Gender in Politics and Business – The Clinton Legacy
Last night, a speech to his supporters in Iowa when he announced that he now had a majority of pledged delegates in the Democratic primary, Barack Obama said of his adversary, Hillary Clinton, “We have had our disagreements during this campaign, but we all admire her courage, her commitment and her perseverance. No matter how this primary ends, Senator Clinton has shattered myths and broken barriers and changed the America in which my daughters and yours will come of age.”
While it is certainly true that Senator Clinton’s historic run for the White House has changed the way that Americans think about the idea of a female Commander in Chief, it is easy to be gracious when you are winning. By now, most media pundits and political experts agree that there is mathematically no way that Senator Clinton can garner the requisite number of delgates. Still, as her campaign almost surely is drawing to a close, whether she acknowledges it or not, what legacy will her bid for the presidency leave for women?
For one thing, many more Americans than previously thought were willing to vote for a female candidate. Florida and Michigan aside, she may not end up winning the popular vote, but she certainly garnered more votes than anyone ever thought a female candidate could, particularly among blue-collar workers in rural areas who might have been widely perceived as falling prey to gender stereotypes about women in power. She also raised over $170 million in campaign donations, no small feat, considering that this was the most expensive primary race in the history of US presidential politics.
Her legacy can also be seen in the female political leaders for whom she has paved a bright path. Just this week, California swore in Karen Bass, the first African American female Assembly Speaker of that state’s legislature.
A New York Times article this week entitled “Gender Issue Lives on as Clinton’s Hopes Dim,” evaluated the impact of Senator Clinton’s efforts “to break the highest and hardest glass ceiling” in American life by becoming the first female president.
Some felt that sexism played a big role in the race. “Women felt this was their time, and this has been stolen from them,” said Marilu Sochor, a Clinton supporter from Columbus, Ohio.
Others, including presidential biographer Doris Kearns Goodwin, thought that Hillary will have won or lost the race on her own merits, not because of her gender.
Still, Clinton garnered a broad base of female support, particularly among older women who recalled facing discrimination in the workplace, whether in blue collar jobs or as university professors, and saw Senator Clinton as a public manifestation of all that the feminist movement had achieved, and an avenging warrior who was willing to fight for them.
Still, as the candidates head to the Democratic National Convention in August 2008 with the outcome more and more certain, some lingering questions remain. What role, if any, did sexism play in obstructing Senator Clinton’s path to the nomination?
When asked about the role of sexism in the presidential campaign, Clinton supporter Lisa Caputo, on Dan Abrams’ MSNBC program The Verdict stated, “There is no way you can say that sexism is not at play here, it is. Is that the reason that she’s losing? No, but there is a gender issue at play here that is not being discussed.”
In private conversations, according to the New York Times, Senator Clinton has begun asserting that sexism rather than racism has cast a shadow over her race for the presidency.
Joni Enda, Knight Ridder reporter noted, “from the beginning, Senator Clinton was criticized for being too ambitious,” noting that male candidates are never similarly criticized. Focus and critique on everything from how she laughed to what she wore, including whether she was showing cleavage also rang a sexist note.
Is the media to blame? Why wasn’t it a bigger deal in the mainstream media when a McCain supporter asked at a rally, “How are we going to beat the bitch?” to which McCain responded, “That’s a good question.” In an era when Obama has been forced to denounce anti-American comments of Reverend Wright, anti-Semitic comments of Lewis Farrakhan, and even the relatively innocuous comment of his supporter Samantha Powers calling Hillary “a monster,” and Hillary must denounce vaguely racist comments by everyone from Geraldine Ferraro to her campaign staff, why does this blatantly sexist comment, and the Republican nominee’s tacit acceptance of it, not make bigger waves?
One thing is for certain. The media will discuss Senator Clinton’s campaign, historians will study it, and little girls across America (including those who never dared to dream as big as Senator Obama’s daughters), will look up to it with admiration and hope for their own futures.
