Interesting article about Hillary-hatred in Mother Jones:

[kath]

(apologies if this has already been posted here)

Harpy, Hero, Heretic: Hillary
The junior senator, former first lady, and presidential hopeful stokes our deepest fears and darkest hatreds. What does the Hillary phenomenon say about America? Jack Hitt, Mother Jones
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2007/01/harpy_hero_heretic_hillary-4.html

Thought-provoking article. LENGTHY. Read it last night at the bookstore, and feel like I need another read-through or two to fully digest it. (but short on time tonight) <on edit> The article discusses various reasons why people **from all parts of the political spectrum** dislike her. ONE of the thesis is that people's reactions to Senator Clinton have a lot to do with their reactions (perhaps not always conscious ones) to feminism. Comments on how late 1960s-early '70's feminist ideals have not really borne fruit/backlash against these ideals, etc.

This excerpt is from near the end of the article:

Hillary is an icon of our most transformative personal revolution. Racial integration was about bringing excluded people to a metaphorical and literal lunch counter that was already there. A public place. But the feminist revolution was about remaking the private world, the nest and resting place for all us careerists.

Hillary explained it in that notorious speech at Wellesley in 1969. She said, "But we also know that to be educated, the goal of it must be human liberation. A liberation enabling each of us to fulfill our capacity so as to be free to create within and around ourselves." She was in the first class of women's libbers, back when "the Working Woman" was more an idea than a reality and the future held infinite possibility. She left Wellesley fired up with the rhetoric of Steinem and Friedan. They had revealed to the world the new theory; she would show them how it worked in practice. Hillary is the real revolutionary: She had a career. She had a family. She had a husband with a career. They were both ambitious boomers—perhaps the most ambitious. They wanted not just good jobs but the very best of all possible jobs. And every step of the way she demanded and got—to use the old-school rhetoric—the freedom to choose.

That language pops up with Hillary from time to time, such as one curious moment during her first Senate campaign when men and women, liberals and conservatives, all still had inflamed opinions on whether she should stay in her marriage or not. Asked after a speech about her decision to remain with Bill, she said: "I fought all my life for women to make their own choices, in their personal and professional lives. I made mine."

How retro-1970s an answer is that? Hillary is still talking that talk and walking that walk, even though the revolution never really worked out as drafted. Those day care and health care support systems never arrived. Glass ceilings appeared, lower pay persisted. Feminism gained an angry militant opposition that now works to outlaw abortion state by state. Without widespread public support, the movement fell onto the shoulders of the individual women who could tough it out, women like Sister Frigidaire, the woman who could visit Buffalo 26 times. A lot of women just got tired. Many shrugged off the fight for full professional independence and happily went home to raise the kids. Feminists gamely tried to make the argument that their intention all along was to allow any of these fine choices to be made. But a lot of compromises were made all around. Now Gloria Steinem is like some oldest living Confederate widow occasionally showing up on TV to remind us what it was like, back in the day. Then, a certain ideal seemed inevitable—the feminist enjoying both the pleasures of motherhood and the Eisenhower-era man's life of full professional reward. Of those idealists, Hillary is arguably the only one still in our face.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

1. Question...

How many times does a senator need to be reelected before she's not a junior senator anymore?

[enigmatic]

3. When the Senator w/ more senority retires/is voted out

In the State where they hold office...

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

11. Ah, that makes sense.

Didn't know it was relative.

I must have been thinking of "freshman."

[salin]

5. until he/she has been in elected office longer than the other sen. from the state.

It simply refers to which senator from a state has been in office longer. I believe that Schumer was elected two years before Hillary - and thus for two years he was the "junior senator" (to D'Amato) - and then quickly elevated to "senior senator" when Hillary won. If she were to continue being elected for say the next three terms (24 years), but Schumer also continued to be elected - she would still be "the junior senator" from New York. Its a 'seniortiy' thing, not a disparaging remark.

[JohnLocke]

6. It doesn't have anything to do with number of years of service.

The "junior Senator" is the senator that has served fewer years than the other Senator from his state. For example, John Kerry is the junior Senator from Massachusetts even though he's been in the Senate for 20 years--because Ted Kennedy has served for 44 years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senate_seniority

[Jackpine Radical]

8. Until the senior senator in his state croaks or something.

[Nite Owl]

30. Schumer has to retire

that could be a while.

[illinoisprogressive]

2. this would address only the early baby boomers. What about everyone else

[kath]

10. I just quoted a few paragraphs. Article discusses various types/reasons

of Hillary-hatred. Does NOT just apply to baby boomers. Fear/hatred of powerful women, "why didn't she leave that cheating bastard", objectification of women ie obsessing about her appearance, etc.

[generaldemocrat]

4. This article sucks...

because it assumes that everyone who dislikes Hillary is anti-feminist, when in reality a lot of people dislike her because they view her as neocon-lite.

[Diane R]

7. Precisely. I was an original subscriber to 'Ms.' Magazine, and I'd rather not vote for Hillary.

[kath]

13. Not so. DId you read the whole thing? Also discusses how even feminist and

liberals express dislike of Sen. Clinton, along with those on the right, for very varied reasons.

I probably should have been more selective in choosing the 4 paragraphs I could quote. Hard to capsulate a lengthy article.

[generaldemocrat]

15. Right, but the gist of the entire article was that.....

Americans dislike Hillary because she is a "liberated woman". Which is profoundly untrue.

Personally, as a male, I'd rather like to see someone like Barbara Boxer run. Why? Not only did she vote against IWR, but she also comes from the largest state in the union with the most electoral votes.

[porphyrian]

14. Correct. I welcome a feminist woman President...

...but I'm not voting for anyone who puts corporate interests before mine or the rest of the people's. I'd vote for any Democrat who's willing to be progressive in policy and who puts us before money, regardless of their physical traits.

[BayCityProgressive]

20. I do like her

feminist opinions. If she really went out full throttle for womens lib, affirmative action, single payer healthcare ect ect....I would like her a lot more. I don't really hate her now but I cant vote for her. I really looked up to her and she really let me down on Iraq. I can't get over that.

[silverweb]

9. Good article.

My 82-year-old mother hates Hillary because "she's a damn hippie."

I guess that translates to "feminist" in her mind... otherwise I just don't understand her comment.

I'm 10x more of a "hippie" than Hillary is!

:rofl:

[illinoisprogressive]

12. Hillary irritates the crap out of me. Always has

[scarletwoman]

16. I'm sorry. I know I should read the entire article before I comment -- the problem is, my gag reflex

is at a real low tolerence right now.

Therefore, the very whiff of a suggestion that antipathy toward a Hilary Clinton presidential candicacy has fuck all to do with feminism sends me retching and running for a bucket. :puke:

I will oppose a Hilary candicacy because she is a creature of the Ruling Class -- nothing more, nothing less.

sw

[sakabatou]

17. I don't want anymore "legacy" presidents

>_<

[kath]

18. Amazing how many reply without reading the whole article.

A few more paragraphs

Hillary-hating is such a national pastime, for both Democrats and Republicans, that it should be its own verb: "Hillarating." Typically, even her supporters make the case for her only after plowing through a lot of caveats, lessons learned, and after muttered contempt for some aspect of her person. Hillarating is not like normal political hating—opposing someone's ideology, for example. Loathing Hillary happens on multiple levels, ranging from her marital choices and fashion sense to her ambivalence on torture or support for a flag-burning amendment. And liberal feminists are as comfortable Hillarating as anyone else, perhaps more so.

It's not just that Hillary herself is seen in half a dozen ways, but that each variety of Hillary is embraced across the political spectrum. The word-association part of the Hillary Rorschach test fails as political litmus because everyone uses the same essential vocabulary. The language that one expects to hear from her right-wing critics—that she's untrustworthy, two-faced, opportunistic, and scheming with a hidden agenda—you are just as likely to hear from other women in power, feminists, and people on the left. You expect to read Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan calling her a "cynical leftist political operative" who sees "our country as a platform for her core ambitions." But you also get Cindy Sheehan comparing her to Rush Limbaugh; Susan Sarandon complaining, "What America is looking for is authentic people who want to go into public service because they believe strongly in something, not people who are trying to get elected"; and the late Wendy Wasserstein saying Hillary "has flip-flopped on so many issues of image that her behavior can justifiably be called erratic."

[KoKo]

21. A quibble with this. I lost friends over my defense of Bill and Hillary...

It wasn't until Selection 2000 and the aftermath that I became politically aware enough of how their DLC policies hurt the Democratic Party. I was never in favor of NAFTA and gave Bill a pass on it...I supported Hillary's health care plan and started to drift away from life long friends and family (all Repugs) when the RW began the Vince Foster attacks on Hillary and then Whitewater and all the rest.

But, since defending them I've seen how their policies were so "down the middle" that they allowed the RW to thrive and grow into the overwhelming monster that has made many Democrats lives HELL since that "selection." The signing of the Media Deregulation Bill of '96 was Bill Clinton's ultimate driving of a stake in the heart of the Democratic Party because it allowed the Faux News and Religious Right FREE REIGN..and Bush to have ULTIMATE POWER.

It's hard to forgive that. And, as much as I admire Hillary for overcoming Bill's problems...they were always a TEAM. So, I would expect more DLC stuff and watering down of our Dem Party once Bill gets back in on his wife's coat tails.

I also think they did NOTHING to support Gore during the "Selection" where the Media and Courts and Bushco/NeoCons went after him.

They caused me pain...they caused the Country pain. In retropect they look much worse than they did when they were in office and I was telling all my "former friends" that the RW MEDIA and THINK TANK & Religious Conservative went after Bill over Monica unfairly. They didn't see it all as Monica. I wish I hadn't seen it that way, now, in retrospect. Some of them were good people...but I couldn't be around them anymore philosophically. It wasn't me being selfish...it was the ideology that just couldn't be overcome.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

22. Yes but did these same people who were Clinton critics vote for Bush? The ones you are sorry

that you lost as friends?

[KoKo]

27. Every one of them voted for Bush....And the last I heard a couple of years ago

they all still loved him ...for keeping us safe and for not being "CLINTON."

Maybe they've changed since then as his polls have gone down...but no one has called me saying: "I'm so sorry...you told us what he was about." So....can't be sure if they've changed.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

41. I guess my point is, why would you worry so much about losing THESE people if they are so

deluded as to support someone like Bush? That there are reasons to be critical of the Clintons that you didn't acknowledge then is small potatoes compared to the fact that they are Bush-bots.

[dorktv]

19. I looked at it. For those on the left, they have a real reason.

but the average person cannot seem to say why they hate her. They just do.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

23. They do because their favorite RW propagandists have told them they should hate her. And that's

enough for them.

[dorktv]

25. Probably...I always ask non-lefties why they hate her.

The answers are never illuminating.

[Captain Hilts]

28. Righties say they hate her because 1)She's a socialist and 2) She's so ambitious!

I LOVE it when people criticize her for being ambitious. As if the other 99 senators aren't, or Bill Clinton wasn't. Or FDR wasn't. Or...

[dorktv]

31. Or Bush or McCain or Reagan or anyone...

[Captain Hilts]

34. Exact;ly. nt

[AtomicKitten]

24. Hillary-hatred is viral.

I have had long conversations with my lawyer, my doctor, my accountant, and friends from all walks of life, and I can say 95% of the men I've spoken with have NO CLUE why she is disliked by women, so I suspect the feminism point raised in the article is germain to solving this conundrum. It is definitely much more complex than the treatment it is given for the most part here at DU. It is a phenomenon worthy of study and thank you for posting this most interesting piece.

[BayCityProgressive]

29. I think women

especially older women...hate her becaus eshe is what they secretly wanted to be. They always had in the back of their mind that they wanted to be a lawyer, a professor, a senator ect ect...but in the end they settled down and fell into the lifestyle of women who came befor ethem. I think seeing Hillary makes them in a way jealous..or bitter that they didn't take the road she took. That's my take anyhow..

[AtomicKitten]

36. that could very well be a contributing issue

I also think it has something to do with those on the left having contempt for statesmen, those willing to work with both sides of the aisle. There is an almost palpable contempt for what has been labeled triangulation and centrism. But it's really not that I don't think. Reagan was successful because he campaigned on bipartisanship. I think that's what makes Obama so marketable. But people forget he's still a liberal and that is not compromised by him not being a hot head when dealing with Republicans, not that they don't deserve it. In spite of voting for the IWR, for which she gets no leeway from me, Hillary's voting record is really quite liberal. I just think her ability to get along politically is despised by some on the left who I think really want Dems to lob hand grenades. I just think the criteria by which others are judged is jacked up for her and the expectations of her are for the most part unfair.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

40. I think most of the "Hilary hatred" is among NON-Democratic women voters.

And that's the type where if you asked them why, they can't really give you a good reason. "She's EVIL!"

[Captain Hilts]

26. People generally expect Democratic women to be more liberal and for Bubba's wife to be more liberal.

Expectations for her are pretty liberal, and when she doesn't meet them, people really resent it.

[papau]

35. She actually is more liberal than Bill - pushing single payer in 93 as the only voice in the

room that wanted that direction for the task force she was told to form (this is from personal knowledge from my prior work responsibilities, but is the only thing I know about her life personally - afraid my social level is no where near as high as hers).

Indeed I do not know what she has done to earn the corporate label - her Walmart board days in the 80's was when Walmart actually paid a relatively fair wage.

She is too damn cautious - compared to my own shoot from the hip style. But her eventual positions seem solid.

[Captain Hilts]

38. Yes, she seems to vacilate, but her voting record is pretty progressive. nt

[AnnieBW]

32. I Want A Female Candidate!

I want a woman to run for President - but I don't want Hillary Clinton to run. Why not? It would give the RW-nuts free rein to bring up Monica, impeachment, Travelgate, Whitewater, etc. instead of focusing on CURRENT issues. She's as much of a polarizing figure as Big Dog is, only with less personality. Besides, she's an extremely competent Senator, and I'd hate to lose her in that capacity.

That being said, I'd like to see some of the other Dem women in similar positions make a serious run for it. Like Janet Napolitano, Jennifer Granholm, Barbara Boxer, or even Barbara Mikulski. They all have as much experience as Hillary - or any other man in the race.

[Tatiana]

33. Why do I dislike Hillary? Because she refuses to be true to herself.

She had the opportunity to a lot for this country. I remember working for Clinton's campaign. Back in '92, I was more excited about Hill than I was about Bill. I saw in Hillary a woman who I could really respect. A woman with a family who was strong, yet nurturing, intelligent, but not overbearing. Back then, she talked about issues facing many low-to-middle income families: affordable and quality child care, health insurance, equal pay, access to higher education, feeding America's hungry, human rights.

But gradually, as her political ambitions grew, I saw her temper her views on made her so admirable in the first place. She caved big time on health coverage, moving from investigating plans similar to single-payer towards an insurance industry handout when wingnuts started screaming about another welfare handout.

I think ambition (and the willingness to be whatever she thinks she needs to be in order to get elected) have turned the warm, friendly, and quite humorous lady I listened to in '93 to the stiff, calculating opportunist you see today.

And that's why I don't like her. Because I can't depend on her to do what's right. I can only depend on her to what she thinks will get her elected.

[Meldread]

37. That's exactly the way I feel about her.

To sum it up: I can't trust her to do what is right.

[Captain Hilts]

39. She's supposed to be true to the voters of NY State. Upstate and downstate. nt

[Alamom]

42. This is an incredible article. Too bad all of it can't be posted. I

know a lot of people don't have time to read 4 pages dedicated to the woman so many love to hate.
Thank you for posting the OP, Kath.



(in reference to a statue by Edwards)
It was a quote by Sharon Stone that triggered it," Edwards explained to me. Stone, an actress famous for exposing a different part of her anatomy, had recently expressed doubt that Hillary could become president because "a woman should be past her sexuality when she runs. Hillary still has sexual power, and I don't think people will accept that. It's too threatening."

>

More than any other public figure, Hillary forces us to acknowledge that the path to power for American women is not all that clear, more an odyssey than a march. The national trauma began when Hillary violated perceived roles of domesticity, says Betty Winfield, a University of Missouri professor who has been monitoring Hillary's public perception since the campaign of 1992. "People had a very preconceived idea about how a first lady was supposed to act, the image of a supportive wife but not too outspoken," says Winfield. "Hillary had no noblesse oblige cause, nothing coming from the domestic sphere like highway beautification or illiteracy or anti-drug use among teens. No, no. She was going to change the entire health care system for the whole country."

This didn't sit well, says Winfield, in part because "women who attain power or public recognition as satellites of great men are subject to a lot more criticism than women who arrive to the public arena on their own accomplishment." (In her day, Dolley Madison was accused of being lascivious, Jefferson's mistress, and trading sex for votes.) Of course, long before she was first lady, Hillary was already accomplished, having clawed her way up the law firm ladder to become the first female partner in Arkansas' oldest and most prestigious firm. The closest parallel at the time was…Marilyn Quayle. How quickly we all forget that Marilyn was a law partner with her husband in a Clintonesque firm called Quayle and Quayle. When Dan was named vice president in 1988, the governor of Indiana offered to appoint Marilyn to fill out his term in the U.S. Senate. Hillary merely took up the work of bushwhacking a path originally macheted by a woman now almost entirely forgotten.


>

Ask your friends if their fear and loathing of Hillary has anything to do with her being a woman, and you'll undoubtedly get a denial. That might be someone else's problem, but certainly not mine. But after a Lazio moment, or when John Edwards' wife told guests at a Ladies' Home Journal luncheon that her "choices" had made her "happier" and more "joyful" than Hillary, an epiphany can occur, as it did for The Nation's Katha Pollitt, who wrote, "If people keep making sexist attacks on Hillary Rodham Clinton, I may just have to vote for her. One has to wonder, especially considering the massive voter support she's received in two elections, if Hillary doesn't already have her own hidden vote: not just feminist columnists, but moderate and even Republican women who might exult in Hillarating until they step into the seclusion of the voting booth, where all the watercooler chitchat, pissy remarks, and catty complaints fall away to reveal a working woman getting harassed in a man's world—and they recognize what they see.

edto4

[bcoylepa]

43. very interesting article

I am one who has very mixed feelings on Hillary - in the spirit of The Nation's Katha Pollitt, who wrote in the article "If people keep making sexist attacks on Hillary Rodham Clinton, I may just have to vote for her."
May is the operative word - depends on what else is going on and who else is running
but I think we would all do well to remember that Hillary has taken the strongest hits and is still standing and compared to the fool we have now she would be light years ahead
No - I do not find her inspiring-
Yes - I do find her hardworking- dedicated - smart
Yes - I hate her move to the middle
Yes - her Iraq War Vote was criminal

but still - I think we should all keep our minds open on her - IMHO white men have messed it up long enough - I am thinking it may be time for a change - Cinton/Obama ticket anyone? just thinking out loud

[crispini]

44. Here are my thoughts re: Hillary.

I read the article. It was interesting. I thought the bit about how various people see different things reflected in her was a good point. I sort of go along with the angle that the way she mixed her career with that of her husband went a long way to blow her "cred," so to speak. For example, her early career with her law firm was a career woman type of job, but it is NOT the kind of job that leads to the public spotlight in the same way that her husband's job as Governor and later on President does. The remark about "if you vote my husband you get me too" -- how totally inappropriate. As a career woman, you're supposed to have your own sphere of influence, not always meddling in that of your husband. Or at least you certainly shouldn't do so that explicitly, in that open of a manner.

[Captain Hilts]

45. "Career woman kind of job..." Wasn't she named one of the country's top lawyers?

Your criticism of her is unique and I don't think I understand it.

[crispini]

46. Well, yes, but she was never a politician when he was running.

I'm strugging with how to articulate this.... it DOES have something to do with the quote in the article, "women who attain power or public recognition as satellites of great men are subject to a lot more criticism than women who arrive to the public arena on their own accomplishment."

A job as a lawyer, even as a partner in a law firm, doesn't necessarily lead to a job as a legislator or in government, you know? You still have to get elected, and that presents its own set of skills and challenges. In some sense I DO find it "cheating," you know. Nobody elected her (THEN). And, yes, I know that these are some of same things RWingers say. :shrug: It just seems to be sort of, well, un-feminist, to get a leg up in politics via your husband's career. Most people have to start like he did: in the trenches.