Oh snap

You want snapping?

Here's snapping.

Here's me really angry at the coverage accorded to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who was in eastern Congo where she spoke out against the horrific mass rapes there.

According to UN estimates, some 3500 women have been raped this year alone. This is a subject about which I have blogged before, and is deserving of serious and extensive international attention in the mainstream media.

You'd think.

But, today, yesterday, while taking Clinton was speaking with a Congolese audience, an interpreter mistranslated a question from a student.

What happened next then became top of the news.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's temper flared yesterday when a Congolese university student asked for her husband's thinking on an international matter.

"My husband is not secretary of state. I am," an obviously annoyed Clinton replied sharply.

A week after former president Bill Clinton travelled to North Korea to secure the release of two detained American journalists and stole the limelight from the start of his wife's first trip to Africa, Clinton was clearly nettled by the question at a town hall forum in Kinshasa.

"You want me to tell you what my husband thinks?" she replied when the male student asked her what "Mr. Clinton" thought of World Bank concerns about a multibillion-dollar Chinese loan offer to the Democratic Republic of Congo. "If you want my opinion, I will tell you my opinion. I am not going to be channelling my husband," she said.

And so, Clinton ''snapped.'' She ''lost her cool.'' She had an ''outburst.'' She ''replied sharply.''

She has even demonstrated her lack of suitability for the job.

If you ask me, and I you must be asking me since you're reading this, I too would be snippy if, in the middle of a town hall on the violent abuse of women in a virulently sexist country, I were queried on what my husband had to say on another subject.

Her behaviour, while less than diplomatic, is understandable.

The sexist coverage of it is not, not when women are suffering the way they are in Africa.

UPPITY WOMAN DATE: For some reason this post has inspired 15 (and counting) comments on my Facebook page. Most of the guys claim Clinton was out of line. But some of us are wondering what may have transpired before this badly-translated question was asked.

My friend and fellow blogger Aaron Braaten suggests that we read this:

In a forum with University of Kinshasa students yesterday, Clinton confronted questions about past U.S. involvement in backing authoritarian rule in Congo, formerly known as Zaire.

“I cannot excuse the past, and will not try,” Clinton told the questioner. “Many countries, including many in Europe and many in Africa, have interfered with the development and the potential of the Congolese people.”

This might explain her obvious irritation, as well as her body language as that ''husband'' question was posed.

UPPITY YOURS DATE: Just in case the rest of the media need a cribsheet, the New York Times has the story on what Clinton has proposed for Congo.

Mrs. Clinton used her unprecedented visit — she is the first secretary of state to venture into the war zone here — to unveil a $17 million plan to fight Congo’s stunning levels of sexual violence, a problem she called “evil in its basest form.”

She announced that the American government would train doctors, supply rape victims with video cameras to document violence, send American military engineers to help build facilities and train Congolese police officers, especially female police officers, to crack down on rapists.

Finally. Some action. It took a woman like Clinton to take it.

Which is why I couldn't care less how snappish she got.

 

Comments

[sooey]

Enh. I thought she was diplomatic enough. I would have said, "I don't know. Why don't you call him up at his office in Harlem and ask him. NEXT!"

Hillary Clinton is condemned to sexist coverage by the world media because she's intelligent, tough, unafraid - all the things sexist pundits want to pretend women aren't.

[Marky Mark]

What sooey said.

[MensRightsNow]

Hillary road Bill's coattails all the way to where she is today.

She's an affirmative action hire by Obama (probably to shut her up) and proof strong women tolerate infidelity as long as it benefits them. It's sad watching her.

[Catherine]

ABSOLUTELY AGREED.

Thank you for this, Antonia.

It needs to be said -more often, & more loudly.

And we do need much better coverage on the atrocities being committed against women -in Africa & elsewhere.

But I suppose I sound snippy saying that, right?

[Kat]

Thanks for this. I was wondering what the real story was.

"Woman Loses Temper for One Reply" is *not* news, and I don't care if she *is* US Secretary of State.

[...pat.]

Thanks, Antonia, for putting voice to what I felt when I saw the news posts.

[Ashley]

I don't think she "snapped" at all. She was asked a question that was not directly related to the subject of her interview, and she gave her reason for not answering it. People are always asking politicians questions that they have no desire to answer and they often tell the reporter/interviewer that their question does not warrant an answer. It's unfair that when Hillary does it she's seen as some kind of bitter shrew who's snapping at interviewers. Ugh.

[Michael]

You know, I knew this incident was going to turn up on this blog today and I KNEW that this would be Antonia's position - though I hoped it would not. She often surprises me with her willingness to see both sides of a coin. Not this time.

First, it IS news when a public figure shows some signs of life. Be it a man, woman, child or animal - minerals would make the front page too, should they ever get snippy on-camera.

While you can argue that such stories divert attention from the REAL news and be correct, you need not always, always, colour these things as some sort of anti-woman attack. It's the way the media works. Rail against it if you enjoy pissing in the wind but rail based on facts not a sort of paranoid world-view.

[sooey]

Ah, but the way the media works is sexist - so it IS necessary to point it out - always.

[The Stygian and his Shemitish Dogs]

"If you ask me, and I you must be asking me since you're reading this,..."

Esteemed and Beautiful Moderator,

I would like to ask how seriously Hillary should be taken as an advocate for rape victims in the light of the Juanita Broaddrick case.