Recently I read the book 'Big Girls Don't Cry', written by journalist and writer Rebecca Traister about the 2008 campaign-- particularly on how the election 'change everything for American women'.
The book brought forth a basic truth that is still with us: there is a certain asymmetry in the way that women are treated in America-- in particular, women in the realm of politics. Before the 2008 election, conservative women such as Ann Coulter, Mona Charen, and Michelle Malkin had made their mark as noted commentators and writers of relatively generic partisan screeds. In 2005, Coulter even appeared on the cover of TIME Magazine as "Ms. Right" During the election, a great deal of sexism and misogyny surfaced around then-Senator Clinton's campaign, without a lot of pushback. Then during the Palin phase of the campaign, sexism was pushed back against hard by Palin's supporters-- sometimes even to the point of seeing it where it wasn't there. Since then, there have been a raft of new conservative women in politics-- Bachmann, Angle, O'Donnell, Whitman, Fiorina, Haley, and more; these are upgrades of the Coulters and Charens and Malkins: whereas the latter only wrote and talked about politics, the former run for office too.
It seems to me that there is a great double standard in American politics that is not commonly talked about. It has been going on for a long, long time, and it has been having a big impact, but despite that we seem to live in a hyper political society where every little political detail is analyzed and discussed, this double standard has never before been identified, even now that it is overwhelming.
The double standard is that conservative women have an easier time in politics than liberal women; yes an easier time. Look for example at Sarah Palin-- she's ignorant, ill qualified, a quitter, and very little accomplished compared to a lot of women out there in and out of politics. Yet she's a huge political force whose endorsement can can upset Republican primaries-- or protect those she favors. Other Republican women - Angle, O'Donnell - seem to possess as their main qualification their nuttiness and sexual attractiveness, yet still manage to raise millions.
Meanwhile, Hillary, who had graduated from Yale Law School, worked on the Watergate commission, actively kept her career up while Bill was Governor of Arkansas, and was an active First Lady and Senator, met vicious opposition, much of it tinged with sexism. It's fair to say that compared with women such as Palin and O'Donnell, Clinton worked a lot more to get where she is, at a much older age than them. And she had help from Bill.
There are a lot more Democratic women than Republican women in the House of Representatives and Senate. But that only emphasizes the point. They largely toil away in media obscurity, commanding none of the cultural prestige and grassroots support as the new conservative women, when their greater numbers suggest they should have more, not less. And they are largely often much older (Nancy Pelosi herself is 70), having reached where they are by dint of a lifetime of hard work and seniority.
I mean, who are the heroes of the right? Palin, Bachmann, O'Donnell... women. the heroes of the left? Grayson, Feingold, Dean... men. It's not so simple of course, there is Glenn Beck and Rachel Maddow (though, would Maddow be so embraced if she had a more feminine appearance?), but a general pattern is definitely there. Conservative women are much more often embraced as grassroots heroes than liberal women are by the liberal base. Otherwise, it wouldn't have taken until 2008 for Rachel Maddow to become the progressive woman with the same kind of profile as Ann Coulter had by 2003.
On a cultural level, there is a bias towards the young, attractive, white and conservative woman.
To me this has many, many implications and explanations, but this diary is deliberately threadbare, because it is an attempt to begin to express my thoughts on the subject of women and politics, of which there are many.