Barbara Ehrenreich: Hillary's Gift to Women

[babylonsister]

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080526/ehrenreich

Hillary's Gift to Women
By Barbara Ehrenreich

May 12, 2008


In Friday's New York Times, Susan Faludi rejoiced over Hillary Clinton's destruction of the myth of female prissiness and innate moral superiority, hailing Clinton's "no-holds-barred pugnacity" and her media reputation as "nasty" and "ruthless." Future female presidential candidates will owe a lot to the race of 2008, Faludi wrote, "when Hillary Clinton broke through the glass floor and got down with the boys."

I share Faludi's glee--up to a point. Surely no one will ever dare argue that women lack the temperament for political combat. But by running a racially tinged campaign, lying about her foreign policy experience and repeatedly seeming to favor McCain over her Democratic opponent, Clinton didn't just break through the "glass floor," she set a new low for floors in general, and would, if she could have gotten within arm's reach, have rubbed the broken glass into Obama's face.

A mere decade ago Francis Fukuyama fretted in Foreign Affairs that the world was too dangerous for the West to be entrusted to graying female leaders, whose aversion to violence was, as he established with numerous examples from chimpanzee society, "rooted in biology." The counter-example of Margaret Thatcher, perhaps the first of head of state to start a war for the sole purpose of pumping up her approval ratings, led him to concede that "biology is not destiny." But it was still a good reason to vote for a prehistoric-style club-wielding male.

Not to worry though, Francis. Far from being the stereotypical feminist-pacifist of your imagination, the woman to get closest to the Oval Office has promised to "obliterate" the toddlers of Tehran--along, of course, with the bomb-builders and Hezbollah supporters. Earlier on, Clinton foreswore even talking to presumptive bad guys, although women are supposed to be the talk addicts of the species. Watch out--was her distinctly unladylike message to Hugo Chávez, Kim Jong-Il and the rest of them--or I'll rip you a new one.

snip//

Hillary Clinton smashed the myth of innate female moral superiority in the worst possible way--by demonstrating female moral inferiority. We didn't really need her racial innuendos and free-floating bellicosity to establish that women aren't wimps. As a generation of young feminists realizes, the values once thought to be uniquely and genetically female--such as compassion and an aversion to violence--can be found in either sex, and sometimes it's a man who best upholds them.

[undeterred]

1. The only gift I want from Hillary

is for her to hang it up now.

[HockeyMom]

2. For her to STOP sending me emails

Now they are two a day. Send them back with UN SUBSCRIBE to no avail.

[Shakespeare]

3. Whoa.

That's gotta hurt. Way harsh, but pretty accurate.

[Joyce78]

4. And the young generation of feminists would be ....

Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, anybody who wins American Idol? Paris Hilton? Who is the role model for the "young generation of feminists", who, by the way, are the beneficiaries due to the early work of people like Hillary Clinton.

[karynnj]

5. It was mostly the generations before HRC that fought the hardest fights

I am just a few years younger than HRC and I can tell you that women who had good grades and majors in fields like math, science, engineering, and economics or the then pretty new MBAs were courted by many major companies due to affirmative action. HRC came out of law school in the early 197os when that was already happening. It may have been harder for her to get into Yale Law School, but maybe not. She was hired as a law professor as easily as a man with her backround would have. Her being Bill's wife was likely as big a plus to Rose Law firm. As to getting the Senate seat - against any man from Clinton's administration, Nita Lowry likely would not have pulled out - she was the likely candidate and would very likely have won. As to President, that is such a rare thing to get that I can't see that she was disadvantaged - she had the entire Clinton machine behind her. There has never been a LESS disadvantaged candidate who was not a VP or incumbent President.

[Cha]

6. I don't what sex hilary clinton is..she's a

freakin' lying, pandering, venomous smearing, dirty politician and her gift will be to get the hell outta here.

Rec'd~