Hillary

In an effort to show a softer side, Hillary declared on Tuesday night that she has found her voice in New Hampshire.  And she did, with women older than 45.  Ironically, that voice has been not words, per se, but emotion:  almost-tears and a smile—big or demure, depending on the circumstances.  Some could argue, what took so long, college, law school, years of working as a lawyer and First Lady and only now she found her voice? But what took so long to find the right voice to connect with women voters is that her means of expression in this campaign has been confined by her gender. The media hasn’t allowed her to call attention to the historic nature of her run to be the first female President in the same way that it has allowed Obama to capitalize on the historic nature of his candidacy as the first African-American president.  

Hillary is in a much more difficult position than Obama.  In finding the right image to project she has been constrained by gender expectations in a way that Obama has not confined by his race.  He’s allowed to be more fluid, more postmodern. He can proclaim in his Iowa speech, “Hope—hope—is what led me here today – with a father from Kenya; a mother from Kansas; and a story that could only happen in the United States of America.”  As the first female presidential candidate Hillary has had to invent the playbook for how to present herself as a female leader that will appeal to other women. Gender has confined her in her campaign, and before New Hampshire has imprisoned her in a no-win situation. She has been hampered by, or run into several damaging female archetypes in people's minds which, so far, have led her to miss the opportunity to galvanize young women voters who are flocking to Obama. Before New Hampshire, she was so busy focusing on appearing strong and powerful, not constrained by her gender, that she came across as cold and calculating. When she has tried verbally to defend herself like a man, she's called angry. When she directly mentions the historic nature of her presidency, she’s derided for raising the gender card.  In fact, it was precisely in November when Clinton was roundly condemned by the media for raising the gender card that Obama’s stock started to rise.

Carl Bernstein said on CNN Tuesday night, "[Saturday] night she said, look I am a woman running for president. That resonated. She is now campaigning as a woman. We haven't seen that until now." But that's not true.  From the get-go, Hillary has been prevented from capitalizing on her gender in the same way that Obama has been allowed to capitalize on his race.  He’s even praised by pundits for not mentioning his race—that’s because all his references are indirect.  Obama constantly passionately invokes Dr. King and gets away with it. In his New Hampshire speech he said his catchprase, “Yes We Can” was also the call of “a King who took us to the mountaintop and pointed the way to the Promised Land.” He refers to his candidacy as “historic” without directly mentioning race; instead, prominent public figures, like Colin Powell, mention his race for him. Powell said this week on Tavis Smiley that citizens across the country can "enjoy this moment where a person like Barack Obama can knock down all of these old barriers that people thought existed with respect to the opportunities that are available to African Americans.” When Oprah introduced Obama before thousands of mostly African-Americans in South Carolina, race was the subtext.  Oprah introduced Obama with a reference to the book, “The Autobiography of Jane Pittman,” an African-American novel that surely resonated with the audience.  He then aligned himself with Oprah, saying their appearance on the stage was “improbable.” Why improbable? Because of their race, of course.  

But when Hillary tried several months ago to galvanize young women by explicitly mentioning gender, it backfired.  In November, she returned to her alma mater, Wellesley to try to underscore the historic nature of her candidacy. She said in her speech, "in so many ways, this all-women's college prepared me to compete in the all-boys' club of presidential politics. So let's roll up our sleeves and get to work together. We're ready to shatter that highest glass ceiling." She also that day released a YouTube video called “The Politics of Pile On,” showing clips of the male Democratic candidates attacking her by name.  The press immediately pounced on her for “raising the gender card.” So Clinton early on lost an opportunity to inject much-needed passion or “soul” into her campaign.  

Kathleen Dolan, professor of political science at University of Wisconsin, said, "This whole Obama love fest has been about ‘oh, dear God, America might be allowed to elect a black man!,’ and yet she is not allowed to use that emotional appeal to her favor. She represents the most underrepresented demographic group in the United States but when she says that she is criticized.”

And it's other women journalists who have been among her harshest critics. (Aren’t we often each other’s worst foes.)  Maureen Dowd derided Clinton's complaint of the men ganging up on her, as the "Don't hit me, I'm a girl" strategy. The Washington Post's Ruth Marcus deplored the "antifeminist subtext" of her campaign. Hillary's early approach was all wrong.  This rang too much like “second wave feminism”, too strident, too much carrying on about how men are sexist, too serious, too lacking in humor and warmth, for successful, college-educated women who like to think they were successful despite being a woman, that their gender isn't an excuse.  

The day after Clinton’s attempt to make her candidacy seem historic, Matt Lauer questioned Obama, "Now it sounds to me, Senator [Obama] as if I just heard the gender card drop." Obama responded that when he was asked about foreign policy issues at a recent debate, "I didn't come out and say, 'Look, I'm being hit on because I look different from the rest of the folks on the stage.'" As a result, Clinton has since shied away from mentioning her gender. Criticized for “raising the gender card” whenever she tried to come out and declare the historic nature of her run for presidency, she or her managers must have decided she shouldn’t focus on women’s issues.  She hasn’t talked about abortion rights, equal pay, child care, parental leave. One would think that because women make up the majority of Democrats, and more women traditionally vote in the primaries than men, that Hillary would have come out with a clarion call for women's issues.  But then pundits would have excorciated her for raising the gender card.  That’s why Edwards’ wife got away with criticizing her as not as good a candidate for women as her husband was. She said, “[Hillary’s] just not as vocal a women’s advocate as I want to see. John is. And then she says, or maybe her supporters say, “Support me because I’m a woman,” and I want to say to her, “Well, then support me because I’m a woman.” The question is not so much how she campaigns — that’s theater. The question is, what does her campaign tell you about how she’ll govern? And I’m not convinced she’d be as good an advocate for women.”  What Elizabeth Edwards didn’t acknowledge is that the media wouldn’t let Hillary call attention to what she has done for women and how she stands on women’s issues.

Last Saturday Hillary did get some applause for saying, “I am the first female candidate for President--that’s change,” because she was responding to Edwards’s verbal attack labeling her “the status quo.”  We are threatened by the image of a too-powerful woman, but we’re ready to jump to the support of a woman who is being attacked by a man. Remember the Lazio moment that ushered in Hillary’s senatorial win.  The image of a man verbally disrespecting a woman resonates with women.  (This explains why women viciously hated Martha Stewart until she got thrown in prison for inside trading and her popularity rose among women.)

That’s why another key moment in Saturday’s debate was Hillary’s, then Obama’s response, to her likeability question. When she was asked her to respond to why polls find her less likeable than Obama: she pretended to be sad, she was demure, she lowered her eyes, she said her "feelings were hurt." And then she smiled big. In a rare moment of gracelessness, Obama said, "you're likeable enough." Even George Stephanapolous called his response "peevish."  Others called him “prissy.” Hillary's typically feminine, emotionally "soft" response was praised, while her angry defense of herself as an "agent of change" in response to Edwards's calling her "the status quo" was condemned as "too angry."  People want Hillary to show more emotion, that’s her new winning strategy, but only certain emotions, traditionally feminine, soft ones, definitely not anger, that much deplored expression when seen in powerful women, but feminine emotion-smiles and tears. 
 
Then we come to the key moment when Hillary Clinton teared-up when talking with a group of undecided women voters in New Hampshire.  In response to a question about how she stays so "upbeat,” she said, "It's not easy, and I couldn't do it if I didn't passionately believe it was the right thing to do. I have so many opportunities for this country," she paused, as her eyes welled with tears, "I just don't want to see us fall backwards. This is very personal for me, it's not just political, it's not just public. I see what's happening-we have to reverse it."  (Ironically, the “personal is political” phrase originated in the 60s to get women active in the political process, to make their personal issues political ones, and now Clinton finds herself in the opposite position—trying to convince the public she has a personal side.)

While some found her emotional moment genuine, others in the media immediately pounced on her tears as being manufactured.  A New York Post article stated, “Reporters scrambled to assess whether it was a true human moment or a calculated one designed to create a connection with voters.” The day after the New Hampshire primary, Jesse Jackson Jr. asked why Clinton didn’t cry after Katrina-proof he said that her tears are all about her.   Yes, perhaps the tears were in part theatrics--but why is Obama allowed to get away with plenty of puffery and manufactured moments. Isn’t politics today all about image and stagecraft? Why is only the woman called on it.  (Watch a YouTube video of Obama and Oprah speaking at South Carolina together; how the two gifted orators inject a diction into their speech that they don't normally, to make it sound like an African-American church sermon; they weren’t criticized in the press, but Hillary was when she once changed her diction to be more Southern to a Southern audience.)   

Hillary won the New Hampshire primary because she finally figured out this week how to get women to look at her and instead of being threatened, feel, ah, there is a woman who suffers just as I do because she is a woman, I identify with her. As CNN’s Glora Bolger said, trying to explain Clinton's surprise upset, "She's definitely become a lot more likeable in the last few days."]
 
This explains why Hillary won more women voters over age 45 than Obama, but not those women under 30 who have been saying they would rather wait for a different female presidential candidate. Younger women, college students, haven't yet faced any gender discrimination; they're still in the bubble of school which as countless books have argued, actually favor girls and their style of learning. They have the luxury of thinking they are "postfeminist" because they have yet to start families, where the division of labor is still shaped by gender, which in turn, shapes women's experience at work. They've yet to experience unequal pay, or the glass ceiling at our nation's best law firms and investment banks. This also explains why single women offered the strongest support, by a 17 point margin-they can clearly identify with her tears.

As Prof. Dolan said, "Young women raised in the postfeminist age have no idea what Hillary--and women 40, 50 and older went through. We remember the shit. Young women today think they're beyond gender; they will learn-in some way in the workplace-in the family-we are still a gendered society-women are valued in ways different and often inferior to men."
 
Hillary's challenge in the days ahead is going to be how to reach out to those postfeminist twenty and early thirtysomething women who haven't yet suffered much because of their gender.   These are going to be the votes that Obama and Hillary will have to fight over.  A prediction: the Clinton campaign will feature Chelsea more front and center, and allow her finally to talk to the press. We'll see a lot less of Bill, a lot more of Chelsea. We saw a glimpse of this at the end of Hillary's victory speech Tuesday night: she hugged Chelsea, then Bill, and then Chelsea again, and they gazed lovingly and proudly at each other.  (Usually the victory speech image is of husband and wife.) Many young women will see themselves in Chelsea in a way they never will in Hillary.  And many women who might not be fond of Hillary for other reasons (such as standing by her man) can acknowledge that Hillary did a fine job raising Chelsea.

Bill Clinton (with Gore by his side) could use his sex appeal as a way to attract young female voters in 1993.  I remember Naomi Wolf on the Yale campus screaming that "These men are babes!" to the cheers of the co-eds. The “Obama Girl” YouTube video only strengthened Obama's appeal. Hillary can't capitalize on her sex appeal as a strategy. (When she innocently showed an inch of cleavage a female Washington Post reporter jumped all over her.) So maybe she should run on her maternal appeal.