I'm sure most of you have already heard that Democratic Presidential Nominee Hillary Clinton had what appeared to be an emotional moment yesterday while taking questions from a group of citizens in New Hampshire.My question to you is; what if Barack Obama or John Edwards had a moment in which they appeared to cry, would the reaction be different for them? What do you think the media would be saying?
Is Hillary getting a pass on the crying incident because she's a woman?
10 comments:
No pass from me. I put her on blast on my blog. It pissed me off. If there is a version of the "woman card" - crying in public is it! That just won't do! Cry when you quit, cry when you're thanking your supporters, but don't cry because you're feeling the heat! If Obama got all weepy begging black folk to vote for him, people would go crazy. You can't have your cake and eat it too!
I think that the issue had less to do with gender and more to do with presidential politics. Sen. Edmund Muskie failed in his efforts to become president in 1972 when he had a little cry during the campaign.
Hillary faces a repeat of history.
At least that is the spin that I gave it on my blog.
peace, Villager
I may be cynical, but I bet Hillary's been working with Hillary Swank since her loss in Iowa to hit her mark on that particular scene. It really rubbed me the wrong way.
After an incident in which 2 protesters screamed "Iron My Shirt" as a sexist way of saying that women belong in the kitchen, I think this incident is nullified. I don't give her a pass because she cried, but I find it interesting that when a presidential candidate expresses emotion, it's like the person loses points instead of gains them. Hmm.
I don't think Hillary is getting a pass. Not even a little bit. All the comments (news and blogs) I've heard about it are negative. Most are saying that either it was calculated, or that she had a WEAK moment. Either way it didn't do a thing for her.
That teary moment might just be her equivalent of the Howard Dean scream.
I think politically it was a dumb move - calculated or not. And that's kind of a sad thing.
One of the ways that I think traditional feminism has failed us is that it made being a woman - and doing things that women do - seem wrong and elevated male behavior to something women should aspire to.
Crying is not weak. And it saddens me that it's still perceived as being so. But the reality is that's how people see it and most people who fear women in positions of power do so because they think that women are prone to being overly emotional and unpredictable.
It's "glass ceiling 101" to never let them see you cry, and as determined and shrewd as Hillary is, she should have known better. But she did it anyway - go figure.
And of course Obama and Edwards would get it worse if they'd done the same thing. People would perceive that they were "acting like a woman" and of course, you know, there's nothing worse than that.
I think the weepiness was genuine, but it still turned me off. It just didn't seem 'presidential'.
But since you made me actually imagine how I would feel if Barack welled up about talking about America, I think I could end up being touched by it. So there could be a little internalized sexism going on inside of me there. I'll have to fix that.
I have, on two occasions, gone to the restroom at work and silently cried in the stall, then I put Visine in my eyes and then came back and blasted everybody I need to blast in the boardroom in a businesslike manner.
So I guess I felt Hillary let women like me down by showing weakness in public.
Professsor Tracey,
I agree with you. I think Hill is getting desperate.
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Villager,
I don't know, I think she was trying to snare the woman’s vote by using her gender.
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Mango Mama,
Lol, It bothered me too. And I am cynical.
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Jose,
That "Iron my shirt" routine may have been staged, at least that's the buzz about that.
That slogan, if you will, has been around a long time in feminist politics as a way of stirring women up.
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FL,
I agree that part of the feminist movement did go awry. Women ought to be able to be women. But Hillary has set the stage by trying to show her toughness, so if that's not working she cries?
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SheCodes,
I have to respectfully disagree; I think everything politicians do on this level is staged.
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I am the eternal optimist, perhaps to a fault, and so I tend to take people at face value, politician or not, until they give me reason to perceive them otherwise. I assumed that when Hillary teared up, that it was truly the emotion she was feeling and nothing contrived. I am relatively unbiased in my opinions about the candidates as I am not American and therefore not allowed to vote. Obviously, because I live in the US, I have opinions about them all, but I hope that we haven't reached the point where politicians are viewed as inhuman and so therefore a)they are not allowed to have real feelings and b) they are not allowed to show them. To me, there is nothing "un"presidential about that, but being nothing but a robotic presence is.
Jackie,
I wish I had your optimism when it came to politicians. Unfortunately so much of what I have seen in the past from them and thought to be honest, I later learned was staged for the effect.
But I agree that politicians ought to be allowed to be human and express human emotion.
TFN,
I saw and read quite a few sympathetic pieces in the MSM regarding her crying episode.
But you're right she did catch heck from lots of other places.
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