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: Expressio Unius

No Country For Old Women

By js

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Though it's not all that timely a topic, I've been thinking about the common refrain among pundits that Hillary Clinton is the recipient of much unfair criticism. Stanley Fish, Paul Krugman, and Robin Morgan have compiled a taxonomy of Hillary-hatred, and much of it is disgusting and misogynist. In these attacks, there is some dark stuff indeed.

Now of course not all criticism of Clinton is misogynist in nature. And that?s something her defenders, righteously offended though they may be, should keep in mind. Because I think gender-based sympathies sometimes spill over into otherwise unprejudiced comparisons of the candidates? respective merits. From a high altitude, the multitude of intemperate and unfair attacks are indistinguishable from the ones with merit. For example, people say Hillary is ?power-mad.? Is she really, or is the for a woman left implied? Hard question.

But there?s a flip side to this argument. I wonder if some view Hillary as having endured and even flourished in a maelstrom of vicious, sexist, public criticism. What?s more, they see the male establishment as generally unwilling to give women a hand in breaking successive glass ceilings. Hillary Clinton was fired in this crucible, and emerged with the qualities it took to survive it. A product of our times, maybe Hillary has only the necessary ruthlessness of a woman with the largest of ambitions.

Thought of in this way, an analogy might be drawn between Clinton?s and Jesse Jackson?s 1988 candidacy. Jackson was too was subject to a lifetime of racism, and he took a path to prominence through activism and the ministry. Jackson ran a serious race and lost, at least in part, because he would not have been a very good President. Somewhat of a demagogue, he ran too much as a victim, for victims. So even non-racists can say they are glad Jackson did not get the nomination. But how much were his faults a product of the racism over which he prevailed?

All of this is mostly speculation, but partly an argument that Clinton?s real faults, like Jackson's, cannot be dismissed, sad though that may be for the advance of women.

Full post as published by Expressio Unius on February 21, 2008 (boomark / email).