Letters to the Editor
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Politics is a blood sport, after all
As the first serious female candidate for the presidency, Clinton got treated in pretty much exactly the same way as every other candidate: smears, hatred and loathing, vicious unfair attacks, name calling, code-word isms, etc. Politics is a rough sport, and every dirty ugly thing possible was dragged up against her, just as is has been (and will be, again and again) against Obama, and for that matter, Bush. Sure there is misogyny in the US, but there is also racism, elitism, classism, agism, homophobia, xenophobia, massive intolerance, and ignorant fear generally, and all of these will be used where they can be, against any candidate.
There is no reason to believe that she should be treated nicer because she is a girl.
It would be a better world if this weren't so, and Karl Rove has a lot to answer for in making US politics even nastier than it has always been, but that is how it currently is.
But the fact is that the press gives a megaphone to this kind of stuff, but I don't know how broad or deep it is in American society or culture. It can't be all that broad or deep, or Clinton would never have gotten as far as she did.
Actually, I think feminism took a major step forward, in that she was able to get in the sandbox and play with the big boys, and give pretty much as good as she got, without getting, nor asking for, special treatment. And to come within a hair of making it. Some of the disappointment and grief and anger from her supporters almost amounts to a plea for special treatment for a female candidate, but I think it is far better in the long run that she did so well without that. I think her candidacy makes an excellent example for our daughters: women can be tough and display real leadership, and can be taken seriously, very seriously indeed.
I don't think affirmative action is an appropriate consideration for the position of POTUS. Far better a woman win it fair and square, right down there in the muddy trenches if need be.
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Clinton's real problem
Clinton's real problem is not that she is a woman, her real problem is that she is Hillary Clinton.
What do I mean by that? She entered the race with incredibly high negatives among voters in general. Rightly or wrongly, they were there. That's just a fact. This effectively precluded her approaching it as anything other than a "50% + 1" proposition - there was, and is, a significant chunk of the population that would not vote for her under any imaginable circumstances. In fact, many of that number would put in an extra effort to vote for someone opposing her. (More below...)
Once things began to go in different ways than her campaign had intended, she became quite overtly negative towards a fellow Democratic candidate. "Not as far as I know...", "3 AM...", "the Commander-in-Chief threshold..." and more made it very difficult to bring in anyone not already behind her. In fact, to many Obama supporters, she seemed to be doing McCain's dirty work for him.
And there is the matter of that unaddressed Iraq AUMF vote.
What I'd always worried about with Clinton was her potential effect downticket. Bringing out legions of "anti-Clinton" voters in November could cost Democrats dearly in Congressional and state legislative elections - especially important when we consider that the 2010 off-year cycle will form the legislatures that will do the redistricting. Would it hurt to give more Dems at the state level the advantages of incumbency? Just this once? For something really important?
I say all of this as a Minnesotan represented by a woman in Congress and a woman in the Senate. I will gladly vote for them for as long as they seek office. Higher office? I'm there too...
Yes, "Iron my shirt!" was stupid and sexist. And Geraldine Ferraro's as-yet-unapologized-for comments were blatantly racist. Jerks and racists are not going to vote for most Democrats anyway, are they? Really?
Disliking a candidate because of the person they are, rather than the demographic they represent, is quite different. And last time I looked, still permitted.
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The lesson of Hillary's campaign
If you are passionately backed by a minority of the voters, and you are equally passionately loathed by a majority of the voters, you are unlikely to be elected.
Hillary began the campaign season with a COMMITTED, EXTREMELY STRONG coterie of HATERS opposed to her for a WHOLE variety of reasons. Her campaign has reinforced all of those concerns, and introduced new ones.
What has she done to convince skeptics like me that she might be worth taking a chance on? Absolutely nothing.
If you wish to run for president, begin with the perception of your candidacy at the start. When you are like Hillary, you begin with a huge hill to climb, and then you do things, over and over, to make the hill higher. What is surprising about her failure to win?
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Hillary as Martyr
....is a darned unfair way to paint her. She's fought hard, she's faced constant opposition and been the recipient of more than a few unfair/untrue slams - so more or less like any other candidate to try and achieve our nation's highest office in the past couple of decades. Making her (assumed upcoming) concession to Obama the result of people being mean to her because she's a woman does ALL of us a disservice.
As a woman, I've been very pleased to see her get this far - even though she's not my first choice. But wouldn't our ancestors who fought so diligently for the rights we American women have now have been pleased to see that voting as a feminist in the 21st Century truly means picking the cadidate that best fits our vision of the president, REGARDLESS of race or gender?
As for the sexism in America, I call phooey. Yes, maybe there are some in this country who still believe women are inferior to men. However, American women are not stoned in honor killings, not forced to wear garments that obscure our entire person, not reproductively controlled by our government, not raped by occupying forces in our country, not sold into sexual slavery as a common occurance..... I'm sorry, but when I look at the way women in the rest of the world are marginalized, abused and eliminated in the name of misogyny, I have a hard time getting my blood pressure up when an American woman is called a bitch.