This lame critique of Hillary Clinton shows our impossible demands on women

[babylonsister]

This lame critique of Hillary Clinton shows our impossible demands on women

Updated by Amanda Taub on April 20, 2015, 1:50 p.m. ET @amandataub


snip//

This weekend, for instance, the New York Times's Maureen Dowd appears to have let her inner femininity critic ghostwrite her column, to genuinely peculiar effect. Dowd's latest piece is devoted to telling Hillary Clinton that she has spent her life being a woman wrong, and that she will never be president unless she can manage exactly the correct amount of femininity on the campaign trail.

In Dowd's telling, Hillary lost in 2008 because she "campaigned like a man," and voted for the Iraq War in 2002 because she wanted to "project swagger," only to lose to a "feminized" Barack Obama.

But now, Dowd complains, Hillary has overcorrected:

She has zagged too far in the opposite direction, presenting herself as a sweet, docile granny in a Scooby van, so self-effacing she made only a cameo in her own gauzy, demographically pandering presidential campaign announcement video and mentioned no issues on her campaign’s website.

In her Iowa round tables, she acted as though she were following dating tips from 1950s advice columnists to women trying to "trap" a husband: listen a lot, nod a lot, widen your eyes, and act fascinated with everything that’s said. A clip posted on her campaign Facebook page showed her sharing the story of the day her granddaughter was born with some Iowa voters, basking in estrogen as she emoted about the need for longer paid leave for new mothers: "You’ve got to bond with your baby. You’ve got to learn how to take care of the baby."

This, apparently, is entirely too much femininity. Dowd thinks Hillary needs to find a "more authentic way to campaign as a woman — something between an overdose of testosterone and an overdose of estrogen, something between Macho Man and Humble Granny."

This is so ridiculous that I can't help but find it a relief. Hillary isn't "macho," as Dowd puts it; in fact, she is genuinely more hawkish than the rest of the Democratic Party. And she's no "docile granny," in Iowa or elsewhere — since when is paid leave for working women, which this country does not currently guarantee, some sort of softball issue?

And I can't do anything but laugh when Dowd suggests that Hillary should use the bossy and ambitious caricature of herself that Amy Poehler played on Saturday Night Live in 2008 as guidance for how to escape the bossy and ambitious caricature of herself that Kate McKinnon plays on SNL now.

This system is rigged. There is no way to win. Especially for those of us who have never been spoofed on late-night television at all — where do we turn for guidance? But what a relief to see that absurd, impossible standard shriveling in the sunlight.

more...

http://www.vox.com/2015/4/20/8458001/hillary-clinton-women

[Kelvin Mace]

1. Maureenm Dowd has ZERO credibility

on this issue. Her hatred for the Clintons is legendary.

[closeupready]

2. Seriously, who is Maureen Dowd and why should intelligent people care

WHAT she thinks about anything? She's pure hack. 100%. k?

[sufrommich]

3. Everything that comes out of Dowd's mouth is dumb.nt

[misterhighwasted]

4. Oh Yes, all the armchair candidates have all got an opinion.

Dowd should enter the race & show Hillary Clinton how it properly should be done.
Like Carly Fiorina's attempting to do. NOT!

Opinions are like arseholes. Everybody's got one. Including Maureen Dowd.

Sit at your comfy keyboard Mz Dowd or get yourself out there, if you really believe in what you say.
UGH!!

[Surya Gayatri]

5. The vitriol and personal animosity drips from Dowd's keyboard.

[KamaAina]

6. Has Mo been in Colorado again?