Hillary Clinton & Female Inferiority
Barbara Ehrenreich commenting on a New York Times article by Susan Faludi:
I share Faludi’s glee — up to a point. Surely no one will ever dare argue that women lack the temperament for political combat. But by running a racially-tinged campaign, lying about her foreign policy experience, and repeatedly seeming to favor McCain over her Democratic opponent, Clinton didn’t just break through the “glass floor,” she set a new low for floors in general, and would, if she could have got within arm’s reach, have rubbed the broken glass into Obama’s face.
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Hillary Clinton smashed the myth of innate female moral superiority in the worst possible way — by demonstrating female moral inferiority. We didn’t really need her racial innuendos and free-floating bellicosity to establish that women aren’t wimps. As a generation of young feminists realizes, the values once thought to be uniquely and genetically female — such as compassion and an aversion to violence — can be found in either sex, and sometimes it’s a man who best upholds them.
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May 17th, 2008 at 9:58 pm
I don’t have a problem with a woman being president. I just have a problem with THAT woman being president.
Whenever I look at Hillary (Clinton - although she shys away from using that name), I am reminded of Julia Roberts in the movie “Pretty Woman.” When Richard Gere asks her, “What’s your name?” she responded with “What do you want it to be?”
Ask Hillary any question on any issue and you get the same answer. “What is your opinion on the war?” “What do you want it to be?” “What is your stand on NAFTA?” “What do you want it to be?”
It needs to be pointed out that Julia played the role of a prostitute in the movie.
When it comes to getting power or staying in power, all politicians are prostitutes selling their values (or what’s left of them) for votes but some are bigger whores than others.
In this regard, I have more respect for President Bush. He has values. They are bad values and I don’t agree with them, but he doesn’t change where he’s pointing like a weathervane in a cyclone.
So if Hillary has done anything to put a stamp on women in politics it’s the stereotype that it’s a woman’s prerogative to change her mind - from one minute to the next - hardly a trait I want in a leader.