(Anna surveys the wreckage as the end of the primary draws near... - promoted by Jay Stevens)
I attended the Missoula County Democrats meeting this week, in order to show my support for the Clinton campaign representatives who spoke briefly before the Attorney General candidates debated. Carol Williams, the chair of the campaign in Montana, mentioned something during her remarks with which I agreed completely, and she really made me think. Williams said, and I'm paraphrasing here, that America will not have moved into the 21st century with regard to gender issues until we take a hard look at the way Hillary Clinton has been treated in this presidential race. I've been talking about this for about as long as I've been posting here, so I don't probably need to go through it again, but both the media and a lot of allegedly progressive Democrats have shown a pretty gross side of themselves when it comes to gender in this campaign.
As my thoughts about this developed further, I read a couple of interesting op-eds that helped to crystallize a lot of the reasons why I agreed so strongly with Williams' comment.
And before I go futher, I want to say two things that I hope will clarify where I'm coming from: 1. I don't think Hillary Clinton is losing the primary because of sexism. I do, however, think that sexism is playing a huge, huge, huge role in the way that people talk about her. Those are two different things. 2. I don't think sexism is a worse problem than racism, and arguing that one is worse than the other is a pretty ugly thing to do.
First up is this morning's "Belittled Woman", which addresses the "Poor Hillary" syndrome that has afflicted much of the media for as long as she's been in the public eye:
There is something about that woman -- that woman! -- that refuses to bend, and something about a large portion of this country that despises her for it. The person who once conjured a vast right-wing conspiracy now refuses to exit a race she's almost surely lost, and it Drives. People. Crazy.
...
Anyway, so there she is, all bruised and ugly, this alternate version of Hillary Clinton. (The shrinks would say we despise in others what we fear most in ourselves. The shrinks talk a lot.) There she is, and then you see the real Clinton on TV this week after her West Virginia win. Brian Williams tries to lead her into an autopsy of her campaign, and she keeps coming back with that smile. She looks rested. She looks like she knows exactly what she's doing.
"Made of steel," is how John Edwards describes her Wednesday, just before he endorses Barack Obama.
"We'll know a lot more on June 4th," the candidate herself says, placid as a lap cat. "I don't believe in quitting. I don't believe in being pushed out."
Or being poor-Hillary'd out.
This column begins to unravel the meaning behind the condescension and fake pity that has been directed at her recently. Part of it comes from a long-standing tradition of Hillary hate that has only recently been adopted by many progressives. Behind that, I would suggest, is a much longer history of sexism in progressive politics.
"Misogyny I Won't Miss" takes us through some of the sexist lowlights of the campaign, and ends with something I think is really important to consider:
I won't miss reading another treatise by a man or woman, of the left or right, who says that sexism has had not even a teeny-weeny bit of influence on the course of the Democratic campaign. To hint that sexism might possibly have had a minimal role is to play that risible "gender card."
Most of all, I will not miss the silence.
I will not miss the deafening, depressing silence of Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean or other leading Democrats, who to my knowledge (with the exception of Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland) haven't publicly uttered a word of outrage at the unrelenting, sex-based hate that has been hurled at a former first lady and two-term senator from New York. Among those holding their tongues are hundreds of Democrats for whom Clinton has campaigned and raised millions of dollars.
Marie Cocco rightfully calls out the Democratic Party for their refusal to address the way Hillary Clinton has been treated. To me, this is the biggest hurdle I'm going to have to overcome before I can enthusiastically get behind this party again. Where on Earth was the Democratic Party, Howard Dean, Barack Obama, Tom Daschle, anyone at all, when all the other things Cocco mentions in her article were happening?
I'm going to have a hard time forgetting this, and it's not because it was directed against Hillary Clinton personally - it's because her treatment, and the party's refusal to stick up for women, will have a chilling effect on Democratic women in the future who might want to run for president. They have no reason to believe that the party will be there for them when they encounter the type of sexism that Hillary Clinton has dealt with during the 2008 primaries.
Regardless of what happens with Hillary Clinton's candidacy, this is something we need to discuss as a party, or a movement, or whatever it is that you consider us to be. Whether you like or dislike Hillary Clinton is beside the point - we can't continue to treat women candidates and activists like this.
