Would you like some contempt for half the human race with that?
I've been visiting family; it's good. But this morning, when I was sitting on the couch bouncing with excitement over the news of John Edwards' announcement of his presidential candidacy, my brother and my cousins started discussing Hillary Clinton. "Is Hillary running?" A. (female) asked. "She hasn't officially announced yet, but she's raised a ton of money," I answered. "She's running, all right," one of the guys said, making it sound almost as ominous as, "It looks like cancer."
"Good," said A., causing general surprise - she's not a Democrat, at least not publicly.
"Why do you want her to run?" asked C., her sister's boyfriend.
"Because!" A. answered. "We need a woman in charge of things."
"Not /that/ woman," came the immediate response from another of the guys, but C. was eyeing A. with a poisonous look. "Are you a lesbian or something?" he demanded.
A. was offended. "No. Why?" she shot back.
C. shrugged. "I'm just wondering what your big attraction is to women."
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This is the problem I have, and probably will continue to have, with this upcoming presidential primary season. So much of the opposition to Hillary Clinton is rooted in outright hatred of women that I feel dirty just thinking about supporting someone else. (And I think about it a lot. I like John Edwards.) A lot of feminist bloggers oppose Hillary Clinton, but that doesn't help me out, because when their commenters agree, it's always with the same misogynist undertones.
Comments
The real question is what the Hillary bashers would say if it was Condoleeza Rice running? Would you feel any remorse over supporting Edwards, or any other Democratic male for that matter, over her?
It comes down to ideas in this race, and while Hillary is heads above Rice in just about every aspect, several of the men running are heads above Ms Clinton and her triangulating corpratist bunch.
Posted by: Mike | December 31, 2006 11:11 AM