Why The Outcome Of The French Election Matters To Hillary
By The Stiletto (bio)
The Washington Post writes about a woman who is aiming to be the first female president of her country, but has “weak support from women” and details the problems she has been having courting them: “some women feel angry she is playing a feminist card but has not been a particularly strong champion of feminist causes”; others point to her lack of charisma.
Hillary Clinton? No, Ségolène Royal.
But before Hillary breathes a sigh of relief, she should know that lefty American feminists apparently feel pretty much the same way about her:
We sat around the dinner table, a group of 50-something progressive feminists, talking to a friend from England about presidential politics. We were all for Hillary, weren’t we, he asked. Hillary? We hated Hillary. He was taken aback. Weren’t we her base? Wasn’t she one of us? Why did we hate Hillary? …
Women don’t trust Hillary. They see her as an opportunist; many feel betrayed by her. Why?
Baby boomer women grew up with the Feminine Mystique and then came of age with the Women’s Liberation Movement. As a result, millions of us have spent our lives crafting a compromise - or a fusion - between femininity on the one hand and feminism on the other. …
Hillary, by contrast, seems to want to be more like a man in her demeanor and politics, makes few concessions to the social demands of femininity, and yet seems to be only a partial feminist. She seems above us, exempting herself from compromises women have to make every day, while, at the same time, leaving some of the basic tenets of feminism in the dust. We are sold out on both counts.
Being a woman isn’t enough to capture the women’s vote - or even just the feminist vote - in France or the U.S. That’s bad news for both Ségolène and Hillary.
politicalmavens.com
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