Will Hillary Ever Be One Of The Cool Kids?
Madeleine Albright once said, "Anybody who thinks the world would be a better place if run by women doesn't remember high school."
I think about that. I remember the power players in my own high school. And I think about Hillary Clinton and women voters.
Studies of adolescent female power reveal a world of alpha girls and beta girls. Women never forget which side of the social fault line on which they spent their formative years. Men, generally speaking, can't relate. Their social demarcations - less subtle, but likely not as lasting - tended toward wedgies and slamming people into lockers.
It is the alpha girls who rule fashion, determine dance steps, set the lexicon, assign seats in the cafeteria, and make the iron-fisted judgments about who is in and who is out. Certain alpha female chimpanzees maintain their dominance over their rivals by killing their young. High school girls just cause eating disorders.
The beta girls, by contrast an equally gross generalization, are accomplished. They get the grades. They excel in sports. They play instruments. They run the student council. They are known, but not revered.
Even if we reinvent ourselves in college, and then reinvent that reinvention as adults, I don't think any of us ever fully escapes the gravitational pull of our middle and high school years. The people you like now are very likely to be the same people you liked then.
All of which brings me back to Hillary Clinton.
Laura Sessions Stepp, who writes extensively about adolescents and families, wrote in a 2002 Washington Post article about "gamma girls." They are smart, accomplished, funny, friendly, so universally well-liked, that they transcend alpha and beta.
True, but I don't think the gammas are created whole. They came from the emotional ranks of alphas and betas, but just repackaged on the power of their intellectual and emotional intelligence.
I would say Hillary is a gamma, except for that part about being universally well liked. And there in lies the issue that her campaign doubtless finds maddening.
Is she the alpha girl who is winning just like she always did? Or is she the beta girl who, forgetting her place, wants to walk right past the cool kids table to sit in the most powerful chair on earth.
Either way, Hillary has a tough job dialing up just the right balance of toughness and femininity - so much so one assumes her speaking notes say: "sniffle here" ... "throw your head back and laugh easily here."
People don't hate Obama. They don't hate McCain. Opponents would simply rather they not be elected president.
What exactly did she do to arouse such emotions among the ranks of the female Hillary haters?
There are many interesting theories.
There is the argument that professional woman don't like her because no matter what they accomplished, she has accomplished more. This is a woman who was chosen to give the valedictory address at the Wellesley convocation. Not content to tell the assemblage to change the world and smell the roses, she polled the student body, solicited ideas and poems, beautifully captured the turmoil and hope of the times, got a standing ovation, and her speech was featured in Life Magazine. Top that, miss thing!
Older women - who, in fairness, are also among her strongest supporters - don't like her because she is too much like a man - willing to do what a girl's gotta do to get what she wants. If there is a collateral body count -- well, suck it up, wuss-boy.
Younger women don't like her because she is one of the over 50, empty nested, cohort of women prone to experiencing their own private summers who Tina Brown recently profiled in a Newsweek column. "Written on their forehead everyday," she wrote," is "Invisible Woman" ... women who "find themselves steadfastly dissed and ignored." To a certain generation, then, she's still not one of the cool kids.
Maybe I'm making too much of this. Maybe it's like Madonna said when Elliott Spitzer was chasing Martha Stewart through the underbrush. "There seems to be something about blond, powerful women that just pisses people off."
But I think I'm on to something.
Try this: Ask your friends who Hillary reminds them of among the girls in their high school. Almost everybody has an answer.
Loading comments…
Want to reply to a comment? Hint: Click "Reply" at the bottom of the comment; after being approved your comment will appear directly underneath the comment you replied to
The way the media portray Hillary is someone not very warm. Yet, people who have met her in person are taken aback by how personable she is. I think we do her a grave misjustice by believing in other's idea of her. Hillary is so smart she'll make your head spin. She speaks in real sentences and she knows what she's talking about. Lord knows, we've had seven years of the "dumbing down" president. The country really needs Hillary as president.
CindyV,
Which Hillary? Teary Hillary or DramaQueen Hillary or Obsequious Hillary or Manipulative Hillary? Which do you prefer the media portray?
She's as smart as a fox. But, I don't give her much credit for the way she is running her campaign. If she can't handle her campaign and has so many that leave her, she isn't that personable. There have been a lot of stories how she treats her employee's and they weren't very nice. Just take a look at what Mr. Richardson said when he told her he was for Obama. He said himself, that she wasn't to nice about it. Hillary has two sides to her and I don't want that as a President. Plus she has many, many hidden things in her background.
No, Senator Clinton is incapable of seeing the forest for the trees. I don't say this because I dislike her. I say this because I have met people like her before (men and women). Generally, it would be o.k. to elect somebody who cannot see the big picture, but not right now. We have a REAL BIG mess to clean-up and we need someone who can see the big picture. Senator Obama is describing a new kind of liberalism. He is also succeeding with it -- for example, his grassroots campaign, the way he out-organizes and out-fundraises one of the best politicians (Senator Clinton) who is still practicing a now-outdated politics. This Country and all of us, need Senator Obama. We need his vision, we need his leadership and we desperately need his inspiration. Otherwise, we will just limp along for another 4 years and very little will change and nothing will improve.
The reasons that I do not like Senator Clinton have NOTHING to do with her gender in any way. What I don't like are qualities that are found in both male and female and supposedly in both alpha and beta. She represents to me a government and a time that, frankly, I want to be done with. She wants to win at all and any costs; her business dealings are shady; she lies; she's cynical and manipulative and extremely devisive. I'd dislike that if she were a "he." I am one of those 50-ish white women who are supposed to be 'in her pocket' but I'm not and neither are any of my 50-ish, white woman friends. They dislike her for the same reasons -- and it has nothing to do with gender. I think the media has been trying to turn both these campaigns into something that really isn't in the minds of most voters: gender and race. To us, the average voter, it's about the PERSON and who we trust the most and who we want to lead us and we aren't really looking at their gender or color. JMO
This-is-it! Everybody together, "we are all tired of the lying, bought and paid for, don't care what ordinary people have to say, pandering, distracting, throw the kitchen sink at 'em politicians and political tactics". Bill and Hillary fought the Republican machine with such tenacity and success they became the Republican Machine. It's as if Obama and the rest of us are just collateral damage along the way to their getting the nomination. For their own mental health, this must end. Now.
H.L. Mencken once said that a misogynist is a man who hates women as much as women hate one another.
I found your analogy interesting.
I'm a woman and I don't care if the person running for presidency is a man or woman. For me, it's about the issues and character. I don't agree on Clinton's character and her positions on issues as well. Does this mean that I'm a woman hater? I am so saddened with the fact that because you're a woman you should support Clinton. Can we just all grow up and put aside all the pettiness and hatred on this campaign.
Good article. It made me think of my own feelings toward Mrs Clinton. Im a proud hater. Its not an irrational hatred, but one born out of years of scorn. I feel that Mrs Clinton represents the very worst that nepotism in government has to offer. The only difference between Mrs Clinton and the dumbass occupying the oval office is that Mrs Clinton is a very intelligent human being. No one would ever confuse W with any form of intelligence.
If you knew what the word nepotism meant, you would not have used it. Clinton clawed her way to the place she is at. No one ever gave her anything. Your scorn is misplaced and unearned.
Nice. I had to re-read your post to pick up on its satire. The word "clawed" finally gives it away. Very funny -- if a bit catty.
If you mean she crawled over the body of her ex- President husband and his amazing political machine and at the age of 52 became a first time elected U.S. Senator for the state of NY simply because she was highly intelligent and a go getter and
I think the poster was probably referring more to the money both Senator Clinton's brothers earned for pardons given to convicted felons by President Clinton, or maybe he refers to the Hasidic men who were pardoned after convictions for bilking the federal govt. of millions and then suddenly their largely republican group turned out and voted 97% to help Senator Clinton become President. You know what? Senator Obama had nothing to do with any of these things -- and yet, somehow they occurred. The scorn is not misplaced. There are real problems out there -- it isn't all just Republican grumbling. Why don't you take a look?
No matter what she does, she is right. Or she'll make you think that she is. Maybe, expect you to think that she is.
No, Hillary does not remind me of any of the "girls in high school", but of a mean and boring teacher instead. One of those teachers who reads to the class in a dull pedantic way, droning on and on and on...just as she now reads her speaches so completely lacking in originality, personality, and passion. I can't imagin her ever being young enough, inspired enough, joyful enough to have been an alpha, betta, or gamma.
She reminds me of my mother who plastered on the phony smile and shook her finger at at people and said "Shame on you." My mother had some good qualities as well, but that's how I see Hillary. As for all the power brokering among female adolescents, I think you have overstated it. You are talking about adolescence anyway. Hopefully, most us have grown up since then.
Brilliant! You have concisely profiled the exact reasons why I would never send my child to a public school. (im trying real hard not to procreate mind you)
I am a male and am still getting over the adolescent "power" structure. We send our young, naive, children into these grand sociological experiments called schools with bullys,teachers, principles, police, CCTV's, drugs,drug sniffing dogs, plexiglass walls and a curriculum decided by all the special interests you care to mention. (sothern baptist convention is suing schools in Texas so intelligent design will be included in science class) And we call this an education? (And compulsory to boot!)
Yep, you are under control. 12 layers of control over you son.
Public schools are not nearly as bad, and the students not nearly as shallow, as this blogger would have you believe.
I've been reading through the comments on this article, many of which I agree with. As a 40 yr old woman, I don't dislike Clinton because of her accomplishments. I consider myself to be somewhat of a feminist and would love to see a woman in office. I think Clinton is more than capable, although I don't technically consider her experience in public office very extensive. While I was a Bill Clinton supporter and thought things were going much better for this country while he was in the White House, I am discovering now that there were some serious flaws during his presidency as well. Some of which include NAFTA and the WTO entrance. I am not blaming Hillary for these flaws, although I do believe she supported them at the time. What I truly dislike about Hillary Clinton though is that she is bought and paid for, she represents the status quo, she is entrenched in it and perpetuates it. She voted to allow Bush to go to war in Iraq and voted for the Kyl-Lieberman Resolution opening the door for war with Iran. She voted for the Patriot Act. She did not vote at all on the final Senate FISA bill with retroactive immunity. I don't see her dedication to protecting civil rights. Not at all. I don't see her dedication to representing the citizens of this country rather than representing corporations. Her time spent on the board of Wal-Mart is telling as well.
I'm not an Obama supporter either. I'm still rooting for the total underdog in this race... Mike Gravel. I think he's spoken the truth on Hillary's record, but the mainstream media doesn't want to hear his dissenting voice.
We need his National Initiative so we can take away some of the other 3 branches' power. Things are FAR too skewed against us now.
Thanks, DebbieKat.
Thanks, DebbieKat. Mike Gravel read the "pentagon papers" into the Congressional Record. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagon_Papers . This was a courageous act, showing far more leadership than anything Obama or Clinton have done in reference to the Iraq war.
I agree 100% and he's still being courageous with the kinds of statements he's made in interviews and at the few debates they've allowed him to participate in. What a wonderful man. It's disgusting how not only the media has tossed him aside, but his own party as well. This is a man who has behind him military service, the release of the Pentagon Papers into the public record, the Alaska Pipeline (now 20% of the US oil supply), stopped nuclear testing in the pacific, tons of environmental legislation in the 70's and now this wonderful organization to implement the National Initiative. No other candidate has been this courageous. It's sad how many people have completely ignored him and are ignorant of what he's given to this country. I'm honored to give him my vote.
Hillary is the woman that needs help. She stays with a womanizer and people say she is strong. What if your girlfriend was in the same relationship...You would help her by telling her she has to leave him. Well, Hillary isn't going to leave him because that is the way to the presidency. Had she left him and the political favors done and owed, she wouldn't have become a senetor of NY. Only the wife of a president can look at a map and say, there, NY, I can win that seat. Lets move there.
She isn't hated because she is a woman, she is hated because of she feels like she is owed. Owed what is my question. I have always thought of her as someone with a goal and simply checks the blocks to get to it. And, when a candidate comes along to challenge what she has built, by being first lady (big deal) she gets very nasty. That is the type of person I see her as, NASTY! More entitlement than a fighter. She will take any opportunity to spin herself.
Just like now. Only delegates matter. She would have you believe a different story of what matters every week. It always is her that should be on top. She doesn't mention delegates because she is loosing. Always trying to feel out public perception for what angle will allow her to steal this thing. Always putting herself in front of the party. She would kill Obama's chance of beating McCain just to run again herself. I think that she let Kerry loose on purpose so she wouldn't have to run in 2012. Now she is trying to keep 2012 alive for herself.
Don't stick up for her because she is a woman. She is nasty. Gender aside. I don't want my kids growing up to be anything like her.
Billary McClinton. The last virgin in high school, a gold-digger, a manipulator, a head case, a master head-games player.
Yep.
And you drive a 15 year old car and flip burgers. Am I right?
And what do you do? You seem to believe you have some sort of monopoly on superiority. I would be interested what it is that you do that makes you feel justified in one, suggesting that someone flips burgers and two, in suggesting that flipping burgers isn't a perfectly legitimate way to make a living.
I'm one of those boomer women who's never really cared for Hillary. Early on I never really thought about it. She was okay, I had nothing against her really -- just didn't warm to her. I never thought she was as brilliant as everyone around her says she is, and I still don't. I can see she's smart, but for me, there's nothing particularly transcendant about her smartness. I understand she works hard, and I give her credit for that. I never felt sorry for her because of Monica, but neither did I fault her for staying with Bill. I figure we all make our own choices, and no one can really know what's going on inside anyone else's marriage. Heck. Sometimes I don't even know what's going on inside my own. She seems like a great mom, and I give her credit for that as well.
There's so much I give her credit for, and yet, as I said, I never really warmed to her. Only lately have I begun to wonder why. I watched Primary Colors for the first time over the weekend, and it kinda got me to thinking. (This doesn't mean that I credit the movie with providing any insight, just that it got me to thinking.)
I guess with Hillary there's this sense that her drive to succeed is really a private drama playing itself out in a very public arena but that she's not really connected to what's going on in that public arena, much less to the real people across the country who are impacted by what's being played out. With Bill Clinton, by way of comparison (although lately I've been very disappointed by him as well), I get the feeling that, messy as he is, political animal that he is, he is a Democrat because his basic sensibilities are liberal.
I do not have that feeling with Hillary. I get the feeling with her that she's totally indifferent to the politics of it all, to whether she's a Democrat or a Republican. Having made her choice some decades back to be a Democrat she's not about to change her party affiliation, of course, but really she has no emotional connection to her politics that I can discern.
This doesn't make me dislike her, it just doesn't make me warm to her. I was fine enough with her as a candidate at the beginning of the primaries, even though she wasn't my first choice. As the weeks have gone by, however, I've become completely disgusted with how she's run her campaign. Which is sad. It didn't have to come to this.
A number of years ago, I consulted for a fortune 500 company, and would be sent out to
various divisions, to help rescue them from situations, where their top programmer had
suddenly decided to change jobs (catastrophe was Imminent.) Everyone at the division
would tell me what a genius the programmer was. I'd then began looking over the code,
and believe me, there are damn few geniuses out there, and Hillary is certainly not one
of them.
That is one of the better arguments/reasons that I've come across.
Lindy222:
"...with Hillary there's this sense that her drive to succeed is really a private drama playing itself out in a very public arena but that she's not really connected to what's going on in that public arena, much less to the real people across the country who are impacted by what's being played out."
Thoughtful, nuanced, counterintuitive ideas...what a great dinner companion you'd make!
It is a waste of time to take a view that perception of HC is a unitary, unchangeable thing and try to explain it on that basis.
The really interesting problem in understanding the reaction to Hillary is to try to figure out why a lot of people who used to like and admire her,now find the prospect of a HC presidency almost intolerable. What happened? Did these people all fall on their heads or get infected with some kind of anti-Hillary germ? Or, maybe, just maybe, did Hillary herself do something that changed peoples' perceptions?
In my group of 5 closest female friends, all fervent Clinton supporters during the Clintons' eight year reign, only one remains who still respects her. These are not women who are unaccomplished or who need to live vicariously. They are smart talented women who pay attention, women to whom CHARACTER matters, women who have strong lasting relationships with decent and faithful men.. The one who still wants her to be president isn't thinking of high school...she just wants to have a female president before she dies, an ambition that seems overly-narcissistic to the rest of us. The only throwback to high school that I can detect in the others is that they now perceive Hillary as a self-involved bully. We ALL liked her when she seemed likeable. Now she behaves like a jerk and she is perceived as being a jerk.
The only thing that seems different from high school to later-life is that older women have less tolerance for jerks than they did high school girls. Is there any woman out there who hasn't attended a high school reunion and chuckled when she saw that the worst alpha bully--the cutsey adorable one who got away with murder, the one that was also so nasty that everybody was afraid to cross her way back when-- is now fat, jowly, partially bald , unrecognizable without her nametag, and thrice divorced?.
Right before I read this piece, I told my husband that I used to think of HC as somebody that I could be friends with, but that I no longer believe I could. It is a matter of character...we used to think she had some, now we are virtually certain that she doesn't.
I used to respect Hillary Clinton. But it seems that was an uninformed illusion.
I am a forty six year old feminist and she reminds
me of everything that privileged rich people become when they
don't get their way. She is like no one I went to high school
with. Alpha, Beta, or Gamma. She would have been shunned
as obnoxious and too selfishly singleminded.
You know...as a female old lady democrat --I don't need to HATE Hillary - to not vote for her.
She has "earned" my disdain....through her "dirty campaigning"...and her "mortal sin"...which is...endorse the republican candidate over your democratic primary challenger.
Destroy the party...
Anything to win!!
I guess you're right about one thing...I don't like pushy girls that would "eat their own"...to succeed. But then I don't like slime in men..either.....
Her sense of entitlement...comes from being the "victim" wife of a philandering "president".
I don't owe her the presidency and neither does the American people.
You must be logged in to comment. Log in or connect with
