Today at a campaign event in New Hampshire, Sen. Hillary Clinton’s (D-NY) “eyes welled up with tears” as she spoke about why she was running for president. “It’s not easy, and I couldn’t do it if I didn’t passionately believe it was the right thing to do,” she said.
It took a bit longer than I’d expected for sexism to rear it’s ugly head in the 2008 campaign, but not by much. Hillary Clinton cries, and all of a sudden questions are raised about whether or not she’s “too emotional” to be President…as if she’s channeling Edmund Muskie. Yes, you read that correctly. A random display of legitimate emotion is now cause for concern. Of course, she’s female, and we all know how flighty and emotional dem wimminz can can be, huh? Of course, if a man cries….
Mitt Romney cries, and he’s “genuine”. Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader © cries, and he’s “sentimental”. Robert Gates cries, and he’s “showing his human side”. Hillary Clinton cries, and she’s a “hysterical weak woman”. Not that there’s a double standard at work here or anything….
It would be nice to think that we’ve evolved as a society to the point where we didn’t feel the need to fall back on tired stereotypes in order to destroy someone. (Shouldn’t we be able to destroy someone the old-fashioned way- negative ads, whisper campaigns, and cheap, transparent lies and propaganda??) It would be nice, but it would also be horribly naive. The reality is that, as a nation, we’re still predisposed to view men as tough and decisive and women as weepy, weak, and overly emotional. A woman who succeeds in being viewed as “tough” can count on eventually being categorized as a “castrating bitch” and/or a “closet dyke”.
I have little doubt that Hillary Clinton is every bit as tough, perhaps even tougher, than any man currently running for President. Yet how often is she described in truly nasty, mean-spirited terms? And something like half of all voting-age Americans have said they wouldn’t vote for Clinton under any circumstance. Why? Because Americans still expect their women to be dainty and deferential.
Not that there’s any sort of double standard, though….
