Now, there's lots to attack Clinton about. But her attack went something like this: questioning Clinton's advocacy for women (heaven forbid we should use the word "feminist"!) because, since she's running for "commander-in-chief," she's too concerned with "behaving like a man" to concentrate on women's issues.

I guess the most feminist thing a woman can do is strive to be the First Lady, and hang off her hubby's elbow on the campaign trail and look adoringly at him at all their public appearances, right? Because that's what "behaving like a woman" is. Running for President is "behaving like a man".

Isn't that utterly repugnant, that John Edwards is using his wife to run a feminist-bashing campaign. I'll bet his strategists think that sort of shit will play well to sexist Dixiecrats.

Have I mentioned recently that so many Democrats suck?

[ 19 July 2007: Message edited by: Michelle ]

Original interview report Specific rejoinder

Quote in context

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"When I was a lawyer, I was the first female lawyer many people had ever seen. I had an obligation to my client to do the work right, but I thought constantly about my obligation to the women who came after me. If I didn't do a good job, they wouldn't get a chance to sit where I'm sitting. I think one of the things that make me so completely comfortable with [John Edwards running against Clinton] is that keeping that door open to women is actually more a policy of John's than Hillary's ... Look, I'm sympathetic, because when I worked as a lawyer, I was the only woman in these rooms, too, and you want to reassure them you're as good as a man. And sometimes you feel you have to behave as a man and not talk about women's issues. I'm sympathetic -- she wants to be commander in chief. But she's just not as vocal a women's advocate as I want to see. John is. And then she says, or maybe her supporters say, 'Support me because I'm a woman,' and I want to say to her, 'Well, then support me because I'm a woman.'"

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Also, a lot of people think Elizabeth would be a better candidate than her husband.

[ 19 July 2007: Message edited by: ceti ]

I mean, basically she's saying, hey, I understand how hard it is to break the glass ceiling. I know the balancing act and that you're damned if you "act like a woman" or damned if you "act like a man". But I'm going to trash her on those lose-lose grounds anyhow because it's too easy a target to pass up, and push the idea that the best way for women to break the glass ceiling is by voting for a man who will liberate them.

And I'm sorry, but John Edwards ain't all that progressive on social issues and civil liberties. He's "personally against" same sex marriage.

He sucks.

(Of course, that doesn't mean that Hillary doesn't suck too, for other reasons. )

[ 19 July 2007: Message edited by: Michelle ]

he would like to see a Admin card/ticket with Clinton and Obama on it as either Prez. V.P. or vice versa, but he thinks the card would fail in the US because "we are not that progressive yet"

Bill isn't an authority on these things, and I'm not a Maher acolyte, but I think he and other comedians do reflect in their jokes a truth about society and political engagement. Jon Stewart is also baffled by democrats at the moment, they like to shoot themselves in the foot and demonise the best candidates they have had in 9 years.

I have also been watching the pol. discussions on various US news channels (CNN especially), and the "experts" charge,
Americans shouldn't vote for Obama and Clinton because they play the race and feminist cards just by the fact that they are a person of colour and a woman. Stay with the status quo, 'cause white men must prevail. It's a catch 22.

[ 19 July 2007: Message edited by: TemporalHominid ]

I thought that what Liz Edwards said was straight but abbreviated political debate, as was Bill Clinton's response (apologies for sliming him a bit in the original post). You'd actually have to look at the record to see who is being more accurate.

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Originally posted by pookie:
I dunno - I think it IS a huge subtext of Clinton's campaign that people would be engaging with history by voting for her AND that a woman president would be good for the US. So, I don't see Edwards as wrong or sexist in the least to point out that that's part of HRC's strategy.

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‘I think it’s hard to ask women for their vote and at the same time not be an outspoken proponent for the things that matter to them,” Elizabeth Edwards is saying of Hillary Clinton as a twentysomething staffer drives her through the cornfields of Iowa. “My friends get telephone calls—it’s not like it’s something I’ve heard about—my friends get telephone calls where they’re asked, you know, ‘This is a woman, it’s really historic, women need to support women.’ All of which is fine.” Edwards sighs. “But given that she’s not as up front on these women issues,” by which Edwards means poverty and health care, which disproportionately affect women, “and then there are other sorts of odd issues that nobody pays any attention to: There’s women-in-the-armed-forces issues; she’s on the armed-forces committee, she could be speaking out about that, and she really hasn’t been. It’s like she wants to play both sides. And that’s my complaint.”

But then it was Hillary who enabled Edwards’s complaint. The fact that Elizabeth Edwards can so blithely be both a cookie-baker and a political commentator has everything to do with Hillary, who insisted on being judged by the same standards as a man, who refused to play a secondary role, who (often clumsily) forced herself into the public debate, even before she was running for office.

...

Edwards says she’s “completely sympathetic” to Clinton’s current struggle to be perceived as un-girlie. “She knows, as I know, that there are people out there who have trouble imagining a commander-in-chief that is a woman,” she says. “She has to convince them—wrongly, mind you—that despite the fact that she’s a woman, she has what it takes. Her job is much harder in that respect. But I do think that what it means is that we want some assurance that she’s not just a symbolic woman—that she’s really going to be a great voice for us. And in the campaign? This far? She hasn’t really done as much as I would’ve expected or hoped.”

But the main reason Elizabeth Edwards can say whatever she wants, can speak so freely, so knowledgeably, and so aggressively—and still seem so cozy—is that by actually running, Hillary Clinton is doing Edwards and all the other candidates’ wives the favor of absorbing much of the anxiety, suspicion, and contempt many Americans still feel toward accomplished women—which would otherwise be directed at them.

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The rest of the article is good, too.

[ 23 October 2007: Message edited by: Michelle ]

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Originally posted by Michelle:
Sure, but they're Democrats. All of the top contenders suck, and none of them are on the left anyhow. Might as well break the gender or race barrier if you can't get the politics you want.

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