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Dishing On Hillary

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By ROSEMARY GOUDREAU

The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 15, 2008

Yesterday's bra-burners are sizzling.

Older Democratic women are angry about how Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton was characterized in her historic bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. They're angry that the media - cable commentators, mostly - talked about her fat ankles, cleavage and clothes. And they're disappointed the younger generation failed to join arms with a sisterhood that's waged historic battles for women's rights.

Hillary supporters think presumptive nominee Sen. Barack Obama faced a different standard. More than a conversation on race, they want a national dialogue on sexism and women's rights. They say so with feverish pitch.

Since wrapping up the Democratic nomination last week, the question Obama faces is whether he can corral Hillary supporters, or whether they will follow through on threats to vote for presumptive Republican nominee John McCain. Despite Hillary's speech last Saturday, in which she said "the stakes are too high" to not elect a Democrat, the feminist generation is threatening to do exactly that.

A week removed from their crushing disappointment, the wound felt by some Democratic women in Tampa remains raw. They saw Hillary's candidacy as a breakthrough moment, the brass ring. They don't wholly blame her defeat on sexism, but they were jolted by its appearance. And they're angry that the Democratic Party's leadership failed to condemn the sexism in real time.

They have a point.

A Non-Fan's Perspective

First let me be clear. I'm a middle-aged woman who's never been a Hillary fan.

I met her once, at a Broadway-style roast hosted annually by the New York City Hall press corps. It was the same night Rudy Giuliani came out kicking with the Rockettes, wearing little more than a tuxedo jacket and fishnet hose.

My friend, a Democratic political appointee, introduced me to Clinton as she made her way through the banquet hall. I remember how all eyes fell upon her. And I remember how when shaking my hand, she looked over my shoulder.

When the Clintons took the White House, I was an editor in Washington, D.C., and from this close-up perspective, she quickly wore thin.

Today she talks about open government, but when leading a commission to solve the problems with health care delivery, she appointed a circle of insiders and kept the doors closed - bungling a once-in-a-decade opportunity to fix a system still broken.

The final straw came when I read her book, "Living History." She didn't take responsibility for her failure of leadership. She blamed the media.

So during the presidential primary, when her campaign began complaining about sexism and media bias, I shrugged. Except for a few highly publicized comments from pundits - the yellow jacket, the cleavage and "pimping out Chelsea" - I didn't see it.

Once The Frontrunner

Consider, as a woman, Hillary began the primary as the presumptive nominee. She built a campaign war chest that should have choked the competition. She had a political machine built on years of friendships and patronage. And don't forget Bill.

Every pundit said her nomination would be a cakewalk, a no-brainer that would end early. And they were all wrong.

In mourning her loss, supporters forget that her negatives were terribly high. For every American who strongly liked her, another did not.

And it wasn't sexism that made her party's left-wing push for anybody-but-Hillary. Rather, it was her vote to authorize the Iraq War and later, refuse to say she'd made a mistake.

Then came the campaign missteps: early overspending, the decision to compete in Iowa, ignoring the caucus states and the story about ducking sniper fire in Bosnia.

The Clintons were not prepared for a long campaign. They expected an early win, and when the primary stretched into weeks and months, the war chest came up short.

They found themselves flummoxed by a guy whose message was change - making her look like the inside-the-beltway candidate.

Though the only woman running, Hillary got outflanked by someone more different than them all.

Did They Really Say That?

It took a five-minute video - compiled by the Women's Media Center, a group founded by Gloria Steinem - to help me see the sexism Hillary faced during the primary. The clips showed cable commentators talking about PMS in the Oval Office, castration, mood swings, her hair, her cleavage, her voice.

"As I have often said, when she comes on television, I involuntarily cross my legs," said Tucker Carlson, on MSNBC.

"When Barack Obama speaks, men hear, 'Take off for the future!' And when Hillary Clinton speaks, men hear, 'Take out the garbage.'" said Marc Rudov, on Fox.

The video packs a sexism punch similar to the clip that showed the Rev. Jeremiah Wright - Obama's former longtime pastor - making a string of ugly, racist remarks.

In isolation, the comments should make a reasonable person uncomfortable. Together, they reveal an unsettling pattern of sexist remarks worthy of further examination.

"We hadn't heard these things in years, and they were out there so frequently," says former Tampa Mayor Sandy Freedman. "We haven't come very far."

"I told Howard Dean, 'When these things were said, where were you? Why hasn't your voice been heard? If someone raised the N-word about Obama, the heavens would have rained down.' ... Now Howard Dean is talking about these things. But as the leader of the Democratic Party, he should have been doing it all along. Pelosi should have had something to say. When the bitch remark, or the pimping remark, was made, Harry Reid and Ted Kennedy should have had something to say."

After she was elected mayor in 1986, Freedman remembers that the then-publisher of the Tribune called her "The Skirt." Perhaps he meant the nickname affectionately; she considered it demeaning.

Today, the Tribune's publisher, executive editor and editorial page editor are all women. But I shared with Freedman that when I was hired as a reporter here in 1977, I was offered $175 a week, while a guy friend from college was offered $200. The managing editor explained that guys had families to support.

I remembered, too, how a former chancellor of the state university system always called me "honey," and how disparaging that felt. He stopped only after I returned his term of endearment.

Over my career, I've worked with many great men, but I've also had bosses who've made sexual comments about female employees, only taken male employees fishing or golfing, expected women to make the coffee or take the notes, or enjoyed a male-only inner circle.

A Generational Divide

I belong to the bridge generation of women who bit our tongues while partially breaking the glass ceiling. So did women of my mother's generation, many of whom are angry that today's young women don't see the problem.

Don't they see that women are paid less than men - 79 cents on the dollar? Don't they know that women hold only 13 percent of seats on boards of directors? Don't they understand that women's rights are human rights and that while American women have made progress, women in some parts of the world are still considered property?

Don't they know that Hillary understood all this?

"I have not heard anything from Obama that as an older woman, moves me in his direction," said Clerk of the Court Pat Frank, a 36-year veteran of Tampa politics.

Hillary's campaign brought yesterday's bra-burners back to life. Her candidacy became their payback for all the injustices and chauvinists endured over the years.

In defeat, it doesn't matter that a woman came closer than ever before to securing a presidential nomination. The feminist generation came away feeling unappreciated and disappointed by a generational divide.

But wait. Wasn't the women's liberation movement all about allowing women to think for themselves? All blacks don't think the same, all evangelicals don't think the same, and women shouldn't expect gender obedience, either.

Still the feminists make a good point. We've come a long way, baby, but a national dialogue on women's issues would bring fresh eyes to a problem few men see.

If Obama wants to corral Hillary supporters, he should lead the conversation.

Steinem On Sexism Vs. Racism

Black men were given the vote a half-century before women of any race were allowed to mark a ballot, and generally have ascended to positions of power, from the military to the boardroom, before any women (with the possible exception of obedient family members in the latter)....

So why is the sex barrier not taken as seriously as the racial one? The reasons are as pervasive as the air we breathe: because sexism is still confused with nature as racism once was; because anything that affects males is seen as more serious than anything that affects "only" the female half of the human race; because children are still raised mostly by women (to put it mildly) so men especially tend to feel they are regressing to childhood when dealing with a powerful woman; because racism stereotyped black men as more "masculine" for so long that some white men find their presence to be masculinity-affirming (as long as there aren't too many of them); and because there is still no "right" way to be a woman in public power without being considered a you-know-what.

- Gloria Steinem, New York Times op-ed, January 2008

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