You know Hillary is no longer seen as the inevitable front runner in Iowa when Maureen Dowd (almost, at least till she gets to her punch line) writes something positive about her.
In response to the latest Drudge-Limbaugh-sexist bloggers' echo chamber campaign to denigrate Hillary for -- gasp! -- looking like a 60-year-old woman, when men of that certain age or even -- gasp again! -- older are seen as distinguished and wise, Dowd observed: "Women are still scrutinized more critically on their looks, which seem to fluctuate more on camera, depending on lighting, bloating and wardrobe."
It takes a sharp sense of humor as well as a tough hide to get beyond the frivolously discriminatory lens with women are judged. Chile's president, Michele Bachelet, who ranks # 17 on Forbes' list of "World's Most Influential Women to Hillary's #18, told a CNN reporter that when a male journalist asked her how she would wear the pants of the presidency she replied tartly, "or the skirt of the presidency."
Yet for women seeking leadership roles, the appearance issue is just one layer of the perceptual onion; each layer will have to be -- and will be -- peeled back over time to fully understand what the core resistance is about. By then, of course, it won't matter because there will be enough women in leadership positions that seeing them in those roles feels normal.
When the luxuriantly pregnant Campbell Brown asked Clinton the first question at the Las Vegas Democratic presidential debate, it was clear that several layers have already disappeared.
To begin with, in Hillary's elementary school days, a visibly pregnant woman wasn't allowed to teach school, let alone imagine she could be a network television anchor, and an anchor interviewing a woman leading the presidential pack at that.
Second, this adorable exchange between Brown and Clinton highlighted a generational difference that need not be a divide, but is surely an onion layer to be acknowledged as we bid farewell to it along with Hillary's knowing wink:
BROWN: But, Senator, if I can just ask you, what did you mean at Wellesley when you referred to the "boy's club"?
CLINTON: Campbell...
(LAUGHTER)
BROWN: Just curious.
CLINTON: Well, it is clear, I think, from women's experiences that from time to time, there may be some impediments.
(LAUGHTER)
And it has been my goal over the course of my lifetime to be part of this great movement of progress that includes all of us, but has particularly been significant to me as a woman.
And to be able to aim toward the highest, hardest glass ceiling is history-making.
Now, I'm not running because I'm a woman. I'm running because I think I'm the best qualified and experienced person to hit the ground running, but it's humbling...
(APPLAUSE)
By that debate, Hillary had taken her attire down a notch since John Edwards disparaged her pink jacket. She stood, earrings glistening, in a crisp but subdued salt-and-pepper tweed jacket with her black pants -- a suit she laughingly described as "asbestos" in preparation for the scorching attacks she expected from her competitors.
(Oops, there's that cackle again -- but wait, she needs the humor here -- now do we understand why Hillary sometimes seems to be walking a tightrope in her comments? She lives on the tightrope of transition, smack in the middle of profound social change that she is both the product of and the woman leading others to the next level.)
"Hillary doesn't have to worry about her face. She has to worry about her mask," concluded the ever-clever Dowd. But when I interviewed Hillary a few years ago for my book, The War on Choice, she summed up the real challenge better herself:
It's human nature that when the established order has been changed, there will be a reaction, and the magnitude of the reaction shouldn't surprise us. The advancement of women in the last 50 years has been breathtaking...There are victories along the way, but none of these victories is secure because of the pressures that undermine women's rights and advancement...So now women who value their autonomy have to step up and take action.
Washington Post writer Howard Kurtz finally got some key journalists to acknowledge the obvious, that Hillary is treated differently, judged more harshly by the media across the board.
"She's just held to a different standard in every respect," says Mark Halperin, Time's editor at large. "The press rooted for Obama to go negative, and when he did he was applauded. When she does it, it's treated as this huge violation of propriety." While Clinton's mistakes deserve full coverage, Halperin says, "the press's flaws -- wild swings, accentuating the negative -- are magnified 50 times when it comes to her. It's not a level playing field."
Attacks on Hillary's gendered physical attributes, as even the Hillary-bashing Dowd has to agree, are often a convenient mask to obscure those odiferous layers of misogyny that still exist and spill over where they shouldn't be in determining the outcome of the Presidential race.
Follow Gloria Feldt on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Heartfeldt
Next time you get the impulse to assault Hillary with the typical gender stereotyping tripe think of yourself as Micheal Richards jumping up and down and letting the "N" word fly. There is no difference.
With such a poor record why attack her on superficialities like looks?
Turkey attacking Iraq means the "surge" didn't work, the war is escallating and drawing in another country. Shouldn't this be the headline news?
Rather than watch the senseless drool of male right-winger on the cable news, I find it more informative to watch C-Span. There I did watch Joe Biden and Clinton, and both in person are completely different that what we are given as censured news. Again the cable news owned by billionaire Republicans are upset that Clinton comes across as "human" and "likeable" and that this is "contrived" rather than their image of her as the image that is in fact created.
Likewise, they never cover Joe Biden's threat to impeach GW over any military action on Iran, or his call for an Independent Counsel on the Destruction of the CIA tapes, which could lead to impeachment. Major news ignored by the greedy rich billionaires like Murdock who owns Fox news.
The stuff on Hillary Clinton is pure sexism that fails to report on her positions and her background, rather than the made-up media created image of her.
MSM goal is to tamper with the ballot box and rig the elections.
So since this gender stuff is off limits, what does that do to the wifely qualifications of governmental experience? I'm qualified to be president because I was one's wife? Get outta here...
You can't lay it all on the Republicans either. They loved Maggie Thatcher. Golda Meir was extremely popular here. Indira Ghandi, a host of women Senators, Governore, cabinet members, come on, there have been plenty of women leaders that have broadly appealed to a wide range of people. Not to say there is no sexism, but you want to say all criticism of her is sexist.
This whole "poor Hillary, she's being picked on because she's a girl" is just crap, and is a tiresome dodge to not discuss her real problems with the Dem base.
I see Obama as coming to the rescue of the Democrats the same way Ronald Reagan came to the rescue of the Republican party. The Democratic party was demoralized with what seemed like a failed Carter presidency, very much like what Dubya has done to the Republicans. Reagan offered a glimmer of Hope that we could turn the page. He made it cool to be Republican and he won over many Dems, who would become known as the Reagan Democrats. His appeal was broad and inclusive. He provided inspiration and motivation that America could be great again. What we need at this point in history is someone to finally unite the red and blue states. Someone to motivate people. Someone to lead us, all of us, as one nation. Obama has already won over many Republicans. We need a new leader for the entire country, not just someone that knows how to play rough with the right. Hillary is so busy trying to convince us that she's a warm person. Why would she need to do that? Because she's extremely unlikeable. And at the same time she's playing dirtier than I can remember a politician doing in a primary race. If that's the only way she can win, why would we want her? We need HOPE, we need inspiration, we need a new direction, we need Obama. No more Reagan Democrats, we will be joined by the Obama Republicans. We'll have a real mandate. We'll have a leader that the people will get behind and support. We need to dump Hillary. The sooner the better.
Obama is a phoney. A poseur.
Some people can't accept voting for a woman President, and powerful women, such as Oprah, see her as a threat to their attempts at power. Oprah would rather pull Obama around by the ear than have a strong woman as President.
I agree, it's shameful that the party of tolerance can be so intolerant and hateful whether they're misogynists or not.
women in the workplace, had women as managers,
owners, direct supervisors even, and I don't
see a gender-based competency gap, there.
I would not vote for Hillary based on the fact
that she's a woman, nor would I vote against
her on that basis. The sticking point for
me with her is currently A Lot Of Money
In Real Estate, as well as the IHOP poltix
we've seen thus far on the issue of the war.
Remember 'if elected, I'll end the war'?
THAT rhetoric didn't hold up so well, did it?
I guess, when selecting your platform planks
you should probably go with something more
substantial than that junky fake wood stuff.
Maybe some nice oak timbers, or, more modern,
carbon fiber or even steel? Something that'll
withstand the old slings and arrows of
focus-group indecision, at any rate...
she was against the war before she voted for
it, then she was against being for being against
being for her vote for the war, and then she
was for being againstforgainstgainstgainstgainst
errorerrorerrorerror(FAULT:Line 15, repeat
instruction)
Somebody plug her back in and reboot.
I won't vote for her due to her untrustworthiness and her ties to the DLC. I don't give a damn about her clothes, hair, makeup or anything else.
Labeling my 'hatred' for the candidate as misogyny is disingenuous at best.
Unfortunately, some of it comes from within her own party, which, as far as I am concerned, is the height of hypocrisy, given how quick Democrats are to label Republicans as bigoted and intolerant.