Hillary: A 'Very Large Portion' of the US Population Feels 'Uneasy' About Women Seeking Power

[DonViejo]

Source: Mediate



Hillary Clinton: A ‘Very Large Portion’ of the US Population Feels ‘Uneasy’ About Women Seeking Power

by Joseph A. Wulfsohn | 9:37 pm, May 11th, 2018

During a sit-down in Australia, Hillary Clinton reflected on what may have been responsible for her defeat in the 2016 election.

On Thursday, the twice-defeated presidential candidate sat with Julia Gillard, Australia’s first female prime minister, and spoke about sexism in politics. Clinton had a lot to say.

The former Secretary of State mentioned how men who run for office “come in all sizes and shapes” with “all kinds of hairstyles” and they go unmentioned because you’re “used to seeing men in these roles” and women are still “breaking glass ceilings.” She also invoked President Trump‘s attacks of women like Carly Fiorina and Megyn Kelly during the election for their appearances, which she insisted was a way for him to “undermine” women.

“There is still a very large proportion of the population that is uneasy with women in positions of leadership,” Clinton said, “and so the easiest way to kind of avoid having to look at someone on her merits is to dismiss her on her looks.”

Read more: https://www.mediaite.com/online/hillary-clinton-a-very-large-portion-of-the-us-population-feels-uneasy-about-women-seeking-power/

[Laurian]

1. She's correct, as usual. n/t

[mountain grammy]

2. Now that's a bigs truth bomb..

Not news to me or most of us here. It's absurd how America has managed to hold on to sexism and racism. It's made us what we are today; mostly dysfunctional.

[bucolic_frolic]

3. Gender issues

Gender issues are difficult to comment upon, one always offends someone.

British women leaders wear business suits or attire. Margaret Thatcher, Teresa May for example. It's corporate boardroom ready-to-lead-wear.

Our male politicians have more a root core of ideology that drives their ability to show their world view to the country. Our female leaders are softer more compromising in the ideological sense. Male voters are turned off by that flexibility, while women voters understand it but a few don't like another female getting ahead of them.

There. I've offended enough already but tried to be subtle.

[potone]

7. Well, I'm a woman and I'm not offended.

I'm not sure, however, that you are right. Some women are just as ideologically committed as men are. You mentioned Margaret Thatcher: no warm and fuzzy qualities there. I do think that women, due to our upbringing, are more likely to seek compromise, but that is a vast generalization and not true of all women, nor are all men ideologically rigid. Obama, for instance, was always willing to seek compromise, even when it was apparent to most outsiders that there was no profit in it.

Now I've probably offended someone too, so we're in the same club. Happy Saturday!

[pnwmom]

8. Hillary wore business suits. The women you are referring to typically wear skirted suits.

That clothing is no more professional than what Hillary wore.

[Clarity2]

4. It's really sad that this is about white men

holding power. And I think women are less corruptible than men (there are exceptions of course). Men can't get away with their illegal dealings as much, or their misogynistic behavior and oppression of women & minorities when a woman is in a place of power. It's a white man's world, but #Basta....it needs to change now.

[ehrnst]

5. Right yet again. (nt)

[beachbum bob]

6. Its pretty much true in conservative world,especially the christian conservatives who

have clear contempt for women who are not subservient....even the women themselves feel contempt towards self-reliant and stronf females.

when you have a segment of female society that believe they are pretty much worthless in the manner that conservatives think, its no surprise. But that didn't cause Hillary to lose...its was a cohesive conspiracy by russia, putin, stein and trump that was able to do it...

[bronxiteforever]

9. Sometimes I say to myself good God

are we still discussing this in 2018! Then I think yes we are because it is truth in 2018 in the US.

[dlk]

10. Brilliant Piece - Hillary Names It and Explains It

Hillary, as usual, gets to the heart of the matter--most Americans are uncomfortable with women in positions of power. She also addresses the pervasive misogyny not only within the Republican Party but the ways they cynically weaponize it for political gain. America lost a tremendous opportunity for a brilliant and talented president and like her or not, we are all poorer because of it.

[mcar]

11. She is correct, of course

I expect US media to start their tsk, tsking any second now.

[yallerdawg]

12. If you don't think we have gender issues here...

then you probably believe that after "we" elected a black man to be president, we now live is a "post-racist" America.

[karynnj]

13. Yesterday, a post showed a large crowd for HRC in Australia where she spoke

of complex foreign policy issues. She warned them about the encroachments of China and Russia. That seemed to not get much press here in the US.

If this comment gets attention, it will show that it is the fixation of the MEDIA on 2016 -- and we can expect the next phase of "why is HRC still casting blame on others for 2016".

As to the topic itself, it is impossible to know if there were more women who voted for Clinton because of a dream for a female President or men (and possibly conservative women) who voted against her because she was a woman. For years, it was said that just as it took having a strong class of women in middle management to get many women CEOs, women needed to be Governors and Senators etc to have standing to run for President. (Note the obvious - Trump had no such experience.) At this point, Clinton is the only female nominee of a major
party. With a sample of ONE, it is impossible to make any global inferences.

In early polling (in 2015), she was seen as winning against any Republican - though not by a landslide. When that polling occured, one thing we KNOW people knew was that she was female -- yet, she won. I know women from NJ who leaned Republican and wanted her to win the primary and the election because it would give us a woman President. In fact, go back to 2015 (even here) and one theory that Clinton's campaign had was that she could win married suburban white women - a category that we usually lose. This could suggest that she did not lose because she was a woman. She may have lost because of the email investigation itself, Comey, the Russians, the country turning more towards "change" as 2016 came to a close.

I am not writing this to criticize Clinton, but because accepting this without any proof this as a truism. The danger of it is that it will make it harder for a woman in 2020, 2024 etc to get the nomination.

[yallerdawg]

14. Or, this:

Kind of an exclusive club, isn't it?

But one day, the "right one" WILL come around.

[karynnj]

16. There is no question that there was prejudices that in the past precluded a woman

being elected President. I think that it would have happened had HRC won the nomination in 2008. Polling during the primaries did show her winning head to heads with various Republicans. I also do not think it was necessarily a negative factor in 2016.

In any year, there are some voters who will vote for any nominee of their party. (For the Republicans, 2016 certainly tested that - as Trump is both a terrible person and completely without the knowledge that is helpful). I don't think there were solid Democratic voters, who ended up either not voting for HRC or voting for someone else because she was a woman.

Beyond those two strongly partisan groups, you have some people who are in the middle. They are likely also the most likely not to get out to vote if they are not motivated. I suspect that the angry, negative campaign may have depressed those leaning to our side more than those leaning Republican - maybe because HRC was supposed to win and we, as the party that held the Presidency, were more complacent. After 8 years out of power, those leaning right may have been easier to motivate.

Looking back, remember that in early 2009, Obama won with a landslide, we ultimately after Franken was seated and Specter changed parties briefly had 60 Senators and we had a healthy majority in the House. From 2009 through 2014, the Congress changed to Republican control in both Houses. Yet, I remember 2015 and 2016, we were all way too confident that Clinton would win. I wonder if the trend actually favored the Republicans taking back the Presidency. I looked back at polling report dot com and - maybe because it was so overwhelmingly likely that Clinton would be the nominee, there were no polls - as in other non incumbent elections - where generic Republican was polled versus generic Democrat.

In 2004, you could have posted a similar chart and made the point that no African American could be elected. Yet, Obama won a landslide. 2008 was a Democratic year, the war, Katrina, and the economic collapse made the Republicans toxic. Conventional wisdom went from a member of a minority can not win to President Obama won a huge landslide because he was incredibly charismatic. He is undeniably charismatic, but I suspect that anyone who is winning elections is seen in those victories - smiling and laughing - as at least somewhat charismatic. (Imagine the difference in what would have been said of HRC had she won.)

The reason why I HATE the unfounded claim that 2016 was a loss because HRC was a woman is not just because I do not believe it, but because it harms the chances of every woman who might seek the nomination. Just with Obama, I think the same will happen with some woman (possibly in 2020) - who will capture the mood of the country and be seen as the leader we need.

[yallerdawg]

17. My problem with this is the dismissal of what Hillary said.

Women are held to a different standard, and have no demonstrable equality when it comes to public positions of power.

All I heard in 2016 was the refrain, "I won't vote for Hillary because she is a woman."

My answer was, "Why don't you vote for Hillary despite her being a woman, then?"

Until we make it affirmatively so, it will not change. There will always be something "wrong" with the female candidate.

Sure, enlightened California put Hillary over the top in popular vote.

But drop off California's vote and 49 states totaled up for the other choice.

[karynnj]

19. I am not dismissing what Hillary said - I am disagreeing with it

You say that you heard this from people in 2016. I actually didn't. My experience was closer to the theories put out by the Clinton campaign that she would win back married white women. I personally know women who voted against Gore and Kerry, but for Hillary Clinton. They were excited to vote for a woman. (Note that Gore and Kerry both had less baggage than Clinton and they were male -- and they lost. )

My point is that until Obama, there was no African American candidate who came close to getting the nomination. The same is true with Clinton, before her in 2008, no woman came close to getting the nomination. I content that had Clinton gotten the nomination in 2008, she would have beaten McCain. It was a Democratic year.

[meadowlander]

31. Many other countries have had female heads of state

in some cases for decades and I would argue that the general zeitgeist in those countries was not inherently more sexist than the US.

Indira Gandhi was elected 52 years ago and day to day Indian culture is significantly more sexist than US culture (selective abortion of female fetuses is still common there; it's not uncommon for single women on public transport or walking alone on the street in daylight to be gang raped to put them back in their places).

Margaret Thatcher and Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo were elected in 1979 (39 years ago), Sirimavo Bandaranaike in 1960 (58 years ago), Golda Meir in 1969 (49 years ago), Benazir Bhutto in 1988 (30 years ago), Mary Robinson in 1990 (28 years ago), Edith Cresson in 1991 (27 years ago), Hanna Suchocka in 1992 (26 years ago), Tansu Çiller and Kim Campbell in 1993 (25 years ago), Jenny Shipley in 1997 (21 years ago) Gloria Arroyo in 2001 (17 years ago).

I don't think that the UK, Portugal, Sri Lanka, Israel, Pakistan, Ireland, France, Poland, Turkey, Canada, New Zealand or the Philippines are inherently any less sexist as societies than the US is nor are the literally dozens of other countries that have already had female heads of state. I've lived in the UK, Canada, Ireland, Israel and New Zealand and they all have large rural conservative religious populations the same as the US. They all have bonkers right wing media running smear campaigns against progressive candidates. Yet somehow they all broke this particular glass ceiling decades ago.

If "the right" female candidate can win in Pakistan or Turkey, I have every faith that "the right" female candidate can win in the US.

Hillary Clinton, for all her many good qualities, was not media savvy or charismatic enough. But I think Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris are. (And yes, I know Clinton won but honestly she should have been up 20 points against a candidate like Trump). I don't think we should be writing off the potential for a female President just because the last 45 were men or because Clinton lost the electoral college vote and had the election stolen from her by a Russian psy-ops campaign.

[yallerdawg]

33. I guess it's "still too soon."

Hillary says one thing, here comes the expert analysis correcting her.

A great number of democracies have elected a woman as their leader. Hillary is talking to one above! Your point is, they overcame their sexism and misogyny, we're just as good as them? Hillary was just a bad candidate?

Yes. Most definitely "still too soon" for us.

[meadowlander]

34. What your point?

That because Clinton didn't win, no female candidate possibly could? That nobody else in America is allowed to have an opinion about the degree of sexism in American culture? That any criticism of Clinton is inherently sexist?

I think that's bullshit. If a female candidate can win in Pakistan, a female candidate can win in the US.

And BTW, I am female and work in a male dominated industry. You don't actually need to mansplain to me how much sexism there is in the US or what its impact is. I've been living it for forty years.

[StevieM]

18. In 2013 she was extremely popular. She was leading GOP contenders in the polls while other

Democrat hopefuls were trailing.

She was brought down by the fake email scandal. If you eliminate it from the equation I think she would have won by a landslide. I disagree that 2016 was a change election, even though the results produced a very different kind of victorious candidate.

I think her gender made it easier for people to choose to believe the nonsense that she had somehow broken the law. We have a long history of beating up on women who seek power, and even of criminalizing them. Of course, the out-of-control partisan FBI, including but not limited to James Comey, also played a huge role. In any event, I think it is clear that she lost because the American people were convinced that she somehow broke the law and got away with it.

[karynnj]

20. I think if anything a woman would have been seen as LESS likely to break rules,

because we tend to be more compulsive in following them. The email scandal became a scandal because she handled it poorly. Even if I conceded that setting up her own server was done out of necessity, she should have turned over work emails electronically to the SD when she left. Had she done this, it likely would never have come out and the SD would have used them to comply with the Foia requests and congressional emails.

As it was, even though requests existed even from her last year in the Obama administration, they did not have the emails easily available to respond. ( Searching everyone else's archives to capture all the calls received from her is non trivial.) It was late 2014 when they received them. Then in March 2015, it all came out and her responses were not immediately complete and accurate ... and she asked the SD to put them all online. The SD was soon given a timeline that they strived to meet, which led to monthly releases which brought the story back into the news every month.

The scandal was over blown, but not fake. It was aggrevated by Comey's actions ... but it never had to occur.

[StevieM]

21. I disagree. The email story was a fake scandal. It was not an ethics violation, like Iran-Contra.

Last edited Sat May 12, 2018, 02:57 PM - Edit history (1)

And the GOP was always going to find a way to make it a big story. They controlled Congress. They could hold hearing on anything, anytime they wanted. And I believe the FBI was always going to find a reason to get involved, given all the times that Comey made a decision that was totally devastating to HRC, even when DOJ guidelines said not to do it.

And given how harsh the SD IG office was in their report, unfairly so IMO, I am convinced they would have found some reason to investigate something and then issue a harsh report.

My point is that the details of how the "scandal" unfolded could have varied, but in some way or another they were going to make a story out of it. The same can be said about the criminalization of HRC in general--if they hadn't picked the fake email scandal they would have just picked something else. For example, they may have started lying about the Clinton Foundation sooner, including congressional hearings. And if not that, then something else.

This is something that they would have done to any Democratic candidate. But I do think it is worse when the candidate is a woman. I don't agree that a woman is seen as less likely to break the rules. I think we are more harsh in assessing their behavior and believing negative interpretations of their actions and motives.

[karynnj]

24. the SD IG was appointed by Obama at the recommendation of Kerry

Arguing that it was not Iran Contra, which was far more than an ethics violation, does not mean it was not wrong. What is sad was there was NOTHING she needed to hide. Congress and the media were clearly not going to stop their requests -- did she expect the SD to stonewall for 4 years??

You can argue they would have chosen something else -- and I agree they would have. However, given that she intended to run she should have avoided giving them an issue all packaged up with a big red bow on it! She also should have scrupulously followed the intent and the letter of her agreement with the Obama administration. Those rules would have protected her as she ran.

Compared to Trump, she was a saint -- but she really did make a mistake on the email.

[Paladin]

15. Hillary had the correct term for such people, early on: Deplorables. (nt)

[Jim Lane]

22. She's right but it's only part of the picture

As karynnj points out in #19, there were some people who were excited to vote for a woman. Certainly Clinton's campaign thought so, given that one of the themes pushed by the campaign was to shatter "that highest and hardest glass ceiling...." IMO she was correct to make that pitch. She surely received some votes from people who would not have voted for a man with identical credentials and policy positions. The shattering of the glass ceiling helped improve turnout, attracting some Clinton voters who might otherwise have stayed home.

If the primaries had fallen out differently, giving us a general election of Bernie Sanders versus Carly Fiorina, the large majority of voters would have voted for the same party that they actually did vote for. Some Republican misogynists would have been uneasy with the prospect of a woman as President. Some Democratic feminists would have regretted the missed opportunity. Nevertheless, most of the people in each group would have given more weight to other factors.

The question that's hard to answer about the actual election is the net effect of gender. Does anyone know of any good data on that subject?

[karynnj]

25. I think it would be hard to study after the fact and I have never read of any analysis that was done

It would be very hard to design a study - especially one that is completely generic. For one, they need to consider party. I would have no ability to answer a question that just asked who I would vote for in a race between a woman and a man. My answer would differ if the woman were Sarah Palin vs any Democrat and Hillary Clinton vs any Republican. However, if you add party (keeping the people generic), what the pollster would get from my data point is that I will vote for a Democrat (male or female) over a Republican (male or female).

[Jim Lane]

28. I agree that it would be hard.

Along with the points you mention, some people wouldn't respond honestly. An example is the turnout issue. Would people admit "Yes, I bestirred myself to vote because a woman was running, but if it had been the usual two men I wouldn't have bothered"? That's on top of the obvious problem that many people who were actually uncomfortable with a woman as President would be embarrassed to admit that and would point to other factors as their reason for voting for Trump.

[karynnj]

32. The only thing I can think of to obliquely answer this is to test a set of likely men and women

against Trump. For example take Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar and Kirsten Gillibrand and 4 men - Bernie, Cory Booker, Chris Murphy and Andrew Cuomo. Describe a candidate in 2 to three sentences and then ask the head to head question with Trump. (This won't eliminate the name recognition factor, but it might minimize it.

Give this survey to a large representative sample - big enough to allow some reasonable precision when you split by Democrat/Independent/Republican and male/female.

You could have a question for each combination to gauge enthusiasm (turn out). The idea is that the set of potential candidates has to be wide enough for each gender to see if something other than gender of the candidate matters. Obviously the choice of candidates matters, but if ALL the male candidates outperform ALL the female candidates -- there might be some truth to the idea that it is harder for a woman to win. That is why in my choice that I spent an entire 2 minutes on - I made sure some of the male candidates had the low name recognition of most of the women.

Incidentally, this might have to be done soon before people start to align themselves with their primary choice.

[lunamagica]

23. She is right. I stupidly believed we were beyond that. Not anymore

[Snackshack]

26. She is absolutely right.

[stonecutter357]

27. K&R !

[cilla4progress]

29. True

dat!

[riversedge]

30. I met some of them while canvassing for Hillary. They are out there. YUP!