Cry me a river of votes

Some thoughts on Hillary Clinton, Mistygate and her subsequent win in New Hampshire, and misogynism.

It may well turn out that all those sexist attacks on Clinton have backfired, that women who would never have voted for her now might -- just because they have had their consciousnesses raised by all the cable talk show hosts, talk jocks and mostly males in punditville who attack her in ways they would never attack men. (MSNBC's Chris Matthews pinched her cheek, ferchrissake!) Just today, I was disgusted by the photos of her that appeared in newspapers. Could editors, mostly male if I know this business and I do, not have found one of her that does not make her look fat, old, braying?

Here's a little something something from today's New York Times:

If the race wasn’t about gender already, it certainly is now.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton has been running for president for nearly a year. But in the past week, women in Iowa mostly rejected her, a few days before women in New Hampshire embraced her. All over the country, viewers scrutinized coverage for signs of chauvinism in the race, and many said they found dismaying examples.

Even Democratic women with no intention of voting for Mrs. Clinton found themselves drawn into the debate and shaken by what briefly seemed like a humiliating end to the most promising female candidacy in American history.

The process seems to have changed a few minds, at least for now.

<SNIP>

By losing the first presidential contest, Mrs. Clinton may have succeeded in getting more women to see her as she presents herself: not a dominant figure of power, but a woman trying to break what she has called “the highest and hardest glass ceiling" in America.

“I do want Hillary Rodham Clinton to take the White House, but until she lost Iowa, I didn’t realize how much, or how much it had to do with her being a woman,” said Allison Smith-Estelle, 37, director of a program against domestic violence in Red Lodge, Mont.

What bothered them as much as the Iowa results, said several dozen women in states with coming primaries, was the gleeful reaction to her defeat and what seemed like unfair jabs in the final moments before the New Hampshire voting.

Michelle Six, 36, a lawyer and John Edwards supporter in Los Angeles, said she was horrified to hear Mr. Obama tell Mrs. Clinton she was “likable enough” in a Democratic debate on Saturday. Ms. Six said she found the line condescending, and an echo of other unkind remarks by other men about women over the years.

The likability question, initially raised by a moderator, “wouldn’t be coming up if she wasn’t a woman,” she said.

At work, Ms. Six said, she listened to male colleagues make fun of Mrs. Clinton for choking up at a campaign appearance in New Hampshire. “She’s over,” one chortled, Ms. Six said.

With that, Mrs. Clinton “may just have earned my vote,” Ms. Six said, adding, “I don’t know if I was super-conscious” of the gender factor in the race before then.

So bring it on, RushMattJoe. (Read the ''crawl'' on the Fox News screen at left.) The more you do it, the better her chances with the soccer-security-whatever-label-you-plan-to-pin-on-moms, we-mark-our-ballots-in-herds ''women's vote.'' And wouldn't that just blow you up real good?

Salon's Rebecca Traister nails it here:

So no, I have not been a Hillary Clinton supporter. But the torrent of ill-disguised hatred and resentment unleashed toward a briefly weakened Clinton this week shook that breezy naiveté right out of me, and made me feel something that all the hectoring from feminist elders could not: guilt for not having stood up for Hillary. I can't believe I'm saying this, but had I been a New Hampshire voter on Tuesday, I would have pulled a lever for the former first lady with a song in my heart and a bird flipped at MSNBC's Chris Matthews, a man whose interest in bringing Clinton down hovers on the pathological, and whose drooling excitement at the prospect of her humiliation began to pulse from the television last week before most Iowa precincts had even begun to report results.

Note that, as I have stated before, I am also not a Clinton supporter. But, sitting on the Canadian sidelines, I realize that the stakes have changed.

Watch the war get really vicious -- and the cable guys say that we're all just a bunch of ewes.

Also, from our self-hating women department, comes the stuck-in-the-90s Camille Paglia in today's Salon:

It's no coincidence that Hillary's staff has always consisted mostly of adoring women, with nerdy or geeky guys forming an adjunct brain trust.

Heaven knows, it's not a problem when a man's staff is filled with ... men.

More (boldface is mine):

Hillary's rumored hostility to uniformed military men and some Secret Service agents early in the first Clinton presidency probably belongs to this pattern. And let's not forget Hillary, the governor's wife, pulling out a book and rudely reading in the bleachers during University of Arkansas football games back in Little Rock.

Because the little woman should cheer along with hubby-wubby.

Hillary's disdain for masculinity fits right into the classic feminazi package, which is why Hillary acts on Gloria Steinem like catnip. Steinem's fawning, gaseous New York Times op-ed about her pal Hillary this week speaks volumes about the snobby clubbiness and reactionary sentimentality of the fossilized feminist establishment, which has blessedly fallen off the cultural map in the 21st century.

Who needs Bill O'Reilly  Matthews when we have Paglia?

One more thing: It's really starting to piss me off how the punditocracy dismisses Barack Obama supporters as "Winfrey-ites'' and other such terms because of Oprah's endorsement. That's code, to my mind, for ''dumb broads who watch daytime TV and do whatever their heroine tells them to do.''

Well, if all the women rise up and vote, it will be a very different America, and world.

Which is what all these guys are afraid of.

A great big tip of the beret to Feministing.

 

Comments

[Maddy]

I will never understand Camille Paglia. I'm always baffled by her views on women and feminism.

By the way, I just wanted to say that I absolutely love reading your column, and am really glad you started this blog!

=)

[Ed01]

Would have been nice if you had run the last sentence about the reasons for her disdain for the leaders of the American feminist movement's support for Hillary

...History will judge Steinem and company very severely for their ethically obtuse indifference to the stream of working-class women and female subordinates whom Bill Clinton sexually harassed and abused, enabled by look-the-other-way and trash-the-victims Hillary...

Nothing like Camille to upset the punditracy. A cracked genius who takes no prisoners and leaves no sacred cows unscathed. Long may she run.

[Deanna]

It seems that the US pundits have forgotten that more women vote in recent presidential elections than men. For example, women made up 54% of the voters in 2004 (61% of eligable women voters). That's 9 million more votes.

Do the sexist pundits think that attacking Clinton will make other women more afraid and remind them to "stay where they belong"? If so, I'm going to enjoy watching that strategy backfire.

Stats:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/07/weekinreview/07conn.html?_r=1&oref=slogin http://usinfo.state.gov/dhr/Archive/2004/Apr/14-284075.html

[sooey]

Playboy understands Camille Paglia. You're over-thinking her, Maddy, that's all:

"Meanwhile--in fact, I couldn't believe Playboy put this in--they cut my whole philosophy of feminism to leave space for my theories about Naomi Wolf's hair!"

[Antonia]

RE: ''...History will judge Steinem and company very severely for their ethically obtuse indifference to the stream of working-class women and female subordinates whom Bill Clinton sexually harassed and abused, enabled by look-the-other-way and trash-the-victims Hillary...''

Did you really want me to take this on Ed? Feminism has to apologize for a man's screwing around on his wife? Feminism is responsible for a guy who can't keep it zipped? What did the Matt Drudges and Rush Limbaughs do for these women except exploit them further for political gain? Feminism has helped working class women far more than the ivory tower Paglia gives feminism credit for.

[sooey]

Paglia IS the punditocracy. She's just channeling Christopher Hitchens where once she channeled Madonna. He should sue her for stealing his schtick. I would. That rant about Limbaugh was his rant about Dubyah almost word for word.

[Ed01]

Feminists don't have to apologize for Clinton's treatment of his parmours but then they don't have to support his enabler either. Anyway, great to see where you and your cheering sections stands. Sounding pretty Republican. "She's an SOB but she's our SOB"