The Feminist Paradox of Hillary Clinton

This bears restating:

Hillary Clinton has actually done a great service to women, if she doesn't ruin it all by whining that her defeat was due to sexism.  She has in fact shattered the glass ceiling by being completely, plausibly presidential, and even believable as Commander in Chief.  She has also shattered the glass ceiling by being rejected (and  narrowly at that) for her character, not her gender. 

(Most crude woman jokes made about her are simply a version of the hazing any politician must undergo, and are best laughed off.  It's true that racial jokes are much more taboo than gender jokes, and that this can be interpreted to mean that demeaning women is still regarded as good fun rather than deadly bias.  But it can also to be interpreted to mean that "the battle of the sexes" is so universal and so psychically charged that jokes about it -- cutting both ways -- are inevitable and pretty harmless.  That is:  the hostility they reveal -- cutting both ways -- is the inextricable dark side of the power mutually dependent intimates have over each other, which won't go away no matter how equal the sexes become.  And joking is one of the more harmless ways to vent it.)

The supreme irony is that one of the objections to Hillary's character is that she has ridden to power on the coattails of her bounder husband rather than entirely on her own (indisputable) merits.  (Granted that this is judging an early baby boomer -- a transitional generation impacted rather late by feminism, take it from me -- by a harsh, later standard.  But well before second-wave feminism there was Eva Peron, and then there was Golda Meir.)  Bill, who was predicted to be such an asset to her, has turned out to be a lia-Bill-ity.  He complicates the assessment of the woman, since, like a political Siamese twin, she cannot be cut away from him and seen for herself against a clear background.

But Hillary has, in fact, smashed the glass ceiling in politics.  That will turn out to have been her historic role -- as the Mosesse who has seen the Promised Land of the White House but couldn't get there herself.  However, it will never again seem strange and new and different to have a woman competing matter-of-factly for the highest office in the land.

RELATED RECENT POSTS:  Hillary Supporters Vow They Won't Vote For Barack;  Identity Politics:  So Over.

Comments

[Ron]

This change must have happened before Hillary ran, because we took her running in stride with no real controversy, yes?

[amba]

I think it happened simultaneously with her candidacy. A woman who faltered or had a tremor in her voice or . . . I don't know quite what, but I can imagine a first female candidate for president who somehow subtly confirmed people's fears or prejudices about a woman not having enough authority, presence, confidence, strength for the job, and who therefore annealed the glass ceiling rather than smashing it.

[Khaki Elephant]

Only Nixon could go to China and perhaps only Hillary could have run as the first viable female presidential candidate without gender being much of an issue. Her respectable (if not always respected) presence in politics coupled with her "Mars" inspired campaign strategies made her in many ways a more typical candidate than the two remaining choices. And what American doesn't find a strange comfort in a candidate who will viciously attack an opponent, stretch the truth and do virtually anything to win. Had she run a more "peaceful" campaign I honestly believe she would have been considered a "woman." But she strummed the chord our national psychosis with her antics and became a candidate.