Hillary Clinton: The Great Female Hope?

Around the time of the Nevada primary, NPR aired a piece on a well-worn theme in this year’s presidential elections: Hillary Clinton and the women’s vote. The reporter interviewed a group of women gathered in a Vegas coffee shop—voices and the clatter of dishes in the background—some of them still undecided, others clear about their loyalties. The segment ended with this remark from one staunch Hillary Clinton supporter explaining her position: "After all, we women have to stick together."

I asked myself: "Says who?"

The woman’s comment struck me as odd, outmoded sentiments you might have expected from a budding feminist in the 1970’s, not a grown up woman in 2007. In what time capsule had this woman been buried I wondered? Are women still starry-eyed over the symbolism associated with being a female "first"? Women, white women in particular, now claim genuine power and authority in so many arenas. Haven’t we learned that gender alone doesn’t make us any wiser, more honest, nobler or even more deserving of each other’s support or that sisters aren’t always that sisterly? At many times in my life I have gotten more "sisterly" support from my would-be male oppressors. Furthermore, we’ve seen that with equal opportunity comes opportunity to make the same dumb decisions as men. We don’t have to look any further than our own Secretary of State who has been a double disappointment to many of us. Stick with Condi Rice just because she is a woman? I don’t think so.

Women, like men, can also get things terribly wrong. In a January 8th New York Times op-ed piece intended to praise Hillary Clinton and put Obama in his place as an inexperienced upstart, Gloria Steinem reminded readers that Black men were given the vote 50 years before women. I guess her point is that women are always last in line. I was both disappointed and embarrassed for Steinem that that she ignored a very shameful part of American history, the decades of Black voter disenfranchisement that was allowed to continue until the 1965 Voting Rights Act. What about the poll taxes, literacy tests, intimidation and violence that greeted those so called privileged Black men who tried to vote? How many white suffragettes or ordinary women were chased through the streets, beaten and lynched as they made their way to the ballot box?

The presumption that gender is the glue that bonds women together in some kind of powerful and saintly sisterly alliance persists although common sense, history and experience tells us it isn’t necessarily so. Part of the myth is fueled by media assignment editors looking for a story angle and deciding it’s time we do a piece on the women’s vote. But it has also become conventional wisdom that strong, intelligent, independent women think and vote alike. Sometimes we do. Sometimes we don’t.

My husband, an early Hillary fan, was shocked by my lukewarm response to Clinton’s bid for her Senate seat. "How could a woman like you not support her," he asked me repeatedly suggesting that I was a traitor to my gender. His reaction was so strong even I questioned my motives. Was I practicing some modern female version of the crabs in a barrel syndrome? No, there was something else going on. I have always championed women’s hard earned achievements. As a very young woman, I was a proud supporter of Shirley Chisholm and her short lived but historic bid for the Democratic Party’s nomination. I was also excited by Geraldine Ferraro’s stab at the presidency. If California’s Maxine Waters or Barbara Boxer ever decide to throw their hats in the ring, I’ll be right there beside them. Ditto for Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. I am drawn to their votes, their integrity and their mouths. Their personalities excite me. The fact that they are also women makes me proud.

As much as I want to, I just can’t muster that kind of enthusiasm for Hillary. Too much about her confuses me—her handling of the Clinton scandals, financial and otherwise, followed up by the rush to take up New York State residency and then run for the Senate. I applaud Mrs. Clinton for her years of work on universal health care. Yet, I was dismayed at her early votes supporting the President’s bogus war efforts – votes cast after her "years of White House experience." It seemed more the politically correct thing to do at the time rather than the right thing to do.

I, like most women I know, identify more with the substance of the candidate rather than the symbolic significance of his or her race or gender. John Edwards, whose White southern drawl gives my mother goose bumps, garners unwavering support from my Black progressive friends of both genders. He consistently hammers away at what has become the four letter word among campaign issues: poverty. All of us are still mourning his decision to bow out of the race.

But Edwards was lacking in those hard to define leadership qualities. That’s why for many of us Barack Obama has become "the man," the one candidate who can reach across domestic and international political boundaries and bridge the divides that keep us stuck. As for Hillary Clinton, I don’t know any woman of any race rushing to embrace her as "my girl." Even long time fans of her husband don’t want to see him back in the White House. No more sons, spouses or daughters riding into the Oval office on the coattails of a former occupant. Americans are hungry for a new script. For the Clinton’s not to get that is troublesome.

Of course if Obama doesn’t get the nomination, I will work my butt off to support a Hillary Clinton candidacy. My concern is that for whatever reason she polarizes many voters as much as she inspires others, and that’s no way to assure the Democrats victory in November. One very smart New York City woman I know, a mother in her 40s with two small children and who happens to be Jewish, traditionally votes Democrat. She says that if Barack doesn’t get the nomination she will just have to go with McCain. John McCain? That stuns and scares me. But I bet she’s not alone.

What may be happening is that more of us are choosing sides for reasons other than demographics and even party affiliation. This suggests that the election of 2008 may prove to be not just a pivotal turning point in our political history, but a significant shift in our views of each other and our political alliances. The immense support garnered by Obama in Iowa was the first glaring sign of that shift. Just maybe we’re thinking less in terms of Black and White, male and female, Christian and Jew, blue state and red state, and instead focusing on the policies and practices that really matter to us. Among Democrats, Independents and moderate Republicans—God only knows what’s going on within the GOP’s conservative wing—the tired old labels may not matter as much as what lies beneath. For those of us who happen to be Black and female, it’s all very liberating. It feels good to be able to climb out of that bloc we’re supposed to be in and check off some different boxes.