A lot of people, mostly men, just don't seem to understand why so many of us, and we are not all women, are so upset about the treatment of Hillary Clinton. It is not just because she lost, although of course many - myself included - wanted her to win. Nor are we suggesting, as some commentators have speciously suggested, she lost because she is a woman.
She lost because of serious mistakes in her campaign and because she allowed herself to be outmanoeuvred by the unexpected star candidacy of Barack Obama. What we are upset about is the way the American (and much of the Australian) media became foot soldiers for the Obama campaign in vicious, hate-filled and often gender-directed coverage that denigrated and damaged Clinton's candidacy.
Rather than being congratulated as the most successful woman in American political history, she has been scarified for not leaving the race sooner. In previous contests, second placegetters Ted Kennedy, Gary Hart, Jesse Jackson and Jerry Brown all stayed in the race until the very end, longer than Clinton, but were never subjected to a similar pelting. In fact, the pressure on Clinton to be a good girl and get out of Obama's way started back in March and continued unabated despite her winning nine of the 16 contests since then.
She could not take a trick with a virtually unanimous media putting the most negative spin on her every utterance. She was accused of being manipulative for crying, of "pimping" her daughter by having her on the campaign, for denying her gender by wearing pants suits and of being racist for simply pointing out the fact that millions of white people had voted for her.
She had to endure one male television commentator calling her a "she-devil", another stating she reminded him of "everyone's first wife standing outside probate court"; one who found her "castrating, overbearing and scary" while another fine specimen of the American punditocracy said, "When she comes on television … I involuntarily cross my legs."
None of these comments go to her policies or her political skills. They are outright misogyny. They infuriated fair-minded people who have been distressed at the way sexism has become a political weapon in a way we've never seen before - and which Obama did nothing to discourage.
Clinton ran a flawed race. From being the presumptive candidate in January, she found herself outpaced by Obama with his strategy of positioning himself as the candidate for change, of going to the grassroots and winning caucuses and by tapping millions of individuals for small donations on the internet.
( from a Hillary fan )
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