Posted on
Aug 12, 2016
By Katie Halper
Hillary Clinton is the first
woman ever to get the presidential nomination from a major political party in
the history of the United States. This is, of course, a historic, and long
overdue, moment. For many feminists, the nomination is a pretty
straightforward, unambiguous victory for women and cause for celebration. For
others, however, it’s complicated.
Of course, no feminist would
defend the uninterrupted male lineage of the presidency. For feminist critics
of Clinton, the problem lies not in her gender but in her track record,
policies and positions, many of which have had a less than liberating effect on
women.
As a feminist, I find myself
moved, from time to time, when I think of how hard so many people have fought
over the generations to make such a nomination possible. The undeniable sexism,
misogyny and double standards Clinton has faced (though not on a structural
level) occasionally fill me with a sense of compassion, solidarity, “get it
girl” camaraderie and pride.
Clinton’s ascent shattered not
only glass ceilings but also the sexist notion that female politicians are
different from male politicians on an essential level. A female politician can
be just as smart, just as bold and just as visionary as a male politician. She
can be and, in Clinton’s case, is, just as Machiavellian, just as ruthless,
just as hawkish, just as corporate and just as neoliberal as her male
counterparts.
To be fair, because some of
these traits are considered natural in men and unnatural in women, the
threshold for women is much lower. The same forceful behavior that can earn men
the label “aggressive” often earns women the label “bitch.” The same behavior
that would be viewed as conniving in a female politician may be viewed as
“politics as usual” in a male.
But Clinton isn’t widely
described as a hawk because of our sexist double standards, which expect that
women be dovish. She’s seen as a hawk because she is a hawk (see Iraq, Libya). It’s not sexist to
criticize Clinton’s coziness with governments that engage in routine human
rights abuses (see: Saudi Arabia, Israel, Honduras). It’s honest. And it’s not misogyny that makes
people oppose her positions (see: Trans-Pacific Partnership, fracking, immigration, welfare
reform).
It was extremely demoralizing
and frustrating to see how a lot of the media and political establishment
hijacked feminism and trivialized genuine sexism as they sought to delegitimize
valid criticism of Clinton. Much of what Bernie Sanders did, said or gestured
was framed as a symptom of the entitlement and insensitivity endemic of
straight, white men, at best, or overt misogyny, at worst. Perhaps the
greatest, or most egregious, example of this was when a New York Times reporter asked Sanders, “What do you say to
women that say you staying in the race is sexist?” Our concerned fellow
feminists diagnosed women who dared to defend the more feminist vision of
Sanders or criticize the hawkishness of Clinton as having internalized
misogyny.
The truth is, some of
Clinton’s ideas are not at all feminist, and the mantle of feminism is
shielding some of her most sexist policies. For some feminists, one extremely
powerful woman’s success is far more important than the countless women who
will be, and have been, negatively impacted by Clinton’s policies.
[…]
My Clinton-supporting friends
continue to stand wholeheartedly behind their candidate. But what about the
many women and feminists I have met or read about during primary season who
were critical of Clinton up through the Democratic convention? I asked some of
them to share their current thinking on the candidate, the convention, the
nomination, whether they felt conflicted or moved by seeing a woman accepting
the nomination, Clinton’s pick for vice president (Tim Kaine), November and
beyond.
LIZA FEATHERSTONE, The Nation
contributor, editor of “False
Choices: The Faux Feminism of Hillary Rodham Clinton”
I totally understand being
moved by her nomination, but I wasn’t. I wished I was a low-information voter
because then I would have enjoyed it a lot more. I plan to vote Green unless it
is close in New York, where I live, in which case I will vote for Clinton to
stop Trump. I really don’t think it matters what she says or doesn’t say,
because her actual record is much more important. I feel she is the lesser evil
in this race, because Trump is a demagogic racist with a tendency to hold large
scary rallies about it. Such a person should not be our president. But I wish Hillary
would make that position a lot easier to maintain, instead of doing things like
running to the right of Trump on foreign policy and picking a VP who is right
wing on abortion. But Hillary’s gonna be Hillary.
I keep saying that those
people who are surprised or shocked by Hillary, her team and her endorsers just
don’t get her. I think her selection of Tim Kaine does show that there is no
grass-roots constituency she won’t sell out, which is amazing when you consider
Moe’s [Maureen Tkacik] argument—in her essay in “False Choices”—that abortion
rights have been the Democrats’ major electoral selling point to women and
progressives (when people say “Republican war on women” and “Supreme Court,”
what they usually mean is abortion). It was great during the primary that
Clinton talked so much about repealing the Hyde Amendment. If you are
pro-choice but support the Hyde Amendment [which Kaine revealed he will, the
day after the nomination, after suggesting he wouldn’t], you essentially
believe that reproductive choice should be a luxury good, which is very
different from a right. This shows what happens as soon as left pressure eases
up for a minute. Bernie really challenged her to talk further left—and a lot of
the wonderfully progressive plans she laid out in her convention speech were a
result of Bernie’s pressure—but now that she has the nomination, we’re going to
see less of that. I think she is going to face some anger over Kaine from feminists who have really
supported and believed in her. It’s awful, and I’m pissed about it, but it may
help mainstream feminism to mature a bit into a more critical and ultimately
politically stronger force.
RANIA KHALEK, journalist,
associate editor at Electronic Intifada, co-host of “Unauthorized Disclosure”
I hate this election so much.
Any enthusiasm I might have felt for the first woman presidential nominee of a
major party is totally overshadowed by genuine fear for the future. We’ve run
out of time on climate change, and the lesser evil is a fracking saleswoman.
Most people I know are drowning in debt, and the lesser evil is basically
Goldman Sachs. Wars continue to rage across the Middle East, and the lesser
evil is campaigning with neocons, who are so toxic and reactionary they’re
aiming for a war with Russia.
We’re being told to choose
between an unhinged demagogue and a calculating warmonger. This is not
democracy. If Hillary Clinton as the first woman president is supposed to be
empowering for women and girls, why do I feel so powerless?
CATHERINE LIU, writer, chair
of film and media studies at University of California, Irvine, and
contributor to “False Choices”
I’m not voting in the
presidential elections. I won’t vote Green, Republican or Democrat. I live in
California, where my vote doesn’t matter very much for the presidential
elections, but I will be voting on most of the down-ticket elections. You can
be sure of that.
I think our California
senators have not been very progressive, and they’re both women. Diane
Feinstein is married to one of the most loathsome financiers in California,
Richard Blum, who is by the way, a UC regent who also invested heavily in for-profit
universities before the Obama administration cracked down on them.
The Democratic machine thinks
it can hold progressive voters hostage forever. It can’t. I think Trump’s
candidacy is a disaster. Clinton is a poor candidate who can take advantage of
the Republican Party’s disarray. People are really suffering—working-class,
middle-class people—but having a woman become president will help real
feminists define our project against hers.
I’m grateful to HRC for
getting the nomination because her rise to power will put an end to any ideas
that liberal identity-politics people might have had that women are “naturally”
peace-loving. Her nomination has actually given voice to a lot of women on the
left to differentiate their feminism from hers. We can now criticize a
bourgeois feminism, a neoliberal feminism, an imperial feminism, a militaristic
feminism or an authoritarian feminism, and it will be very clear what we are
talking about. Phew. We’re not self-hating women. We’re critical women who want
socialist feminism. I’ve found the silver lining. It took a few days, but it
happened.
So thank you, HRC and your
supporters. Thank you, HRC, for your ambition and its realization, but hell
will freeze over before someone like you gets my vote. It’s unfortunate for you
because in 2008 I was so desperate to believe that Democrats were going to save
us from [George W.] Bush and the disastrous wars and economic policies he had
put into place that I voted for Obama eagerly and thought that he was going to
lead a movement from the White House. I even submitted my resume for a position
in his administration. He never hired me.
There was no chance in hell
that someone like me would be part of the government, but I was an idiot and I
believed in the lofty rhetoric. Instead, Obama appointed Arne Duncan as
secretary of education, and they hired David Coleman, a fellow Yalie, who was
into educational “solutions” and public/private partnerships to run Common
Core. Obama hired a bunch of corporate shills and patsies, and his
administration has not called upon diverse and strong voices of dissent to
serve the people.
The people who say we should
be celebrating the symbolic moment have already forgotten we had a symbolic
moment with Obama and that symbolism is not enough.
We have to deal with the
nature of the Democratic Party—technocratic, cozy with finance, jealous of its
privileges, divorced from the interests of ordinary workers of all colors and
genders, but able to talk a good line about “diversity” and ‘”opportunity’” while
feeding the greed of private equity and Silicon Valley types.
ADRIANA MAESTAS, writer, teleSUR,
NBC Latino, KCET.org, AlterNet
I can’t say that I’m very
excited about Hillary Clinton’s official nomination as a woman. I recognize the
historical significance of it, and in the historical context, it certainly is a
big achievement. However, I think that people need to continually question
Hillary Clinton’s policies as they would any other candidate’s, especially when
it comes to women’s issues and world affairs. For example, Clinton has
supported some foreign policies that have had horrendous outcomes for women in
places like Iraq and Honduras.
As a Chicana, I feel that I
don’t necessarily fit into Hillary Clinton’s brand of feminism. Sure, she has
Latina representation within her campaign, and it’s notable. But simply having
people there who are from my community does not make me feel any better about
her when she still seeks to embrace Henry Kissinger and other architects of
devastating foreign policy. This is a woman who not too long ago said that
child refugees from Central America should be sent back to their
countries—places that are violent and in turmoil because of decades of U.S.
intervention and Clinton’s own policies.
We should not give Hillary
Clinton a free pass just because she’s not as crass as Donald Trump, who
articulates his vision in an absolutely ridiculous and racist way.
YASMIN NAIR, writer, academic, activist,
photographer, co-founder of Against Equality and contributor to “False Choices”
I’m not of the belief that
having a woman nominee is in itself significant. I grew up [in Kolkata, India]
under the shadows of Indira Gandhi and Margaret Thatcher, and fully understand
that tyranny and oppression are not restricted to male political figures. If
anything, the U.S. is barely catching up with the rest of the world.
Clinton has amply demonstrated
that she will be a terrible president, a leader for the wealthiest and a hawk
who will seek to out-hawk even Barack Obama, the Bushes and, of course, her own
husband.
Clinton’s choice of vice
president tells us everything we need to know about her real position on
women’s rights. It should come as no surprise that Hillary Clinton would choose
someone with Tim Kaine’s position on the Hyde Amendment. It’s part of her
desperate attempt to garner more votes among the more right-leaning parts of
the electorate. It also signals the extent to which she is willing to
compromise women’s rights, particularly the rights of poorer women and women of
color, who are most vulnerable to a reduction in or denial of access to
abortion (and child care). With this move, she has made it clear that she is
only interested in the rights of women who, like her and her friends, already
have access to medical resources and abortion.
There can be no reducing
inequality without guaranteeing women’s rights to abortion. The right to either
terminate a pregnancy or, for that matter, to have children with the guarantee
of resources to support them is an absolute necessity for equal rights. Until
women are granted such rights, there can be no eradicating of inequality
because the lack of such rights means that women will never gain full access to
everything they need.
I come from a “young
democracy,” where it’s considered strange to reveal for whom you’re going to
vote. The secret ballot should mean something. I also find this incessant
posturing of “I will vote for X” bizarrely performative. But if people are
genuinely worried about how their vote will affect the election, they should
decide according to what results they want to bring about in their particular states
(swing states or not, etc.). If they’re not happy with either candidate, there
are others to choose. And not voting is also a legitimate option. Politics and
change are not determined by an election that happens every four years. People
need to become much more aware and active about what’s going at the local
level—change moves up from there.
A FORMER STATE DIRECTOR IN THE
BERNIE SANDERS CAMPAIGN (she chose to remain anonymous)
When we talk about Hillary
Clinton’s brand of feminism, we have to consider which women her brand of
feminism represents and supports. She certainly does not represent all women.
Her brand of feminism doesn’t represent poor and working-class women. If it
did, she would not hedge on support of a $15-an-hour minimum wage.
She would not have served on
the board of Wal-Mart, the country’s largest employer, which pays poverty wages
to the women who work there.
Hillary Clinton’s brand of
feminism serves some of her fiercest supporters like Meryl Streep and Madeleine
Albright, who are upper-class white women.
She frequently talks about
women making 78 cents to every dollar a man makes. What about black women who
make even less, at 63 cents to every dollar a man makes, or Latinas who make
even less at 54 cents?
We often hear Hillary Clinton
talk about the middle class and working families. What about the poor? What
about the unemployed? I don’t expect to hear the GOP talk about the poor. But
for the Democratic nominee to dismiss the poor and unemployed is disconcerting.
But again, this is her brand of feminism.
Additionally, Hillary Clinton
had the opportunity to recognize people of color in a real way by choosing a
person of color as her running mate. She could have chosen a prominent person
of color, like Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey or [San Antonio Mayor] Julian
Castro, who are known on the national stage. She chose Tim Kaine, a white man,
who is virtually unknown outside of his state of Virginia.
It was especially condescending
how the campaign highlighted that Kaine speaks Spanish and goes to a
predominantly black church. It felt like they were saying to black and Latino
voters, “I know you thought we were going to select a black or Latino running
mate. We decided to go with another white man, but look, he’s just like you.”
It was an extremely insulting form of pandering. It reminded me of when Bill
Clinton played the saxophone on “The Arsenio Hall Show.”
Of course, it is a great
achievement that a woman is the Democratic nominee. But it’s never been
important to me for any woman to be the nominee. If that were the case, I would
have supported any number of women, such as Carly Fiorina or Sarah Palin.
I didn’t support President
Obama because he was black. If that were the case, I could have supported
Herman Cain or Ben Carson. I voted for President Obama because his ideology
mostly aligned with mine, and he was black. I would like to have a female
nominee whose views and policies align with my own, but I don’t have that.
Hillary Clinton does not
represent me.
It’s condescending to think
that women should support any female candidate because she’s a woman. I think
“there is a special place in hell” for women who try to bully other women.
You don’t have to be a woman
to be feminist. Bernie Sanders has always stood up for women even when he
thought no one was watching. On the other hand, some women hide behind feminism
to do things that aren’t necessarily beneficial to women. Clinton’s supposed
feminism masks policies that don’t support women.
We didn’t win the primary.
Clinton will win the election, and we will have four more years of the status
quo. But this is a movement. And a movement isn’t about one presidential
election. It started in 2008 with Obama’s election, and then it grew in 2011
with Occupy Wall Street, and then it started snowballing with the Fight for 15
and Black Lives Matter, and Bernie Sanders. This movement of protest and
fighting for change will continue to grow.
We have to keep going, and we
will keep going. There is going to be a revolution of some kind. It’s
happening. We all can feel it. We all know it’s coming. It’s just up to us what
it’s going to look like.
Born and raised on the mean
streets of New York City’s Upper West Side, Katie Halper is a writer, comedian, filmmaker and the host
of “The Katie Halper Show,” a weekly WBAI radio show and podcast. Her writing has appeared in Rolling Stone, Salon,
The Guardian and The Nation, and she has appeared on MSNBC, RT, Sirius Radio,
Fox News Radio and “The Young Turks.” You can follow Katie Halper on Twitter at
Kthalps.
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