us elections
6 Feb 2008
Hillary the Nutcracker
There is a Hillary Clinton nutcracker for sale in US airports.
Jane Caro catalogues the insults hurled at Hillary Clinton, and wonders why sexism is still PC
Like a lot of Australians, I spent January in a house by the beach. One evening while watching the news, we heard Hillary Clinton had, against predictions, won the New Hampshire primary. All the women in the room - myself, my daughters, my sister and my nieces - leapt into the air and yelled with delight, like a group of football fans heartened by a goal in a close game.Why? We live half a world away from Clinton and have no vote. Why do we care so much about this woman and her attempt to become the leader of the most powerful country in the world?
The answer goes beyond support for her policy positions, or admiration of her character. It's about human history and women's lack of place in it. Hillary Clinton strikes me as a brave, forthright and intelligent woman who wants to be President. And just as men have voted along gender lines for millennia, so would I. US feminist and commentator Robyn Morgan (who does have a vote) put it better than I could; "I'm voting for Hillary not because she's a woman - but because I am."
To many women watching Hillary Clinton, even from afar, what is really disturbing is the way she is currently being attacked for daring to be an uppity female. It upsets us because it is the way most of us have felt attacked at some time or another, albeit on a vastly smaller and more private scale. Scorn, ridicule and vicious sexual insults have kept too many of us quiet for too long.
What is complicating the race for the Democratic nomination, of course, is that Hillary's most serious rival is a black candidate for the US presidential nomination, Senator Barack Obama. I wish Barack no ill will. If Hillary wasn't standing, I'd probably hope his candidacy was successful - after all, they agree on most things. And, as a black man, no doubt he has had to face his fair share of prejudice.
Nevertheless, while racism is endemic and terrible, if the response to Hillary is any guide, it does not seem to be quite as rampant as the hatred of women. Worse, the hatred of women, as this campaign reveals, remains acceptable in a way that racism no longer is. Bill Clinton has made some foolish remarks in defence of his wife - the most revealing that he can't make her more male - and rightly been criticised for them, but they are nothing in comparison to the attacks on Hillary.
Image thanks to Lukas.
Robyn Morgan, in the same piece, gives a few horrifying examples of what passes for humour about Hillary in the US right now. She points out that if anyone yelled "Shine my shoes" at Barack Obama, acres of newsprint, TV time and cyberspace would have been dedicated to condemning the statement, whereas the idiot who screamed "Iron my shirt" at Clinton raised mostly laughs. John McCain, when asked "How do we beat the bitch?" replied, "Excellent question." Imagine if he'd made the same response to "How do we beat the black bastard?" In fact, Morgan herself squibs it here: the equivalent insult to bitch, I suspect, is nigger, but that's a word you're no longer allowed to use. Only one English word is worse, I think, and it starts with c.
Then the misogyny gets really scary. According to Morgan, there is a Hillary nutcracker on sale in US airports. It has the blades between Hillary's splayed thighs. A Barack version of such a doll would be banned. And South Park has run a storyline where terrorists secrete a bomb in Hillary's vagina - where's the episode where they shove it up Barack's or John McCain's bum, I wonder? There is even a T-shirt that bears the slogan: "If only Hillary had married OJ."
This permission to viciously insult females with impunity is worldwide. Australians were scandalised when Indian cricketer Harbhajan Singh appeared to call Andrew Symonds a monkey. When it turned out he'd only called him a motherfucker, we all breathed a sigh of relief. It was only sexist, not racist, so who cares?
Even among those who prefer their sexism in more acceptable forms, Clinton is being battered on a daily basis. Judgements about gender are immobilising. Clinton can't win, even if she becomes the Democrat presidential nominee. If she allows herself to show emotion - eyes welling with tears, perhaps - she will be judged as weak and not up to the job; if she hangs tough, she will be judged as a hard-faced bitch and so also not deserving. Only the other presidential candidates are human beings: Hillary is a woman. And we wonder why women are reluctant to put their hand up for leadership positions.
And that's why I want Hillary to win. Her courage at even daring to do this in the first place is beyond admiration. Her dogged determination to ignore the insults, the scorn, the ridicule, the sexist assumptions of both men and women about what a "bitch" she must be to even seek power, is inspirational. If she does not win, it will not be because she wasn't good enough, smart enough, strong enough or hard working enough. It will be because she is a woman.
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Thanks for this excellent article, Jane - I really enjoyed it.
I do wonder, though. While I agree there’s a lot of sexism in many people’s (even progressive’s) dismissal of Hillary, I also don’t think that we should ignore that possibility that she might lose NOT because she’s a woman, but simply because she had the misfortune to run in a year with a very strong pool of candidates, including one that might be better than her.
I haven’t decided if he (Obama) is yet, but that I’m leaning his way when I’ve been an HRC fan for years is telling.
Very well observed Jane, as usual. I’ll admit that your cricket paragraph pulled me up short. I had had exactly the reaction you mention and hadn’t given it a moment’s thought. I shall be more careful in future.
Rachel makes an excellent point about the strength of the field (on one side anyway). As I’ve noted elsewhere in NM, I still fear that the great mass of Americans are more than hesitant about electing either an African-American or a woman, and that the GOP candidate might get up almost by default.
This is a brave and astute (is that the right word?) piece of writing. Thank you for writing it, and thanks to New Matilda for creating the forum in Australia for it to be heard.
Although this is an interesting article, I am flummoxed by the uninspiring quality of reader postings (and not just for this article). Are they actually bland responses prepared by the NewMatilda staff to give the appearance that legitimate and intelligent discourse on their site?
If so, please dear reader, be confident that this posting is not the result of NewMatilda’s resident mailperson hastily typing with their index fingers during a five minute coffee break.
Back to Jane’s piece. Women have been and still are horribly oppressed in most countries and societies throughout most of documented history. There is no escaping that fact. There is also no escaping the suffering of minority groups across the same timespan.
With this in mind, I find it difficult to root for a candidate based upon their gender or their race. Rather, my support is for the individual who I feel is the most meritocritous.
So please Jane, support Hillary for her what you see as her superior ability to fill the dual role of commander-in-chief and head of state to the world’s remaining superpower, because a bad leader is a bad leader is a bad leader. GW Bush continues to prove that to us.
Also, I would suggest not using South Park as a measure of moral outrage. In the world created by Parker and Stone anyone is fair game. For instance, Oprah Winfrey is depicted with a sentient vagina and anus while their paedophillic Peter Pan like character is a thinly disguised Michael Jackson. In fact, the appearance of the semi-regular character Mr Hanky (a talking poo) is evidence enough the makers of South Park aim to offend anybody who watches.
Playing the who’s-the-most-marginalized game is never easy, and seldom very useful. America has a dirty past, and many different and cross-cutting groups have suffered.
One thing about making assumptions about Americans’ attitude towards women leaders, though: does Condi Rice get called a ballbreaker? How did Americans feel about Madeleine Albright? It is worth asking whether it is that people dislike the thought of a woman in power, or whether it is that people dislike the thought of this woman in power.
Wow. Admit it NM, this some form of ‘shock-blogging.’
Who can I talk to about copyright? This article is one of the most fantastic examples of one-dimensional gender based analysis I’ve come across.
Hilary is being attacked ‘for daring to be an uppity female.’ Not a single mention of "who" is doing the ‘attacking.’ A mention that would beg the question: "why" are they doing it? (and, dare I say, invalidate the whole premise of this article).
The references to a doll as somehow embodying social ethics, presents a wonderful throwback to pre-critical thought.
And don’t be fooled readers, although we started the article with a specific context, that presents no limit to the application of the logic. After all, "This permission to viciously insult females with impunity is worldwide."
Again, who gives this permission? The doll perhaps? I am fairly certain that there are laws against discriminating against females (for being female) in most Western countries.
It really is a shame that this is the level we have reached. In this country and in the US, society faces a sincere cultural tension regarding the perception of "women". Such tensions (perhaps a better phrase would be ‘structural absences of empathy’), as even this article acknowledges, are of course not limited to women. But the solution to the problem needs to be pragmatic. Context, motive, justification of the parties involved represent a few of the keys to an insightful analysis, that could assist in officially repressing the baser instincts on which such tensions feed. In the context of Hilary Clinton - one should insist on highlighting the real links between the official Republican Party dirt units (with the help of the odd Texan oil magnate) and the attacks on Hilary as a "female." The agenda here is not worldwide suppression of a particular gender, its taxes and social security in the US. A point Hilary is trying (desperately) to make.
Sloganeering ("not because she’s a woman - but because I am") generic pop culture "evidence" (South park?!) and emotive hyperbole (If she does not win… …It will be because she is a woman) demeans the efforts of people that have sought to distinguish real cutural tensions from pure political spin. The most complimentary thing one could say about this article (and its insistence on the one-dimensional identity politics of gender) is that serves to confuse two important issues.
Remember forum dwellers, one does not embrace identity because in order to affirm it, one embraces identity to negate the other.
I couldn’t agree more, Jane. I expressed similar views when Hillary was declared unable to win because of her ‘wrinkles’ in the same week the Canberra Times ran that misogynistically framed front page picture of Maxine McKew. You can read the piece here.
http://www.j-scribe.com/2007/12/turning-blind-eye-to-gender-bias.html
Evidence of the deep-seated sexism in the media and politics which is rampant not just in the US, but here also, was provided by the reaction I received to a Crikey article on the McKew episode. http://www.crikey.com.au/Politics/20071217-Canberra-Timess-staff-embarra…
There were 30 odd comments on that piece - most of them sexist and vitriolic. I was called, among other things, a "Hairy-chested, Catholic schoolgirl".
And when those p**cks yelled "Iron my shirt" at Hillary I saw red: http://www.j-scribe.com/2008/01/iron-my-shirt.html
Interestingly, some of my former male (journalism) students started a debate with me on Facebook about that piece, suggesting Hillary had only stayed with the POTUS, Bill, for political expediency. I responded: "How many men have stayed in loveless marriages to take advantage of the social standing provided by trophy wives and children and the ladder climbing afforded by elegant dinner parties hosted by unloved wives of the past?"
When it comes down to it, it does seem that being a black man is still preferable to being a woman if your aim is to break through the toughest glass ceilings. But if that is your aim, there’s no doubt you’re a cold-hearted, hard-faced bee-atch! Hurrumph!
Cheers,
Julie
Robin Morgan has a great piece on double standards and Hillary:
http://www.womensmediacenter.com/ex/020108.html
Good on you Jane
"If she does not win, it will not be because she wasn’t good enough, smart enough, strong enough or hard working enough. It will be because she is a woman."
So there is no way that another candidate might just be better? Obama is definitely an inferior candidate, the article has apparently declared.
But why is that? What’s wrong with Obama? And how much analysis of the merits of the candidates has been done by someone who admits she has no intention of basing her opinion on any merits other than gender?
Nothing wrong with Barack, as I say in the article, but my point is that he is having a dream run to the nomination. Is this on his own merits? Or is it because he is neither a woman nor a white male?
Many seem to base their support for him on his record on Iraq. Much easier for a Senator for Illinois to vote against it than the relatively new Senator for New York, a scant year after 9/11. Would Barack, in the same situation have voted differently? We’ll never know.
Many seem to feel he carries less baggage and so is a break with the past. This is a better argument, I think, and, indeed, Hillary carries a great deal of baggage. Without it, of course, she would never be in with the shot at the Presidency she now has.
It is easy for relative inexperience to appear fresh and new and hopeful - particularly if combined with a flair for words. Barack hasn’t done much yet, so it’s easy to invest him with a "purer" character. Trouble is - and it’s another catch 22 for women - a young, relatively inexperienced and unknown female Senator would never get a shot at the Presidency, no matter how inspirational her oratory. She’d be patronised and laughed out of the race. Any experienced woman will carry baggage, any inexperienced one will be disregarded. Once again, it’s heads you win, tails we lose.
Throughout history only a handful of women have ever achieved political leadership without having some kind of relationship - daughter, wife, widow, sister - with a man who had it before her. Even Elizabeth Dole was married to Robert. And yet this is another stick that is used to beat Hillary.
It is degree of difficulty that Hillary and, indeed, any female candidate faces that I am talking about. In the end, it is that which defeats them.
I’m not a fan of Hillary, her time at Walmart shows that she it too much part of the establishment to be able to make any serious changes. She would wind back many of the excesses of the Bush era but I don’t really see a major change to the status quo in the US. She is also too much of a hawk for my liking.
Jane, did you cheer when Magaret Thatcher was elected?
That aside, stupid sexist attacks say more about the intellect of the attackers and they should be exposed for the idiots that they are, so thanks for the article.
Well, we’ve had plenty of bad male leaders, no reason why we shouldn’t also have the occasional lousy woman too.
Would I have voted for Thatcher? No, I would not, but if Britain had to have a neo-conservative, free-marketeer PM - and I suspect that was the mood of the times back then, given Reagan’s ascendancy in the US - then at least the fact that she was a woman left some positive legacy. It shut up forever those who said women weren’t "tough" enough to lead a country, something that was actually said to me at the time.
I am a 70 yr old avid observer of politics in this country and the USA over many years. You are absolutely right in everything you say about Hillary having a far harder task than Obama to win the nomination, let alone go on and win the presidency, and for precisely the reasons you cite. It is not - never has been - a level playing field. Those who argue you have to look at other reasons, of merit etc - fail to understand this basic hurdle a woman has to overcome and are part of the problem. I agree that the media is giving Obama a dream run. To my mind, Hillary has done the hard yards - women have to prove thay are made of the stern stuff before being given a go, anywhere - and this should count for something.
I had not seen many of the adverse and degrading comments reported in your article and by Julie Posetti and I am appalled. Why am I not surprised? 70 years of living and observing - that’s why. Well said Jane.
I thought that you’d like this link for the perspective of one US feminist.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/02/09/6948/
Originally from Salon.
Hilary is one dangerous woman. When asked about the use of atom Bombs, she said "they should be on the table". She might have said it for a specific audience, or she mightn’t have meant it, but she said it. This why I wouldn’t vote for her. She will say anything to get elected - but what for?