Hillary Clinton was not my candidate during the primaries; Bernie Sanders was. His beliefs are more in line with mine, but when it became clear Clinton would be the nominee, I quietly shifted my support to her. I’m old enough to remember the two elections before PBO in which I had to support Al Gore and John Kerry, neither of whom I felt represented me except in the most generic Democratic way. Bill Clinton was the first Democratic candidate for president I could have voted for (his reelection), and I waited until the state went for him before voting for Nader. So, I realize that PBO is an outlier in that I felt he was MY candidate*. I have never been a fan of the Clintons (and I loathe Bill), and I was really turned off in 2008 by the way Hillary ran her primary campaign. Currently, I am supporting Clinton, obviously, but she’s still not MY candidate, which is fine. I don’t need to feel a connection with my president, though it’s been a nice if foreign feeling with PBO.
So, no, I’m not a big Clinton fan, but the way the media is treating her in comparison to Trump is forcing me to defend her, which makes me incredibly grumpy. Traditional media seems to have a conservative bias and holds the Republicans and Democrats to different standards in general. Add gender to the mix, and it becomes even more glaringly apparent. Clinton has been in a no-win situation with the media ever since Bill Clinton ran for president in 1992. She made a comment about baking cookies that many took as offensive against stay-at-home moms, which set off a firestorm of criticism in return. What she said was:
I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas, but what I decided to do was to fulfill my profession which I entered before my husband was in public life.
I can understand why people thought it was a slam against stay-at-home moms, but to me, what she was saying was, why the hell shouldn’t she keep her career even if her husband became the most powerful man in America? She was not an extension of him, nor should she be. The media thought otherwise, however, and kept the story going until she was forced to participate in a farce of a cookie bake-off with Barbara Bush (Clinton’s cookies won, by the way). In addition, we have to view Clinton’s comment in the context of her life as linked article stated. She was recently interviewed by the Humans of New York blog, and in it, she recounts the sexism she faced as she was taking the law admission test to attend Harvard from the male students also hoping to be accepted. They essentially told her she wasn’t wanted, and one even said, “If you take my spot, I’ll get drafted, and I’ll go to Vietnam, and I’ll die.” He assumed the spot was his and that she was an unwelcome interloper who would ‘take’ it from him.
In this same article, she explains why she can’t afford to be seen as emotional, but she also didn’t want to come across as cold. It’s a sad commentary on our society that women are still deemed ‘too emotional’ to be good leaders. When candidate Barack Obama was running for office, he couldn’t afford to be seen as angry because of the stereotypes our country has of black people. When he became president, some of the left were disappointed that he didn’t channel his own inner Luther, but he knew better than anyone that he had to keep a lid on it, otherwise the media would start depicting him as Huey P. Newton with a black beret on his head and an AK-15 strapped to his back. I could tell when he was angry by the way he clipped his words and the tightening of his lips,** and I couldn’t help thinking how much self-control he had not to let loose with a stream of curses throughout his presidency. If I had to deal with all the shit thrown his way, I would have lost my cool several times a day every goddamn day. When you’re not a member of the dominant culture, you have to take extra care not to appear threatening in any way. PBO knew this, and Clinton does as well. By the way, the fact that many people, media and other, call her Hillary while they call Trump by his last name is yet another example of the subtle sexism she has to face. I called Bernie by his first name so I didn’t mind calling Hillary by hers as well. It’s also easier sometimes if I’m also talking about her husband. However, I call Trump by his last name when I’m not calling him dumbass or asshole, so I do the same for her.
This past Sunday was the fifteenth anniversary of 9/11. Clinton attended an event related to it, but abruptly left. Her people said she had gotten overheated and her allergies were acting up. As a pre-menopausal woman who is allergic to everything and hates heat, I tweeted that I felt her pain. Hours later, it was revealed that she had been diagnosed with walking pneumonia on Friday, and the media exploded. “She lied to us!”, they cried. “Why wouldn’t she just tell us the truth?” On the other side, her supporters declared that she had been brave to soldier on despite her illness and that there was nothing wrong with what she’d done. Then, there were her skeptics who acknowledged that there was probably nothing she could have done to stem the conspiracy theories that are whizzing around concerning her health (thanks to Trump and his surrogates, and the traditional media faithfully repeating their speculations), but still thought it would be better if she had disclosed up front that she had pneumonia. Some people already believe the Clintons are very lawyerly with the truth, and this did not help that perception. Personally, my feelings were mixed. I think she believed she could just put her head down and push her way through the 9/11 event, then take a little time to quietly recuperate. When that didn’t happen, her people went into defensive mode, to her detriment. Do I think she handled it in the best way possible? No, I don’t. Do I think there was a best way to handle it? The answer to that is also no. Had she disclosed it ahead of time, the media would have said she was trying to milk sympathy or question her constitution. The veiled barbs at her stamina would have come back into play, which is bullshit, anyway. Trump is older than she is, but no one questions his stamina. Maybe they just figure he’s powered by hot air. I dunno, but he gets a pass for not having a real physical while ABC thinks Clinton fighting off a cough attack is headline-worthy.
This is not to say that I think Clinton is above criticism–she isn’t. She is much too hawkish for my taste, and her close friendship with Henry Kissinger is troubling. In addition, when she mentioned that Bill would have some place in her administration, I nearly shrieked out loud in horror. “No, no, no, no, FUCK NO!” was what I wanted to yell at my screen. If he wants to take Michelle’s mantle of pushing fitness, I’m down with that. If he wants to hawk his vegan recipes*** to America as First Gentleman, I’m A-OK with that as well. But Hillary mentioned putting him in charge of boosting the economy, and I lost my shit. I think he is a narcissistic, predatory, triangulating asshole, and I don’t want him anywhere near her administration. In addition, she has a tendency to wait to see which way the wind is blowing before declaring her own position. I know it’s partly because she’s been crucified for anything she’s said for the past twenty-plus years, so she’s naturally chary of putting her neck on the line. Unfortunately, if you’re a woman in a male-dominated field, you learn not to rock the boat too much in order to move ahead. You have to be twice as committed as a man in order to climb the ladder, which means embodying the system you’re working in. Clinton is a consummate politician, for better and for worse. I have my doubts when she talks about working for the common person, but I’m willing to give her the benefit of the doubt for now.
The thing is, the sexism she’s facing in this campaign has pushed me more firmly into her corner, and I’m not entirely pleased with that. When she accepted the nomination at the DNC, I was not jubilant the way I was when candidate Barack Obama accepted the nomination in 2008. I felt the weight of the history of the moment, but it just didn’t resonate within me the way it did for many women. She was too far away from me for me to really feel the moment. Truthfully, I was more elated that Tsai Ing-wen was elected as the first female president of Taiwan because I could actually relate to her. She’s single with cats–like me!–and the first Taiwanese politician to support legalizing marriage equality. I was so proud of my parents’ homeland for electing her as a member of the DPP.**** I cried when I heard that news, and I got chills when she was sworn in. Conversely, as I watched Clinton accept the nomination, I felt a quiet thrill, but that was it. I know it’s monumental and historical, but I couldn’t make myself feel anything other than what I was feeling.
This doesn’t mean I am not sympathetic to the bullshit she has to deal with, however. I’m so fucking tired of all the thinkpieces about what’s wrong with her voice. Shrill. Robotic. Blah, blah, blah. Meanwhile, Bernie was shouting like your cranky old uncle and Trump? Let’s not even mention his voice. Please. Plus, all the pundits telling Clinton she should smile more and shout less. Again. Have you SEEN her opponents? They’re not exactly cheerful and temperate themselves. Clinton has had to work hard on her public speaking because she’d rather be reading policy, but she’s gotten highly competent at it. The Humans of New York posts by her made me see a side of her I hadn’t realized existed, and it also showed me that she’s excruciatingly aware of her image and how she’s perceived. She knows that there are things as a woman she can’t get away with, but she doesn’t seem bitter about it. This part of the post (first link) really struck me:
Women are seen through a different lens. It’s not bad. It’s just a fact. It’s really quite funny. I’ll go to these events and there will be men speaking before me, and they’ll be pounding the message, and screaming about how we need to win the election. And people will love it. And I want to do the same thing. Because I care about this stuff. But I’ve learned that I can’t be quite so passionate in my presentation. I love to wave my arms, but apparently that’s a little bit scary to people. And I can’t yell too much. It comes across as ‘too loud’ or ‘too shrill’ or ‘too this’ or ‘too that.’ Which is funny, because I’m always convinced that the people in the front row are loving it.
I would love to see this side of Clinton, but I understand why she feels she has to rein it in. I just wish it weren’t so.
*I don’t expect to ever feel this way about a president again.
**It’s a Midwestern thing.
***He went vegan after his last heart attack.
****Democratic Progressive Party. They are the proponents of an independent Taiwan as opposed to the Kuomintang (KMT) who are corrupt and evil, and they want to reunite with China.