NYT: Women’s Support for Clinton Rises in Wake of Perceived Sexism

By JODI KANTOR
Published: January 10, 2008

If the race wasn’t about gender already, it certainly is now.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton has been running for president for nearly a year. But in the past week, women in Iowa mostly rejected her, a few days before women in New Hampshire embraced her. All over the country, viewers scrutinized coverage for signs of chauvinism in the race, and many said they found dismaying examples.

Even Democratic women with no intention of voting for Mrs. Clinton found themselves drawn into the debate and shaken by what briefly seemed like a humiliating end to the most promising female candidacy in American history.

The process seems to have changed a few minds, at least for now.

“I was really pained by the thought that her campaign really was over,” said Amy Rees, a stay-at-home mother in San Francisco who will vote in the California Democratic primary on Feb. 5. “I kept thinking that the truth is, a woman — even a woman of her unquestioned intelligence and preparedness — can’t get even a single primary win. It really stung.”

Ms. Rees had favored Senator Barack Obama of Illinois; now she is thinking of voting for Mrs. Clinton.

...By losing the first presidential contest, Mrs. Clinton may have succeeded in getting more women to see her as she presents herself: not a dominant figure of power, but a woman trying to break what she has called “the highest and hardest glass ceiling" in America.

“I do want Hillary Rodham Clinton to take the White House, but until she lost Iowa, I didn’t realize how much, or how much it had to do with her being a woman,” said Allison Smith-Estelle, 37, director of a program against domestic violence in Red Lodge, Mont.

What bothered them as much as the Iowa results, said several dozen women in states with coming primaries, was the gleeful reaction to her defeat and what seemed like unfair jabs in the final moments before the New Hampshire voting...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/10/us/politics/10women.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

been started yet. :evilgrin:

"Gee drill sergeant, I think you are being mean to me because I'm a woman. Waaaa!" :crazy:

nationally.

The Rethugs will attack her in sexist ways because they can't help themselves. But all the attacks, all the hate, will create a backlash in Democratic and Independent women which will more than make up for any Democratic male voters who decide to stay home.

In New York state, she pulled in an amazing 75% of the women's vote, winning among independent women across the state. Since women comprise 53% of the electorate, that gave her an overall vote of more than 60%.

They thought, because of Iowa, the women's vote wasn't going to be a factor.

They were wrong, obviously.

I'm glad women are finally speaking out about this issue, the undertones of sexism in this whole race. It's there and it's real and now it's having an effect on the voting.

If Obama and Edwards are smart, they will distance themselves from this as much as possible. I don't think anyone has an issue with criticism of her policies but when it gets personal... it's starting to backlash.

I really don't care one way or the other about her special moment, but I do care that she in the same breath, the very next sentence, launched into a hit on Obama. This tidbit was clipped by the Media Heathers and not shown in its entirety, and for good reason. It would have shown without a doubt she was in full-tilt campaign mode. No attack, just an observation. Kudos to Keith Olbermann for keeping it real and people here at DU honest.

And all those women who voted for her, are they also mindlessly being manipulated by Hillary?

Or maybe they *really want a woman in the White House*.

Or maybe they *see the bullshit double-standards she is being held to.*

Go ahead, diss the voters, diss Hillary some more, it's working for her.

Is "Media Heathers" a reference to the film and the cattiness of the main characters? Does it have another meaning? Sorry. Kind of dense here.

and manipulation of info for dramatic effect

an homage to the movie

Those Media Heathers were proclaiming her dead in the water and dancing on her grave and making her slightly misty eyed moment her Dean Scream.

Now, they wanted her to win all along.

If you watch the video of Hillary's "emotional moment" you will see that she tried to use it as a Trojan Horse for launching an attack on the other candidates in general, and Obama in particular.

"Some of us are right and some of us are wrong. Some of us are ready and some of us are not."

If Hillary was genuinely having an emotional moment that was not pre-planned, why would she say something like that?

How insufferably idiotic AND DEMEANING TO THE HUMANITY OF WOMEN these "theories" are.

when I see all those beautiful young Marines with "tramatic brain injury" being led around like pre-school children on an outing. It's so much more understandable that a woman who voted to send our brave youth off to "kill and die" for NO FUCKING REASON, weep because that mean ole black man hurt her feelings and she may not be cornonated Queen. Yes, why should HRC give a shit about our military being maimed and killed, much less weep over such *substance* when Chelsea is safely making six figures in "Hedge Funds" and will not ever be a woman Military Police soldier patrolling the streets of Baghdad. :puke:

This is below contemptible and I must extract myself - if "the women" of America fall for this "Penelopy Pittstop stunt," then God help us. As a Nation, we're seriously screwed into perpetual warmongering with a side of fascism. :crazy:

And I don't base my vote on the genitalia of the candidate, but hey, that's me.

Me, I'm a woman and I'm black and I would be extremely pleased if for once in our 200 plus year history as a nation, we didn't have a WHITE MALE running this country.

Call me superficial but I think it still matters in a sexist, racist country.

Unless all the white guys running things was just a fluke.

Condi Rice isn't running.

lol, yes that might be it.

You simply assume it's there.

So stop deceiving yourself.

When you assume, you make an ass of you and me.

But no. You've never voted for a female president.

And maybe you never will.

Is that what they mean? That despicable behavior that the supporter of every male candidate seemed utterly unable to resist? You mean somebody besides me noticed?

:eyes:

How about this for SPIN: "How dare we let that mean ole black man talk nasty to our sweet white lady?!?"

Yeah, it's beyond time to stop with the hyperbole because there's FAR MORE "Non Edith Bunker" types who see though this DLC Smear Campaign. :thumbsdown:

If HRC can't take the heat as the front runner she needs to concede now.

What SHOULD make HRC cry is not her self-serving fears of not being Queen, but tears of *genuine SORROW* when she looks into the eyes of all the young men and women who have been permanently scared by "Traumatic Brain Injury."

Mark this former active duty army WOMAN as even more anti-Clintonian due to HRC's continuing portrayal of "perpetual victim hood." :thumbsdown:

Thank you for putting it like that,
because frankly
that's the undertone *I* got
beneath all the bullshit.

It's easy to dispel the shameless spin. We, in the Obama camp could claim the above which may have one small shred of validity to it, but it's moot. Once you've reached the top and are "a condender" buck-up because you will be repeatedly attacked.

That's not sexist/racist, that's politics. :shrug:

This way, it's just a placard advertising cluelessness. You don't know who you're talking to because you think you have us all figured out. And dismissed.

Good luck with that.

chalk full of DLC cronies and insiders. It goes with a Clintonian third term. :shrug:

You wanna put it like that? GO FOR IT! Let people know that unity is the last thing you have in mind and none of the "change" is going to be any kind of comfort.

And comfort yourself in the belief that only mindless robots could ever think differently than you.

If you're in the mood for a race war, your candidate might as well withdraw tomorrow, because you will destroy him.

"Non Edith Bunker" types? That's YOU? But me, I'M "Edith Bunker"? The woman who ran around in an apron and a high-pitched voice doing whatever Archie wanted? That's ME? Because I've decided I want a woman running this country?

That's...almost suicidally contemptuous. Not to mention lacking even basic perception.

Well, I'm sure you'll convert many to your candidate. And I look forward to your efforts.

but also essentially "a doormat" to her husband. Yes, she's very warm and likeable but TRUSTING, often to her own detriment. :shrug:

I would LOVE to have a woman running this country. I have a teenage daughter who is testing for her second degree black belt, but not THIS woman.

Hillary is the anti-feminist: She wore her husband's rank while he was President and parasitically latched-on to his power base in order to secure the NY Senate Seat.

She's not a woman who worked her way up. She's the bosses wife who ran roughshod over his staff and now, she wants it all.

I am a long time hard-core feminist and I love women striving and achieving anything they aspire to be. However, women who intimately get involved in their husband's power base and who take it on themselves to "personally intimidate" his lover's ex-lovers, is someone whose character is highly suspect. :thumbsdown:

It's not HRC's gender, but person and behavior that I do not hold in high regard.

Simply put, I do not trust her. :shrug:

to see Mr. Obama tell Mrs. Clinton she was “likable enough” in a Democratic debate on Saturday. Ms. Six said she found the line condescending, and an echo of other unkind remarks by other men about women over the years."

So full of himself and his victorious contempt for her.

didn't even lift his head as he said it. It wasn't only what he said that was so full of arrogance and hatred, it was also how he said it.

Plus, I saw within another thread that someone needs to teach Michelle Obama how to "dance WHITE."

To Ms. Obama: Please remember that "the caucasion clap" is a much best move so as not to be mis-interpreted as too ... well "ethnic" :crazy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HiuCaaQhxg&watch_response

No, I may not have the "paid off" strategists of the M$M, but what the hell ... it cuts both ways.

"OK EVERYBODY listen up! Let's all now do "The Cracker Squirm?" :rofl:

<whispering> And his wife dances sort of ethnic. Some one should tell the poor dear to always opt for "the caucasion clap" at the end of each campaign. It's less likely to be interpreted as ... well *savage.* :crazy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HiuCaaQhxg&watch_response

Why should anyone feel sorry for her for not getting a free ride to the white house?

Her loss in Iowa had nothing to do with her being a woman.

Deciding between baby squash and carrots as a side dish at state dinners, you deserve at least some kind of "free ride", correct?

and continues to depend on an identity politics-based appeal to symbolic change. It's thin and it has an air of illegitmacy to it.

look up the statistics. I got over that crap a long time ago. Crying rarely works on me anymore. And I am a woman.

:eyes: