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“Her problem wasn’t that she was a feminist. Her problem was that she wasn’t feminist enough.” Discuss. |
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(I have several things to say about this, but less time than I’d like to say it—so please bear with my drive-by analysis.)
I am mostly on board with the observations of Meghan O’Rourke in her Slate post, “Death of a Saleswomanâ€. . . mostly.
In the coming days, as Hillary Clinton moves to the sidelines and Barack Obama takes the stage alone, many people will suggest that America just wasn’t ready for a female president. This may be true. But we’ll never entirely know, because Clinton did not invite us to spend much time contemplating the momentous fact that she was the first female presidential candidate with any chance of occupying that position. Her problem wasn’t that she was a feminist. Her problem was that she wasn’t feminist enough.
Shorter me: It wasn’t just that what HRC did to inoculate herself against the sexism inherent in the system made her seem more like a man—it made her seem more like a Republican.
I will also add: Unlike O’Rourke, I am going to wait until after November (perhaps long after) before I give Barack Obama a grade on how “transformative†he and his campaign turned out to be.
And: I think that the issue of age deserves more analysis—or more weight in the analysis—than O’Rourke has given it. (Though, to her credit, MO’R does acknowledge her Gen X POV, and also concludes that some of Clinton’s troubles had opened the author’s younger cohort’s eyes to the pernicious persistence of sexism.) Second wave feminists probably see HRC’s signals through a different lens than their daughters. And, for the candidate, it is not just a tough nut to gauge how to position one’s self as a woman, it is perhaps (perhaps) tougher as a woman of a certain age.
In conclusion, to my eyes, while it seems like a plausible argument to say that Hillary Clinton failed to cast her campaign as a sufficiently transformative endeavor, and though it might have been harder for Clinton to seize the day than her male competitor, HRC could have avoided many of the pitfalls of identity politics if she had not spent her time in the Senate and on the campaign trail trying to split the mythical difference between core liberal Democratic positions and what she thought were the ones that made her more electable.
interesting possibility…hard to know what the issue was. Although I will say that she ran a very strong race and came very close to winning, so it’s hard to say she had a big “problem” from an electoral perspective. For me personally, the main reasons I couldn’t vote for her were/are (1) her vote on the Iraq AUMF (I think it really hurts the Dems if they can’t distinguish themselves from Rs on this issue–Obama can of course. I don’t want to see another Kerry situation where a Dem candidate has to explain why they initially supported the war) and (2) I believe (this is not necessarily based on hard statistical analysis) that there are a lot of Hillary haters out there and that if shw were the nominee it could galvanize the R base. But I speak only for myself–don’t know if focusing more on the transformative nature of her campaign could have helped. Again, she came real close–it’s like looking (in a very different context of course) at the Gore or Kerry campaigns–I don’t see them as failues, either could have won if just one state went the other way. On the flip side, everyone knows JFK won in ‘60, but it was a very narrow victory and what seems in retrospect like a campaign of destiny could have resulted in a loss to the execrable Nixon if just one state went the other way.
It’s improper to view Hillary Clinton’s candidacy as a referrendum on having a woman in the White House.
Yes, there were inequalities in how the media handled coverage of the campaign, among them were certain elements of sexism. But at the same time, the Clinton campaign perpetuated some of these elements. Yes, it’s wrong for the media to refer to the junior senator from Illinois as “Senator Obama”, and in the same sentence address Senator Clinton by her first name alone–but when all of her signs simply say “Hillary”, the media isn’t wholly to blame.
This isn’t the great blow to women’s rights that some are characterizing it as. There are plenty who would vote for a woman, but who wouldn’t vote for Hillary Clinton. There are perhaps even more who wouldn’t mind voting for Senator Clinton, but who thought Sen. Obama was a better choice. Let’s not tie Clinton’s candidacy too closely to the cause of breaking “the highest glass ceiling”. It’s not fair to her, or the advancement of women’s rights.
agreed