does not make them any more palatable. Your condescension toward Clinton’s supporters (their reactions either racist, defiantly feminist, passive aggressive or cutting off their nose to spite their face by voting for McCain) is stomach turning.
Comparing Hillary Clinton to Carol Moseley Braun and Bella Abzug is beyond absurd. Do I need to remind you that this was an extraordinarily close contest, that some 18 million people voted for HRC, that she came within a few hundred delegates of winning the nomination, that even now, a case can be made that she would have made the stronger nominee. (Though I will not disagree that she lost, fair and square). To be sure, sexism played a role in her defeat and the disappointment of many of her followers. How big a role is an interesting question, but you're not interested in exploring that.
But why should you? Your purpose is clear. You are contemptuous of HRC and her candidacy. This is most clearly evidenced by your dismissal of her as just a First Lady, as if her candidacy is solely premised upon her relationship to a powerful man. (I am reminded here of Ferraro’s comments about Obama and race. Here, you turn it around by saying Hillary would never be where she is except for her marriage to Bill Clinton). Of course, HRC has plenty of accomplishments of her own to boast of in addition to her time as First Lady, during which, as you must be aware, she was intimately involved as an advisor and partner. But none of this seems to interest you because your real intention here is in diminishing HRC and discrediting those who supported her and believe she was treated unfairly.
June 7, 2008 6:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Shirley Chisolm, there was a woman, a candidate who was"unbought and unbossed" what an inspiration she was.
June 7, 2008 8:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
And Pat Schroeder. I don't remember what year it was that she ran now; either 88 or 92...
But to another point: everyone has been acting like we should treat these boomer white women with white gloves, as if they are the pentultimate constituency, so let's just note the years in which white women in this age demographic deserted the Democratic Party: 1980, 1984, 1988, 2000, 2004....how quickly boomer white women tend to forget the many times they tossed aside the candidate who best represented true feminist ideals in favor of the candidate who promised to save them a few hundred bucks on taxes. Compare and contrast boomer white women's record of support for the Democratic Party compared to the record of support by African Americans. Not even close. So fuck all the caterwauling - the Democrats didn't owe you a nominee with a vagina. They owe you the same thing they've always owed you - a candidate who cares about serving your best interests, even though more often than not over the past 30 years, you've voted against him. That's what they've given you again this time - a candidate who is light-years better in serving your interests. Let's hope you'll outperform your record in elections past in supporting the person who will best serve you.
June 7, 2008 9:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
The real problem with this "HRC is not perfect, so any sexism she or her supporters had to deal with is unimportant," argument, is that it's hard to see how that way of thinking could ever lead to an acknowledgement of the problem of sexism in electoral politics. Because no candidate is perfect. Obama won't run a perfect GE campaign, but that won't excuse the inevitable racist GOP attacks. The discussion of the role of sexism in this campaign needs to be entirely separated from the quality of the campaign Clinton ran. She could have run a far worse campaign, been far less experienced, frequently made stupid gaffes, she could have been, in short, the Katie Couric of Presidential candidates, and it wouldn't excuse the media's sexism, the Democratic establishment's tolerance for their sexism, and the Obama campaign's own playing of the gender card. (Basing their attacks on every stereotype of a woman boss, "tea" comments, those "OMG, she can't possible be CIC!" conference calls, periodically when she's feeling down, that appalling SNL "witch" sketch, and Jesse Jackson Jr.'s appearance and Katrina rant, are just a few of the examples of the Obama campaign's exploitation of sexism)
Freedom from prejudice is a right, not a privilege.
And just to provide some background... I'm 25 years-old and a strong Clinton supporter. I think that both Obama and Clinton made some unfair attacks, and I am very afraid of a McCain presidency. I can also see that if some misguided and/or prejudiced Obama supporters keep ignoring the obvious (e.g. no one said she can't be CIC because she's a woman. I guess that means there's no sexism!) and clever Republican strategists honestly acknowledge the sexism HRC faced, McCain will probably win and advance his horrible agenda for women. The Democratic women voting for McCain will certainly share some of the blame, but so will all the Obama supporters who ignored their legitimate complaints.
Here's an interesting look at Austen and the campaign: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/simon-woods/hillary-sees-sense-and-ex_b_94885.html
June 8, 2008 1:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
And you sound like a sad, bitter, old woman.
June 9, 2008 10:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
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