My mom rocks. I don't know if you read the diary I posted late (LATE) Wednesday night, but it was brought on by a phone call from my mother, received at 10pm, inquiring as to whether or not I had seen the article (linked in the diary itself) in The Washington Post about the master Clinton-takes-it-to-the-convention plan/theory. I had not. So, because my mom rocks (she has a UID here - MsDilloSC - mojo her up if you run across her), I immediately went and read the article, became utterly incensed, and penned (typed) the diary linked above.
She's done it to me again - she sent me a link to Peggy Noonan's latest column in The Wall Street Journal. Yes, yes - I KNOW Noonan is considered a conservative and I KNOW that she probably has Hillary Clinton issues out of the box - but that doesn't make what she said today any less true.
More after the fold.
I have a serious issue with Hillary Clinton's claims of sexism. This exists for me outside of politics or the campaign or who's winning or what strategy is surfacing - it exists for me because I am a woman. Leveling a charge of sexism is not a thing to be taken lightly. When a spurious charge (which I believe Clinton's to be) is leveled, particularly by a high profile woman who is absolutely guaranteed extensive coverage of the charge, it is at once injurious to women who have or continue to deal with legitimate sexism and it also serves to inure the overall public's reactions to charges of sexism generally, regardless of merit. Suffice it to say I have been deeply troubled by Clinton's charges.
This is why Peggy Noonan's column resonated with me so completely. It's worth your time to follow the link and read the entire thing - it starts with a condensed biographical overview of three great, trailblazing women leaders: Golda Meir, Indira Gandhi, and Margaret Thatcher. It moves quickly from there to the crux of Noonan's issues with Clinton's sexism charges (all emphasis mine):
So, to address the charge that sexism did her in:
It is insulting, because it asserts that those who supported someone else this year were driven by low prejudice and mindless bias.
I have been personally confronted with something very similar to the above. I have a good work friend (he works for the government) who knows which side my bread is buttered on politically, having seen my Webb yard sign in the back of my car at a conference we attended right before the 2006 midterms. I discovered, pleasantly, that his bread was buttered on that side, too. :) I ran into him at an industry function in April and he began talking to me as though it was clear I would support Hillary Clinton. When I explained that I did not, in fact, support her but supported Obama instead, he was truly shocked. He said that he was surprised that, as a woman who works in what is still a pretty male-dominated world, I would not support a woman. He was also disappointed in me (it was clear on his face) and warned me not to tell his wife, who was with him at this function, about my betrayal as she couldn't understand women who are "traitors" to their own gender.
Heavy stuff. The mere fact of my possession of a vagina does not obligate me to turn off my intelligence, my ability to reason, or my strength in making good decisions. Any suggestion - by implication or otherwise - that it does is unfair to me personally and to all the others who support someone who is NOT Hillary Clinton for reasons that have nothing to do with her gender (and those reasons are legion).
Continuing:
It is manipulative, because it asserts that if you want to be understood, both within the community and in the larger brotherhood of man, to be wholly without bias and prejudice, you must support Mrs. Clinton.
Same idea as the first one with a different twist as I see it. Making baseless claims of sexism puts non-Clinton supporters in a position of having to defend their embrace of gender equality without any basis for having to mount a defense.
It is not true. Tough hill-country men voted for her, men so backward they'd give the lady a chair in the union hall. Tough Catholic men in the outer suburbs voted for her, men so backward they'd call a woman a lady. And all of them so naturally courteous that they'd realize, in offering the chair or addressing the lady, that they might have given offense, and awkwardly joke at themselves to take away the sting. These are great men. And Hillary got her share, more than her share, of their votes. She should be a guy and say thanks.
As Noonan states - Clinton had her fair share of support across the demographics. To assert that sexism is why she is behind is nothing short of a slap in the face to all of those non-female voters who cast their ballot for her.
It is prissy. Mrs. Clinton's supporters are now complaining about the Hillary nutcrackers sold at every airport shop. Boo hoo. If Golda Meir, a woman of not only proclaimed but actual toughness, heard about Golda nutcrackers, she would have bought them by the case and given them away as party favors.
I'm a little easier on Clinton on this one than Noonan - yes, I think it would go a lot further to securing what was sought if the nutcrackers were laughed away and/or embraced, but I can see where that could grate.
It is sissy. It is blame-gaming, whining, a way of not taking responsibility, of not seeing your flaws and addressing them. You want to say "Girl, butch up, you are playing in the leagues, they get bruised in the leagues, they break each other's bones, they like to hit you low and hear the crack, it's like that for the boys and for the girls."
This one bothers me the most. I'm a big advocate of owning up - I think most here are also. One of our recurring complaints against the Bush Administration for as long as I've been reading, writing and commenting here is Bush's total unwillingness to admit mistakes and take responsibility. I do believe Hillary Clinton has, at times, acknowledges errors in strategy and what have you. This makes it all the more disturbing that her most recent explanations as to why she is losing on every fair measure have turn to sexism. It completely ignores the strategic, financial, and messaging errors (also legion) her campaign made since January. Those don't simply become swept under the rug when the "sexism" charge is leveled - and it shows a willingness to scapegoat her own shortcoming in one of the most divisive and injurious ways possible.
And because the charge of sexism is all of the above, it is, ultimately, undermining of the position of women. Or rather it would be if its source were not someone broadly understood by friend and foe alike to be willing to say anything to gain advantage.
This is the one that most gets both myself and my mother. And not for nothing, my mother knows about sexism - she's lived under it, addressed and dealt with it LONG before there were laws to aid in her protection, and blazed her own uniquely feminine trail through it without every once wearing it as a mantle of her challenges. My mother - and countless other women like her - could legitimately cry sexism and therefore know a foul call when they see it and know the harm such foul calls create.
But back to my point. I've talked to more than one female Hillary Clinton supporter - friends of mine, mind you - some for years - who are irate at the sexism they perceive in this race. I don't mind entertaining their reasons for believing sexism is present, though I don't agree. What I find most distressing is the unwillingness to cede any weakness on the part of the candidate herself. It's like the mistakes - which were acknowledged by many of these same women before the race looked inexorably lost to Clinton - suddenly never occurred. I find both the reversal of logic and of history shocking - especially so in that it comes from women whom I know to be always intelligent and thoughtful.
So strangely, Noonan really wraps words around the deep unease I have felt since the charges of sexism entered this race. I'm not even angry about it - I'm just sad. For my mother, and for all of those who WERE treated unfairly so that I would be less likely to be treated the same.
These charges by Clinton herself and her campaign surrogates will make it harder - perhaps only slightly, but harder nonetheless - for those who are legitimately victimized by sexism to overcome those challenges. Is that so difficult to see?
Diarist's Endnote: I want to acknowledge up-front that I absolutely buy the idea that some people did not or would not vote for Hillary Clinton because she is a woman, the same way that some did not or would not vote for Barack Obama because he is African American. I'm not a pollyanna on this subject. But the argument Hillary Clinton and her surrogates are making is not that some people didn't vote for her because she's a woman - it's that she is losing the nomination because she's a woman. The demographic voter information alone completely negates the latter allegation. So if you're about to run down to the comments and post about the "IRON MY SHIRT" sign at a rally and how inappropriate that was, you're preaching to the choir because I find it inappropriate as well. But that isn't why she's losing.