Hillary Clinton is a 68 year old woman. And plenty of people hate her for it.

[pnwmom]

It's not that she's unlikable . . . any more than most older women.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/hillary-clinton-is-a-68-year-old-woman-and-plenty-of-people-hate-her-for-it/2016/10/06/fac46ee8-8bd9-11e6-bf8a-3d26847eeed4_story.html?hpid=hp_special-topic-chain_dvorak-8pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

A woman her age is supposed to be invisible. But Hillary Clinton, who is 68, refuses to disappear — and there is no shortage of people who despise her for it.

One voter at a Donald Trump rally described her to The Washington Post’s Jenna Johnson last week as “an angry, crotchety old hag.” Trump, who isn’t exactly a spring chicken at age 70, claims Clinton lacks “stamina” and a “presidential look” and mocked her by acting out her stumble when she had pneumonia last month.

There’s misogyny, and then there’s the ageist misogyny that older women face. That under­current runs very deep in our culture, and it’s one of the reasons the haters hate Hillary Clinton so deeply.

No one has talked about this much, but it’s a very real phenomenon in this election.

SNIP

[Thinkingabout]

1. He was the one propping on the podium trying to hold himself up, she was

Just resting her hands, he did not display stamina.

[JI7]

2. i would consider it a compliment to be hated by those who hate her

[BlueCaliDem]

3. At this point in time, it's become a badge of honor, JI7. eom

[Bongo Prophet]

4. She is a warm and caring person with a sense of humor that is smarter than most - some hate that.

Fuck that noise.

[procon]

5. If Republicans were in charge, women would be forcibly queued up awaiting ice floes. nt

[Spitfire of ATJ]

11. Case in point....

[Hortensis]

27. Oh, now really, Procon.

Goodness. Time to remember that a whole lot of women are Republicans. This is DU, not a Trump rally.

[procon]

31. And as such, they continue vote against their own self interests... which explains why

Republican women don't hang out in DU.

[Hortensis]

32. Nope. Studies have shown again and again that

people mostly vote their VALUES.

[procon]

33. Two separate arguments.

"Values" are a moral judgement, and many Republican voters are quite flexible when it comes to applying those so called values to themselves. Just look at the list of staunch Republican politicos who vociferously claim to be champions of "family values" whilst they clandestinely visit hookers, gay bars and keep mistresses on the side. That's why they can overlook Trumps womanizing, his infidelities and 3 marriages.

Self interests are tangible benefits like Medicare and SS that Republican politicians and rightwing pundits have convinced their voter base to undermine. Jeopardizing the indefensible public health and safety regs that protect them, and chopping down educational and employment benefits that boost everyone's incomes, is good policy. Republican voters routinely oppose the social welfare programs that they themselves depend, and object to any efforts to modernize our flagging infrastructure, transportation, energy, communication policies.

The irrational inconsistencies don't matter, for people who don't use critical thinking skills, they automatically filter out information that doesn't confirm what they already believe, so their own individual confirmation biases is continually reinforced. That explains why Republicans still believe in trickle down economics, and why they think that repealing the "Death Tax" or Obamacare is going to benefit them.

[Hortensis]

34. It's not a debate argument. Most people vote their

values. Researchers went searching for an explanation for why conservatives were voting "against their interests" and found the same answer again and again. They don't. It's that it's not all about money for most people, or even mostly.

[colsohlibgal]

6. Age

Trump Is 70 Hillary is 68. Reagan was pretty old when he took office and already going around the bend his last couple of years.

I think it's a legit issue....I'm a bit younger but not sure I'd want that grind. And if it is an issue Trump is the elder of the two.

One might think people between 42 and maybe 57 or so would be the best combo of relative youth and experience.

Some of it is misogyny to be sure because again Trump is older and I hear nothing about his age.

[pnwmom]

13. Reagan was older than Hillary when he first took office. Most of it is misogyny

because Trump is even older and yet he keeps suggesting that she's old and frail -- despite the fact that her life expectancy is likely years longer, because she's a woman.

And she is much, much sharper than Reagan was when he took office. She's still brilliant, actually. He covered up his slips with geniality.

And no one ever seemed to care that Bernie was 74. How come Hillary's the only one who's disparaged for her age?

[MoonRiver]

20. Except that they've been doing the same things to her since she was 43.

Clinton Derangement Syndrome transverses all ages.

[Hortensis]

28. Yup. Young women today tend to think the women's rights

movement was something that ended before they were born, viewed in grainy old documentaries that always show someone burning a bra.

Instead, Hillary drew the same kind of hate-filled backlash our first black president did when she became the assertive wife of a governor, and then president, who said plainly that she intended to make the most of her relation to power, not just gratify the DC elites by giving good parties and dressing glamorously.

Now, a quarter century later, Hillary's still busy smashing down barriers to equality, and those "barriers" are still screaming in outrage at the very idea, epitomized by her.

[Maru Kitteh]

8. The only thing worse in our culture than being a "loud" older woman

is being an older woman of color.

[pnwmom]

12. +1. n/t

[BlancheSplanchnik]

9. Oh I think about this angle a LOT.

I've even whined about it in the past, when I was kind of a newbie to a club I was always afraid of and didn't want to join. Emotionally it's not an easy transition, and even worse--it's so stigmatized that even just talking about your feelings is taboo. So of course, you're afraid to even broach the subject.

Older women are another receptacle for contempt; we're expected to take it silently. We're expected to slink meekly into a lonely darkened room.

Well, anyway, we all need to see multitudes of role-models that break those claustrophobic molds we're all supposed to fit.

[rusty quoin]

10. Since 93 and before, any excuse to hate Hillary has been the focus of the right.

'I'm not a stand by your man sort'...a reason to hate.

It doesn't matter what she does, the people who hate her will create excuse after excuse to back their own hate. I blame Rush for creating it.

[senseandsensibility]

14. I agree, but there was a lot of sexist hatred for Hillary

when she was younger, too.

[pnwmom]

16. True. But sexism plus ageism is even worse. n/t

[MoonRiver]

21. Yes, it just gives them more to hate over.

[SunSeeker]

15. Yup, everytime I hear someone complain about her voice, I am appalled. She sounds like a woman.

If you have a problem with Hillary's voice, you have a problem with women.

Fuck that shit.

[sarae]

30. EXACTLY

She sounds like an average 68 yo woman. No difference. It's pretty telling when people have a serious problem with her voice or her looks.

[JRLeft]

17. There are a lot of people who don't like her foreign policy, but it's easier to broad brush.

[tavernier]

18. But she will still be president.

[Madam45for2923]

19. Boojah!

[MoonRiver]

22. Oh, yeah! Let em hate, won't change a thing!

[joshcryer]

23. 2 years younger than my mom.

And my mom has literally gone full on Clinton supporter, blowing my mind.

[Lifelong Protester]

24. K & R

Nuts on that noise-as my mom used to say.

[Maeve]

25. Preparing for the 'revenge of the crone'

In western thought, we often have the division of women into maid, matron, crone and we're finally getting to break some of that stereotype. There's been a movement to claim our age--Red Hat Society and that sort of thing--but it is taking a major political campaign to shatter thru to something approaching 'normalized' views of women. About. Freaking. Time.

Personal note--When I stopped coloring my hair and let it go silver and grey, I watched myself 'disappear'. Fuck that shit.

[frazzled]

26. On women's "invisibility" and the double-standard

I recalled this passage from Roger Angell's piece "This Old Man," on being in his 90s (which I've recommended before: read it!). He discusses the invisibility he has come to inhabit in his old age, and specifically mentions that it seems to come much earlier for women:

We elders—what kind of a handle is this, anyway, halfway between a tree and an eel?—we elders have learned a thing or two, including invisibility. Here I am in a conversation with some trusty friends—old friends but actually not all that old: they’re in their sixties—and we’re finishing the wine and in serious converse about global warming in Nyack or Virginia Woolf the cross-dresser. There’s a pause, and I chime in with a couple of sentences. The others look at me politely, then resume the talk exactly at the point where they’ve just left it. What? Hello? Didn’t I just say something? Have I left the room? Have I experienced what neurologists call a TIA—a transient ischemic attack? I didn’t expect to take over the chat but did await a word or two of response. Not tonight, though. (Women I know say that this began to happen to them when they passed fifty.) When I mention the phenomenon to anyone around my age, I get back nods and smiles. Yes, we’re invisible. Honored, respected, even loved, but not quite worth listening to anymore. You’ve had your turn, Pops; now it’s ours.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/02/17/old-man-3

Any woman over 50 who has failed to recognize her duty to become invisible is apparently not to be trusted.

[UCmeNdc]

29. They just hate her because she knows what she is doing.

That makes them upset. Why? Women are suppose to be dumb, eye candy.

[jimlup]

35. You can see it in full form over at the sister site

The Trumpites control that stage and the juries so the misogyny rarely gets a hide.