Sexism and Hillary Clinton

[mudesi]

I don't like Hillary Clinton. I think she is a corporatist and a conservative. I think she is the absolute worst possible choice among the Democratic contenders.

That being said, I can't help but notice the sexism that is alive and well in America. CNN just aired a report about Bill Clinton's views and stances on the Iraq war and how they may hurt Hillary's campaign, since apparently, there were some contradictions here or there.

In another very popular thread in GD today, we have a link to the Huffington post reporting on how Bill Clinton may or may not have had multiple affairs in the last several years, and how the Hillary Clinton campaign has to cope with such a thing.


What do the opinions or actions of a woman's husband have to do with the woman?

It's as if she can't have an opinion of her own, even if it was the wrong one. (The war). Or is it that she can't be trusted because her husband cheats on her?!

What is this, the year 2007 or 1907? Last I checked, Hillary Clinton is a grown woman. She is not defined by her husband. She is not owned by her husband. She can run for president with or without her husband. She can disagree with her husband.

It was the same nonsense when Elizabeth Edwards supposedly hurt John Edwards campaign by daring to express her own opinion on gay marriage. How dare she disobey!

It's sickening.

[mmonk]

1. I believe she said he was going to be a big part of her administration,

particularly in world affairs. If all this heats up more, she might not be able to use it as much as a selling point.

[mitchum]

4. Yes, TeamClinton is cagily trying to play the "Lurleen Wallace Factor"...

and that is unnecessary. Hillary Clinton is quite capable of being a corporate tool all by herself.

[SoCalDem]

2. The woman's husband held the job she now wants.

It's only natural to bring him "into it".. I think it would be the same if Jebbie decided to run..his "brother & Daddy" would be "brought into it"..

She's IS a woman, and it's only natural for people to comment on it.

People running for office always play on their "differences" from the other candidates.. when others comment on it they are often accused of being racist, sexist, whatever

[Captain Hilts]

3. Sexism is okay. Check out this Leonard Pitts column about it...

http://www.miamiherald.com/living/columnists/leonard_pitts/story/310595.html

The driving factor in the way women leaders are perceived, experiments show, is not that they are any more ruthless than men who get to the top, but that people have strong and often unconscious conceptions about men, women and the nature of leadership.

Experiments show that women vying for leadership roles are automatically assigned two labels. The first is to be seen as nice and warm, but incompetent; the second is to be seen as competent but unpleasant. Women stuck with Label A cannot be leaders, because the stereotype of leadership is incompatible with incompetence. Women who do become leaders get stuck with Label B, because if leadership is unconsciously associated with manliness, cognitive consistency requires that female leaders be stripped of the caring qualities normally associated with women.

Heilman proved that the reason people see a highly competent woman as less likable than a man with precisely the same qualifications is that such women are automatically perceived to have lost their feminine, caring side.

[undeterred]

5. I think there are a lot more men than women who don't like her

I don't want her to be president, but its not because she is a woman. I would like a woman to be president. But when I hear men speak against her there is something really awful about the way they talk. They just disparage her completely. It makes me realize how much some men still hate women as women.

[Bitwit1234]

6. I'd like to see the Time article they have yet to write

About Rudi and his multiple affairs. The ones where he was having an affair while married to another woman and the one where he brought his mistress into the same house where his wife and children were living. Seems to me that since the MSM is republican owned and slanted it only applies to a Democratic getting a BJ and not the multiple affairs and divorces because of, if they belong to a republican.

And has anybody asked the other candidates on both sides, what their spouses think of the war. Should we have or should we not invaded Iraq. Should we stay or should we not stay...I guess I must have missed all that.