Hillary Clinton
Related: About this forum"Hillary Clinton’s all-American scarlet letter"
Somehow I missed this one. Makes me want to fight harder.
THE PURITY PARADOX
Hillary Clintons all-American scarlet letter
There is something in the United Statess cultural imagination that has long prevented it from envisioningand electinga female leader. This observation is supported by a recent United Nations report that ranks the supposedly progressive United States 75th for the number of women in positions of political leadership. Currently, there are twenty-two countries led by a woman.
Perhaps Americans reluctance to elect a female leaderand their particular antipathy toward Democratic candidate Hillary Clintoncan be traced to the countrys puritanical origins. Other countries have a long tradition of recognizing and valuing women as leaders. Their myths include female gods and their histories are replete with female political icons, from Kali and Athena to Joan of Arc and Eva Perón
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Even in 2016, there is little that America hates more than a tainted, experienced womanespecially a woman who believes her experience to be advantageous. Because Hillary is a woman with a past, the theory goes, she needs to atone. For example, that means she needs to take responsibility for her husbands presidency and alleged sexual indiscretions.
In politics, the moral opposite of experienced is pure. And this is precisely the angle that Bernie Sanderss campaign and supporters have taken this primary season. Susan Sarandon, for example, gave an interview with the Daily Mail proclaiming her allegiance to Sanders because he is untainted. Sanders has been painted as the pure ideologue, a political outsider who has been able to somehow transcend the political fray. In truth, hes a longtime liberal senator who has served the Democratic party for decades. (Sanders has in the past registered as an Independent but caucuses with the Democrats in the Senate and is seeking the Democratic party nomination.)
Sanders male privilege, on the other hand, means that he can afford to position himself as an anti-establishment, ideological purist. He gets away with proposing unrealistic policy ideas that have little chance of being passed even by Democrats in Congress, let alone Republicans, Michael A. Cohen wrote in a recent piece for the Boston Globe, and then gets praised for being authentic
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http://qz.com/606400/hillary-clintons-all-american-scarlet-letter/
UtahLib
(3,179 posts)Cha
(295,925 posts)Gracias flea.
mgmaggiemg
(869 posts)the campaign is pushing
Ellen Forradalom
(16,159 posts)Nader positioned himself the same way and Gore was pilloried, rightly or wrongly (usually the latter) on his actual, life-long record. I was disgusted by that.
Satch59
(1,353 posts)I know some BS supporters have said she plays the woman card but I think she should! Her amazing background is all because she's a strong intelligent woman who has fought for the underdog her whole life. It's a man's world and her being elected would be as consequential as Obama being elected. Young female BS supporters don't feel the pull for her because they haven't experienced the fight Hillary has fought...they are who they are because of her and of course others like her.
DemonGoddess
(4,640 posts)Great read! As far as "playing the woman card", I say LET her. She has much to be proud of, with what she's accomplished DESPITE being a woman. She has to fight so much harder NOW because she's a woman. I see instances EVERY DAY where she is EXPECTED and has demanded of her to do things that no one else has to, BECAUSE she's a woman, and held to an unreasonable standard because of it. Yet, she's still out there, every day, FIGHTING.
Nonhlanhla
(2,074 posts)that the underlying logic of much of the Bernie people's negative campaign against Hillary is based on the oldest textbook in the world: the narrative of the scarlet woman. The idea that Hillary's ties to Wall Street amounts to her being bought, is just a variant of calling her a certain word starting with "wh..." There was even a recent thread that echoed the old joke about the man offering money to the woman and when they haggle about the price, he says "we both already know what you are, we're just haggling about the price." Ha ha, very funny.
(Not dissing sex workers here, by the way, but we're talking about the age-old smearing of women as either pure as snow, Mary, or defiled and sexually available-for-a-price Eve. This dichotomoy is as old as the hills and still more prevalent than people realize.)
Thinkingabout
(30,058 posts)Sanders responded to the NRA donation by voting five times against the Brady Bill and other times on the bills NRA wanted passed or defeated.