Lessons for the Next 'Serious Woman Presidential Candidate"
by PunditMom

A few things are clear to me this week.

Hannah Montana is the next big thing.

I'll need some help to survive the fact that Project Runway Season Four will soon be over

And attacking Hillary Clinton has become a blood sport, even for the comedians.

Not by everyone in the media. And not all the time.

But to me, there is no longer a question about bias. The question now is, "Why?"

Is it because she's too well-known or overly familiar? Thirty women weighed in on Thirty Ways of Looking at Hillary, and they were not all complementary, as pointed out by Elizabeth Benedict at the Huffington Post maybe it's because she's not like the rest of us:

Another way that Hillary is not like the rest of us is that she has long been the object of maniacal obsession by the left, right and center, and that will not end anytime soon, win or lose. She is different from the smart, accomplished writers who make up the provocative, glittering mosaic that is Thirty Ways of Looking at Hillary, and she is different from every man who is running or has ever run for President: no one has been dissected the way she's been, no one has been subjected to relentless and catty condemnation of his hair, his wardrobe, his popcorn-eating habits in college, his cooking, his cookie recipes, his invented sexual proclivities, or his marriage -- even the faithless Giuliani or McCain, with the trophy wife for whom he ditched his previous wife -- the way Hillary has been.

Or is it just because she's got two X chromosomes? Elizabeth Keathley at Women's eNews suggests:

Voices as diverse as Virginia Woolf, Barbra Streisand and punk rocker Kathleen Hanna have remarked that women and men doing the same things are judged differently--women more negatively--and that this double standard has circumscribed the range of socially acceptable behavior available to women.

The third possibility is that it has nothing to do with the fact that the "first serious woman presidential candidate" happens to be the wife of former President Bill Clinton, the man the GOP loves to hate. Maybe it's just because women aren't being true to the cause -- if we were more committed to sister Hillary, would the guys back down?

Tina Fey thinks so.

Maybe it would happen to anyone. It is a good way to sell T-shirts.

Some journalists could also use a thesaurus. There are ways of legitimately criticizing Hillary's views or how she's run her campaign without calling her witchy, stern, a scold or the myriad other derogatory terms the main stream media has used to describe her. I couldn't come up with any similar terms that have been used to negatively describe the male candidates. They've pretty much gotten a pass.

Granted, Clinton has not always handling the bias well. And finding a way to deflect or diffuse the attacks is something she should have figured out much earlier and could have been helpful to her campaign.

The way the coverage of Hillary Clinton has played out should be an instructive lesson for whoever the next "serious woman presidential candidate" is, regardless of what happens to Hillary's campaign. The media landscape and its play book aren't going to change that much between now and 2021. And I suspect that the sexism that invades our media coverage won't either.

How the next viable woman presidential candidate deals with our country's ingrained attitudes about women should be instructive. Hopefully, our daughters will be paying attention, too, and can help turn attitudes in the direction of being more accepting of any qualified candidate, regardless of gender.

And in the meantime, I hope reporters will take a few of those angry vocabulary words out of their arsenal.

PunditMom is a BlogHer Contributing Editor for Politics and News.

Submitted by PunditMom (view blog) on Fri, 02/29/2008 - 08:06

Comments

 

An African proverb says, "Until lions have
historians...

Hunters will always be heroes." I'm not sold on the argument that there is rampant, misogynistic anti-Hillary bias in the mainstream media, but I do think that there is a relationship between the treatment of women in the media and the diversity of the press corps. (In fact, here's an article alleging that the New York Times, at least, has a pro-Hillary bias. I think we have seen some horrific things in the popular culture. The obsession with Hillary's tears was insane. What I found most appalling was the people who created the Hillary "nutcracker." Talking about projecting your own insecurities!

It's really interesting to see what happens when a woman, in this case, Joan Morgan, interviews Hillary. (Hat tip to Mark Anthony Neal)

VIBE: One of the reasons this campaign is so fascinating, this moment where we could actually have a woman president is...Amazing. I meet young women from some of the finest universities in the United States who are actually quite conflicted about how smart they are, how intelligent they are, and how much opportunity they have.

CLINTON: I know.

VIBE: It ends up coming back to “If I get the PhD. Am I ever going to get —

CLINTON: The MRS.

VIBE: Exactly. What do you feel your candidacy represents for them?

CLINTON: I hope it puts to rest those concerns. Because I encounter them too — both in a very explicit way, and implicitly in this campaign. There has just been this undercurrent of women’s roles and women’s leadership and women’s choices. It’s feeling a little bit like back to the future, because when I was a young woman it was very explicit. I had friends who didn’t take certain courses because they thought they’d be viewed as unmarriageable. They didn’t go into professions. They didn’t go into business. We’ve gotten way beyond that, but for so many women it is still a conflict between your ambitions, your motivations, and your insecurities. The barriers may have fallen through passing laws, but the internal doubts haven’t yet been overcome. And I think breaking the hardest and highest glass ceiling would give so much courage to so many women. And women say that to me. They say, ‘I watch you and I watch what you go through and I know I can do it. I know I can make it.’ I think it would be a great signal for our sons and our daughters. Judge us on who we are as people. Make choices that will fulfill you. Look for ways you can fulfill who you are meant to be. And I hope that I can play some small role in that...

Kim
BlogHer Contributing Editor|Professor Kim|

Submitted by Kim Pearson on Sat, 03/01/2008 - 12:36
 

we need Hillary

1
AN ODE

MY VOTE FOR HILLARY CLINTON

THREE WAYS TO SEE ME

JANE WOULD UNDERSTAND

Do you know who I am?
I am dignity
Finally my self esteem
Speaks of me
Sees me
To place me
Before thee

That you will spare me
The indignity that
Has happened in my past
Set before me
In your morbid light
That would set you
So above me

You think this does
Not happen now
Yet it does
Jane would know
You think it has changed since far ago

And know
Now I can realize
I can look down upon you
From the height of myself
As you once did me

AS
YOU YET KNOW THIS NOW
I WILL NOT BEAR THAT SHAME SHAME ON YOU

2
AN ODE
MY VOTE FOR HILLARY CLINTON

For do you know who I am

I am Artemee’s and Robert’s
Dutiful granddaughter
This boatman and farmer and that constable
Salted in the rights of
Cuchulainn’s daughter
Raised in the dignity of the Mystic Carmen Sylva
Named for her raised for the pride of her
Raised beyond your slight of her
A Jew A Greek A Roumanian
Scandanavian French Scots Irish
The Roumania Greek Orthodox, Jew and Protestant
The spirituality that is as a thread woven through my life from her

You are forgetting who we are from her
You Anglicized past her
And I held my grace with her
I can not forget my common past
The greatness I felt in being Earl’s daughter

You think I can forget the dignity & passion
That drove those men to find their place in this harsh world and land
Jane would know
I so feel the self respect from her/them

Do you know your place?

Remember that

Do you know who I am?

I am Americas 2nd daughter
Not the pride of the DAR the seed of the revolution

I am the seed of the émigré’
Coming here to fill the vast empty spaces
Sheltered in those spaces by invitation

“Give me your tired, your poor
Your huddled masses yearning to breath free”

3
AN ODE
MY VOTE FOR HILLARY CLINTON

I am the 2nd daughter 2nd generation 2nd wave of the future
Umbrellaed by the Thomas Jefferson and the Constitution
He so knowingly wrote
Knowing that émigré would not stop at Scots & English & Welsh Anglican
It would encase, enclose and enmesh all
All nations all races ALL GENDERS

So knowingly he embraced all of the freedoms
we would need to protect our
freedom and freedoms

ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL

And I and my sister Hillary Clinton stand under that light
Though you belittle us make us only slightly smaller
That slightly is enough for me to say

Do you know who I am

I am America’s daughter
Granddaughter
Daughter
Niece
Niece
Sister
Aunt
Mother

grandfather Quarter Master Sargent Zenofor Hortopan WWI
daughter Sargent Earl Melvin Johnston WWII
uncle Petty Officer Walter Swick WWII
uncle Petty Officer Guy Robert Johnston WWII
brother Lance Corporal John Zenofor Englemann Vietnamese War
nephew Airman Ben Englemann Civil duty
son Lance Corporal Christopher Marc Lenehan Desert Storm

4
AN ODE
MY VOTE FOR HILLARY CLINTON

Do you know who I am

A woman

Hillary’s sister

Jane would understand

The cradle at
Whose breast
We nurtured
This nation

I NEED HILLARY

SHE KNOWS MOST

What this nation needs

WHAT WE NEED

DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM

A WOMAN

A SINGLE 2ND GENERATION MOTHER

WHO RAISED A CHILD ALONE IN AMERICA

HAASE JOHNSTON
MOON TWP.
PITTSBURGH, PA
This is written for Hillary Clinton and she may use it any way she chooses with my permission Virginia haase johnston

Submitted by ghingh34 on Wed, 03/05/2008 - 15:24