Women are jealous because I'm beautiful
It’s so clear to me now that women are just jealous of me, and wish they could look like me. You’re probably jealous of me too. Sound familiar? I’m sure you’ve known at least ONE person like that over the course of your lifetime. If you thought THAT attitude was lousy, hang on. There’s now an intellectualized "prom queen" defense being offered to explain why Hillary Clinton hasn’t been able to ‘close the deal’ in getting ALL women to support her. According to Susan Shapiro Barash, women are either jealous of Hillary Clinton and threatened by the power she’s achieved, or we’re all doing the master’s bidding and we’re all too confused by the male patriarchy that keeps us held down to know any better.
Barash, referring to the PA primary, states that:
This victory represents a long needed turnaround in female thinking, and the hope that women are coalescing, recognizing that our country needs and deserves the chance for female leadership.
...
When Nora Ephron pointed out in her Huffington Post piece that "white men will still decide who gets to be president," it drives home how important it is for women to band together. Yet contrary to conventional belief that female solidarity is alive and well, the exact opposite has been evidenced in the reaction of many women to Hillary.If we take it a step further, what exists is a "limited goods" theory. Instead of being expansive toward other women, we believe in a "magical theft," as if somehow Hillary's ascension connotes another woman's lost opportunity. The shame here is not only in this profound lack of support, woman to woman, but a false sense that our fate is to miss out when another woman wins.
The irony? That a feminist didn’t recognize the patronizing argument that there is such a thing as a prototypic woman. Hillary Clinton is supposed to represent the best interests of women, and why? Because she IS a woman. Alan Keyes is an American of African descent. So am I. He’s a bright man, even if I find his policies a little bat crap crazy, from a progressive’s perspective. Did I OWE it to him to support him when he ran for President? His ideas about what moves us forward are FAR different from my own beliefs. He’s anti-choice. Should I have put that aside and supported him?
Clinton has shown, me at least, that she responds to what is most politically expedient and that she hasn’t been a feminist in a very long time – if ever. I ‘owe’ her no more than I ‘owe’ Alan Keyes. I find her and her hawkish views as equally offensive as I find Keyes views about women’s rights. Why hasn’t it crossed Barash’s mind that it’s ‘The Clintons’ Democrats have become tired of (and that Republicans despise)? That’s not a gender issue. Why wasn’t the essay one that explored the LEGITIMATE reasons why so many women have difficulty supporting Clinton?
I’m fed up with being told that not supporting Clinton, when you’re a woman, is a sign of weakness or self-loathing. I have to wonder if some feminists who are supporting Hillary aren't trying to rationalize their support for her by creating a false narrative that she's under attack because of her gender, and that they need to 'protect' her. It may make them feel better about supporting Clinton’s anti-feminist emasculating taunts of Obama – yes, men who are sensitive, smart, and pro-woman are ‘too weak’ to run the country. How is it possible that women who support Obama are ‘tools of the man’, while those who support Clinton’s ‘the better man’ campaign’ are true feminists? Why hasn’t Barash discussed Obama’s platform and that he’s a pro-feminist candidate – the only one who doesn’t need to be ‘one of the boys’ in order to connect with the American voters? Keep supporting that pandering Clinton ideology, sisters!
It may please you to know that Marie Wilson is asking for help writing ‘The Gender Speech’ – one similar to that of Sen. Obama’s "More Perfect Union’. What I find interesting is that feminists supporting Clinton have never asked why SHE didn’t think to write that speech already. She’s been more than content to ask women to stand with her and to support her – she’s been doing it for quite some time now. ("Ask not what your gender can do for you, ask what you can do for your gender"). My response to Marie Wilson’s request:
Senator Obama's speech on 'race' included people like me, black women who are at the intersection and have been negatively impacted by RACE than gender. I'm always offended when feminists discount that to push the Clinton angle. I know, I know, in 1972 Shirley Chisholm said that she was more negatively impacted by sexism than racism. I have yet to read the use of that Chisholm quote from a feminist who wasn't trying to make the case that Sen. Clinton has been far more disadvantaged than Sen. Obama. As Clinton is supposed to represent all women, Chisholm's '72 statement is supposed to be representative of all women of color.
The Clinton name, Clinton machinery, MSM compliance and support, tapping out big donors early because of the structured campaign run by experienced pols ... SHE’S disadvantaged?
Since he began his campaign, I’ve watched Sen. Obama pull this nation together. HE didn’t use race, or gender, orientation, or class status as wedge issues. His focus was on ONE America, where the rights of all were to be respected and upheld. I’m sorry that the Clinton camp has decided that "balkanizing" the Democratic Party is the only way to go. I’m sorry that Penn’s colleague, Doug Schoen, has decided that Clinton should continue to go negative and would be winning if she’d gone negative early on. I’m sorry that it’s not already June 3rd, so that we can focus on what nominee Obama needs - as well as our down ticket candidates. I’m not sorry that I’m a woman who isn’t supporting Sen. and President Clinton’s bid to return to the White House. In fact, I’m quite proud of it.
Crossposted at Dailykos
I have had to defend my support for Obama because I am a woman.
I would love to see a woman president in my lifetime. I just don't think Hillary is the right woman for the job, so to vote for her based purely on her gender (and the fact that it matches mine) is just sexism in a skirt.
I do not believe that every woman who supports Clinton is doing so based only on gender, but for some to insinuate that I should support her based on our shared gender is, frankly, insulting.
April 25, 2008 12:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
See that's just how I feel.
I would give anything to see a woman as president before I die.
But not just Any Woman. I want to see a good woman president and there's nothing about her that says to me she'll be a good woman president.
April 26, 2008 10:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
You should read
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jon-wiener/feminist-leaders-oppose-h_b_84715.html
and
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/blackandbrownnews/the-obama-feminists-why-y_b_96128.html
Self-ascribed "feminists" have been split about this for a while.
April 25, 2008 12:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for the links. I've been following the various arguments and have even read the endorsements from the pro-Obama feminists. Oddly enough, none of them have tried to characterize Clinton supporters. They've only commented on why they support Obama. Hillary supporting feminists seem to want to characterize Obama feminists using highly negative language. It saddens me.
April 25, 2008 12:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
HE didn’t use race...
Riiiight.
April 25, 2008 4:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Whereas Clinton and her gender card are played so often its worn on the edges- and the gender pandering is the only reason she won PA.
Funny thing is she isnt doing anything for women. Where is she decrying McCain's anti equal pay vote? Or hsi stupid comments? Why isnt she championing the poor KBR women rapes who will never see a trial?
April 26, 2008 12:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
What's funny about Barash using Ephron's words is that
1) Ephron said Hillary makes her want to crawl out of her skin, and
2) the statement that "white men will still decide who gets to be president" is actually an argument AGAINST Hillary, since white men reportedly prefer her to Obama.
Confuzzling.
I am a white woman and I (heart) Obama. NOT because I am not a "real" feminist, and NOT because Hillary reminds me of my mom (or even Joan Crawford), but because I am just really excited about the idea of having a rational, articulate, and -- gasp!-- HONEST president for the first time in my adult life.
April 25, 2008 11:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
A Hillary supporter on Tom Hartmann's radio show today said these exact words in her contradictory explanation of why her support of Hillary is not just because she's a woman. Hartmann let her talk for quite a while before trying to engage her on the subject. She was on a breathless rant. She happened to be from PA, and she went off on a tear about the PA politicians who endorsed Obama, like Casey and that young Rep., Patrick someone (I forget his last name) -- anyway, she said, "No one should have endorsed at all. None of the PA politicians should have endorsed." So Hartmann asks, "So your saying Ed Rendell shouldn't have endorsed Hillary? It was wrong for him to endorse Hillary?" Well, no, she said, then launches into a tirade about "those men" and "I'll never vote for those men again! Those men have blah blah blah." It was fascinating.
I support Obama and echo your reasons. And as others here have said, I very much want a woman president. I think the country is long overdue, and we're certainly behind other countries in terms of women heads of state. I just don't feel that Hillary is that woman. I don't think she's the right person for this moment in time.
April 26, 2008 2:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
You and me both.
April 26, 2008 11:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
April 25, 2008 11:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
I vote for principles, not policies. Hillary Clinton has some good policies, but she would sell out any policy on the planet for political gain. There is no issue on which she will not pander. Barack Obama has some good policies, and they come from a particular set of principles and a worldview. He's a realist, and he will compromise at times and might not get all that we would want, but he keeps his eye on the underlying principle. The compromises he makes won't sell out the underlying principles.
April 26, 2008 1:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
I would agree, so long as you are saying that you vote for principles, and you do not care whether or not the person implementing them is principled. To do a reductio ad absurdum here: I will take the Thieving Violent Pederast who enacts healthcare reform over the Honest Peaceful Monagamist who gives me war. My point is not to emphasize policy, per se, but to strongly condemn voting based on personality.
April 26, 2008 1:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
Littleblackp,
Your reductio ad absurdum binds you to an absurd catch22 because the
"Honest Peaceful Monogamist" won't bring you war
and the
"Thieving Violent Pederast" won't bring you healthcare reform that matters.
Call it principles, personality or character, but it DOES matter.
April 26, 2008 10:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
There is a difference between personality and principles. The reason the "Honest Peaceful Monogamist" won't bring you war is because peace is a principle. Monogamy is a nice quality, but it says nothing about one's political principles.
I don't care about personality. I don't care about the quality of a candidate's laugh or his personal eating habits or any number of stupid little traits. Nor do I require a candidate to be perfect. Sainthood is boring. And frankly, none of us would come out smelling like a rose if given 24/7 scrutiny for months on end.
It does matter to me what a candidate's values are. I do look for a sense of integrity. I want to see how a candidate responds to his/her own mistakes and what a candidate learns from those mistakes. I want to see what sort of consistent priorities a candidate expresses over the course of a career. These things all matter.
Because there are a lot of candidates who will spout support for any policy during election season. And the minute the election is over, the policy is tossed into the circular file.
Which is why I will continue to vote for principles. Obama has shown consistent support for bringing more people into the process, consistent opposition to foolish, wasteful wars, consistent support for making government more open and responsive to the citizens, consistent willingness to listen to people and learn from other perspectives, and a consistent ability to respond to issues with thoughtfulness and intelligence.
Clinton has shown consistent support for children's issues, and I appreciate that quality. Unfortunately, on other issues such as labor unions and trade issues, she demonstrates great inconsistency. She talks the talk, but she maintains a close relationship with a known union buster, and her husband actively campaigns for Colombia. There is no consistency, therefore there is no reason to trust that she will follow through on anything she says now about unions or trade.
Personality is irrelevant. Policy positions are ephemeral. Principles matter.
April 26, 2008 1:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you for writing this. I have been truly angry at some of the attitudes among some feminists. I've been a feminist for 30 years (seriously, at age 12, I had my first feminist realization - I read the entire New Testament and decided Jesus was cool, but Paul was an asshole who had some serious problems with women). Anyway, point being, I don't feel like I have to prove my feminist cred to anybody. Yet, I've definitely felt like I was being dismissed by feminists because I support Obama, like not supporting Hillary is betraying my ovaries or something.
I imagine it would be especially frustrating for black women, since the media tends to act like there are blacks and there are women, and somehow there's no intersection between the two. It's just crazy.
In an 1851 speech called "Ain't I a Woman," Sojourner Truth said: "Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think that 'twixt the negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what's all this here talking about?"
We've come so far, and yet there are still so many burdens we've not been able to shed on the journey.
April 26, 2008 1:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you. I am a life-long feminist who has volunteered for Obama's campaign from the first open office in my home state. I knew how important his candidacy would be the minute I saw the speech at the convention in 2004.
I continue to work for the independance and advancement of women. Nothing would put us further back than the wrong woman.
April 26, 2008 1:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
My guess is that Barash doesn't want to go there, because it would be saying that Hillary can't be viewed as an individual, without Bill; that she hasn't really made it on her own as a politician and is always tied to Bill -- and that connection with Bill reminds them (all feminists) of what he did and how he humiliated her.
I also thank you for writing this. I've had a couple frosty conversations with friends who support Hillary and, I'm sure, can't for their lives understand why I don't. I keep the conversations pretty superficial and don't let them go too far, as I'm afraid I know what the outcome would be.
April 26, 2008 2:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
Right on, Denni! I agree with your wonderfully written post.
What's more, I've become very bitter at how single-issue "feminists" (whose white racial privilege permits them to believe they're women and women only) have abandoned anti-racism as part of the core meaning of being feminist.
I am absolutely committed to intersectional analysis.
If you cannot run your campaign well, I will not vote for you.
If you blame misogyny for your inability to envision a new way of doing politics, if sexism is why your campaign was unable to work the ground game in gathering more pledged delegates legitimately during post-primary county and state conventions, and big bad men are the reason why your allegiance is to lobbyists and old-school, top-down politics, I will not vote for you.
If you elevate your Republican opponent over your Democratic Party colleague, I will not vote for you. If you've been dog-whistling to aggrieved and disaffected "Reagan Democrats" with race-baiting digs ever since Super Tuesday, I will not vote for you.
And I will not vote for an Iraq war authorizing, Kyl-Lieberman affirming, cluster-bomb okaying, advocate of nuclear "obliteration" of Iran.
I'm disturbed by the mostly white women who seem to think all of the above are okay in Clinton. And I wouldn't call those women feminists.
April 26, 2008 2:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
Gromyt: Thank you for bringing up the Iraq war, as this has been ignored by the so-called feminists supporting Hillary who refuse to see this war as a woman's issue. We went to war in Iraq over a personal grudge of Dick Cheney's, without any regard to how it would change the humanitarian landscape for women in Iraq (and their children). And we removed the Taliban for a few months, which made for great t.v., and then ignored the fact that the Northern Alliance was no less murderous to women than the Taliban. And then we let the Taliban take over again (behind the scenes, of course). So how is life right now for women in Afghanistan? Shitty, thanks for asking. Were is the outrage of NOW? There is none. They are too busy bullying the female Obama vote and screeching Second Wave vitriol about how they are owed something in this election. And how long until they revive their smear campaign against Kathleen Willey, or any other woman who had the guts to tell the truth about Bill? Hillary cries that Obama's 2002 speech opposing the Iraq War is meaningless. Well, Hillary, I'll tell you what was meaningless: Your speech about human rights for the women of China when you utterly failed to help the women who needed it the most during your husband's administration: The women of Afghanistan. Want to talk about actions rather than words, and your "record"? Tell me this: Where the fuck were you when women were being publicly executed in soccer stadiums in Afghanistan while your husband was getting his dick sucked? Nowhere, that's where. Fuck off, Hillary, fuck off.
April 26, 2008 5:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think this is one of those cases where someone writes a book and then is expected to keep applying the same argument in every op-ed and article he or she is asked to write. Pretty soon the writer ends up distorting her own perception to match the expectation. This Barash has written a couple of books about how girls and women feel threatened by each other's success ("Tripping the Prom Queen"), so now she feels compelled to apply to everything, despite all evidence. This one managed to offend not only me but also my Clinton-supporting wife, and I suspect it's offended a lot of other Clinton supporters. What a maroon.
April 26, 2008 3:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
I am a woman and frankly HRC pandering to women is offensive, I'm supposed to be impressed cause she cried in NH, I wasn't frankly I found it phony, if you want to impress me with your tears cry at the plight of Katrina victims, cry when you see the names of the 4000+ names of the men and women who died in Iraq, cry for the thousand and thousands of workers you help to displace first when you worked on the board of Wal-Mart and second when you supported your husbands trade deal, cry for the woman whose reputations you helped to destroy when you supported you husband through all of his extra marital scandals, or i have a better idea don't cry at all, just stop tearing the party apart and accept defeat like a woman with class and grace
April 26, 2008 9:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
Clap, clap, clap!
April 26, 2008 10:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes! This 'identity politics' notion that any of us should gravitate toward a candidate based on our gender or race is just ridiculous. It seems like a huge step backward, never mind some choice between change or the status quo.
And I'm glad you brought up Clinton's Wal-Mart service, I don't see why that doesn't get play. A friend of mine recently said she supports Clinton because the senator has a history of supporting "hard-working laborers and trade unions" and my jaw hit the floor, bounced, landed again. Wal-Mart ain't exactly known for their pro-union and pro-labor practices. And neither is Mark Penn, although to her credit he has been somewhat marginalized.
April 26, 2008 11:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
"I’m fed up with being told that not supporting Clinton, when you’re a woman, is a sign of weakness or self-loathing."
In the reality-based community, what you pontificate about is a non-issue, i.e. in the reality-based community, lots of women support Obama without any repurcussion.
You are either making yet another mountain out of a molehill (if there is a molehill) for petty political purposes, or you are spending too much time reading that gooey cerebral stuff. Vote for whomever you please. I hate to break it to you but, I submit, in the reality-based community, nobody really cares what lever you pull; it's just not about you, even if, as you say, you are more beautiful than other folks.
April 26, 2008 9:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
Look at the way Bill Clinton has treated many women. He has behaved like a habitual sexual predator. It was his own campaign team, and Ms.Betsy Wright in particular, that said that they had to be always ready to handle Bill's Bimbo Eruptions.
You know all the sordid details of what she was talking about. Did he stop when he became President. You know the answer to that. What does that tell you about how little he actually cares about not holding Hillary up to ridicule. She had to go on national TV in 1992 and humiliate herself over the Gennifer Flowers affair. How does Bill repay her. He makes her do it again, over Monica.
If you look at how Bill Clinton treats women, you will find that he is a raging misogynist, and Hillary has stayed with him, not matter how much he has degraded many other women, and Hillary herself.
She is not a self respecting feminist, she just plays one on TV.
April 26, 2008 10:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
Any woman who insults the right of another woman to vote independently is no feminist AT ALL.
I have also heard some of these self-proclaimed "feminists" advocate on one hand that all women should vote for Hillary while crying racism because blacks vote for Obama. Do as I say, not as I do...
(White)power of all genders is extremely self-centered and unaware of the world around....
April 26, 2008 10:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Since he began his campaign, I’ve watched Sen. Obama pull this nation together. HE didn’t use race, or gender, orientation, or class status as wedge issues."
Let's go all the way back to South Carolina. Donny McClurkin - arch-homophobe who says gays are a curse and want to kill America's children - invited by Obama to MC his southern gospel tour. Uses the tour to preach against gays to the predominantly black Baptist and anti-gay audience that Obama is courting. Wedge issue.
South Carolina - Hillary's comment that it took LBJ to push through the civil rights legislation of the 1960's is taken out of context and used by black leaders to say that Hillary belittled Martin Luther King. First Obama surrogates, then his campaign, and then Obama himself jump on the bandwagon, driving a wedge between Hillary and her black supporters. Wedge issue.
Jeremiah Wright speech - "... can't disavow Wright any more than I can disavow my own grandmother" whom he describes as a racist. Later he calls her a "typical white person". Wedge issue.
Let's jump to Pennsylvania. "Cling to faith and guns out of bitterness". Class status. Wedge issue.
I'm not sure if he's used feminism as a wedge issue. You seem to be doing that for him.
April 26, 2008 10:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
Troll alert. Otto, the Aryan Nation Troll(ANT) has logged on from his Sewer Rats compound!!!
April 26, 2008 11:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
Liam: Your comments are among my favorites. We need to not feed the troll.
April 27, 2008 12:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
Excellent, well written, and thoughtful post. I can't pretend to know what it's like to be a woman in our society, and I can only imagine the subtle and overt pressure women must feel to support Hillary . . . simply because she's also a woman.
Back before the NH primary, and before the "emotional episode" and the press' sexist reaction to the same, I was a bit saddened to see the Hillary campaign circling the drain -- even though I wholeheartedly opposed her as a candidate -- because I could not imagine how long it would be before we, as a country, had another woman with enough name recognition, etc. to run for president. Ever since then, however, she has so shamelessly promoted the idea that she should get the women's vote simply because she is a woman that I cannot imagine why I thought -- even for a brief moment -- that her presidency would actually be a good thing for women.
This country is ready for a woman president. It just isn't ready for any, or specifically this, woman president.
April 26, 2008 11:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
Great post! As a woman who is very aware of the battles my suffragette predecessors waged to secure the vote and fight gender discrimination, I'll be darned if I will substitute someone else's judgment for my own when it comes to casting my own precious vote. Why on earth would I allow a "Good Old Girls Club" to be the boss of me? NOT!
April 26, 2008 12:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Where was Hillary when it came time to work against the South Dakota ban on all abortions?
There was only one US sitting Senator who held a fundraiser to hell repeal that ban. That was Barack Obama.
Hillary told the women of S.Dakota to take a hike she did not lift one finger to help women on that issue.
Yet, she lied in NH by distorting Obama's record on the issue.
Hillary also backed her husbands cut of welfare during the administration which helped to put poor women and children off the welfare roles with nowhere to go.
Hillary does not have a strong record on women's rights at all.
April 26, 2008 2:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Absolutely. Hillary is not a liberal when it comes to reproductive choice. You want to know why we got the exceptional Ruth Bader Ginsburg? It was because of Janet Reno, not Hillary. I wish Obama would hammer her on this. I think he was caught unaware in New Hampshire, perhaps assuming that the women there would not be fooled by Clinton on this issue. I do not mean to denigrate the women of NH, but they, it seems, are the first ones to tell you they got duped on this.
April 27, 2008 12:22 AM | Reply | Permalink