Hillary Clinton's Candidacy Has Done Feminism No Favours

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Hillary Clinton's candidacy has done feminism no favours

By Camille Paglia

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/05/24/do2411.xml

When the dust settles over the 2008 election, will Hillary Clinton have helped or hindered women's advance toward the US presidency?

Those who think she will withdraw gracefully in a few weeks are living in cloud cuckoo land. The Clintons are ruthless scrappers who will lock their bulldog teeth in any bloody towel.

In her raw ambition and stubborn, grinding energy, Hillary will certainly cast a long shadow on young women aspiring to high office. She is both inspiring role model and cringe-making bad example — an overtly feminist careerist who never found a way to succeed without her husband's connections, advice, and intervention.

Bill Clinton may have masterminded Hillary's runs for the Senate and for the Democratic nomination, but he has been a gross liability in recent months, as he has co-opted the hustings to maunder on about himself or to inject divisive racial overtones into the debate.

The next major female presidential candidate will be well advised to stuff any errant husband into a rucksack and chuck him down a laundry chute. If they are to be truly equal, women must fight their own fights and not rely on a borrowed spotlight.
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Hillary has tried to have it both ways: to batten on her husband's nostalgic popularity while simultaneously claiming to be a victim of sexism.

Well, which is it? Are men convenient sugar daddies or condescending oppressors?

As her presidential hopes have begun to evaporate, Hillary has upped the ante in the crusading feminist department. Her surrogates are beating the grievance drums, trying to scare every angry female out of the bush.

From that rag-tag crew, she will build her army. Let the red flags fly! Hillary is positioning herself as the Crucified One, betrayed, mocked, flogged, and shunted aside for the cause of Ultimate Womanhood. But doesn't this saccharine melodrama undermine the central goals of feminism?

For all her claims of media bias and ill treatment by her male fellow candidates, Hillary has got off absurdly softly in this campaign. No one — neither her rivals nor mainstream journalists — has had the guts to explore or even list the bursting catalogue of past Clinton scandals, in which Hillary was nearly always hip deep.

continued at link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/05/24/do2411.xml

It's a good read. Randi Rhodes read excerpts from this article on her show.