Hating Hillary

InTheseTimes.com features an insightful piece by author and professor Susan J. Douglas. It seeks to answer the question, "Why Women Hate Hillary." If you've watched the polls, Hillary's negative numbers--even among Democrats--are pretty darn high.

The author is a feminist, and so you'd expect her to support a fellow Leftist. But this is far from the case. In addition to a refresher-course on the bizarre world of feminism, the piece explains why so many people don't like Hillary Clinton.

For people like my friends and me, her hawkish position on Iraq and her insistence that the U.S. maintain a military presence there even after the troops are withdrawn have been very disappointing.

So apparently anything short of complete surrender and humiliation of the U.S. military is too "hawkish." Okay, anyway...

The article also seems to point to Hillary's inconsistencies:

Hillary, by contrast, seems to want to be more like a man in her demeanor and politics, makes few concessions to the social demands of femininity, and yet seems to be only a partial feminist.

I'm not sure if they're referring to the way her personality can be utterly devoid of any feminine grace one minute, and then pretending to love baking cookies the next, but that's my guess anyway.

The piece then digresses for a while into male-envy and male-bashing:

When Geraldine Ferraro ran for vice president in 1984, the recurring question was whether she had the cojones to push the red button, as if that is the ultimate criterion for leading the country.

It seems this feminist who decries Hillary's inconsistency on one hand then expresses disdain for the decisiveness, strength and resolve that are typically regarded as male characteristics ("macho" as Douglas calls it).

So what is Douglas and her fellow feminists looking for?

We want a break with the past, optimism, and a recommitment to the government caring about and serving the needs of everyday people.

In other words, emotionalism and socialism.

Where are feminists most likely to get it? Not from Hillary, according to Douglas.

We want what feminism began to fight for 40 years ago—humanizing deeply patriarchal institutions. And, ironically, we see candidates like John Edwards or Barack Obama—men—offering just that.

Some sensitive, crying men. Men like the "Breck Girl" John Edwards.

I don't think a woman has to give up her femininity in order to be a leader, such as president.

I served in the U.S. military while stationed in England when Margaret Thatcher was prime minister. There's a woman I'd vote for in a heartbeat! In fact, I'd take her over most of the Republican 2008 candidates.

Margaret Thatcher was every bit the lady, yet she displayed the toughness that is absolutely essential in our dangerous world. She was under no illusions that if we all "just gave peace a chance" that evil people were going to play nice.

I think it's entirely possible for a woman to become president in the United States (my daughter will be, one day :-)). After all, there was Lady Thatcher in England, Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan and many others around the world.

But for that to happen, it will take a female candidate who isn't trying to pretend to be a man--one who is comfortable in her femininity--and one who isn't wearing rose-colored glasses in a world of evil, dangerous men.