Go Away? Why Should She?

[CarolNYC]

Go away? Why should she?

Despite the toxic misogyny aimed at her, Clinton has good reason to stay in the race.
By Leslie Bennetts
March 9, 2008

This is not how the story line was expected to go, dammit, and the impatience of the (mostly male) punditocracy is palpable. Doesn't Hillary Clinton know she was supposed to lose decisively in Ohio or Texas last week so that Barack Obama could unify the Democratic Party and sail to victory in November?

Except that she didn't lose -- and, boy, are some people annoyed about that! Why doesn't she just get out of the way? The media have sorted it all out so neatly: He is young, glamorous, charismatic and funny; he represents the future. She is older, strident, earnest and humorless; she is the past. He inspires; she hectors. Ugh!

(snip)

So why won't Clinton just scram? I mean, you can't drive a stake through that woman's heart! She just keeps getting up and fighting on, like some incredibly irritating pop-up doll that won't stay down, no matter how many times you smash it to the ground. Not only does "the bitch" (as one McCain supporter memorably called her) insist on staying in the race, but her supporters are getting all riled up and defying the pressure to make her go away. News reports chronicle the anger of older female voters who are simply refusing to go along with the triumphalist narrative of Obama's inevitability. Who do they think they are?

(snip)

How about as women? After all, 54% of the electorate could wield decisive power, if only they would claim it. There are signs the slumbering beast may be waking up -- and she's not in a happy mood. From New Hampshire to Ohio, women have given Clinton a sizable edge over Obama -- and as of last week, they put her back into a race that the political elite had decreed all but over.

What if women actually started to assert their needs and interests, particularly women who have aged out of babedom? What if they stopped slinking dutifully into invisibility and instead rose up to demand their fair share of our nation's resources and rewards? What if they, like Clinton, finally said, "Hell, no -- We won't go!"

What a concept! No wonder so many guys seem to have the vapors these days.

Leslie Bennetts, a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, is the author of "The Feminine Mistake: Are We Giving Up Too Much?"

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-op-bennetts9mar09,0,2140085.story

[NastyRiffraff]

1. Great article..thanks for posting.

I particularly was struck by this:

Just in case we missed the memo, Rush Limbaugh recently spelled it all out for us. After observing that "aging makes men look more authoritative, accomplished and distinguished," he registered his own distaste about the prospect of having to watch Clinton shrivel up in the White House. "Will America want to watch a woman get older before their eyes on a daily basis?" he asked.

Oh, the horror! In the world according to Limbaugh, witnessing such a spectacle would be too repellent for the squeamish American electorate (although it would presumably pose no problem to watch John McCain -- who would be the oldest president ever elected -- slide into decrepitude if he were to win). But we certainly don't want to be forced to look at and (God forbid!) listen to a considerably younger woman.

[libbygurl]

2. Thank you for this. Then there's this appalling truth we've all noticed this season:

And yet the misogyny infecting the presidential campaign is dizzyingly toxic, as Robin Morgan pointed out in a recent essay, "Goodbye to All That (#2)" -- citing "the HRC nutcracker with metal spikes between splayed thighs," T-shirts reading, "If only Hillary had married O.J. instead!" and Comedy Central's "South Park" story line about terrorists secreting a bomb in Clinton's vagina.

"This is sociopathic woman-hating. If it were about Jews, we would recognize it instantly as anti-Semitic propaganda; if about race, as KKK poison," Morgan wrote. "Where is our sense of outrage -- as citizens, voters, Americans?"

God's nightgown! Misogyny continues to get a pass, but watch out if you dare critique BO in the slightest - you'll learn that you've been a racist all this time and didn't even know it, as Bill Clinton learned in SC.

When Hillary wins, the victory will be a thousand times as sweet, considering the heap of obstacles continuously put in her path by her ruthless, troglodyte enemies.

[feminazi]

3. hell no .... we won't go!!!

thank you, leslie bennetts