Lakshmi Chaudhry has a piece over at The Nation which addresses the problem that many of us have with Hillary Clinton. We want a woman to be president, but not a rightwing woman and not a centrist woman.
What we want is a progressive president!
What Women See When They See Hillary
Many of the very same feminists who were her most ardent supporters as First Lady are now fiercely opposed to her historic bid to become the first female President of the United States. The woman once described by Susan Faludi as a symbol of "the joy of female independence" now evokes ambivalence, disdain and, sometimes, outright vitriol. The right wing's favorite "femi-nazi" now has to contend with Jane Fonda comparing her to "a ventriloquist for the patriarchy with a skirt and a vagina."
So what's up with the Hillary-bashing? "Women don't trust Hillary. They see her as an opportunist; many feel betrayed by her," wrote Susan Douglas in a May In These Times article titled "Why Women Hate Hillary." A month later, in her Newsweek column, Anna Quindlen declared, "The truth is that Senator Clinton has a woman problem."
Not exactly true, as it turns out. Hillary Clinton was the number-one choice of 42 percent of likely Democratic primary women voters in a recent Zogby survey, compared with 19 percent for Barack Obama and 15 percent for John Edwards. And her favorable rating among independent women is a whopping twenty-one points higher than among independent men.
Let's be clear: Hillary has a "feminist problem," and more so with those who lean left. . . . [A]s Center For New Words program director Jaclyn Friedman puts it. "Hillary's not my friend. She's not actually progressive.
Read more . . .
Does Hillary have a woman problem? Cast your vote in the Nation Poll.
Hillary Clinton 2008 President News Gender Feminist Progressive Politics Bush
