For every person in public view, there’s people s/he will just rub the wrong way and it will not always be rational or justifiable to someone else’s satisfaction. The thing in this case is that as mentioned by someone earlier, the language of structural misogyny (e.g. “shrill”) is too easily at the ready to give that feeling a form.
OTOH, I see some people here saying, “well, this is what I don’t like about her” and being told “well, but in realistic terms she could not do otherwise” or even “no, you have no business judging her on that”. Well, but that’s the thing, in a democracy you are subject to that people DO pass judgements based on their values and perceptions.
And furthermore the storyline about how she dealt with or felt about Bill Clinton’s sexual behavior is also built up by relentless misogynistic propaganda. Without that repeated, constant hammering in the media about what she was doing, what she should do, why she was doing it, we don’t have any idea what people’s perceptions would be.
When it comes to running for President, the most powerful position in the free world, I’d rather like all of my candidates to be superb, regardless of gender. If Clinton wasn’t superb, that’s a valid reason to vote against her. Though of course, in 2016, her opponent was so much further from “superb” that it still was no contest.
Personally, what I dislike most (among a number of reasons) about Clinton is that she’s built her entire political career on her marriage. Yes, by the time she was running against Trump, she had experience as a Senator and Secretary of State, but the only reason she got those positions was because she was married to a popular President. And the idea that the way for a woman to get ahead is by marrying the right man is part of the misogyny that she was supposedly fighting against.
Meanwhile, I couldn’t tell you anything about the spouses of Kamala Harris, Tammy Duckworth, Tammy Baldwin, or Elizabeth Warren, and the only thing I could tell you about Nancy Pelosi’s husband is that some nutjob attacked him recently. They’ve all gotten to where they have on their own merits, like any politician should, and I’d be happy to see any of them as President. And the reason I like all of them is that I think that they’re more forceful, and fiercer political fighters, than most of their male colleagues, despite those being supposedly male traits that people disapprove of in women.
All that said, though, there certainly has been a lot of misogyny directed towards Clinton. And probably to all of those other female politicians I mentioned, too, just not as visibly for them because they’re not as prominent as Clinton.
On reflection, I think the few things I really dislike about HRC are the things I dislike about most politicians.
The one comment I made about her that got my mother’s hackles up was that I – literally – don’t like the sound of HRC’s voice.
Which my mother deemed ‘sexist.’
I argued that it wasn’t … because the sound of TFG’s voice makes me nauseous.
HRC lacks charisma in the same way that Biden and Gore do. Some of that is vastly overrated, but Obama and Bill Clinton had it in buckets. It isn’t nothing.
Could my view of what charisma looks like be inherently biased against women? It could. But I see lots of women on TV – presenters, academics, interview subjects, etc., and remark about both their telegenic charisma and their gravitas.
All that said … I view(ed) HRC as one of The Most Qualified Presidential Candidates of my lifetime. Still do.
It’s just an “It factor --” one that I don’t believe to be a gender issue.
This is a big part of it. People who know her say she is quite warm and engaging in person. Some people cannot relate to a crowd or to a camera. Richard Nixon, for one.
This is what points to most of the hate being misogyny. It’s not that they hate HRC, it’s that they attack every woman who gets even close to a position of power. HRC, her daughter, Michelle Obama, and now AOC and the rest of “The Squad”. They all get levels of hate entirely disproportionate to their actual power and influence, and far more than any similar-level male politician.
Yep. I remember in 1992 the Limbaugh show having an audio clip of her laugh as a way to mock Clinton and saying “you have four years of that cackle to look forward to”.
They could have done literally nothing, and gays would have been better off. DADT was a betrayal, and DOMA was a spit in the face. Bill Clinton was not friend to the gay rights movement,
There are studies showing that women are more often perceived as having unpleasant voices or unpleasant speech patterns at a much higher rate simply because they are women. So, you might not think it’s sexist but it’s very likely rooted in unconscious sexism.
I get that. I do. There’s a bit of an Overton Window to LOTS of things. The whole geographic concept of East vs. West is inarguably Eurocentric. What I view as a pleasing voice may BE inherently sexist because of longstanding ‘standards’ of what a great voice ‘should’ sound like.
But there are lots of male voices that are nails on a chalkboard to me and lots of female voices that I wish would narrate audiobooks.
Nonetheless, I accept that there may very well be an “all things being equal” at play here, where women come down on the losing side.
Did they vote for Sarah Palin? Do they speak approvingly of Amy Coney Barrett? Is there any amount of singing-the-praises of women who get “even close to” — or, indeed, just, uh, get — a position of power on Side A that’d make you wonder, gee, is it possible that they’re just against Side B?
I don’t hate Hillary I just don’t care for her. For me, it started when Bill appointed her as the chair of the Health I didn’t appreciate her being designated as the chair of the Health Care Task Force. I couldn’t figure out why a First Lady would be appointed to such a position. Then there was carpet bagging to New York to run for office, but if the people of New York saw fit to elect her then who am I to judge? But I voted for her in 2016 because I didn’t think she was as bad as the alternative. And it turned out the alternative was much worse than I imagined.
