Nazi Feminists Barking: Women Don't Trust Hitlary
Patriot Games
Feminists: Women Don't Trust Hillary
Hillary Clinton enjoyed staunch support from feminists when she was first
lady, but now as a presidential candidate she's being increasingly
criticized by left-leaning women.
"Women don't trust Hillary. They see her as an opportunist. Many feel
betrayed by her," Susan Douglas wrote in an In These Times article titled
"Why Women Hate Hillary."
Clinton does have strong support from women in general, with 42 percent of
likely women voters in the Democratic primaries choosing Hillary in a recent
Zogby poll, more than twice the 19 percent garnered by No. 2 candidate
Barack Obama.
But "Hillary has a 'feminist problem,' and more so with those who lean
left," an article in the liberal publication The Nation observes.
Here's a sampling of what some feminists have been saying about Hillary,
according to the Nation article, which also appeared on the liberal AlterNet
Web site:
Writer Nora Ephron, at one time a gushing admirer of Hillary, late last year
wrote in the Huffington Post that she is among those who believe Hillary
"will do anything to win, who believe she doesn't really take a position
unless it's completely safe, who believe she has taken the concept of
triangulation and pushed it to a geometric level never achieved by anyone
including her own husband, who can't stand her position on the war, who don't
trust her as far as you can spit."
Lisa Jervis, founder of Bitch magazine, wrote: "Having a woman in the White
House won't necessarily do a damn thing for progressive feminism."
Jen Moseley expressed a similar view on the blog Feministing: "As women sign
up to work with anyone but Senator Clinton, of course, they're being asked
why . They're all giving the same answer. Being a woman does not get you the
automatic support of women."
Jaclyn Friedman, director of the Center For New Words program, wrote:
"Hillary's not my friend. She's not actually progressive. The fact that she's
a woman is an unfortunate red herring."
Laura Liswood, co-founder of the White House Project, which seeks to promote
women for public office, wrote that women should vote their politics and not
their gender "if the choice is between a woman who doesn't represent you at
all and a man who does."
Ruth Mandel, director of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers
University, said rather than a progressive, Hillary "is a centrist. She is a
political pragmatist in the most solid American tradition."
Jane Fonda called Clinton "a ventriloquist for the patriarchy with a skirt."
And Anna Quindlen wrote in Newsweek: "The fantasy was that the first woman
president would be someone who would turn the whole lousy system inside out
and upside down. Instead the first significant woman contender is someone
who seems to have the system down to a fine art."