On Hillary
20 01 2007
In case you haven’t heard, Hillary Clinton has officially announced she will be running for president in 2008. It seems like every news story I hear about it claims how “controversial” she is. I’m reminded of an excellent piece by the always right-on Katha Pollitt. This piece from last November forever changed how I hear news reports about Hillary. Here’s a sample:
“In her essay Eisenstein argues that HRC is a “female decoy” whose election would harm women because it would put a pink pseudo-feminist gloss on militarism and neoliberalism. There’s something in this, but it comes close to holding Senator Clinton’s femaleness against her: Logically, a man with the same positions would be less bad, because he couldn’t use feminism (or female stereotypes of caring and nurturing) to disguise them. But since anyone with a realistic hope of becoming President will necessarily have made all sorts of unsavory bargains with the statusquo, this amounts to saying we’ll never have a woman in the White House. We’ll continue on as now: “expecting more” of women and tacitly expecting less of men.
Well, count me out. The contemporary women’s movement is almost forty years old, and after all that time exactly one woman has managed to reach the point where she can make a credible run for the White House. And I don’t see another one around the corner, do you? Polls consistently show the “castrating satanic robot” way ahead of her potential primary rivals. In general election match-ups she trumps every Republican but Rudy Giuliani and John McCain. Maybe Barack Obama will alter the dynamics, which would be amusing, since I’ll bet few of his fans can name even three positions he holds. But right now, if HRC were a man, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. But then, if she were a man, she wouldn’t be almost universally perceived as unelectable.”
You can find the full article here.
I’m also not saying I’d necessarily vote for Hillary in the primary. But Pollitt touches on a lot of interesting and important points: are the ways in which we judge Hillary Clinton gendered? How would we view a male Democratic candidate with her politics? Just something to keep in mind as she’ll no doubt be all over the media until the race, and will no doubt continue to be under ridiculous scrutiny just because she’s a woman.
I like Katha Pollitt. And I agree that she makes good points in the article. Thanks for the link.
The idea that an article associated with Code Pink would say “you expect more of a woman” [re: Hillary Clinton and the Iraq War] is offensive. You should expect any senator (male or female) to represent the interests of his/her constituency and the country, and to not put our soldiers in harm’s way unless absolutely necessary. Male or female, veteran or not a veteran, that should be expected from all politicians in the federal government.
I am not a huge fan of Hillary Clinton. She is my senator and I have been very disappointed in her politics. But most of the annoyed letters I’ve written to her I’ve also written to my male senator, Sen. Schumer. They both irk me.