The Hillary Rorschach Test
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What do you see in this picture? [Lisa E / Flickr]
This is what Jack Hitt calls the Hillary Rorshach Test, a phrase that apparently originates with Hillary herself. Hitt argues that what’s interesting is not what our intense reactions to Hillary tell us about her, but what they tell us about ourselves.
The details of her life are familiar enough; perhaps that’s why all the profiles of her over the last 10 years have always seemed tedious and repetitive. It’s how we shape those facts that’s interesting…
Hillary is an avatar of an existential dread skulking in the hearts of every couple who’ve tried to put together a life since the feminist revolution. This anxiety explains why the darkest question a liberal feminist can ask is: Why didn’t she leave that son of a bitch? And it’s why the coarsest question a conservative man can ask is: Who would do the bitch? Both point to deep fears that emerged alongside feminism, grounded, as every question since that revolution is, in the politics of the bedroom.
Jack Hitt, Harpy, Hero, Heretic: Hillary, Mother Jones, Jan/Feb 2007
As Hillary prepares to seek the nation’s highest office - an office she once had not one but two offices next door to - we’re asking: does Hillary tell us more about what we still expect of our wives and mothers than what we expect of our leaders? Is how much we love and hate her really that much different from the kind of intense love and loathing we feel for other public figures, like say, her husband? Why do we hate her more than we hate Nancy Pelosi, or Barbara Boxer, or, I don’t know, Carly Fiorina? How will the ‘08 race change the Rorschach calculus, and how will that calculus change the ‘08 race?
Turns out that Hillary is just as incendiary as we suspected. This show post inspired a spirited debate over the weekend, which prompted Jack Hitt to respond:
I agree that yet one more discussion of how the media always comment on a high-profile women’s looks is tiresome. But I want to argue that Americans critique Hillary Clinton in a way that far transcends anything good or bad, political or personal, that gets said about Elizabeth Dole, Condoleezza Rice, Susan Collins or Mary Landrieu. It’s far more complicated with Clinton. I report the good side (Hillary has a hidden vote that supports her) and the bad (John McCain’s unforgiveable joke about Chelsea). All of this personal chatter points to one thing: that Clinton is still the trailblazer she was when she was the college valedictorian who infuriated the administration with her feminist address to the students, the first female law partner in Arkansas, the governor’s wife, the First Lady, the carpetbagging senator, and now presidential candidate. Sure, there were pioneers such as Margaret Chase Smith and Shirley Chisolm, but Clinton is the first candidate with a likely chance of winning.
Jack Hitt, in a comment to Open Source, January 28, 2007.
Jack Hitt
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Contributing Writer & Editor, New York Times Magazine, Mother Jones and This American Life
Author, Harpy, Hero, Heretic: Hillary
Catherine Allgor
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Associate Professor of History, University of California Riverside
Author, Parlor Politics and Perfect Union
Frank Luntz
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Pollster, Luntz, Maslansky
Author, Words that Work
Linda Hirshman
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Author, Get to Work
Author, You’ve Come a Long Way, Maybe
Bonus Tape
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Earlier today we talked with Frank Marafiote, publisher of The Hillary Clinton Quarterly. Marafiote started the quarterly in 1992 after “awaking from a deep slumber induced by Ronald Regan and George H.W. Bush.”
Click to Listen to Frank Marafiote (1.4 MB MP3)
- Extra Credit Reading
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OliverCranglesParrot, in a comment to Open Source, January 26, 2007: “What is this kind of discourse providing, either by this writer or by those more coarser, linguistic rapist flame throwers? I fail to see why this sort of imprudent rhetoric is so highly regarded. President Clinton and Senator Clinton do not have to answer for their domestic life as long as it’s within the legal principles of the larger culture.”
Baldrick, Hillary Clinton for President?, MyDD, January 23, 2007: “I know a lot of people hated “the Clintons” but Bill’s ratings are still quite favorable. So why do people hate Hillary so much? There are a lot of complex answers, but I don’t see how her being a woman doesn’t feature prominently in a number of them. What would be acceptable or normal behavior is scrutinized, criticized, and blown up because of who she is and WHAT she is.”
Challicechick, So why do people hate Hillary so much?, The ChaliceBlog, November 16, 2006: “I get that Hillary is some sort of symbol for bitchy women, but I don’t quite know what she’s actually done to earn that reputation, particularly since her personal life offers a good deal of evidence to the contrary.”
k. randolph, Hillary pt. 2 (Liabilities), Voter Vault, January 23, 2007: “Her image: Divider; 60s radical; Powerhungry; Cold; Uncharismatic. That’s not saying she deserves those images, but they linger . . . she is hated like no other candidate.”
Linda Hirshman, You’ve Come a Long Way, Maybe, The Washington Post, January 28, 2007: “All the gender gap talk notwithstanding, there’s no guarantee that Clinton would receive enough votes from women to be elected. I’ve studied women and women’s politics for 20 years, and if there’s one thing I know, it’s that, except for possibly once in 1996, female voters have not by themselves put anyone in the White House.”
Camille Paglia, The First Drag Queen, Salon, January 28, 1996: “Hillary — whom her Wellesley College classmates called “Sister Frigidaire” — was a natural as a lawyer, but she had to learn how to be a politician, where flexibility and gladhanding cordiality are crucial. Year by year in Arkansas, especially after Bill was defeated in his first reelection bid, Hillary, a high-achieving firstborn child with two recessive brothers, taught herself how to act like a woman. The smoothly efficient First Lady we see before us, with her chameleonlike blonde hairdos and charismatic smile, is actually a drag queen, the magnificent final product of a long process of self-transformation from butch to femme.”
Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Hating Hillary, The New Yorker, February 26, 1996: “At times, she herself sounds at a loss to explain the level of animosity toward her. “I apparently remind some people of their mother-in-law or their boss, or something,” she says.”
18:16
This distrust, even hatred, fear of women in the polity — either as citizens or as part of the government — goes all the way back to Aristotle, and it’s been a large part of our Western political thought.
Catherine Allgor
26:07
A lot of men, when they want to denounce Hillary, they’ll tell you privately — and I got this all the time when I was researching this –- was that they wouldn’t “sleep with her.” It was a way of busting her back down to woman, and then rejecting her at that level.
Jack Hitt
32:02
She is not judged by her gender. She is judged by her politics, and by the way she carries herself.
Frank Luntz
40:40
To try to force her into a conventional sex role would be, I think, to amputate a part of her, and, I think, to amputate a part of any full human being.
Linda Hirshman
January 26th, 2007 at 4:16 pm
I don’t dislike Senator Clinton. I might even vote for her. But I am troubled by aspects of her past. I’m troubled by her participation in manipulated cattle futures trading that netted her $100,000 in a short period of time (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_Rodham_Clinton_controversies). I’m troubled by her being on Wal-Mart’s Board of Directors for 6 years (between 1986 and 1992). I’m troubled by her calculating nature.
But I like her policies, and I think she would move the country in the right direction. Maybe we’re at a point now, following the “likable” George W. Bush (with all the wrong policies) and faced with the “unlikable” Hillary Clinton (with mostly right policies), where we need to confront the role of personality in politics in general.
January 26th, 2007 at 8:30 pm
Okay, this is perhaps the most imflamatory ROS post I’ve seen, and it is likely that I’m going channel my inner Daisy Moses (aka Granny); though briefly and without the twenty gauge…and I’ll blame Senator Clinton…
“Hillary is an avatar of an existential dread skulking in the hearts of every couple who’ve tried to put together a life since the feminist revolution.”
This is one of the least insightful, most inane things I’ve ever read that uses big SAT worthy words. Perhaps, I just do get around enough? Can we take Senator Clinton and President Clinton off this cross?
“Why didn’t she leave that son of a bitch? And it’s why the coarsest question a conservative man can ask is: Who would do the bitch? Both point to deep fears that emerged alongside feminism, grounded, as every question since that revolution is, in the politics of the bedroom.”
This is absolutely irrelevant with respect to politics and it does not increase insight into understanding marriage issues or human sexuality … it is petite wordsmithing for reinforcing lazy discourse further diminishing our capacity to deal with issues of governing. In short, it makes the issue about personality rather than about issues of governance. And when we move away from governance and into territory about personality we can maraud seamlessly into a variety of rape scenarios.
“Who would do the bitch?” Are you kidding me? What kind of fulminating ‘tard is giving space to this kind of infantile meandering? What is this kind of discourse providing, either by this writer or by those more coarser, linguistic rapist flame throwers? I fail to see why this sort of imprudent rhetoric is so highly regarded. President Clinton and Senator Clinton do not have to answer for their domestic life as long as it’s within the legal principles of the larger culture. Perhaps I am misinformed (I am tirelessly misinformed on so many things), but it is my impression that extra marital activity is not a criminal activity (not talking about civil law), nor does it necessarily implicate somone’s competency with regards to job performance in the political arena. But I am willing to admit that I have very little expertise in the legal arena (beyond watching People’s Court and Perry Mason), so I may be incorrect about the criminality of extra marital affairs. So if it’s not breaking the public trust or impeding the discharge of their public responsibilities, what relevance does this have in the public discourse beyond check-out counter journalism?
How about this: President Clinton and Senator Clinton wipe their derrières using a harem of reeses monkey helpers. Moreover, pundits now explain that every problem you have in your marriage is due to the liberal virtues of derrière wiping through the means of reeses monkeys. Furthermore “And it’s why the coarsest question a conservative man can ask is:” who would put their goodtime johnson into someone who uses a reeses monkey to wipe their derrière? How far down do we want to go. Lower? Not enough flame in the flame thrower? Need more odor in the smoke? Would it be better to taste the turd in the rhetoric? Feel its squishy qualities? Hmmm. How far?
While I ponder, I’ll continue to type: For me, the question of ‘likability’ for a leader in a political office is something I assign an extremely low weight. I have voted for people who do not strike me as very ‘likable’. It is not a requirement for me to cast my vote for someone I would want to spend much personal time hanging out and ruminating over the nature of things. My support/dissent with administrations are never based upon personality conjectures. From my perspective, the job of the president is to set the agenda for the executive branch and channel their energies for accomplishing this within the boundaries of the articles of the constitution and those extremely vexing, mettlesome bolt-ons we call the amendments to the constitution (where the People’s power resides, which is in fact the largest, most important office under the constitution).
Is ROS simply pushing hot-buttons here, trying raz comfortable synaptic pathways, or is it an attempt to further increase the cultural brittleness? BTW, I doubt I’ll be voting for Senator Clinton, but this has nothing to do with her gender, her marriage, her race, her religious views, her likability, etc. I do not feel she is the highest qualified person running in the current crop of candidates. If at the end of the primary process she is in fact the most qualified then she’ll get my vote. And, I never vote along party lines, since I do not belong to one nor have any interest in belonging to one. Why increase the clusterf*ck index? If you cain’t help, then at least you can strive to do no harm.
Now, I’m going to kick some serious Mrs. Margaret Drysdale derrière…I grow weary of my own tedious contribution to this subject
January 26th, 2007 at 9:57 pm
I think the whole premise of this thread is ridiculous.
Hillary Clinton is a politician and there’s not the slightest shred of evidence that she’s any more of a ” Rorshach Test” than any other politician. Hitt is just trying to sell books.
I don’t like Hillary Clinton for the same reason I don’t like John Kerry - I think that instead of any true political or moral compass, they both are equipped instead with political windsocks. I think they will opportunistically take whatever position they think will gain them power. Clinton’s support for the Iraq invasion was inexcusable. And what are we to make of her co-sponsorhip of a flag burning amendment?
She’s way too far to the right for me (and to think that some posters here think I’M conservative!
January 26th, 2007 at 11:17 pm
Gosh, I totally agree with plnelson.
January 27th, 2007 at 12:52 am
Avecfrites sets it up well, ie ..”Maybe we’re at a point now, following the “likable” George W. Bush (with all the wrong policies) and faced with the “unlikable” Hillary Clinton (with mostly right policies), where we need to confront the role of personality in politics in general..”-
Yes– maybe THAT’S what we do, instead of giving Jack Hitt’s piece more credit than “jacksh*t”. That said, I’d start with a premise that came from Lindsay Beyerstein (blogger “Majikthise”) when addressing the dissing that Nancy Pelosi was getting from some quarters for being so… “motherly”, onstage, to wit:
..”electoral politics is about symbolism, not syllogism. It’s like the Village People. Everyone needs a character..”-
Well, here comes Hillary- with Lots of character- that’s willing to triangulate, to pander to the Right-wing, to “stand by her man”, to throw down “it takes a Village” at the feet of the Dobson crowd & look them in the eye, to be a carpetbagger, etc- in short, to be a Real Politician. About the only thing she can’t do is smile and wink at the ladies, which has been part of the “personable” male politician’s bread-’n-butter forever. Will that discourage male voters, who see her as that hard, cold, loyal stainless steel woman who’s interest in them is in their vote- not what’s in their pants? Is her willingness not to throw over a bright, ambitious, handsome, personable Lothario, (jg) going to cost her votes (and , even more critical, respect) among clear-eyed, clear-headed feminists who are committed to deconstructing the very “good old boy” patriarchy that she seems determined to break into (and has, to some extent), because it’s still the “biggest game in town”? Is it possible that the mobocracy could be ready to make a swing like the one they did when they threw over the god-fearing, ex-Navy, nuclear engineer, Southerner who put solar panels on the White house roof, for a Hollywood “Face” full of hot air about “a golden citiy on the hill” (while his cronies screwed his adoring working-class audience)- but, this time, in reverse? In our national spasm of disgust at the brain-dead, coke-head, fat-cat fratboy (and the canny dudes for whom he is a Minion), are we likely to go for the crisp, well-cut candidate of the liberal rich?.. even if means voting for a Woman? Is Nancy Pelosi the “Moses” that “Joshua” Hillary needs to bring down the walls of “good old boy” Jericho? hmmm…
My politics are a lot like O.C.Parrot’s… and my growing awareness of the “process-junkie” world of politics gives me an insight to votes like Hillary’s for the war in Iraq. If you see what’s inevitable, and you know that your personal ambitions will depend upon appearing tough enough to go to war, sometime, well, a vote for the war, given the “cover” provided by the CIA & Colin Powell, is a step on the way to the “I’m shocked… shocked!” postures- tight lipped, arched brows and fingers of accusation pointing at the heart of the current WhiteHouse posse… mebbe not so noble, but muy politick… & a time for Nobility will come around, again… I don’t imagine that Hillary Rodham Clinton considers herself the “best” candidate; but may see fit to assume the character of “Most Logical” candidate, as the best means to achieve her end… ^..^
January 27th, 2007 at 12:56 am
Her cattlesfuture dealings turned me off long ago. I know a few people who are pretty knowledgeable on this subject. Their feelings were that dishonest dealings were taking place. I tend to agree.
I could care less about her sexual exploits or her atractiveness. I just want someone who is fairly honest. They don’t even have to be totally honest. I’ve given up hopes for that along time ago.
January 27th, 2007 at 1:32 am
I agree with OCP and plnelson that the approach to this show on Hilary Clinton needs a rethink, Robin.
On the question of her electibility, one problem Hillary faces is the high value placed on patriarchy in US society today. Michael Adams in American Backlash: The Untold Story of Social Change in the United StatesAmerican Backlash: The Untold Story of Social Change in the United States, reports on the results of surveys conducted every 4 years since 1992 by his market research firm, Environics. The results show a steady increase in support for patriarchy over this time from 42% in 1992 to 52% in 2004. What is surprising is that this is higher than in what one would think are traditionally more patriachical societies, such as Mexico (42%) or Italy. American’s northern neighbour over the same period saw a drop from 26% to 18% to the statement “Father must be master in his own house.”
This creates quite a dilemma for a woman who seeks the presidency. Does she act more tough and manly and turn many traditional women and progressives off, or more more feminine and appear too weak to lead this aggressive nation. No wonder Hilary triangulates and says everything and nothing all at once.
January 27th, 2007 at 7:40 am
I don’t respect any senator who gave Bush the War Powers but nobody ever talks about John McCain in terms who would want to “do” him or what a bitch he is. And I’d like to know why not. If you heard the way he sucked up to Bush at the Republican convention you have to admit he is a total bitch.
January 27th, 2007 at 8:26 am
“You hate her for her hair”
And furthermore, before you say a WORD about Hillary’s hair we need to talk about John McCain’s combover-do.
January 27th, 2007 at 10:17 am
I don’t know to many people who would turn down an early release from a POW camp out of loyalty and friendship to his brother pow’s .
I may question some of McCains political stances but I don’t think we could ever call him a bitch. I never liked that word anyway.
January 27th, 2007 at 11:54 am
Sidewalker says one problem Hillary faces is the high value placed on patriarchy in US society today. Michael Adams in American Backlash: The Untold Story of Social Change in the United StatesAmerican Backlash: The Untold Story of Social Change in the United States,
I went to the link you included and it had nothing about patriarchy, Michael Adams, etc.
Could you briefly summarize the conclusions and methods of this study and define “patriarchy” and “support for patriarchy”.
Maybe it’s just that I spend most of my time with people who can use multisyllabic words and whose knuckles don’t scrape the ground, but I can’t think of ANYONE I know personally who would endorse a statement like “Father must be master in his own house.” If Michael Adams found widespread support for that idea I think he’s either making it up, or is using flawed methodology.
January 27th, 2007 at 12:01 pm
nobody ever talks about John McCain in terms who would want to “do” him or what a bitch he is. And I’d like to know why not. If you heard the way he sucked up to Bush at the Republican convention you have to admit he is a total bitch.
Exactly. McCain appealed to a lot of liberals and moderates despite his conservative voting record, due to his reputation as a straight-shooter and a maverick who didn’t kiss up to anyone. That was his core strength, sort of the way Volvo and SAAB built their reputations around crash-safety.
But the way McCain has been kissing up to Bush and to the religious right during this last year, is a bit as if Volvo and SAAB started building cars that folded up like accordians and burst into flame the instant they hit a traffic cone. He’s seriously undermining his image.
January 27th, 2007 at 12:30 pm
Isn’t this discussion premature? Nearly two years to the next elections and we’re obliged to contemplate the sorry figure of HRC? Her time will come, and would that it passed quickly, but it won’t. There are better things to talk about in the meantime. I’d be happy to be proved wrong. I wouldn’t vote for her — the flag-burning amendment, the vote in support of the Iraq war, etc. Deadly, boring stuff. Throw your weight behind someone worthy, in about a year, say. Let’s cut down on the noise in the meantime.
January 27th, 2007 at 12:32 pm
I don’t find GWB likeable (to put it mildly), not from day one. I would much rather see Nancy Pelosi as chief executive than Hilary Clinton if I had to choose the first woman in that office. That said, if we are going to indulge in gossip about Hilary and Bill Clinton’s personal life I have to say ( less coarsely) that after my horror over the outrageous impeachment of an otherwise (comparatively speaking) good president (as we ignore the much more worthy impeachable offenses of this one) and the media circus that surrounded that whole Monica Lewinsky episode, that their marriage survived when it did not have to) is to me admirable. And I don’t think they stayed together b/c they had to for personal ambitions. At some point, beyond her own hurt feelings, I imagine that Hilary Clinton understood that this was about Bill Clinton’s personal problems and yes she stood by him because she loved him that deeply. And He, Bill Clinton, was deeply sorry. You don’t throw people you love away. And there it was for all of us to see. But everyone, I guess took something different from it. That’s what I took.
NO – I do not want to see her get the Democratic nomination, but we could do a lot worse.
(PS- I like her current hairdo.)
January 27th, 2007 at 12:38 pm
Add to the soup: I did not like her “windsock” reaction to the Dubai/port security brouhaha.
January 27th, 2007 at 1:21 pm
Hi guys.
I’m not surprised this thread heated up so quickly but I am surprised that some of you are saying we shouldn’t be having this conversation at all. Let me see if I can explain why we’re doing this show this way, and why we think it’s interesting and important.
We could stick to the straight and narrow and just talk about her political views, her “conversations with America,” whether she has a chance against Barak Obama in the ‘08 elections, all the expected stuff, but would any of you want to listen to that show? I wouldn’t want to produce it. It’s boring, or at least totally expected, because it’s exactly what everybody else - C-Span, the Economist, the WaPo, I mean, you *name* it and *that’s* the conversation people are having about her. At least in public. And I totally believe Jack Hitt on this point because I’ve heard it myself and I remember it vividly from the Clinton ’90s, that this is *not* the conversation our polite PC society is having about Hillary Clinton in private. (Or in a lot of other public ways too.)
You’re totally right peggysue. We’re not having the same conversation about John McCain, and I want to know why not, too. We’re not talking about his marriage or his hair or scrutinizing him nearly the same way that Hillary Clinton has always been scrutinized. That’s exactly the point. Why do people talk the way they do about Hillary Clinton? Why do they say all the outrageous and completely offensive things they do about her? (Things I think Jack Hitt nailed in the paragraph I quoted, which I quoted precisely because he nailed the coarsest, most offensive things people say about her.)
To me the answer is in some ways incredibly obvious but also very complex: we are still profoundly afraid of or disconcerted by powerful women, and we still have not figured out how to deal with the role of women in public life. That’s why Hillary Clinton is a fascinating person to me, and that’s why I wanted us to do this show. It’s not just about politics, and it’s definitely not just about her. We can’t just pretend this stuff doesn’t exist because it does. These are profound, deeply rooted cultural norms that shape our society, and I think we should be talking about them rather than pretending they don’t exist. (I think herbert browne has done a good job starting to pick apart how the gender calculus is directly relevant to the political conversation too.)
So sidewalker, you say you want us to rethink the direction of this show, but it actually sounds like we’re very much on the same page. That stuff you mentioned about the role of patriarchy sounds totally fascinating and completely relevant to this conversation. I can’t wait to read it.
I promise you, we’re not going to be gossiping or being catty on this show. But we are going to try and understand why she (and her husband) set people off the way they do. I promise you, it’s not just about her politics.
January 27th, 2007 at 1:29 pm
Why do we hate her more than we hate Nancy Pelosi, or Barbara Boxer, or, I don’t know, Carly Fiorina?
Speak for yourself!
I don’t like Hillary Clinton, but I don’t hate her. Fiorina, on the other hand . . .
I’ve been an HP stockholder for years. I first heard Fiorina in person at Fall Comdex in Las Vegas just as she was taking over. I also attended talks there by Bill Gates, Scott McNealy, and Linus Torvalds. All the latter were dressed casually in jeans or Dockers and sweaters or casual shirts. Fiorina was dressed to the nines, so I immediately marked her as a lightweight.
Sure enough HP’s stock plummetted from over 60 down to the teens. None of my other tech stocks dropped like that and with the exception of HP all of them have since recovered to OVER what I paid - HP is my only long-term loser, thanks to Carly.
Carly Fiorina literally cost me 10’s of thousands of dollars! She forgot the NUMBER ONE job description of a CEO: a CEO’s number one, most important job is to increase shareholder value.
When Fiorina took over.
January 27th, 2007 at 3:13 pm
I’m ambivalent on this one. One the one hand, I agree with Robin that some of the points people make above speak precisely to the points you seem to be trying to tease out: WHY do we care about her hair, etc.? And are there behaviors people will countenance (or cheer) in a male candidate that are unacceptable in a female candidate?
The problem, though – for me at least – is that Hillary herself is freighted with some much baggage that she is not an able representative of “The Female Candidate.” She’s not a Rorschach test (solely) because she’s a woman. She’s a Rorschach test because, among other things, she has appeared to be all over the map on critical issues, zigging left and right for apparently political reasons. She not a Rorschach test because she’s a successful woman, but because she’s viewed by some as representing a very specific view of what a successful woman should be (recall the “stand by your man”/“suppose I could have stayed at home baking cookies” remarks in 1992). I could go on. The point here is not to criticize HRC – I will almost surely vote for her if she is the Democratic nominee, and I might vote for her in the primary (though I lean elsewhere right now, and would have vastly preferred Mark Warner). Rather, the point is to recognize that her status as the first plausible female candidate doesn’t automatically make her a suitable vehicle for examining these crucial underlying issues about gender in American politics.
January 27th, 2007 at 3:14 pm
You can go here…
http://www.hillaryclinton.com/
to see video clips of Hillary. Last night I watched a clip from the ladies talk show The View. She is wearing a lot of pink these days and wore pink on this show. She spent more than half the time talking about making Christmas Crafts with her family and family traditions before she said anything about the state of the country. It reminded me of something I read by Gloria Steinem about how the higher up the power elite ladder a woman goes the more intense the gender-coded restrictions become. Examples: Queen Elizabeth I of England wore her corset tighter than anyone. Empresses in China had their feet bound the tightest. I remember thinking about this years ago when I saw Hillary Clinton giving a speech at a global women’s conference in China. She gave a very powerful speech dressed in a pink suit and pearls. She looked very pretty but the pink carries its own code.
see Code Pink: women liberating a color while calling for an end to war.
http://www.womensaynotowar.org/article.php?list=type&type=100
January 27th, 2007 at 3:17 pm
And just to bring home my point, if I’m right that the specifics in HRC’s case undermine her use as a symbol for women in politics, the show is bound to descend into gossip and cattiness, because there is no basis for drawing out the broader points.
January 27th, 2007 at 6:37 pm
(From peggysue):..”I saw Hillary Clinton giving a speech at a global women’s conference in China. She gave a very powerful speech dressed in a pink suit and pearls. She looked very pretty but the pink carries its own code..”-
Right on… and, in China, MORE than one (code). I read an article about Chinese New Year awhile back, that parenthetically mentioned the popularity of Brown & Haley’s ALMOND ROCA as an ideal gift, there, around the New Year: the color of the can corresponds to an expression of good wishes of prosperity and happiness to the recipient in the coming year.
Re plnelson’s comment: ..” the NUMBER ONE job description of a CEO: a CEO’s number one, most important job is to increase shareholder value..”-
if true, that militates strongly against allowing corporations the privilege of “personhood’, since that single-purposed edict (especially when interpreted short-term) allows the CEO to remove any trace of altruism or historical continuity or even long-term strategies from consideration- a bit like constantly being reborn a screaming, demanding infant whose battle cry is “I’m for ME FIRST!” If it’s simply all about money (or “speech”, as they know it, in the Supreme Court cloak-room), then corporate personhood should, perhaps, be replaced by “machinehood”- and governed accordingly.
This difference of opinion may have the germ of a show in it. (My own definitions of “shareholder” are: someone who expects something for nothing; and someone with more money than they need, who prefers to yield the responsible management of it to another party, in order to keep making more money.)
Re “Carly Fiorina” (dressed to the nines or not)- it’s interesting that she was the ONLY CEO OF A “DOW-JONES AVERAGES” COMPANY WHO WAS A WOMAN at the time of her resignation- and that the stock gained 7 points that day, based on nothing more than that- & the anticipation that a Man would be taking over. She came in around the “tech bubble blowout”, did a controversial thing (bucking the family’s wishes on the compaq acquisition), brought product diversity to a kicking & screaming Board of directors, and… and was a WOMAN, for godsakes- in Business! I saw her lumped into a group of “crappiest CEOs” with Larry Ellison (another big failure) by some bizpundits, a couple of years ago… but HP is gonna live (& prosper, most likely)- and some grudging “damning with faint praise” will come her way eventually, I imagine. (I can also imagine a tech reporter seeing her when you did, at that Fall Comdex, if she had been in a sweater & jeans, snarking ..”& Carly Fiorina, looking for all the world like an aging co-ed..” She just may not be a “sweater & jeans” kind of gal, pl…)
So let’s do a show on CEOs, &/or a show on “corporations in their places of birth- and why they all move to Delaware” &/or “arbitragers… what are they doing?.. and how does it affect those they do it to… and for whom they do it” &/or “what is the’Smart Money’?.. and what if EVERYONE sent their money to join in?” ^..^
January 27th, 2007 at 8:53 pm
Robin, you’ve convinced me. As long as the show stays away from the gossip and sticks to gender values, role models, and as peggy sue points out, the semiotics of HRC, it should be an interesting take. Just how many of HRC’s policy decisions are based on her view of the public good and for interest group support and how many, like the pink dresses, are posturing for voters who expect tough, manly leadership?
If you could get Michael Adams on the show, I think it would really add depth.
January 27th, 2007 at 11:06 pm
It sounds like the community has decided to take a serious look at this issue. Perhaps this is overreaching a bit, but I think it would be worth a try to see if Judith Butler would pre-record a segment for the show to give some theoretical background, or perhaps Catharine MacKinnon could reformulate the debate in terms of workplace (in this case, the _political_ workplace) sexual harassment.
An aside: if one takes a step back, it is quite humbling even to be having this conversation. For all our rhetoric of liberty, freedom and equality, we are one of a small and ever-shrinking group of democratic countries that has yet to elect a female head of state. That simple and shameful fact gives one pause. Just think: we justify (in part) our military actions in the Afghanistan and Iraq using the rhetoric of women’s rights, but our own domestic political system is STILL incapable of taking a female presidential candidate seriously.
As the previous posters have so forcefully and eloquently stated, the true effect of that horrendously vulgar question ‘who would do her?’ is to undermine the candidate’s credibility by casting her as a sexual object (as opposed to, say, a human being).
January 27th, 2007 at 11:08 pm
sorry about the link…again.
http://rhetoric.berkeley.edu/faculty_bios/judith_butler.html
http://cgi2.www.law.umich.edu/_FacultyBioPage/facultybiopagenew.asp?ID=219
January 27th, 2007 at 11:10 pm
Robin and ROS,
I for one appreciate the explanation. However, if we’re going to plumb the depths of humanity’s ability for inflammatory, non PC dialog on this show, using Senator Clinton as the launch pad for how we discuss gender issues (what we talk about when we talk about Hilary), then I think it incumbent upon ROS to explore the baser racial history of America as well; using coarse, suggestive, non PC language, of course. Because, Senator Obama is an individual of mixed ancestry, some of which I understand to be African. And, he is currently running for president. Individuals of this racial make-up have been exposed and victimized by some of the most vile, violent treatment within the boundaries of the U.S. Accompanied by some of the most vile, violent, bitter private discussions. After all, he will serve as a further reminder of the emasculation and fear of the American white male, just like Senator Clinton. Therefore, I believe a discussion can be kicked off with something along the lines of the following: It’s why the most coarsest cracker peckerwood can suggest: “If that Boy gets elected, he’s going to meet a mighty unfriendly ending at the end of a rope or bullet.” Or something along those lines.
And don’t leave out his potential for sexual prowess, because you know, there’s always some truth to these myths. If we can put Senator Clinton on the pedestal of harmless locker room chit-chat, let’s not miss an opportunity to explore the myth of the black male and sexual forbidden fruit. I believe his wife is white? Or are you working from the assumption that this sort of chatter isn’t going to occur in America? Perhaps, Jack Hitt just hasn’t turned that rock over yet? How about Senator Lieberman? We could explore his ancestory, no? I mean, we don’t want to miss any opportunity for exploration of how people talk off-line privately? Gentile thoughts about jewish leaders might make for downright fine radio. I’ll try to work up a full list of possible topics that can dredge up some of the lowest form of dialog that don’t happen in polite conversation regarding our politicians and other public figures. We can churn this stuff around and examine what it says about us, which really mean, says about the ‘other’.
If I seem flagrantly ‘tweaked’ it’s because I am. If you want to construe that as advocating censorship or shutting down discussion, I’d respectfully disagree. It’s a matter of approach, decorum, and agenda; editorial scrutiny and judgement. If weighing these matters spits out answer that adds up to boring radio, your show, proceed as you must. I appreciate the opportunity to share my thoughts (as muddled as they are) with you and the other folks on the forum.
January 28th, 2007 at 3:12 am
“Has any American icon been so variously reviled as Hillary Clinton? She inspires a kind of passionate hatred that somehow trumps the malice we feel even for other politicians.”
WHAT? You’ve never heard of George W. Bush? If we want to mirror our inner war criminal lets choose someone worthy of our darkest ugliest most extreame hatred.
January 28th, 2007 at 3:20 am
silvio.rabioso & OliverCranglesParrot - I agree, Thanks.
It seems it is not OK to hit a man below the belt but when it comes to women it is expected punishment for seeking power.
January 28th, 2007 at 5:34 am
Robin, thank you for contributing something as Robin and not only as Robin the producer.
The topic – I remember my mom’s jerk boyfriend many years ago (before she remarried) conversing with me about a baseball team that was considering hiring the first black manager since Frank Robinson. I was very young but I’ll always remember what he said, “they already had a black manager and he sucked.” Even as a young kid that statement did not make sense to me. That one black manager was supposed to represent all potential black managers? His statement was so ignorantly stark, that he actually did me a favor by shining a light on the more subtle ignorance around us. That jerk’s reasoning may sound archaic or ludicrous but I guarantee you that Hillary would carry the same wait as Robinson, by representing all women - if she was to become the prez.
You know part of me has always had that that thought that there would be less war if women ruled the world. But now I know the argument is intellectually unsound. Besides, I’ve seen my share of woman be as catty and contentious as the next person. The true categorization in play here is Individual FIRST, “woman” - somewhere way down the line. As individuals we are as susceptible to influences of politics and power as the next person. Hillary is a prime example, she has been “right” on a very wrong war. Some of the more clever liberals may surmise with some psychobabble that she is over-compensating for a perceived lack of toughness. I might reply with my psychobabble that her views are not out of step with her start as a Goldwater Republican.
The point is, it’s all a conjecture of crap. Hillary the woman is as much like Condi, as GW the man is like Gandhi.
January 28th, 2007 at 9:19 am
OCP, you make and important point, but as Hitt’s article shows, this gossip about Hillary is not just in private discussions but very public and now even more public. Should ROS validate it by giving it more play or just let it pass by?
I think ROS should do two things. The first is to analyze Hitt’s kind of media. What is its purpose? Who is its audience? Etc. Second is to analyze what is being said about HRC, by whom, where, when, etc. Again it is media analysis. This can include a look at what it says about the values of the American public.
In addition, this is a good opportunity to consider the whole hyper-exposer of political candidates that is peculiarly American.
January 28th, 2007 at 3:24 pm
There are many arguments here, but as the author of the Mother Jones article, let me start by responding to three. Should we not have this discussion at all because it is worthless or I am worthless since I’m just trying to “sell books” or show off my “wordsmithery”? (Who cannot admire a post that condemns another’s sesquipedalianismo by flexing one’s own. Nice.) This position—that a certain discussion should not even occur–keeps coming up in so many debates these days. Earlier this week, Dick Cheney simply instructed Wolf Blitzer that he would not answer a question about his gay daughter’s pregnancy: “I think the world of both my daughters and all of my grandchildren. And I think, frankly, you’re out of line with that question,” Cheney lectured.
The question was actually a good one, which focused on Cheney’s staunchest defenders on most issues – Focus on the Family – saying harsh and cruel things about his daughter’s decision. But, increasingly, the counter-argument against any topic of discussion is an angry denunciation of the debate itself and an attempt to soil the messenger. I respectfully dissent.
A second argument is that all this talk of Hillary’s sexuality, her First Ladyship, her pants suits, her views on motherhood, and the rest is just more of the usual guff that high-profile women have to endure. That’s true. How to deal with that? By stopping the discussion of public image with regard to women or expanding this allegedly superficial subject to men? For the record, MSNBC did take note of Dick Cheney’s suit when President Bush entered Congress for the State of the Union address. The pundits at MSNBC said he looked “dapper.” As to Madame Speaker Pelosi’s dress? Here was their comment: It “looks like it cost more than most Americans pay for their first home.” And MSNBC is condemned by Republican commentators as tilting toward the Democrats. I agree that yet one more discussion of how the media always comment on a high-profile women’s looks is tiresome. But I want to argue that Americans critique Hillary Clinton in a way that far transcends anything good or bad, political or personal, that gets said about Elizabeth Dole, Condoleezza Rice, Susan Collins or Mary Landrieu. It’s far more complicated with Clinton. I report the good side (Hillary has a hidden vote that supports her) and the bad (John McCain’s unforgiveable joke about Chelsea). All of this personal chatter points to one thing: that Clinton is still the trailblazer she was when she was the college valedictorian who infuriated the administration with her feminist address to the students, the first female law partner in Arkansas, the governor’s wife, the First Lady, the carpetbagging senator, and now presidential candidate. Sure, there were pioneers such as Margaret Chase Smith and Shirley Chisolm, but Clinton is the first candidate with a likely chance of winning. Even now she is trying to tweak the image issues I brought up in the article. Her website features carefully presented intimate “chats” (Clinton’s own choice of word) set on a cozy sofa before nice drapes and flowers that looks like a concerned mom broadcasting from her living room. She talks politics but ultimately clarifies little new about her policy positions. Instead, she reveals herself as a regular joe (she talks about her support of the Chicago Bears and that her favorite movies are the Wizard of Oz, Casablanca and Out of Africa). The first question in these chats is about being a woman and being president, and in her answer she notes, however formally, about a new path being blazed here. The chats toggle between domestic topics (her first proposal is health care for children, another clip that turns largely on the paper chains she and Chelsea used to make at Christmas, and more talk about her early work for the Children Defense Fund) and crisp policy analysis (she gives her first good answer to the issue of her Iraq vote—although some like Frank Rich think her rhetoric was too weaselly). Still, she is clearly embarked once again on making the complexity of her public persona work for her in a political campaign. Another YouTube video up this morning is quite humanizing. I suspect her campaign leaked it: The clip is a charming moment that accidentally captures her singing the national anthem off-key.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfZ_gXCHaMw&eurl=
One can argue that all this kind of image-shaping stuff is petty, superficial and has nothing to do with politics, but I just disagree.
Which gets to the third argument. Isn’t all this general focus on a politician’s personal life (male or female) ultimately degrading the political process? Could be, but no election in American history has ever been without it. Read Benjamin Franklin Bache’s rants on George Washington’s treachery more than 200 years ago, the vicious attacks on potential candidate Alexander Hamilton’s infidelity with one Maria Reynolds, or the first Sally Hemings accounts, which surfaced as political attacks on Jefferson. Part of any voter’s decision to support a candidate does have something to do with the shaping of his or her public persona. One last anecdote: Two years ago, I was writing a story about campaign-trail food and how it is so often small-d democratic: fried chicken, bbq, clambake, spaghetti dinner, etc. Like the Mother Jones article, one could easily trash it, arguing that how candidates eat and socialize is irrelevant to the ultimate political decision. True, sort of. But while I was researching that article in the summer of 2004, I came upon two little stories—one involved John Kerry entering a Wendy’s hamburger joint with the media in tow and looking up at the lighted menu sign in complete confusion, and then another story of George Bush walking into a diner and horsing around with everybody and at one point he grabbed a big spoon and literally started ladling out hash to the surprised customers. I turned to my wife and said, Bush can’t lose. These were images that never left me that campaign year. After the election was over and folks were debating just how Kerry blew it, whenever I told the stories about Kerry at Wendy’s and Bush in the diner, people would just nod their heads, as if they explained something fundamental.
January 28th, 2007 at 4:55 pm
I want to say that the words and tone of all the commentators on this thread have been extremely well done and I’ve read them all with extreme interest. As for me, I’ve crossed my personal boundary of decency and I am now crossing back over. I don’t enjoy channeling these darker ideas even in the service of what I feel are an important set of points. After a nights rest, I realize this.
Words are often the delivery vehicle for ideas and core principles. They can be extremely volatile, dangerous things; they have multiple uses. They have an incalculable shelf-life and range across the terrain of the mind over a wide swath of space-time. Their trajectory can be extremely unpredictable. Weapon systems come and go, but words and ideas persist well beyond the mothballed, graveyards of weapons and the human beings who meant to stride across their version of the totality of the universe bringing it to heal. Doesn’t mean we should shut down and gaze at our navels in trembling silence. Simply suggesting to myself and no other, I need to remember this about using words to explore my own ideas and act accordingly. My harangue has ended. If you mistake this for wooly-headed, polly anna, I wouldn’t know where to begin in telling you how incorrect that conclusion would be, so I won’t.
Thank you nother. You reminded me of an episode that occurred within the Los Angeles Dodgers organization in the 1980s. Harry Edwards was hired to to deal with the fallout of the fiasco with Al Campanis’ public blunders. His strategy was interesting to say the least. A brief description and Al Campanis Wiki. You make an extremely valuable point…one not far from several incidents within my own experience.
Thank you sidewalker. You bring up very valuable questions and excellent insight. You keep me honest and tethered amigo, I do appreciate it.
I will now admit something: I refused to read the piece by Mr. Hitt. I am not going to reward this style of commentary with my web hit or magazine purchase. My choice, I exercise it with the discretion and wisdom that it may keep me ignorant to a larger point(s). This is not fear and anxiety of confronting mind altering ideas, this is carrots and sticks. I have requirements for conversation. We all make trade offs and must exercise them with prudence. In an open society, I exercise my choices (within legal boundaries) at my own discretion and answer to no one for them. I’m not evangelizing here, simply explaining. I do not own a Television, yet I see no reason to tote a “Kill your T.V.” bumper sticker. My choices are mine, your choices are yours. We muddle through as best we can.
And Mr. Hitt, thank you for your comment. You make fine points and have much talent. You have actually articulated some of the counter arguments (a little strawmanish, perhaps), and for this I commend you. It is sorely missing from so much commentary. It is refreshing. We’ll have to agree to disagree with your approach to things. As to this “Who cannot admire a post that condemns another’s sesquipedalianismo by flexing one’s own. Nice.” I am a rank amateur sir, you are a professional. The difference should and will be apparent to most. I’ve taken my smackin’, and I withdraw my cheap shot. I am not tired of my amateur status, but I am tired of playing bonzo with a flame thrower. An amateur and a flame thrower should never get together, this needs to be left to the professionals (and no, I’m not hurling passive-aggressive accusations towards anyone in particular…)
January 28th, 2007 at 5:28 pm
In the end, Hillary will vote for Obama. She loves this country, she understand what is needed and she can be honest about what Obama brings to the table.
I pray with evangelical ferver that whoever replaces Bush will be this black man or this woman.
January 28th, 2007 at 5:57 pm
I pray with evangelical ferver that whoever replaces Bush will be this black man or this woman.
. . . That’s why Marx said that religion is the opiate of the people.
I’ve seen enough of Clinton’s voting record and who she kisses up to to know I don’t like her. Obama has been vary cagey of the specifics of his positions so until he commits himself to detailed positions I think any intelligent voter should withhold judgement and support from him.
Bush, of course, is/was a disaster. But that doesn’t mean that either Clinton or Obama won’t also be disasters in their own special ways. We have to avoid the old southern yellow-dog Democrat philosophy. (For those who don’t know their US history, “yellow dog Democrats” were southern Democrats who were so blindly loyal to their party that they would “vote for a yellow dog if he ran on the Democratic ticket”. But they did not extend that courtesy to black humans, and as a result the yellow dog Democrats elected George Wallace, Lester Maddox, and other segregationists.)
Anyway, lots of people DO have a problem with Obama’s color, namely that he’s too GREEN. He’s been a US Senator for only 2 years and has never held any major executive position. He’s too much of an unknown to get all excited about - the emotional response that liberals seem to be having for him is irrational at this point.
January 28th, 2007 at 6:39 pm
I loved Obamas response when asked ‘’Do you favor big government or small government?'’ His response, in his true honest, straight talking style was ‘’I favor smart government'’ Great. I love pols who wont answer a simple question.
January 28th, 2007 at 10:26 pm
“I loved Obamas response when asked ‘’Do you favor big government or small government?’’ His response, in his true honest, straight talking style was ‘’I favor smart government’’ Great. I love pols who wont answer a simple question.
In fairness to Obama, it was a stupid question. It’s the political equivalent of “do you still beat your wife?”
I’m an engineer and we have an old saying: “A pessimist sees the glass half empty; an optimist sees the glass half full, a engineer sees the glass as the wrong size for the contents.”
The RIGHT size for the government is the size APPROPRIATE for the functions that the voters DECIDE they want the government to perform.
Most of the people who say government is “too big” squeal like stuck pigs if you close a military base in their district, cancel a defense contract with a company they or their wife is employed with, or threaten to cut back on their Social Security or Medicare benefits, or reduce their federal student loan eligibility. “Small government” conservatives are perfectly happy to expand the power of the federal government to ban gay marriage or flag burning, or internet porn, etc.
January 28th, 2007 at 10:33 pm
Backtracking somewhat, I think that the main thrust of this conversation, namely gender bias in public life, could have been framed by ROS to avoid further demonization of Hillary Clinton by simply asking why we rely so heavily on soft porn to sell anything decide anything say anything stop traffic, etc. It’s the female body which is on trial here; Hilary is merely the unfortunate possessor of that disdained object.
The natural corollary of this question on soft porn is why the fundamentalist movements are so characteristically prudish on the same issue.
If we can address why we continue to pornography women then perhaps we can breach the subject of what it takes to stop doing it at various levels of public life.
January 29th, 2007 at 4:17 am
Re: Yellow Dogs - We would have been MUCH better off the last 6 years with a Golden Retreiver in the oval office.
January 29th, 2007 at 4:32 am
I think it was this sentence that got me snarling and spitting…
“Hillary is an avatar of an existential dread skulking in the hearts of every couple who’ve tried to put together a life since the feminist revolution.” Jack Hitt
Personally, I think the existential dread in male/female relationships is rooted in the Patriarchial take over that happened over 2000 years ago. The feminist revolution is merely a corrective.
January 29th, 2007 at 4:51 am
As for Mr. Hitt’s “deep fears that emerged alongside feminism”. I think this is something best taken up with his therepist.
January 29th, 2007 at 6:44 am
Hillary and liberal ideology symbolize a threat to the current conservative revival in America. Some say even to America itself. But power is supposed to be shared, not hogged. Conservatives believe that not only liberals, but democrats in general truly do not understand the depth of the threat that Islamic extremism poses to the West.
While offering no solution to the terrorist threat democrats seem to believe (and this psychological dilemma is also currently a huge problem in the UK) that we can, somehow, make the terrorists like us. We simply cannot understand why they want to kill us. Why can’t they be civilized like us? “What did we do?” is the inevitable self loathing question that so many liberals pose. We must have done something to make them angry. Now lets go and find [correlative] reasons such as support for Israel, or maintaining a presence in the Middle East to protect our access to the oil there, Halliburton etc. Lets try to further cement in our minds the rationalizations we use to support our point of view. Why? Because we are liberal and we take things ‘personally’. Our ‘personal privacy’ is more important than the security of the country. We are too educated and enlightened to focus our rage at those who are actually trying to kill us. So let’s focus it on Bush so that we may exercise our freedom of speech. This kind of liberalism is suicidal if one does not take into account the changing legal definitions of privacy in 21st Century life. America is at her best when forced to adapt to a new situation. Too bad most of the resistance to that adaptation comes from within.
Lets invite the terrorists back into the country to kill as many of us as they can. Why? Because we deserve it. We must have done something wrong. Mothers, fathers, sons, daughters. Their throats can be cut while we stand by and watch. Our rage will be focused not on those holding the knife, but on those who protect us from those holding the knife. Yes, that’s what we’ll do. Like teenagers rebelling against authority; (all ‘we’ care about is): the continuing narcissism of the Me Generation; the progeny of the baby boomers; generation x and the spawn of moral relativism. Yes, that’s right, Hillary has the answers. She understands the Middle East, Russian and Chinese influence there; geopolitical maneuvering; conflict ideology and the history of Baku. Yes, Hillary will save us from the terrorists while maintaining America’s status as a superpower.
Regardless of party affiliation the Commander In Chief must understand this or be willing to be educated quickly. If he or she does not, we are doomed. Welcome to the 21st Century.
Daniel BramGolah@gmail.com
January 29th, 2007 at 10:56 am
[…] e she’s too far to the left, you hate her because she’… Original post by Robin and software by Elliott Back
[…]
January 29th, 2007 at 11:06 am
I’d be surprised if Hillary were to win 20 percent of the vote in Texas…. In fact, that might be optimistic. The good news is that she’d get more votes than Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, David Duke, or Ayman Al-Zawahiri. I can’t think of anyone more disliked by most people down here except possibly Teddy ‘Chappaquiddick’ Kennedy. —- And never forget that Swift Boat Veterans for Truth was funded by Houstonian Bob Perry: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002141.php People like Bob are ready and willing to open up their wallets.
January 29th, 2007 at 1:11 pm
Hi again everyone-
Thanks for listening, writing back and generally being the provocative crew that you are. And thanks, Jack, for weighing in. (I don’t know about you guys but in the Green Room we think it’s pretty rad that more and more guests are weighing in on the thread.)
A couple more things:
Sutter - respectfully, I totally disagree with what you’re saying. Granted HRC has more baggage than average, but she’s a real person, a woman, and a politician, and like Jack Hitt says, she has a real chance of winning, baggage and all. There’s never going to be an “ideal female candidate” for us to hold up and analyze, and there’s no time like the present.
Peggysue’s post reminds me of this article from the NY Times this weekend.
Silvio, I agree that Judith Butler would be super interesting on this subject. We probably can’t get her on such short notice, but I promise to try and get her at some point in the future.
OCP - I appreciate how deeply you seem to care about how we conduct conversations on the show and the substance of how we approach ideas and discuss them on the air, and all of the contributions you make to these threads. Thanks for pitching in and making us answer for our ideas. I will say though, that I’m a little shocked that you would argue against this show so vehemently without taking the time to read Jack Hitt’s article! C’mon, I know you can do better than that.
I know you’re being snide with your proposal, but Chelsea has actually been pitching a show on Barak Obama very similar to the one you’re describing. People are absolutely talking about his race as a factor (duh), and saying things like, is he really black, or is he an immigrant, and does it matter? Even people like Stanley Crouch. (Ok, maybe it’s not surprising that Stanley Crouch would be taking that line, but it’s still interesting.) I sent around your comment to the whole staff this morning to make sure they read it as a pitch. So far we decided that the major difference between talking about Clinton and Obama was that she has 15 plus years of history in the public eye for us to talk about, while he has mostly what some people refer to snidely as “the Audacity of Hype.” Even if you’re being completely sarcastic or now regret what you posted, we’re with you on the importance of talking about him. (And just so you know, his wife is not white.)
Ok, thanks again (and thank you to everyone who I didn’t mention by name but whose comments I read). This thread is really rich.
January 29th, 2007 at 1:12 pm
I simply want to point out that Senator Clinton is just that, a senator, and we should not refer to her as “Hillary”. Please give her the respect she deserves.
January 29th, 2007 at 1:39 pm
OCP - Don’t worry, you didn’t miss much. After a litany of why every body supposedly hates Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Hitt almost redeemed himself by conceding that she still might win anyway. It was way too little too late in my opinion.
Mr. Hitt’s dismissal of feminism including his referral to Gloria Steinem as the “last confederate widow” sticks in my craw.
Denial of the evils of patriarchy is right up there with denial of the holocaust, worse, because it’s so insidious.
January 29th, 2007 at 2:33 pm
Robin – Re: NYT article. Women who have raised children do know how to manage crisis. On the other hand while I may not agree with any of Condoleezza Rice’s policies it isn’t being single that is her downfall and it should not be ignored that Laura Bush has been just as catty about Ms. Rice’s marital status as anyone on the democrat side of the aisle. Women should be able to wear pink or blue (or chintz), have children or not, be married or not, get divorced or not and still run the country just as well as any man.
It is good to have a guest contribute to the blog but I hope Mr. Hitt is not your only guest lined up for this show. I’d like to hear Gloria Steinem’s take on this issue.
January 29th, 2007 at 5:09 pm
by simply asking why we rely so heavily on soft porn to sell anything decide anything say anything stop traffic, etc. It’s the female body which is on trial here; Hilary is merely the unfortunate possessor of that disdained object.
Good grief. Hillary Clinton would have no more credibility as a leader if she were male. Her problems are basically the same as John Kerry’s - they’re both a couple of self-important political windsocks.
As for how we market things - marketers appeal to our desires. If you pay more attention rather than fixating on just one topic, you’ll notice that some advertisements offer to make us rich, or to make us socially popular, or to make us healthy, or to make us more powerful, or to add more fun and sparkle to our lives, or to free us from worry and anxiety, etc, et cetera. Sex is simply ONE OF the many human desires and emotional aspects of our lives that advertisers attempt to appeal to. There is nothing intrinsically good or bad or better or worse about appealing to that aspect of what it means to be human than any other one.
January 29th, 2007 at 6:44 pm
I think that whether or not each of us like Hillary Clinton is not the fundamental question here. The question is, “why the intense critique of things not related to job capacity?”
Jack Hitt is correct in challenging us to think about it and to admit that we do it. We criticize her clothing, her hair, her womanhood, her role as wife, mother, etc. If the woman brokered world peace, we’d still be ragging on her.
Perhaps we do this to men, as well. But not to the intensity. Women in leadership roles have to have very thick skins. I have had people write to me to express that my business is a brilliant idea, the community I have fostered is a ’start’ in the city’s social constellation, if only I weren’t there. Of course, I am the sine qua non, but you have to expect, as a woman, that if you have achievements, you will be put under the judgement microscope.
I could write quite a tome about my observations and theories on the matter, but here’s the core nugget: I believe that when girls and boys are born into this world, girls inherently know that they have one vital role to play for the human species: to carry and birth the future generation. Even if technology changed this, it would take a long time to get this primordial reality out of our psyches. this reality leaves boys to figure out what their self-worth is based upon. It’s pretty well documented that when someone feels insecure, they compensate by bringing others down. So, since the beginning of human time, women have been kept in check. Women have an innate power that men don’t have and so the men use their physical advantage to stake out political power. When women infringe on that territory it brings up this primordial fear of worthlessness. In a desperate attempt to avoid that men go into savage attack mode.
Just like women in Saudi Arabia who, without the consent of their husbands, take their daughters to be mutilated, women join men in the demonization of other women. Having been beaten down through the millenium, women seeking their own security in the world of men, will lash out at other women indiscriminately.
How do we all raise our sense of self-worth which will allow us to assess other people based upon their job credentials and not their private lives (which reflect something so different than our ability to do a job well for very complex psychological reasons) or their appearance? The person who can answer this question and implement said answer should be worshipped on high. But, alas, we are only human. So, perhaps we just need to come to terms with ourselves and be honest about what we do so that we can attempt check ourselves at least a bit.
January 29th, 2007 at 7:14 pm
I appreciated plnelson’s explication of the engineer defining the half-glass… right on! I’d take issue with the response to the “female body as advertiser’s eye-candy” however… but don’t care to spend a day at the machine, here.
What I found most disingenuous about Mr. Hitt’s piece, quoted at the top, was this: ..”deep fears that emerged alongside feminism, grounded, as every question since that revolution is, in the politics of the bedroom..”-
I must disagree, especially in this instance. We’re not talking “Lysistrata” here (nor “cannon fodder”- may i rhyme the two, someday?), but the, um, unmentioned gorilla (sorry, Bill) in the room- ie Hillary’s roomie- who will Also be back in the White House, should she win. Bill’s obviously “baggage” that works both ways- help & hindrance- and that’s got to be part of the conversation, just as much as the attention paid (not enough, maybe) to Karl Rove’s influence on the current President. Bedroom “politics” aside, or included, isn’t really what feminism is all about… but happens to be the easiest contextual theater in which to play the “schoolyard ‘Nyah Nyah’ card”… ^..^
January 29th, 2007 at 7:30 pm
The question is, “why the intense critique of things not related to job capacity?”
You’re assuming that there IS some unusually “intense critique of things not related to job capacity”. I don’t see the evidence for it.
ALL politicians get made fun of for SOME things that are unrelated to their job capacity. Look at all the jokes people make about Bush’s tendency to say “nucular”, or Gerry Ford’s alleged clumsiness or Nixon’s 5 o’clock shadow.
Furthermore we live in a country with 300 million VERY diverse people, so it’s EASY to dig up a few million extremist wacko’s who take stone-age views of women. But that does not amount to showing that it’s a general trend.
If Hitt or someone else thinks that Hillary Clinton is unusually targeted because shes a woman, and NOT merely because she’s yet another opportunistic, egotistical, pandering, politician-as-usual, then let’s see the hard evidence, and not just the anecdotal subjective hearsay.
January 29th, 2007 at 7:32 pm
I simply want to point out that Senator Clinton is just that, a senator, and we should not refer to her as “Hillary”. Please give her the respect she deserves.
Why?
We refer to Bill Clinton as “Bubba” and Bush as GWB (or simply “that idiot in the Oval Office) all the time.
January 29th, 2007 at 8:38 pm
respect?
When, ever, has a politician done something to deserve our respect?
As Gore Vidal put it so well, in England they have Her Majesty the Queen. In America we have The Goddamned President. I think we have the healthier relationship with our leaders.
January 29th, 2007 at 8:42 pm
Luntz is way off the mark. One of the things that garnered her the most criticism was when her comment about not being at home baking cookies. If a man said that he didn’t take out the trash, you wouldn’t hear nearly the backlash. There is tremendous fear of the long-term outcome of women in political power.
January 29th, 2007 at 8:45 pm
She is decisive. The reason that I don’t think she has a chance at winning is that we just had a president who said he was uniter and he lied. The populace is desperately seeking someone who truly is a uniter. And I don’t think Hillary embodies that.
January 29th, 2007 at 8:47 pm
Why is it dissonant to be a professional, a home keeper, a parent? We don’t have these discussions about men being fathers, household repairmen and professionals. We only seem to analyze this and seek for a unilateral personality with women.
January 29th, 2007 at 8:58 pm
I’m disappointed that you guys aren’t talking about why we fear having women in power.
January 29th, 2007 at 9:15 pm
Good question, Allison. In response, I can only reiterate my previous statement: it is shameful that the United States–supposed leader in global human rights (which would, one assumes, include women’s rights)–is not on this list.
But does that mean we should automatically vote for Hillary because she is a woman? NO. It means that we need to find some way to alter the primary schedule (or better yet: instant run-off voting) so that multiple women can competitively participate in BOTH primaries. Remember, women make up somewhere around half of the US population…that there is only one ’serious’ female candidate proposed by the two-party system is troubling in itself.
January 29th, 2007 at 9:17 pm
I found the radio show extremely interesting, for many reasons. I wanted to hear what the “pundits” had to say, mostly because I am concerned about Hillary’s electability, as they say. I became more concerned as I listened. The women’s voices on the panel were continually shouted out! If this was supposed to be a balanced forum, with all voices being heard - (as, supposedly, in our democratic government) - then I am seriously concerned about the balance of power, about equal rights, about fairness and respect.
January 29th, 2007 at 9:31 pm
I’m disappointed that you guys aren’t talking about why we fear having women in power.
Because we don’t accept your premise (that we fear having women in power). What’s your evidence?
January 29th, 2007 at 9:39 pm
I can only reiterate my previous statement: it is shameful that the United States–supposed leader in global human rights (which would, one assumes, include women’s rights)–is not on this list.
Why is it “shameful”? Women represent a miniscule portion of Senators, Governors, and US representatives, too. They also represent a teensy percentage of corporate leaders. These may represent choices that they, tthemselves, are making . . .
See: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/20/national/20women.html?ex=1284868800&en=6a8e0c413c09c249&ei=5090
There was also a great “On Point” (ROS’s cross-town competitor) on this topic . . .
These address the question of why many intelligent, professionally-trained, Ivy-League-educated women opt OUT of the power rat race.
January 29th, 2007 at 9:40 pm
. . . sorry, left out the link, above . . . (When we we be able to EDIT these messages?!)
http://www.onpointradio.org/shows/2005/09/20050930_b_main.asp
January 29th, 2007 at 11:42 pm
tonight’s program on wnyc was a complete waste of an hour. i am a devoted listener to the show but i could not figure out what it was i was supposed to learn about hillary’s campaign. one of your guests in response to the dichotomy of the senator’s public popularity and the huge win she had in her senate race left out one of the main reasons i.e. her extremely weak opponent and the total rout of republicans overall. still he was correct in his assessment of her abilities and guardianship of new york. i could not identify with any of the polarizing reasons she is liked or disliked. i happen to be a liberal democrat so she would not be my first choice for nominee. however, should she be nominated there is no question i would vote for her. not because of her yin or the way she dresses or creates flower arrangements or triangulation but because her policies would be more in line with mine. period. frankly, i would prefer to see john edwards or al gore or bill richardson or dennis kuchinich as the nominee abiet i think only john edwards would stand a chance. i believe your show on hillary only creates more discussion of such frivolity and doesn’t advance serious discussion of her political thinking.
January 30th, 2007 at 12:11 am
Robin says:
Sutter - respectfully, I totally disagree with what you’re saying. Granted HRC has more baggage than average, but she’s a real person, a woman, and a politician, and like Jack Hitt says, she has a real chance of winning, baggage and all. There’s never going to be an “ideal female candidate” for us to hold up and analyze, and there’s no time like the present.
I’m taken aback, Robin, because I don’t think I said any of what you suggest I said. Of course she might well win, and of course there will never be an ideal female candidate for us to hold up for examination (in fact I’ve repeatedly cited the sillines of trying to abstract away from the particulars on this site). What I’ve said (and what I still believe, although maybe I’ll change my mind when I listen to the show) is that it’s self-indulgent to purport to be using Hillary as a lens for viewing women candidates generally, because what people love and hate about her have so much to do with her particulars — her opportunistic positioning, her specific positions, the fact that she is married to a former president, etc. As I said, I might well wind up voting for her. I just don’t know that she can tell us much about women in politics generally.
January 30th, 2007 at 12:31 am
allisonI believe that when girls and boys are born into this world, girls inherently know that they have one vital role to play for the human species: to carry and birth the future generation. Even if technology changed this, it would take a long time to get this primordial reality out of our psyches. this reality leaves boys to figure out what their self-worth is based upon. It’s pretty well documented that when someone feels insecure, they compensate by bringing others down. So, since the beginning of human time, women have been kept in check. Women have an innate power that men don’t have and so the men use their physical advantage to stake out political power. When women infringe on that territory it brings up this primordial fear of worthlessness. In a desperate attempt to avoid that men go into savage attack mode.
Allison, what gives? Why the reductionist analysis? Can we really explain the will to dominate and to violence as a response to this insufficiency, this lack of innate power? First we said to be missing ribs and now it gets even worse: we lack purpose.
If we accept, as Susanne Kappeler argues in The Will to Violence, that violent human behaviour is a type of action that we choose to perform and not just a social phenomenon, we can seek psychological explanations for why some make this choice. But to suggest that this is all physiologically driven and not tied to personal experience, family power relations, socio-economic background, cultural influences, sexuality, etc., seems highly limiting. This is not to say mimetic desire and an inability to fulfill this desire will not play a role in the male urge to dominate women.
Another trouble I have is your argument replaces the male as universal prototypical figure with the female. Roles reverse but nothing changes. Gendered other as alterity remains. Rather, it seems vital to me to see otherness as intrinsically part of our own nature, to come to terms with our own abnormalities. In doing so, perhaps we will be less inclined to cast these onto other others so as to find acceptance and empowerment.
January 30th, 2007 at 1:20 am
allison: I believe that when girls and boys are born into this world, girls inherently know that they have one vital role to play for the human species: to carry and birth the future generation.
I respectfully question this notion. It is well documented that the more acess women have to education the less children they have. When women have options and are not limited to that “one vital role” they choose to do many other things.
January 30th, 2007 at 1:36 am
The issue with Hillary has nothing to do with being a woman. She represents the greatest threat to the Democratic Party. During the 1990’s the “new democrats”, including Clinton, Kerry, and Lieberman, sold out the American people. Their position was that the Republicans were right on economic issues and the Republicans were right about social services. The American people decided in 1994 to have real Republicans instead of Democrats trying to be ones. In addition, the Democratic Leadership Council decided that Democrats should campaign like Republicans and concentrate on getting large donations from a small number of investors to finance massive TV ad buys. Real Democrats know our power lies in going door-to-door and actually talking with voters. A Hillary Presidency in 2008 will give Congress back to the Republicans in 2010.
January 30th, 2007 at 2: