# Hillary Clinton and Mysogyny **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [November 24, 2022, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-and-mysogyny/975482 "2022-11-24T07:37:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 12
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2022, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-and-mysogyny/975482/221 "2022-11-29T21:51:32Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > I guess it depends on what being “negative about Hillary” means. @Acsenray has it right. If we’re talking about some policy that Hillary happened to oppose, then whatever, that’s a legit difference of opinion. It’s people who complain about Hillary and then fish around for something to support their dislike that’s a sexist flag. Maybe it somehow turns out that their dislike is policy-based, but in my experience it’s almost always misogyny looking for excuses. In a long-format discussion like this board, I’ll give posters a chance. In real life chatting–sorry, I’m not wasting my time listening to sexist blathering. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2022, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-and-mysogyny/975482/222 "2022-11-29T23:14:27Z")
Also the conclusion that Clinton’s choosing certain policy positions is a sign of “corruption” writ large. The Clintons were practicing a form of realpolitik. After the Regan era, the left was basically destroyed and Democrats were on the back foot staring at the possibility of long-term minority status in the face. The Clintons’ triangulating strategy is excoriated now, but in the 1992, it saved the Democrats, and it helped the left do some degree of rebuilding. Reagan represented a realignment. The same thing happened with Blair in Britain. They had to considerably cut back on the aspirations of the left—which I largely agree with—but without their compromises, the right would have run absolutely rampant. The centralist, compromising Clintons did manage to preserve some life in the liberal movement. Yes, today, their positions—and indeed positions held by Obama too—would be unacceptable to liberal like me. But the reason the we can call it unacceptable is that they helped hold the line to some extent and the surreptitiously wait for the conventional wisdom to catch up. It was an era of setbacks definitely, but without triangulation, it would have been even more disastrous. Now we can look at people like Elizabeth Warren and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes and see that right wing blathering about them is desperate nonsense, because their actual policy goals are completely mainstream. But we had to get here somehow. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2022, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-and-mysogyny/975482/223 "2022-11-29T23:40:55Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > What made [Christopher Hitchens] “great” was his skill at insulting people. It made him a colorful interview subject and amusing read. Keen wit, yes. Keen insight, not reliably. After all, this was a leftist who embraced Bush and the Iraq War. Agreed. Hitchens famously attributed to his adored mother the dictum that “the one unforgivable sin is to be boring”, and indeed he always wrote like somebody who was much more afraid of being boring than of being wrong. He was a consistently brilliant stylist and excelled at trenchant rhetoric, but it was always ultimately in service to the cause of his own celebrity rather than to any tedious policy-wonk shibboleth such as balanced presentation of facts. Not to pursue a Hitchens hijack further, but picking up on the misogyny theme: Another thing that always struck me about Hitchens’s writing is that it would probably never have been tolerated in a female author, because he always talked so much about his own feelings. “Speaking purely for myself, I should be alarmed if…” “I recollect the empty feeling I had when…” “I was secretly, guiltily glad…” “I’d suspect myself more if I declined than if I agreed…” “I felt myself assailed by a reaction that was at once hot-eyed and frigidly cold…” “I find I have absolutely no problem with that…” “I felt something that I couldn’t analyze at first…” “I’m very happy about this…” “Over-dramatizing myself a bit in the angst of the moment…” And so on and so on. In a male pundit, such an emphasis on subjective reactions is typically credited to passionate sincerity. In a female one, it tends to be criticized as too “personal” and “emotional” and “self-centered” to be appropriate for “serious” subjects. I’d be interested to see the results of a study where people who haven’t read Hitchens are asked to read and comment on a selection of his essays, with half the study participants being given copies with the author’s first name listed as “Christine” or similar, rather than “Christopher”. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2022, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-and-mysogyny/975482/224 "2022-11-29T23:44:20Z")
> [@peccavi](#): > > In the case of the “affluent whites” it wasn’t enough that they prospered, they needed _those people_ to **not** prosper. It’s not just the affluent whites. Look at the backlash to the student loan forgiveness. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2022, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-and-mysogyny/975482/225 "2022-11-30T04:42:49Z")
> [@slicedalone](#): > > Also every campaign shared her problem to some degree–she had people in the other party demonizing her, making her out to be the worst person on the planet, the Devil herself. I’m trying to remember the campaign previous to hers that included accusations of; being a child rapist that murdered her victims and butchered their bodies to make pizza toppings. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2022, 9:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-and-mysogyny/975482/226 "2022-11-30T09:21:11Z")
> [@The\_Librarian](#): > > People keep using that word. I don’t think it means what you think it means. > > She was the only candidate the dems ever ran who could have lost to Trump. She got every vote any (D) candidate would have gotten, exactly 0 votes because she personally enthused anyone and several millions specifically _against_ her. This is unbridled horseshit. As I mentioned above, I do know what the word means. Her loss was not due to her campaign. It was due to the stupid electoral system used in the United States. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2022, 9:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-and-mysogyny/975482/227 "2022-11-30T09:22:02Z")
> [@Pleonast](#): > > Lots of people _say_ their opinions about Hillary Clinton are not based on misogyny, but to hear them talk, it sure _feels_ misogynistic to me. They find nits that they don’t even look for in male politicians. > > My shortcuts to figure out someone’s politics are simple. If they’re positive about Trump, they’re racist. If they’re negative about Hillary, they’re sexist. They’ll have to work to convince me otherwise. It’s not subtle, but it works well enough for me. Agreed. ---
**Author:** ![slicedalone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slicedalone/32/12515_2.png) [@slicedalone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slicedalone)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2022, 9:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-and-mysogyny/975482/228 "2022-11-30T09:32:48Z")
> [@crowmanyclouds](#): > > I’m trying to remember the campaign previous to hers that included accusations of; being a child rapist that murdered her victims and butchered their bodies to make pizza toppings. I don’t know about campaigns previous to hers because the GOP has gotten good and crazy over the last decade or more, but look at the crazy stuff they’re accusing Nancy Pelosi of today. And if you want to search the past, I think calling Obama a Muslim terrorist is pretty close to this sort of casual defamation that he shrugged off effectively. You really can’t fall into LBJ’s trap of arguing in detail repeatedly against the absurd accusations that get tossed at you–oh, yeah, that one, LBJ accusing his opponent of having carnal knowledge of pigs, because he wanted his opponent to issue a denial. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2022, 10:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-and-mysogyny/975482/229 "2022-11-30T10:10:47Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > That’s remarkable. I’m negative about Hillary–and Bill, and Gore, and Kerry, and Obama, and Biden–for the same reason: they’re too conservative for my tastes. I’m positive about Warren and Ocasio-Cortez and Abrams and Sanders because they work to advance the leftist policies that I believe will make the world better. I think your test is entirely too unsubtle. You know what percentage of the electorate is as left-leaning as you? We could fit into a fucking high school auditorium. I think Pleonast’s sifting criteria aren’t that bad. Broad strokes, but basically true. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2022, 10:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-and-mysogyny/975482/230 "2022-11-30T10:12:33Z")
> [@slicedalone](#): > > > [@crowmanyclouds](#): > > > > I’m trying to remember the campaign previous to hers that included accusations of; being a child rapist that murdered her victims and butchered their bodies to make pizza toppings. > > I don’t know about campaigns previous to hers because the GOP has gotten good and crazy over the last decade or more, but look at the crazy stuff they’re accusing Nancy Pelosi of today. And if you want to search the past, I think calling Obama a Muslim terrorist is pretty close to this sort of casual defamation that he shrugged off effectively. You really can’t fall into LBJ’s trap of arguing in detail repeatedly against the absurd accusations that get tossed at you–oh, yeah, that one, LBJ accusing his opponent of having carnal knowledge of pigs, because he wanted his opponent to issue a denial. Yeah, the difference in the country is that no one actually believed LBJ’s opponent fucked pigs. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2022, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-and-mysogyny/975482/231 "2022-11-30T13:52:45Z")
> [@slicedalone](#): > > And if you want to search the past, I think calling Obama a Muslim terrorist is pretty close to this sort of casual defamation that he shrugged off effectively. OTOH, did his opponent call him that? No, in fact, his opponent specifically rebuked an audience member who implied that. It probably cost him votes to do so. But McCain was one of the last of the respectable Republicans. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2022, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-and-mysogyny/975482/232 "2022-11-30T15:29:19Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#): > > You know what percentage of the electorate is as left-leaning as you? As of May 2022, [20% seems a rough estimate.](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1201739/favorability-bernie-sanders-us-adults/) I know it’s not exact, but you must have a real big fucking high school auditorium. ---
**Author:** ![veryfrank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/87869e/32.png) [@veryfrank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/veryfrank)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2022, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-and-mysogyny/975482/233 "2022-11-30T16:16:38Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > After the Regan era, the left was basically destroyed and Democrats were on the back foot staring at the possibility of long-term minority status in the face. The Clintons’ triangulating strategy is excoriated now, but in the 1992, it saved the Democrats, and it helped the left do some degree of rebuilding. Reagan represented a realignment. The same thing happened with Blair in Britain. They had to considerably cut back on the aspirations of the left—which I largely agree with—but without their compromises, the right would have run absolutely rampant. God, I hate that this is so true. Clinton’s sucking up to the corporatist part of the economy helped bring on the 2008 meltdown with the repeal of Glass-Steagall. And Blair being bestest buddies with Dubya dragged the U.K. into the Iraq war, which was another brick in the wall between Labour and NUmber 10 for the last twelve years. Yeah, it coulda been worse, but still. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2022, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-and-mysogyny/975482/234 "2022-11-30T16:18:54Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > As of May 2022, [20% seems a rough estimate.](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1201739/favorability-bernie-sanders-us-adults/) I know it’s not exact, but you must have a real big fucking high school auditorium. sorry, I should have said, as left-leaning as me. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2022, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-and-mysogyny/975482/235 "2022-12-02T19:18:07Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > I’m not saying you should like her… but why the firm, unrelenting, year-after-year, non-misogynistic, pretty intense **dislike**? She has a long history of being dishonest, and cruel to anyone who got in her way. She doesn’t seem at all principled, unlike the women you mentioned, Nancy Pelosi and Liz Cheney. Logically I cannot agree with the politics of _both_ Pelosi and Cheney, but I can respect them both. ---
**Author:** ![Sylvanz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/fbc32d/32.png) [@Sylvanz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sylvanz)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2022, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-and-mysogyny/975482/236 "2022-12-02T20:35:48Z")
Cites? ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2022, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-and-mysogyny/975482/237 "2022-12-02T20:36:36Z")
> **[Fact-checks | PolitiFact](https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/list/?category=&ruling=false&speaker=hillary-clinton)** > > PolitiFact is a fact-checking website that rates the accuracy of claims by elected officials and others on its Truth-O-Meter. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2022, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-and-mysogyny/975482/238 "2022-12-02T20:50:17Z")
I don’t think that’s as useful a cite as you may think it is, RickJay. One could post this, for example, as support for the (hypothetical) claim that Liz Cheney never tells the truth: > **[Fact-checks | PolitiFact](https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/list/?category=&ruling=true&speaker=liz-cheney)** > > PolitiFact is a fact-checking website that rates the accuracy of claims by elected officials and others on its Truth-O-Meter. Statements by Hillary Clinton (true AND false) have been submitted to PolitiFact in huge quantities. Statements by Liz Cheney, less so. Your cite does support the statement that Hillary Clinton makes a significant amount of untrue statements, so it’s support at that level at least, but it’s more difficult to get a sense of whether she does it more often than a comparable politician, whether it be another female person or a male person being compared. You do get a pageful of hits for Hillary Clinton statements that PolitiFact has deemed true. I didn’t keep clicking “next” to count and compare. (Be nice if PolitiFact gave an overall rating, but it may also reflect what has been submitted to them to verify or discredit — I don’t know) ETA: aha, they DO: > **[PolitiFact | Hillary Clinton](https://www.politifact.com/personalities/hillary-clinton/)** > > PolitiFact is a fact-checking website that rates the accuracy of claims by elected officials and others on its Truth-O-Meter. & > **[PolitiFact | Liz Cheney](https://www.politifact.com/personalities/liz-cheney/)** > > PolitiFact is a fact-checking website that rates the accuracy of claims by elected officials and others on its Truth-O-Meter. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2022, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-and-mysogyny/975482/239 "2022-12-02T20:52:51Z")
Yeah, while I completely agree that untrue statements by Hillary Clinton are strongly amplified by anti-Clinton media, I can’t tell at all whether she actually makes more untrue statements than comparable politicians. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2022, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-and-mysogyny/975482/240 "2022-12-02T20:57:01Z")
For comparison, here are George W Bush and Ron DeSantis (she looks better than they do on average) and Barack Obama (they look comparable) — > **[PolitiFact | George W. Bush](https://www.politifact.com/personalities/george-w-bush/)** > > PolitiFact is a fact-checking website that rates the accuracy of claims by elected officials and others on its Truth-O-Meter. > **[PolitiFact | Ron DeSantis](https://www.politifact.com/personalities/ron-desantis/)** > > PolitiFact is a fact-checking website that rates the accuracy of claims by elected officials and others on its Truth-O-Meter. > **[PolitiFact | Barack Obama](https://www.politifact.com/personalities/barack-obama/)** > > PolitiFact is a fact-checking website that rates the accuracy of claims by elected officials and others on its Truth-O-Meter. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-and-mysogyny/975482.md?page=11) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clinton-and-mysogyny/975482.md?page=13)