What Hillary Should Have Learned from the Suffragists
Hillary Clinton's lengthening list of inadvisable comments -- I won't list them here, because if you haven't seen them again and again and again, you don't have on-line access and can't be reading this -- makes me wonder what happened to the accomplished woman and smart politician I once had such high hopes for. It also reminds me of the wrong turn another group of ground-breaking woman took a century ago. When the suffragists came up against minority men getting rights they thought they were entitled to, they too lost their moral compass.
The Woman Suffrage Movement, which grew out of the abolitionist movement, parted ways with it in 1868 when the Fifteenth Amendment gave the vote to black men but not to women. The disappointment and ire of those early suffragists who fought so hard and suffered so much -- mob violence, jail, brutalization by male guards -- is understandable. But as the nineteenth century waned and the twentieth was born, and a flood of immigrants washed up on America's shores, the injustice of these newly arrived males being able to vote when dyed-in-the-wool one-hundred-per-cent-American females could not, drove many suffragists to the same divisive innuendoes and accusations Clinton has recently vented.
To be sure, many of the claims of the early suffragists were naive. The ballot was not only an inalienable right, it was a panacea. It would put an end to war. What woman would cast a vote to send her husband or son off to battle? It would take children out of the factories and send them to school. What mother could sleep through the night while another mother's children slaved ten and twelve and fourteen hours a day over dangerous machinery? It would save women from degradation. Women would vote for equal pay for equal work, and their sisters would not have to take to the streets to support themselves. It would replace the tainted milk and contaminated bread and spoiled produce of the cities with a safe food supply. Women knew about marketing and preparation. Men knew only about sitting down to a meal someone else cooked. Even the level of civil discourse would improve.
But if their naiveté strikes us now as risible, the arguments they turned to as these new immigrants gained the right to vote make us wince. Should a well-bred woman be deprived of the vote when the men she employs to tend her garden and drive her auto and black her husband's boots have the right? Should foreigners who knew only enough English to become citizens have the ballot when women who could quote Shakespeare did not? And the problem grew even dicier when the question of giving the vote to the wives and daughters of these newly arrived immigrants entered the equation.
When women won the vote in 1920, these ugly strains of nativism faded from the feminist movement. So perhaps Bill Clinton is on to something. Would vice-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton rediscover her moral bearings?
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As a second wave feminist of color, let me say, Hillary Clinton has not run as a feminist, she has run as an opportunist. To conflate her personal ambition with feminism is a travesty. For white women to ignore the damage done by Clinton and her white women supporters to the alliance between feminists of all races is a mark of privilege.
When white women talk about how many women support Clinton as evidence she is a feminist icon, they ignore (again) all white women and women of color who support Obama. They dismiss and minimize the millions and millions of women who have voted for Obama. Why? Because it does not fit with their false narrative of Clinton as the only candidate for women. My vote was driven by many factors, including Clinton's decision to vote for Bush's war in Iraq. And then reinforced by her equally inexplicable vote for Kyl-Lieberman. Her failure to understand the consequences of her actions (AUMF) and learn from them (K-L) is, in my view, a fatal flaw. And makes her unfit to be President. Not because she is a woman, (I won't vote for the male candidate with the same votes) but because her political decisions put her on the same side as Bush.
As a woman, one of many, one of millions who support Obama, I hope that he picks the candidate he best believes supports his agenda and approach to change that we, as a country, desperately need.
Good points, except for the last one. Both Clinton and Obama have more to lose than to gain by putting her on the ticket as V.P. For starters, the independent and anti-Bush republican vote.
Ever see the episode of The Man show where they're on the beach in California asking women to sign a petition to End Women's Suffrage?
Pretty much ALL of the bikini babes signed it!
Life doesn't allow do-overs. In January, I was ready to vote for Clinton vs. any Republican if she turned out to be the nominee ACCORDING TO THE RULES. But after seeing her in action over the last several months, I doubt that I could vote for any ticket that included Clinton. If Obama lets her force her way onto the ticket by tantrum, then he lacks the guts and judgment that won my support in the first place.
It's hard to see how Clinton would be much better than McCain. While many of the policies she's campaigning for (other than the idiotic "gas tax holiday") may be preferable in theory, her "my-way-or-the-highway" style makes any real accomplishments unlikely. (Does it matter if her health care plan is theoretically "best" if she botches the implementation as she did back in 1993? There's no indication that she's learned anything from all her "experience".)
Most troublesome is Clinton's willingness to say ANYTHING to get elected and to blame everything bad that happens to her on somebody else. As a white woman in my late 60's, I'm profoundly embarrassed. Yes, unfortunately, sexism still exists. It probably marginally reduces Clinton's chances of winning a general election, as racism reduces Obama's chances. Both of them should either shut up and deal with it (as Obama seems to be trying to do) or get out of the race.
Unfortunately, what Hillary DID learn was from Bush, Rove and the NeoCons!
part three .
Finally...I remember hearing Hillary say if Obama won, she would get behind him and unify the party...
I can't see it happening. After her campaign of hate...how can she show the guy any love? Do you think anyone will buy it? Sheesh! I guess we'll have to see if that was "just another lie".
part two. Hillary in a dress would have made some differance. How much? Probably not enough. Then there's Bill. As wel,l the Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton, factor. Obvioulsy that played a big part in the election. But people still remember Bill. The infidelity, lies, impeachment process, all of that. The last minute pardons...so much baggage. It all just carried on into her campaign. All of her lies and far fetched stories....It was out and out ugly. She was the candidate of hate. In the end it was her undoing.
People had enough.
I don't think women should be offended or take it personally. She was not the right candidate. Nancy Pelosi? Hey! Maybe? Anyway, as annoyed as I have been watching Hillary for the last...I forget how long it's been...seems like eons. I wish her the very best as she returns to the Senate. I read this morning somewhere that she might be useful heading up a medi-care committee. I agree.
Women...and I mean women who are women that are proud of their gender...have no reason to be offended. There is the underlying factor of feminism ie:Andrea Dworkin, that use housewives and single woman to further their cause. These people are not suffragettes...they are rebels who want to destroy the family unit....it's nothing new.
Yes to everything that you wrote except that last throwaway line. As an African American woman, I can remember the last time that many Blacks backed a deeply flawed human in the hopes that once in office he would "find his moral compass." That man was Clarence Thomas and needless to say -- he did not.
So no to putting Hillary a heartbeat away from the presidency in the hope that power itself rather than the just the promise of power that comes along with a run for office would change the nature that she has revealed to all of us during this nominating contest.
Hillary had a few things going against her right at the get go. I don't think she lost because she is a woman. I don't believe it was a sexist thing at all.
She entered the race with a lot of baggage. Bill being the main piece...his/her legacy another. On top of all this. It was really weird. She not only assumed she'd win, she was aggresive to the point that her femininity wasn't evident. HRC turned people off. Big time.
I'm from Canada and we have had a woman Prime Minister, Kim Campbell. I don't remember much about her. But I do remember she was a woman, and she dressed like a woman. She was proud of her gender and didn't try to be one of the boys...or better than the boy's. She carried herself well. Femininity attracts men. Period. You can still be a woman and lead a Country. Look at Angela Merkle in Germany. She doesn't hang out in the beer houses with the boy's bellying up to the bar.
Ther is a simple answer to this quagmire she is creating. She has no morals!
"Would vice-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton rediscover her moral bearings?"
Perhaps... in Delusionaland.
She was self-defeated.
She has nothing to offer an Obama administration other than division, subversion, drama, subterfuge, undependability, Party damage, continuing addiction for a new "power high" and more self-servicing actions for the Clinton Party.
She needs to go back home... wherever her carpetbags leads her.
Roe is in danger. Soutter is 90 and the court is 5-4. If McCain wins then Roe is dead. Is that what women want? They can get on the train or they can take the end of Roe and own it because if they vote for McCain or against Obama thenit will be their own fault.
J
Well, since this election is really not about Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama or John McCain, I don't see the point. Maybe, somewhere down the line she will get her bearings back and can mend the fences she's destroyed through her campaigning efforts.
SHE IS NOT A VICTIM!
SHE IS NOT A VICTIM!
SHE IS NOT A VICTIM!
America is not invested in this person. She owe us to be worthy of office, respect!
Ellen Feldman asks: When women won the vote in 1920, these ugly strains of nativism faded from the feminist movement. So perhaps Bill Clinton is on to something. Would vice-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton rediscover her moral bearings?
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I liked much of what you said, Ellen - but surely the cure for lost moral bearings is not to put the patient a heartbeat away from the Presidency.
HRC started off as hot favourite and had the chance to run a truly inspirational campaign. She didn't seem to be prepared to actually come up against a real opposition candidate, and lost her head when she did.
She became mean - and gave everyone who had the slightest doubt about a woman candidate, pause for thought and a chance to reconsider.
Hillary wanted this so badly that she was blinded to bad advice and a bad campaign, and has suffered for it.
Unfortunately now, having seen the "gaffes" and the "mis-speaking" and the half baked apologies (or explanations, as they actually are) how can anyone be anything other than thankful she's not in the White House with her finger on the button.
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