Since the NH primary, I’ve been mostly perplexed by the "Hillary Girls" phenomenon. There seems to be two components: "Old Guard Feminists" and the so-called low-information blue or pink collar workers, full-time homemakers and older, retired women.
The "Old Guard Feminists" are the easiest to identify as a group. However, they are the smaller subset of rabid Hillary supporters and currently sound too much like bat-shit crazy female chauvinists to hold much interest for me. Even recognizing that many of them are writing and pitching the narrative of Hillary as the feminist standard bearer and that some of their language is trickling down to those "low information voters," they aren’t driving the significant portion of the "Hillary Girls" phenomenon. They wouldn’t even know that because, like me, they approach most questions from an intellectual perspective and sometimes that doesn’t work.
On my own I couldn’t get any further than recognizing the existence of a large pool of female Hillary supporters. Academically, professionally, socio-economically, they have nothing in common with Hillary. And yet, they are wild about Hillary. So wild that for them Hillary is perfect and can do no wrong, and anyone who dares to suggest otherwise is a meanie. A sexist meanie because nothing else can explain why the coronation of Hillary hasn’t happened. It’s the duty of "Hillary Girls" to protect her from the sexist meanies that lurk everywhere. With the ferocity of a mother bear protecting her cubs. In HillaryLand, Obama must be the number one meanie. Must be a sexist. Must be defeated at all costs, foul or fair. And if the rules aren’t changed and the Superdelegates don’t reverse the pledged delegate outcome of the primaries and caucuses, they will vote for McCain.
For all their whining about sexism towards Hillary, all I my own I can reject that these women are feminists because no feminist could even consider voting for more senseless war and assaults on a woman’s right to choose. But who are these women and why are they so angry? Stumped, it was time to call the non-intellectual, semi-apolitical, TV loving Sis.
Sis (chuckling): "They’re like the woman on the Springer show."
Me: "Huh?" (Okay, I’ll admit it that I did watch that show once but how the hell could it have anything to do with voting behavior?)
Sis: "They’ve all had a cheating louse of a husband or boyfriend, probably more than one, in their lives."
Me: "I’m not getting this. ‘Jeff’ was a louse and I don’t identify with Hillary."
Sis: "You’re not like them." (Whew! But I already knew that much.)
Me: "What’s the difference?"
Sis: "Those women blame the ‘other woman’ when their husbands and boyfriends cheat. And they fight off the ‘other woman’ so that they can hold onto their louse. Like the women on Springer’s show. Standing by their man at all costs."
Me: "That’s crazy."
Sis: "That’s how most women are." (Methinks the Sis is exaggerating.)
Me: "Are you saying that they identify with Hillary because she has a cheating louse of a husband or that she’s a fighter?"
Sis: "Both."
Me: "So, while I was appalled that Hillary and her surrogates were out there trashing Gennifer Flowers and Monica Lewinsky, other women admired her for doing that?"
Sis: "Yes. They sense a kinship with Hillary. Plus, Hillary is non-threatening."
Me: "How so? Doesn’t Clinton’s intelligence intimidate them?"
Sis: "Oh, they don’t listen to what she says, and in their own minds they think they’re almost as smart as Hillary."
Me: "That’s what makes Hillary non-threatening to them?"
Sis: "Good gracious, no. Hillary is non-threatening because she isn’t attractive."
Me: "She looks okay to me."
Sis: "She’s not svelte. She’s sort of dumpy."
Me: "She is?"
Sis: "Yes. She’s like them. Battling the bulge. Not sexy."
Me: "And if Hillary wins, they win?"
Sis: "Something like that. It validates everything they’ve gone through for their cheating louses. Think about it. You‘ll get it."
I will probably never get it. At least not at an emotional level. Intellectually, it’s more straightforward. Identification and attachment with another at an emotional level is a powerful force. A psychic wound to the other feels just like a wound to the self. Hillary losing has become as personal to them as it is to Hillary. If she loses, they are losers. Winning is the only thing, not that they personally stand to win or lose anything tangible with the success or failure of Hillary’s candidacy. Therefore, any impediment to Hillary winning is the enemy. An enemy that has the audacity to threaten to snatch away what to them are Hillary’s ownership rights and by extension their ownership rights. Hillary is them; they are Hillary. Obama and his supporters are the "other woman" and thus, they must hate Obama.
Prolonged battles fuel anger and rage. Rage blinds us to reality. Imagined slights from Obama are real and "SniperGate" never happened, is as easily dismissed and forgotten as the WMD are for Bushies. The idealized other is faultless. "Hillary Girls" are faultless. Of course, all of this is as narcissistic and bat-shit crazy as the "Old Guard Feminists" and the symbolically over-masculinized men who identify with the macho TV personas of GWB and McCain. The latter get vicarious pleasure from the wars championed by GWB and McCain. Could the "Hillary Girls" be the female counterpart to those men? Do they relish the prospect of seeing a replay of the Clinton marital psycho-drama on the national stage? Only this time with the woman in charge and kicking butt, including Bill's. If not Hillary, how can the mature, stable, boring Obamas compete with the rich desperate housewife Cindy and her crazy loon?