Although earlier in Hillary Clinton's campaign, there were pathetic remarks made about her being a silly goose for laughing, I wondered at what precise moment the inevitable avalanche of adolescent misogynist sludge would rip free and cement itself for good, and here we have it. "Can Hillary cry her way back to the White House?" and "Clinton turns it around with emotion outburst..." blah blah blah.
There is more than an implication she won New Hampshire last night because of this one scene at an espresso cafe. I listened to commentary from several sources last night, everyone's onboard: the consensus then and this morning seems to be she won because she cried.
Obviously, there are more dynamics beyond that, and if it is rooted in truth, it may not be so dire and grim (the public recognizing and responding to her willingness to be honest and vulnerable; a shared perception and empathy, etc.)
My annoyance is the mindless reduction, the sense of justification: she cried, she won. And like many trivial, small incidents that happen in front of the camera, this has been and will be milked way past dry and stupidly pointed to literally forever now; we cannot get over ourselves because for whatever reason, we're stuck in the particulars of base gender dynamics, like a bunch of whooping, giggling kindergarteners.
When we look at what actually spawned her reaction, it's amazing she had enough restraint to keep from jumping up on that table and kicking the tall skinny lattes across the room; she was talking about her personal high hopes and plans for finally pulling the country out of the clutches of this mad freefall we've been in for 7 years now.
The picture has little to do with the post; I just like it.
2 comments:
Right on. What also occurred to me is that people and the media are always complaining that politicians are so two-dimensional and "trained" for their artificial behavior for photo and video ops. And now when a politician -- a real human being -- shows some emotion, some three-dimensionality, they jump all over her for that. Stupid.
Definite sexism....It reared its ugly head and it was the so-called liberals and progressives that spewed it. --- Like on MSNBC - Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews, Mika Brezenski(her Dad and some other family members are working for Obama). And, Obama himself - one of many examples when he dismissively said "You're likable enough" to Hillary. And Obama's campaigners trashing women and older people--damn! I guess liberalism/progressive politics is for males and ethnic males, not so much for middleaged white women.
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