America loves women like Hillary Clinton–as long as they’re not asking for a promotion

[riversedge]

A few months old but interesting.

I do know sexism plays a role in her unfavorably--How much is the questions!
I went door to door in my state and every day there was one or two that said or hinted at the fact that she was a woman and therefore could not be Commander-in-Chief.



America loves women like Hillary Clinton–as long as they’re not asking for a promotion

http://qz.com/624346/america-loves-women-like-hillary-clinton-as-long-as-theyre-not-asking-for-a-promotion/


Sady Doyle


February 25, 2016
Back in the good old days. (AP Photo/Kevin Lamarque)

It’s hard to remember these days, but just a few years ago, everybody loved Hillary Rodham Clinton. When she stepped down as US secretary of state in January 2013 after four years in office, her approval rating stood at what the Wall Street Journal described as an “eye-popping” 69%. That made her not only the most popular politician in the country, but the second-most popular secretary of state since 1948.

The 2012 “Texts from Hillary” meme, which featured a sunglasses-clad Clinton scrolling through her Blackberry aboard a military flight to Libya, had given rise to a flood of think pieces hailing her “badass cool.” The Washington Post wanted president Barack Obama to give vice president Joe Biden the boot and replace him with Clinton. Taking stock of Clinton’s approval ratings, Nate Silver noted in a 2012 piece for the New York Times that she currently held “remarkably high numbers for a politician in an era when many public officials are distrusted or disliked.”

How times have changed. “The FBI And 67 Percent of Americans Distrust Hillary Clinton,” booms a recent headline in the Huffington Post. Clinton’s favorability ratings currently hover around 40.8%. Bob Woodward complains that “there is something unrelaxed about the way she is communicating.” “Hillary’s personality repels me,” Walker Bragman writes in Salon.

How can we reconcile the “unlikable” Democratic presidential candidate of today with the adored politician of recent history? How can we reconcile the “unlikable” Democratic presidential candidate of today with the adored politician of recent history? It’s simple: Public opinion of Clinton has followed a fixed pattern throughout her career. Her public approval plummets whenever she applies for a new position. Then it soars when she gets the job. The wild difference between the way we talk about Clinton when she campaigns and the way we talk about her when she’s in office can’t be explained as ordinary political mud-slinging. Rather, the predictable swings of public opinion reveal Americans’ continued prejudice against women caught in the act of asking for power. ................

[Cha]

1. It's going to be great when Hillary gets into her next position of power, rivers.. The woman

has earned it.

Thank you!

[riversedge]

4. Love your way of thinking about this. Mornin' Cha.

[IamMab]

2. I bookmarked this when I originally read it.

I've been posting it into any discussion I see about Clinton's "popularity" or "likeability.". It's a very well-written article. I even emphasize the same section you do, because it's the most succinct description of the forces aligned against Clinton I've ever seen.

[brush]

13. Those forces have been aligned against her since the '90s . . .

and their continuing attacks and negative publicity against the Clintons through hate radio, right wing TV punditry, right wing web sites, faux scandal after faux scandal and on and on and on has had a tremendous impact on public sentiment towards Clinton and that sentiment has even infiltrated here with the many posts hoping and praying for the sure-to-come-at-any-minute indictment.

Manipulation and conditioning of that sort over years can persuade even the sanest, staunchest other Dems and progressives of the "evil of Hillary Clinton" if she's the opposing candidate.

Sanders of course hasn't been subjected to any of that having been safely ensconced for years as a Senator from Vermont, totally out of the national spotlight and negative glare from his socialist ties.

He has missed the heat of years of repug negativity campaigns and will luckily continue to dodge them as his own campaign for the Dem nomination has faltered and the repug oppo research, surely gathered, has been filed away for possible future use if needed.

Would that be lucky or unlucky?

[IamMab]

15. By finding a stronghold, Bernie forgot what it was like to be challenged.

Or maybe not being challenged was the whole point of finding a stronghold like Vermont in the first place. We've seen already how he prefers to lecture rather than listen to anyone other than himself.

[Squinch]

3. Yes. We've had threads right here saying that she should have stayed in the Senate and that

her ambition was unseemly. This despite the fact that there has been no one possibly ever who was more qualified than she is to be President.

Such a thing has NEVER been said about a man here. Not even Drumpf whose idiocy is apparent to anyone who listens to him.

Some days my eyes just pop around here.

[Cha]

7. They're so bitter and their rhetoric

exposes it.

None other than President Obama chose her to be his SOS and said it's one of the best decisions he's ever made.

And, I know he wants her to be #45.. not bernisanders. Obama knows what the job requires.. and he knows Hillary's work.

I dare say he knows what BS is capable of, too.

[Squinch]

8. Yes. Though BS hasn't dropped out, Obama seems to be getting comfortable with

campaigning for Hillary, which is a nice development.

As for the sexism, I am surprised with some of the names I am seeing on these sexist posts, and I really think they have no idea that they are being sexist. That's very sad to me, but I think we will see a lot more of it.

This primary has made me look at some people very differently.

[Cha]

10. Hillary has won whether sanders has dropped out or not.. so President Obama can now

act accordingly.. I'm guessing he's really good @ math, too!

[Squinch]

11. Yes. It's been over for weeks, but I just trashed GDP. Can't believe how hard they are beating that

dead horse!

[BlueMTexpat]

5. It's still spot on, rivers!

Thanks for the reminder!

[Lucinda]

6. I'm glad Hillary uses this POV her comments now.

I noticed she started talking about how great her favorables have always been when she HAS the job, and that they drop when she is trying to GET the next one.

My one frustration with her has always been how much criticism she has let go unanswered. I've always understood it, and she is clear that if she did start responding to the personal criticism, that is all she would have time to do. But she has finally found a way to defend herself in a way that makes her point, and lets her move the discussion back to where it should be. It is such a fine line to walk, and she does it very deftly now.

[Squinch]

9. That is a fascinating fact! I did not realize that. How telling!

[Thinkingabout]

12. I was thinking, how many supervisors would promote a person who had announced the supervisor

Was not qualified publicly, well, those wanting Sanders to be on the ticket with Hillary, hell no, she will not be promoting him after that statement for sure.

[brer cat]

14. I didn't have to read beyond the headline

to know I would rec this thread. A lot of people still hate "uppity" women. It was ok for women like Miriam Ferguson (TX) and Lurleen Wallace (AL) to serve following their husbands because it was recognized that their husbands would be the de facto governors. Until around 2000, the most common way for a woman to become a US Senator was to be appointed following the death or resignation of her husband or father who previously held the seat! But for a woman to have the temerity to seek office based on her own qualifications and with her own platform is unseemly, if not heresy, for many voters.

It makes me angry and breaks my heart that in 2016 Hillary is being challenged not just based on her qualifications but on her gender.

[athena]

16. This is what I've been saying all along.

Whenever a Bernie supporter says, "But I'm not sexist! I would happily vote for a woman -- just not Hillary Clinton. I would vote for Elizabeth Warren!", I point out that Elizabeth Warren is not running. She is popular precisely because she is not running. If she were running, suddenly she would become an "ambitious" woman, and many of her current supporters would quickly find reasons not to support her.

Our society loves women who know their place. It's when we dare to believe in ourselves that we are hated -- by men and women alike.

This is really not very different from the views that reigned five hundred years ago: there were the "good" women, who were wives, mothers, or nuns, and the "bad" women, who were witches or prostitutes. If you were a woman who dared to have an opinion of your own, you quickly found yourself in the category of women who were feared and hated. It's sad to see that in many ways we haven't come very far at all since those days.

[SharonClark]

17. K&R for the truth