There’s been so much talk in this presidential race about Hillary Clinton as a woman: about whether her campaign has been hurt by sexism, about her campaign’s effect on future female presidential candidates, about her effect on the women of tomorrow, and so on. I’ve seen this discussed most often by Salon.com editor Joan Walsh, who seems obsessed with sexism against Clinton to an unhealthy degree.
The most recent piece I’ve read on the subject is this one by Peggy Orenstein from the Sunday Times Magazine, in which she wonders what effect Clinton’s campaign will have on her daughter.
So it is not the attacks themselves that give me pause, but the form they consistently have taken, the default position of incessant, even gleeful (and, I admit it, sometimes clever) misogyny. Staring down the sightline of my daughter’s index finger, I wondered what to tell her — not only at this moment, but in years to come — about Hillary and about herself. Will the senator be my example of how far we’ve come as women or how far we have to go? Is she proof to my daughter that “you can do anything†or of the hell that will rain down on you if you try?
I have to admit — I just don’t see it. I’m baffled by those who say that Clinton’s treatment will discourage females from running for president in the future, or that it has anything at all to say about future female candidates. I don’t know if it’s because I’m a Gen-Xer or because I’m male, but to me, Clinton’s gender has barely registered as an issue in this race. Stephen Colbert sometimes jokes about how he “doesn’t see race”; me, I haven’t seen gender in this campaign.
It’s not that there haven’t been some isolated sexist attacks against her. But “Iron my shirts!” was something yelled out by a couple of yahoos at a campaign event, and “How do we beat the bitch?” was a question asked by a single voter at a McCain event a few months back, and although Chris Matthews of MSNBC has said some dumb things (including some allegedly sexist comments that were not actually sexist), he’s one anchor. There are always going to be sexist people and attitudes in the world, just as there will always be racists and homophobes and antisemites and anticatholics. There will always be unenlightened idiots.
But there’s a big difference between isolated examples of sexism and systematic sexism. And I haven’t seen any systematic sexism in this campaign. Some people see any attacks against Clinton as sexist, particularly attacks by those in the media. Well, that’s the way politics goes. Cable news anchors are opinionated and they say dumb things about all candidates. Romney, Edwards, Giuliani, Thompson, McCain (sometimes), and even media darlings Huckabee and Obama have had to go through this.
There are at least ten reasons why Clinton isn’t going to be the nominee that have nothing to do with her gender. I don’t buy any of the crap about how “Americans are uncomfortable with an ambitious woman.” It’s not that she’s a woman, and it’s certainly not that she’s ambitious. It’s that she doesn’t know when to stop, which is an obnoxious quality in anyone, man or woman. Were Clinton a man, I would be just as scornful of her for the way she’s run and is continuing to run her campaign. Were the two remaining candidates Obama and Edwards instead of Obama and Clinton, and Edwards weres doing what Clinton has done over the last few months, I would still be thinking, “Come on, get out of the race already.” I feel the same way about Ralph Nader, who runs narcissistic and delusional campaigns. I feel contempt for him. It’s not sexism.
Perceptions of sexism in this race are primarily a generational thing: I didn’t live through the sexist ’50s and wasn’t scarred by the battles of the ’60s or ’70s. And it’s a gender thing: I’m a man, so I’ve never directly experienced sexism. (Some say anti-gay attitudes have ties to sexism, but it’s not the same.)
Which of us is correct? Are those of us who are younger, or male, or both, blind to the sexism that exists because we’re not its target? Or are those of the older generation paranoid, seeing sexism when it’s not there? I suspect it’s the latter.
We’re dealing with (1) people who want a female president more than anything, versus (2) people who are completely happy and even eager to vote for a female president but not if she’s not the best candidate. Some people in group #1 see people in group #2 as sexist, and some people in group #2 see people in group #1 as sexist in their own way.
This is how it always works with identity politics. Some claim A is just as good as B, some claim A is different and therefore better than B, some claim A needs an extra boost to make up for past injustice, some claim that true justice lies in treating A and B the same. Thus will it ever be.
Perhaps if I understand that, I can get over my irritation at the people who see nothing but gender in Clinton’s candidacy. I haven’t yet. But we’ll see.
(Update: I missed this in the Times today.)