[This guest post is written by David Schraub, reprinted with permission from The Debate Link.]
Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins is one of the most important sex discrimination cases in recent history. Ann Hopkins was denied partnership with the Price Waterhouse accounting firm. Testimony established that she was caught in a double-bind: while the general culture of PW demanded a sort of hyper-masculinity to succeed, when Hopkins attempted to emulate this norm, she was castigated for being insufficiently feminine. It was ruled that this bind constituted actionable sex discrimination. This situation exists in broader culture as well: society articulates the routes to success in male terms, but when women attempt to follow them they find that traditional gender norms are strictly held against them. While everyone is to some degree boxed in by social conventions, women have a far smaller box to play in than men do.
I was reminded of Price Waterhouse and the more general ailment it signifies when reading this editorial by Margaret M. Russell and Stephanie M. Wildman. They are answering the charge that women supporting Obama represents a sort of betrayal of the sisterhood, and point out some reason why women might legitimately prefer Obama over Clinton. One passage stuck out at me, though:
We value his explicit and repeated emphasis on the language of diplomacy to solve problems, including his own; conversely, Clinton’s threat to “totally obliterate” Iran, as well as her metaphors of Rocky Balboa and boxing gloves, leave us cold.
I find this distressing, because it seems clear to me that Clinton has been pressured into adopting these tropes specifically because she’s female. Certainly, the “man card” form of identity politics is nothing new in American elections, but there’s a reason that Clinton is not the one challenging it, just as there’s a reason Nixon was the one to go to China and not LBJ. I’d love to push political deliberation beyond the current “who can down more shots at the bar” standard, but Clinton can’t press the issue too much because she’s a woman — she’s ultimately the target that these patriarchal norms are designed to suppress. A male candidate might be able to effectively critique these norms from the inside, because his success would performatively indicate that men can still succeed under the new regime. A female critique directly threatens the male privilege these norms are supposed to protect, making backlash inevitable. Hence, women trying to succeed in a patriarchal world often times are forced to prove they are “one of the guys”, rather than demonstrate that things can go just as well even if she remains proudly a gal.
In such a world, criticizing Clinton for adapting the classical male tropes that we typically demand our politicians adhere to represents one of the key enforcement mechanisms of sexism. It’s like when Barack Obama was being indicted for not being enough of a “fighter” — he has to adopt the soaring, conciliatory posture that he does because if he shows the slightest bit of passion he immediately will be cast as the “angry Black man.” At that point, criticizing him for being not-John-Edwards enough totally misses how racism operates in public context. Likewise with Clinton. That patriarchal structure forces her into postures that are not to our preference is not a fair indictment of her — it blames the victim for the crimes of the perpetrator.
I have to disagree with you here. I don’t think it is sexist to resent Clinton for adopting this (arguably) “masculine” posture – I think the entire posture is sexist and would be wrong of feminists not to criticize anyone who adopts it. Iran is not some empty land, it is full of innocent (brown) civilians that don’t deserve to be bombed into the ground to support one white woman’s right to play in a sandbox that is deeply screwed up.
Overall, the problem isn’t Clinton, it’s the deeply oppressive state of our political discourse and it bothers me to no end to see someone who once described themself as a feminist accept and propagate that discourse. This behavior is reprehensible from a man or woman, and I think anyone who propagates it deserves criticism for it. Period. She might be damned if she does/ damned if she doesn’t, but the lack of options doesn’t make it ok for her to imply that Obama could be assassinated or take tricks from the Karl Rove playbook.
So Clinton voted for war powers authorization that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people because sexists bullied her into it? I think even Senator Clinton might find that sexist and patronizing. She can think for herself. In this instance, if she bowed to pressure from colleagues (as did several other male Senators among her fellow Democrats), she is still responsible for her actions. She’s an adult. And she is no effing victim. The real victims are in Iraq, thank you very much.
We have no reason to think Hillary Clinton meant to imply anything of the sort. At worst it seems like a foolish or unthinking remark.
I’ve never fully supported Hillary, though (just opposed her critics), and Greenwald reminds me why. See, Charles Gibson now claims he and the rest of the media did a good or acceptable job during the rush to war. Greenwald quotes the following exchange from 2003 about the Colin Powell speech.
——
CHARLES GIBSON
James Woolsey, the Iraqis immediately challenged a lot of what was shown, said it was altered, said it was doctored. The international community — do they know that stuff was genuine?
JAMES WOOLSEY
Oh, anybody who is objective about this I think does. The people who now doubt whether or not Saddam really has WMD programs, chemical and bacteriological, in particular, are really of two types, either they work for Saddam or they’re doing a human imitation of an ostrich. There really are, I think, no other possibilities.
CHARLES GIBSON
James Woolsey, former CIA Director, Terence Taylor, former weapons inspector, I thank you both.
——
(He forgot the words “related” and “activities”.)
Sen. Clinton has suffered other slanderous attacks from right-wingers and the “news” media. But for some reason she either believed them in this case, or put herself in a position where she had to give in to slander and libel. If sexism forces her to do this, she has nothing to offer me as President.
Oops, forgot the link to The Daily Howler discussing Clinton’s remarks.
(Some may also want to see this post elsewhere on Colin Powell’s lies and deceptions.)
…Or, many ardent democrats are unexcited by a candidate that uses violent rhetoric. This seems especially likely given how important the war is to many primary voters.
Are the left cold because the masculine language is warlike or because the warlike language is masculine?
Well said Dave. I think many of Hillary Clinton’s attempts to appeal to her toughness and “testicular fortitude” are prime examples of how sexism has shaped her campaign strategy. I thought for a long time that this tactic would backfire on her because of the notion that women who are “tough” are bitches, but surprisingly in the times that she has used this strategy she seems to do much better.
I also like the comparison with Obama’s nearly permanent turn the other cheek strategy. He capitulates to so many racist comments, and illegitimate race based critiques, but I often feel like as a black candidate he has no other choice if he wants to get elected.
If I remember correctly, Clinton talked about “totally obliterating” Iran should they launch a nuclear attack on Israel. I consider it a stupid statement – Israel has enough nukes to deter Iran on its own thank you very much – but not as warmongering as the editorial seems to imply.
Nonetheless, I see nothing wrong with supporting the candidate least likely to start another war. Clinton’s adoption of right-wing rhetoric is most unnerving, no matter her rationale. And as a candidate, all we have to go with is her rhetoric and her record, and neither is very assuring.
I agree. She can also use whatever ficticious character she wants to emulate or commpare herself to. It makes sense for her to pick a White man, because that’s the votes that she’s after. That’s the votes everyone is after.
Israel is the only nation in the Middle East with nuclear weapons. It’s not surprising that its adversaries want to feel that they’re not at a disadvantage and are trying to develop similar technology. And yet, the United States is invading countries killing people purportedly because they are trying to obtain the capacity for nuclear weapons and others. And who is the only country which used a weapon of mass destruction again?
If she wants to blow up Iran with nuclear weapons, oh my goodness, she sounds just like…Bush. And if she wants to wage a preemptive war with Iran, then all the more so.
If she made such as stupid, irresponsible statement, it might get her a few rah rah votes but it doesn’t bode much for her foreign policy expertise.
One thing ignored by most when they comment that Clinton is “pro-war” is that Clinton was Senator of New York. New York City got attacked on 911. She was sitting in the Senate representing her voters that were anxious to seek out the terrorists and demanded action. If Obama was sitting for NewYork city, how would he have voted? She has since demanded accountability, and has gotten little for it.
It was a mistake to go to Iraq, but she didn’t vote “present.” Obama has said publically he’d invade Pakistan if terrorists were there. search on it
New York City wasn’t for the war:
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0312-12.htm
Which war are you talking about? Surely, it can’t be the Iraq War, becauses that had nothing to do with the terrorism from 9-11 except that one commander-in-chief tried to sell it that way.
Hopefully, if Obama had been the senator of New York, he wouldn’t have gotten the two confused.
I don’t think that Clinton is necessarily trying to overcome the implicit weakness of her gender than simply trying to appeal to the “shoot the bastards” contingent of swing-voters who automatically fear that a Democrat president will sell the country to Bin Laden. After all, I’ve heard the same horrible stereotypes of military cowardice applied to every Democratic Party candidate, not just H. Clinton.
She may be playing it up a little harder because she’s a woman, but I get the feeling that she’d be pulling similar “shoot the bastards” shenanigans if she were a guy, simply to overcome image of the entire party, not just that of being a woman in the party.
Either way, it’s that kind of bold-faced pandering that makes her so reviled by many.
Thanks for including this level of complexity in your posts here at Alas. I think that often times lefty critique can turn simplistic in an effort to paint a rosier picture of our current situation than is actually real. Gender and race politics are complex, and dismissing Schraub’s comments out of hand is only useful if we want to feel better about voting for this or that candidate in this or that election. But what I admire about this blog is it takes the long view – having a real discourse about the real deal, and then also about the deal below the deal, and then about the deal below that deal. Cause only by talking about and working out those deals will we be able to halt the disenfranchisement of all of the rest of us non-ruling elites out here.