About six years ago, when it was being postulated that Hillary Clinton would be making a run at the Oval Office in 2008, I was frankly skeptical. After everything she had been through - Whitewater, Travelgate and then Lewinsky, watching her diligent work on the nation's health care system shot out of the sky - all of which was weathered with great dignity, she was finally vindicated with a political career of her own. As a Senator she could make a difference. And I didn't believe she was foolish enough to attempt the impossible.After all, you don't need to be a rocket scientist to know that despite the Virginia Slims commercials, we have NOT "come a long way, Baby." No Equal Rights Amendment, no equal pay, restricted (and getting more so,) reproductive rights and a pathetic representation in our national government. If 51% of the population is female, then what's up with 16% of the Senate being female? Puh-lease. So who would be dumb enough to believe that the US of A is ready to elect a woman to the White House?
Oh, Senator Clinton. Rarely, if ever, has someone fallen so completely and spectacularly from grace. Naked ambition - of either gender - is truly an ugly thing. The only thing uglier than the depths to which the Clintons seem eager to sink to in this election year, is the misogyny that seems to be a national anthem. And the sad state of affairs that this speaks to my daughter. Or to her daughter to be. I think Peggy Orenstein says it best in her article The Hillary Lesson:
Right now, my daughter doesn’t know about the obstacles she may face someday, and I’m not sure of the wisdom of girding her in advance. Even the supposedly “girl positive” picture books, designed to address this very issue, pose a dilemma. Take “Elenita,” a magical-realist tale, given to my daughter by a family friend, about a girl who wants to be a glass blower. Her father says she can’t do it: she’s too little, and besides, the trade is forbidden to women. The lesson, naturally, is that with a little ingenuity girls can be glass blowers or stevedores or [fill in the blank]. Nice. Still, I found myself hesitating over the “girls can’t” section. My daughter has never heard that “girls can’t be” or “girls can’t do.” Why should I plant the idea in her head only to knock it down?The same quandary crops up with older girls. They are sports stars, yearbook editors, valedictorians. We have assured them the world is theirs, and they have no reason to disbelieve us. Like Clinton, our daughters are no victims. And yet, all is not quite well. Not when achieving C.E.O., M.D. or Ph.D. status can still come appended with a second alphabet of b- and c-words. Not when a woman who runs for office is accused of harboring a “testicle lockbox.” Clinton, whatever else she may be, has become a reflection, a freeze frame of the complications and contradictions of female success. Her bid for the White House has embodied both the possibilities we never imagined for our daughters — shattering not just the glass ceiling but the glass stratosphere — and the vitriol that attaining them can provoke. Both are real; so Godspeed, girls.
Indeed.
