Letters to the Editor
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Understandable anger??
She not painted as a she-demon, she's painted as a demon.
The ONLY people who continue to scream misogyny are the Clinton supporters because they're so blinded by their support for their candidate they can't understand how anyone can NOT love her as much as they do.
These gender warriors are like the Japanese stranded on islands in the South Pacific that don't know that the war's over! Guess what gender warriors - you won!
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Complete crap
My politics are not nearly as left wing as Nancy Pelosi's, but I'd give her a far more serious consideration than I have Hillary Clinton.
Everything is not a "gender issue" despite the pseudo education you got in Women's Studies class. Gloria Steinem muttering about the "gynocide", nasty old feminists telling people they must vote for a woman - that kind of old-school bitch feminism has to go.
It's dated, pathetic and sexist to assume people owe Hillary votes because she's a woman, and it says more about women's sense of entitlement in this country than it does about anything else.
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Part of the problem, not all of it,
is encapsuled in this, ..."the nearly impossible demand of women to be both tough and nurturing..." This is a culture that mistakes toughness for strength. Until we realize that imperviousness is a limiting condition and strength is an ability that can also encompass the ability to nurture, we will continue to choose leaders who are crippled in their humanity by "toughness."
Clinton has demonstrated plenty of "toughness" in our cultural sense (threatening to nuke Iran for instance) but "strength" I'm not sure she has. Barbara Jordon was tough in many ways, but did anyone doubt that she was strong and nurturing? One had only to hear her speak to know that she was.
I think such a combination is hard for anyone to acheive and rare. It is only the fact that men can get away with having only the toughness that makes it easy for such limited men to be considered "leaders" a la McCain, Bush etc. I think and hope that Obama has both, as FDR, as Lincoln did. The problem with Clinton for me is that I only see the "toughness."
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Zombies
You can bet yr bottom dollar that if Jowlish-American GOP candidates like Rudy, Fred, and Huck had stuck it out a bit longer, we'd be reading a lot more references to the undead.
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I think the solution lies in not giving misogyny power.
I believe that misogyny is less likely to survive if somehow the response to it could be changed to marginalizing it, and perhaps even laughing at it. This subtle and not so subtle undercutting of women in power gains credence every time it's taken seriously. It's difficult not to become angry when you experience it, I understand that. But it's that response that gives the misogynist power.
it's like learning how to deal with bullies in grammar school:
you try telling the teachers on them, that just makes the bullying worse.
you try fighting them back, 'cept they fight dirty and you're not willing to do that.
you finally just laugh at them, and, holy toledo, it works!
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the big picture
The important question to ask, which this article and so many others ignore, isn't whether HRC is hated, nor whether the hatred is justified, but whether that hatred is any different from that which male politicians--not just Obama--overall receive. Look at the hatred expressed toward Bill Clinton. Al Gore. Joe Leiberman. And, for god's sake, GW Bush. Some of that hatred is rational and some of it isn't, some is policy-based and some is personal, but the point is that it's abundant, it's not much different from the hatred directed toward Hillary, and it's just as replete with demonization and stereotypes. Some people really want to see Hillary's treatment as special and unprecedented, but in the big picture it isn't.
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Stand By Your Man
Her campaign focused on her marriage to a guy that was president. She did a hell of a lot as first lady; Laura Bush is a lump on a log comparatively but her campaign didn't focus enough on her time as senator or even her before the White House years. Her years as First Lady should have been presented as a footnote in her career.
Do we want to teach our girls that their success is based on marrying into it and their ability to put on a brave smile while the whole world hears about the blow jobs he got from younger women?
"Stand By Your Man" was from 1968.
2008 is DTMFA and be your own woman.
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Enough already
I'm tired of the repeated examination of the role of gender in this race. Enough is enough. Hillary's gender brought her quite a bit of (loyal, unwavering) support and a relatively limited number attacks (the 'iron my shirt' and other ugly incidents were quite rare and did not represent widespread sentiments). The legacy of this campaign is that Hillary did well when the narrative of the primary race shifted to (a) gender and (b) her support among racists. She did poorly when the narrative shifted to just about everything else: fundraising, hope/inspiration, gas tax holiday, immigration, the war in Iraq, etc. A better argument could be made that she got as far as she did because of her gender, not in spite of it and I believe there is a quote to this effect in the NYT article.
And, yes, you can hate a politician for reasons other than gender. I would say that Nixon, W., and Bill Clinton were/are hated by significant portions of the electorate even though they were/are men.
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Hillary is special
There's a lot going on with the reactions of some people to Senator Clinton. In 1992 the Now defunct Spy magazine ran a cover with her head super-imposed on a buxom dominatrix in fishnets and leather, with the Title "what Hillary Problem."
There has always been a strange contradiction in Hillary haters. She frumpy or She's a tart; she's Bill's doormat, or she's a ballbuster; She's a Lesbian, or she murdered her lover, Vince Foster. I'm not defending this nonsense or denying that sexism is the largest factor, just pointing out that there is something else underneath that seems to magnify the ordinary. I also don't think it's her fault, it's a kind of negative charisma. When Biden called Obama "clean and articulate" people reacted, and he apologised. But most people realised he had spoken an ugly truth, that some black men scare white people less than others and Obama was one of those guys. Likewise,some women, Gloria Steinham, Clinton, Joan Walsh set their detracters on edge from just before they enter the room. Whatever the outcome of this election, and I am an Obama supporter, I hope Peg Orenstein will be inspired by Senator Clinton.