`New Rules' for Hillary and Barack
Zillah Eisenstein
Professor of Politics
Ithaca College, Ithaca New York
www.ithaca.edu/zillah
December 2007
It is hard to speak about the complex politics of sex and gender
and
race, or feminisms for that matter, in a presidential campaign. But we
need
a dialogue that creates some space to really think about the way gender,
and
with it race, are a part of the present campaign.
A big disappointment of this election for some is that Hillary does
not seem like more of an agent for/of change than she does. She is
instead
caught remaking the old—Bill's old-boy political networks. She seems
locked
into the past for many women and/or progressives looking for an end to the
Iraq war and the arrogance of U.S. politics. Too much has changed and
Hillary follows old gender rules. Hillary isn't compared with a Laura
Bush
at the moment, but other women, like Michele Obama and Elizabeth Edwards
who
are very much like herself, professional women with law degrees and their
own pedigree.
By now several countries have female presidents: Liberia, Chile,
Germany, Argentina to name a few. India, Israel and Pakistan had women
leaders long before the U.S. talking about it. Hillary simply expresses a
new form of nepotism within this last enclave. We should not forget Nancy
Pelosi, Condoleezza Rice, or Madeleine Albright who make clear that
powerful
females can be elected and appointed to office. And we should not forget
General Janis Karpinski who oversaw Abu Ghraib prison or private Lynndie
England who humiliated prisoners there. But women occupying previously
manly
spaces do not inherently mean that sexual or racial or gender equality
exists. As such, females like Hillary can act as sexual decoys.
A decoy is a misrepresentation—one thinks one sees something that
is
not really there. So although Hillary is definitely female, she has no
record of advancing women's rights at home or abroad in spite of her
rhetoric at the Beijing Conference on Women. Of course, I guess it also
matters how one defines rights and feminism. But Hillary has never
identified herself as a feminist, like Michele Bachelet has done as
Chile's
president, nor did she choose human rights ahead of security issues when
asked about the choice in a recent presidential debate.
Hillary has said yes to cluster bombs, yes to Israel's bombing of Lebanon,
yes to curtailing abortion, yes to a constitutional amendment against
flag-burning, no to gay marriage.
In `92 Hillary promised herself as a co-president that was newly different
at the time. Today she promises Bill, and a co-presidency seems old hat.
The footing has shifted for Hillary, but she does not get it. Even if not
enough has changed in the last decade, too much has changed to make
Hillary's run for president remarkable. And Barack Obama is starting to
get
it. So, he says that his mixed-race family and the interplay of race and
gender especially for women of color must be part of the narrative of
change.
All this is not to say that Hillary is sometimes held to different
standards because she is a woman. When she is criticized for her cleavage
and her cackle or called a bitch this is unacceptable misogyny.
The rub here is that Hillary will not speak honestly and forthrightly
about this discriminatory treatment or the reality that despite her run
for
the presidency we still live in a white man's world.
The presidential candidates need to listen up. There are as many
kinds of
feminism(s) as there are ideas about what a woman is, can be, or should
be.
In part this is because one's sex, as in female, does not automatically
clarify one's notion of gender, as in one's notion of womanhood. Or as
Simone de Beauvoir stated years ago: one is born female and becomes a
woman.
So the woman we choose to be is complex, and plural, and not homogeneous.
It
is then no surprise that Hillary is running into problems assuming she can
count on women—as though we are some homogenous group—to vote for her
because she is female.
Hillary's problem is that she is a neo-liberal individualist who
uses her femaleness for her own gain. As such she does not have, nor has
she ever had, a coherent feminist and anti-racist political agenda.
Instead
her silences speak a denial of the significance of gender and race in
everyday life. Barack has begun to challenge her on her silences and
manipulations and her purported claim on women. He is beginning to
articulate a progressive agenda that recognizes single women parents and
their needs and says he is committed to making the changes necessary to
embolden women.
Hillary's problem is not that she is a female running for president but
rather that she is a female running for president who does not make enough
of a difference. She is still Bill's wife and that is not just good
enough
for many of us. Yes, it is true that it is an unfair gender hierarchy of
our society that makes being a wife in this circumstance a deficit. And
women remain overworked in our secondary positions in the labor force
alongside our lesser pay and greater responsibilities for domestic and
consumer realms. But Hillary speaks of none of this. She even pretends
that
we all have forgotten about Monica Lewinsky et al and Hillary's public
humiliation by Bill. One need not be a feminist to resent the way she
turns
her back on women and their rights in Afghanistan and Iraq, or young women
needing an abortion without parental consent here at home, or the un- and
under insured needing health care, or day care by rejecting a single payer
plan.
Hillary acts as though gender is and is not at issue. She says she is not
running because she is a woman, or as a woman, but because she is the best
qualified. And yet her best qualification that she offers as her
experience as first lady. She no longer even tries to appear as though
she
is her own person. She has dropped the Rodham, and promises black voters
in
South Carolina, that if they vote for her it will be like the Clinton
years
again.
Hillary, you should stop saying that any individual can be president and
then also say that you are glad to be the first female to run for
president.
Stop saying that your opponents criticize you not because you are a woman,
but because you are ahead, and then go to Wellesley to mobilize young
female
voters. Stop using your life as first lady as putting you in the know.
Stop
talking about "my husband, Bill". Stop courting women with all the above
while acting tough in your pantsuits.
I do not understand why people, especially the right wing think that
Hillary is a feminist other than she once said she was "no stand by your
man
woman", and that she doesn't bake cookies. But she does stand by her man,
and she tells us she now likes the heat of the kitchen. She says she can
win. She says that "sometimes the best man for the job is a woman" while
promising to win in the "all-boys club of presidential politics".
Hillary keeps bringing up the woman thing and then closes it down. She is
clearly female, but has not come out as a feminist, nor does her record as
first lady bespeak feminism. As first lady she stood by and said nothing
about the crisis of day care in this country, or the misuse of immigrant
women as nanny's, as two women lost their nods at attorney general, and
she
turned her back on Lani Guinier who was nominated and then dropped, to
work
in the civil rights division of the justice department when wrongly
labeled
a quota queen. As first lady there was no loyalty to the issues or the
people related to women's and civil rights.
Barack seems to be gaining against Hillary as he exposes her
so-called experience as too much a part of `politics as usual'. She has
mobilized the formidable Clinton machine, but she still takes second place
to Bill, even though she may be as consequential as he is. No male
candidate for president has the `wife' status to deal with like Hillary
does, but she won't talk about it anyhow. She does not talk straight
about
her life as a woman, or a wife because this exists outside the realm of
her
neo-liberal politics. Chelsea is nowhere to be seen in the campaign and I
assume that this is because Hillary needs to seem manly, rather than
motherly, at least for now.
What is with the pantsuits? We have yet to see Hillary in a skirt.
I don't have a problem with pants, but why all the time, as though they
are
glued to her? When image is everything, why have her handlers chosen this
one? It is as though female bodies are too troublesome in the world of
politics. Instead of bringing her body with her, Hillary seems to be
trying
to hide hers, like a decoy might do. Hillary is and is not female in this
campaign. This duality is her greatest liability. She has chosen to
compromise about the one thing that has no room for compromise:
being honest about the complexity of one's sex and its relationship to
gender and race in this country.
When Hillary was asked in a recent presidential debate about whether she
would appoint only pro-abortion judges when president she refused to
answer
the question and instead said that she supported the right to privacy.
She
only spoke within the vague rubric of privacy rights with no mention of
women or their bodies. Without this clarification, privacy is simply a
universal right, and has no connection to reproductive rights for women.
Roe
v. Wade was decided using privacy rights to defend a woman's right to her
own body. Barack, listen up.
Hillary voted with Rick Santorum and co-sponsored the Workplace Religious
Freedom Act that will allow workers to refuse to perform key aspects of
their jobs—pharmacists could refuse to fill birth control prescriptions or
police officers refuse to guard abortion clinics. Really?
And on the Iraq war? Hillary has been for the war at its start. It took
her a long time to stand critically against the deployment of the war, and
Bush's mistakes and missteps. She refuses to apologize for her initial
support. But this initial vote to authorize the war is less significant
than her continued support, and her unwillingness to speak about fully
ending it. It is clear that the war will continue, even if downsized, if
she is elected. She has stood with Joe Lieberman in singling out Iran
for careful surveillance. Her stance is tough and manly masculinist and
militarist.
Hillary is a cautious follower. She says if she knew then what she
knows now she would have voted differently. But Barbara Lee, voted
against
the war's initiation with the same info that Hillary had. How come Lee
got
it right? And then later Lee sponsored H.R. 2929 to prevent permanent
military bases in Iraq and also denied funding in 2008 for anything other
than costs related to the safe deployment of our troops home. Hillary
continues to play it safe.
Hillary continues to bet on Bill and wrongly identifies this
strategy as though her life with Bill means that she has experience. But,
Hillary is often compared to Michelle rather than Barack; and Barack is
then
pitted against Bill who is now out there stomping for Hillary. This is
not
really quite fair because Hillary has been senator for six years and lived
in the White house for eight. But masculinist and misogynist policies are
not fair. Hillary lives in Bill's shadow despite all else.
She has depended on Bill's donors, and network of advisors. She is managed
by her leading strategist Mark Penn and PR agencies. Advisors in her
entourage have close ties to union busting and telecom and healthcare
industries and pharmaceutical companies.
Hillary wants the woman's vote and yet does not want to risk being
identified as a feminist, or too feminine, or too soft, or too whatever.
So she says too little and does too little to mobilize women. But she
does
not get it. She is a female body in men's clothing. She is a sexual
decoy
who allows her husband to philander and to use other women for sex.
It is unfair that gender—even in its changed and modernized
form--continues to matter in unfair and unjust ways. So Hillary cannot
make
gender irrelevant because it counts too much in the way that political
culture is structured. She can pretend she is running on her own
individual
record and try to cleanse herself of feminist rhetoric and symbolism, and
yet she can't do this successfully because gender politics is bigger than
any one of us. Hillary should trust most women and men to be able to get
this right instead of silencing the very issues that need exposure.
Gender is changing, and Hillary running for president bespeaks that
it is changing, but not necessarily in progressive ways for most women.
So
as more women must labor in their homes, and on the job, and in the
grocery
store, and on the battlefield, etc. they need a presidential candidate
that
recognizes these changes and speaks to the new needs these changes
create: day care, environmental protections, global peace, good schools,
affordable health care. Men and women share these needs even if
differently. So gender is not just about women.
Hillary is similar and different to her male opponents, much like gender
itself. Gender is never simply an either/or option. A November CBS poll
found that Hillary is thought to be the best person for overseeing war as
commander in chief and Barack is found to be more likeable and more likely
to create change. People think Hillary can win the presidency and might
vote for her because of this, but would choose to spend an evening with
Barack, rather than her, if given the choice. So does Hillary act tough so
she isn't seen as too nice, and does she do this because of her fear of
being engendered as too womanly in the campaign? So she de-genders
herself
in order that she not be gendered and the public re-genders her by viewing
her within the man/woman divide. Obama as a black man becomes the
non-threatening male and Hillary as the white woman becomes the
militarized
female. So are men the new women? and women the new men?
Lots of the anti-Hillary foment is misogynist and this makes it tricky to
oppose her. But, by being a female man—her love of power—also makes it
necessary to make clear that vaginas and penises are not what define
gender.
They instead allow for an easy misreading--that the biological sex of any
person supposedly defines and determines their gender and their politics.
But gender is both ossified, as in the way people think about biological
sex
and very fluid and changing as in women are the new men. If Hillary really
ran on the change that Barack speaks of maybe she could win. But she
won't,
and can't, because she is stuck in centrist neo-liberal politics that is
already structurally gendered and raced. So her individualism—as in any
one
can win the presidency in the U.S.—is not working for her because she is
not
enough of a feminist who recognizes the changing terrain of gender and
race.
Hillary hopefully will be unsuccessful in using her female body and
women's
rights rhetoric to camouflage her presidential campaign. Although she
often
does not show respect or compassion for ordinary women like Paula Jones or
young females like Monica Lewinsky she should know that she cannot win
without females of all sorts. Barack, take notice. If you are to be the
change you claim to be you will need to say more about how you are the new
man, without ossifying gender or race. Explain how males, of all colors,
can
be womanly and good for our country.
Barack and Hillary both went to Selma, Alabama near the beginning of this
campaign to connect with the important and difficult civil rights history
of
this country. Barack says he is black enough to know that his roots are
in
Selma; Hillary says that she embraces the struggles that started here.
They
are each supposedly courting the black vote; he as a black man that some
say
is not black enough, she as a (white) woman who is married to Bill who
sometimes has been called our first black president. Whether this
depiction
makes any sense at all will be saved for another day There is gender
switching and that also means racial confusion. Hillary is running as a
white man—experienced and tough-- and Barack is depicted by Hillary as
inexperienced, and by default as a black woman? Yet she is courting the
black woman's vote. But who gets to say what the experience is and what
it
counts for? And Bill is said to be black and Obama is pitted against him
as
not black enough. Meanwhile some black women are said to favor Bill and
worry that Barack would be killed before he would be elected anyway.
Hillary meanwhile promises black women that if they vote for her she will
deliver Bill.
Black women are neither simply black (men) nor (white) women but
simultaneously both black and female. Obama is neither simply black or a
(white) man. Hillary is neither simply white nor a woman. They are each
always both and never simply one or the other. In this sense gender and
race are always being defined and changing. Barack should address this
changing reality as he speaks to the need for change. He need not silence
gender in the fear of giving it to Hillary; nor silence race because he
fears being regendered black.
Much of the election rhetoric aligns Barack with his race; mixed as
it is, but also black given the surround. And Hillary is aligned with her
sex (she is female), and her gender (she is a woman). The usual
race/gender, either/or split is in play: Barack is black and Hillary is a
woman. But actually one could as easily say, that Barack is black and
Hillary is white. Or, that Barack is a man, and Hillary is a woman.
Each one has both a race and gender. He is a black man and she is a white
woman. Each one represents both race and gender. When pundits speak about
either one of these candidates mobilizing the black vote, it needs to be
said that black women are in a really tough spot here. Some of them
embrace
both parts of themselves. They are black women and feel close to Barack
because he is one of them; and Hillary because she too is female. So
Hillary
asks black women's groups to break barriers with her.
She silences the race issue and asks them to identify with her as female.
She says this is an election for breaking barriers and she wants them to
break the gender barrier with her, not Barack. She wants them to be
female
and not black.
Barack needs to speak while embracing race and gender and then he may
mobilize both white women and women of color on behalf of creating racial
and gender equity in this society. Take the real risk here and speak truth
to power. Say you will work for all of us while recognizing that misogyny
and racism make this very hard to do. This is both good politics—white
men
are a minority in comparison to men and women of color and white women—and
a
politics of social justice. As a white female who is an anti-racist
feminist, speak as you say you will, for us all.
For a much fuller accounting of Hillary Clinton's record as well as
discussions of feminisms, race and gender see my books: The Color of
Gender
(University of California Press, 1994); Hatreds: Racialized and Sexualized
Conflicts in the 21st Century (Routledge, 1996); Global
Obscenities: Patriarchy, Capitalism, and the Lure of Cyberfantasy (NYU
Press, 1998); Against Empire; Feminisms, Race and the West (Zed Press,
2004); and Sexual Decoys; Gender, Race and War in Imperial Democracy ,
(Zed
press, 2007).
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