Disunited We Will Never Stand

Last week, it was my turn to drive the carpool. With three nine-year-olds in the back of the car, I listened as they tore their 'girlfriends' to shreds. Miranda is just too skinny. Imogen will never learn to sing in key. And did you see that awful coat Emily was wearing?

If I were a man, I'd be laughing. Women rule the world? Never in a million years. Because they still haven't figured out how to stick together.

Look at Hillary Clinton's campaign. Women -- not men, women -- attack her because she isn't feeling enough, then because she's too emotional, and then because her emotion is fake.

Women -- not men -- attack her because, they say, they don't want to vote for someone who's married to Bill Clinton. In other words, it is women who can't see Hillary as anything except a wife. I always thought it was the guys who were supposed to be that narrow minded.

Women -- not men -- make catty remarks about her cheeks, her makeup, her dress sense, her voice. Not men, women.

Women -- not men -- pass judgment on her marriage as though this has serious bearing on her performance as a legislator. If men did this, they'd be instantly castigated as trivializers. But they don't need to do it, because we do it for them.

Supporting Hillary isn't the issue. Since time immemorial, we have been socialized to compete with each other for the attention of men. Think of all those Jane Austen novels, of Scarlett O'Hara competing for Ashley Wilkes, Margo Channing in All About Eve or Alex Forrest in Fatal Attraction. This ancient behavior persists to this day, hobbling what chances we might have for progress."United we stand"? That simple phrase alone could explain why we've made such feeble inroads politically. The divided never rule.

Driving my carpool full of the future, I turned around to my 9-year-old passengers and read them the riot act. Every time they attack their girlfriends, I said, they attack themselves. Let's call it displaced self-harm. Then we can see it for what it really is.

Comments

[MenForHillary]

Hi All (and Margaret):
Actually, I disagree heartily about every single one of Ms. Heffernan's "Women - not men" statements.
Men are clearly saying ALL the things that Ms. Heffernan seems to imply that "only women are saying." Certainly, women are saying all those things (which is problematic, since you would hope they would be more evolved about such matters than men) BUT men are definitely saying all that and much worse. Just check some of the entries in my ww.MenforH­illary.org Blog (www.HillaryNowObamaLater.org).
What I find problematic about women in this campaign cycle is that they can be made to feel guilty about wanting to vote for a woman on the basis of gender identity politics. Why not? Do you see anyone criticizing blacks for wanting to vote for a black person for president? Nope. Why is that? I think it is because we ACCEPT that black people were and continue to be an oppressed minority group and, therefore, have every right to defend themselves and fix the problem, including what could be characterized as "reverse racism."
However, when it comes to "reverse sexism" -- women wanting to vote for a woman based on her being a woman -- we try to make women feel guilty about it. ANY oppressed minority (or in this case an oppressed majority -- how did men to that?), has the right to vote as a block to fix the problem, even if it can be characterized as "reverse sexism." Power to the people! (All the people!)

[lovethesinner]

The point of Hillary's gender is mute. She is neither man, nor woman.

Hillary Clinton is the status-quo.

She is the titular head of a system of ideas and policies that stretch back into the last decade. Some are very noble, some, not so much. But all of them are ideas directly descended from the same power elite that have ruled the world long enough to push us onto the brink of economic depression, and hated in the world.

NAFTA; the sanctions against Iraq that killed 500 thousand children; extrordinary rendition; all of these are Clinton ideas.

The reason some women won't support her isn't that they lack the unity to STAND for her, it's that they have the intelligence, courage, and integrity to weigh the merits of her candidacy, and vote their conscience.

In that case, a vote for Hillary's opponents may actually be a vote FOR women. It can be said that women prefered to be united Americans, rather than loyal sheep: memebers of some "good-ole girl" network.

"United we stand, divided we fall" was Daniel Boone's famous motto. But, don't distort his meaning. Those words were spoken to Americans.

Obama in '08

[DeeLight]

On the March 29 edition of CNN Headline News' Glenn Beck, host and Good Morning America commentator Glenn Beck -- who has referred to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) as a "stereotypical bitch" -- declared that Clinton's voice "makes angels cry." http://mediamatters.org/items/200703300005

[patrice37]

So I, as a feminist, am obligated to support a woman who's a lying dirtball?

[feelfree]

The attack I find particularly hateful is the one that she would be nothing if she were not married to Bill Clinton.

[MPeter]

It is difficult to tell from your writing how much research you have really done or how well you know Hillary and her stand on the issues. You seem to indicate that Hillary is being attacked by women because women are divided. What if it is because they know better what she represents or stands for and it has nothing to do with her gender? Hillary is a man without a dick; a neocon warmonger who could care less who she destroys to get power. HRC has had every privilege available to a well-connected woman; one who married a man so crooked, he cornered the entire American political system. HRC does not know the women's experience your article seems to suggest. She has been part of the boy's club; the skulls and bones for the longest of time. So do not sell us this crap of the divided never rule shrill. Hillary has been a co-president already.

[Lindy222]

Quote: "Women -- not men -- make catty remarks about her cheeks, her makeup, her dress sense, her voice. Not men, women."

Any chance you could at least modify this statement, as well as all the other ones about what women say about Hillary Clinton, to say "some women"?

I'm an Obama supporter, and I've been really really disappointed in the dishonesty coming out of the Clinton campaign in the last several weeks. But you won't hear me saying anything negative about Clinton's looks, her marriage, whatever. I don't think anyone can know what's going on in anyone else's marriage, and I don't presume to comment on hers or anyone else's. And I think she's attractive and dresses just fine.

So there.