Three articles from recent NY Times columnists addressed the deeper social dilemmas raised by this clash that is brewing between the cool and low pressure candidacy of Obama and the hotter and more high pressure candidacy of Hillary – a national political fight to the finish between a 46 year old black man and a 60 year old white woman.
• 1. In the first, Judith Warner uses a Super Bowl Sunday conversation with two male friends as her launching point into a discussion of the various frustrations that attend to a woman’s life in a mostly man’s world. This leads her to reflect on the sort of difficulties that Hillary faces, that all white men and even some black men are spared. She links to a recent and free-ranging rant by a noted 60’s feminist named Robin Morgan, an early feminist who speaks truth to the more misogynistic currents that are operating below the surface to undermine and compromise Hillary’s considerable powers.
Reading Morgan’s piece after Warner’s got me thinking that any woman in modern day America who would stand up and fight for her right to lead will unloose a dark banshee shadow such as now takes many-headed forms in the countless and completely irrational Hillary hate movements that criss-cross the land.
•• 2. In another column, Stanley Fish tackles the whole issue of Hillary hating square on.
After making my way through these three pieces, I felt that I needed not only to look again at the Hillary movement, but to look and to listen more closely to the forces and the voices that have ventured forth to attack her – because among them are forces that will not soon be calmed, but will almost certainly continue to madly work to poison the well of equality and hope for women, and to deny truth and justice to all those who threaten their deep-seated insecurities.
It would be a beautiful thing if a black man became president. It would also be good if a younger and more multi-cultural person took the reigns of leadership on a platform of greater commonality with the people of the world.
But what would it say for America to elect a woman – and one as competent and forthright as Hillary Clinton?
I said in my post the other day..
“… she’s all-right – though the anti-Clinton artillery of 1998 is all ready to go again – and that won’t be much fun to watch in re-runs.”
But that artillery’s existence is almost none of her doing! Rather, it is the fault of those Rovean forces that never tire of demonizing and attacking her character – not her policies and positions, but that far more elusive and subjective target – her character. This is their target, and it is one which in the eyes of her demonizers will never follow from what she says or does, but will simply persist because she is the target of a self-fueling hatred that exists entirely independent of her.
On this score alone, just to give the back of our hand to those who lack all sense of truth or justice, and who would perpetuate this insidious war against any woman who vied for true equality, sounds like a damn good idea. Because in the end, it’s not just Hillary who is the object of their hatred; it’s really any and all strong and independent women who would seek to upset the status quo.
••• 3. Giving some historical context to this thread, columnist Nicholas Kristof considers how females of the past have ruled over nations. He looks at history’s many famous queens and finds among them an astonishingly high success rate. Non-royal leaders of the modern era have had a much more difficult time of it. Kristof’s extends the following theory to explain the discrepancy between the two.
“In monarchies, women who rose to the top dealt mostly with a narrow elite, so they could prove themselves and get on with governing. But in democracies in the television age, female leaders also have to navigate public prejudices — and these make democratic politics far more challenging for a woman than for a man.”
Women who self-promote are seen differently than men who do so. This narrowed range of options means that someone like Hillary woman will likely be perceived as competent or as likable, but not both.
Appearances matter far more for women than for men, which again puts Hillary under a microscope that men can far more easily bypass.
Hillary, in her pioneering role is shouldered with the daunting task of of reducing such prejudice by a long and arduous campaign of trust-building and strong decision-making.
