| I've known a good woman, a few actually. One is my mother, who raised me as well as she could, and I think did fairly well. Another is my grandmother, who raised her to be the self-reliant woman she eventually became in time for my birth. Those are just two, but this fight doesn't dance around the two of them. It dances around someone of another caliber, but made of that same stern stuff.
Her name's Hillary Rodham Clinton and, in case you didn't know, she ran for President this go-round. She did damn well considering she had to do it gagged and blindfolded. Like a good little soldier, all season long, she spouted the party line, she pumped up the masses to see another big "D" in the White House, she embraced those masses, she embodied UNITY-big letters. She did all the things a good Democrat does to be a team player. What she didn't do was play the "good woman."
You see, it's come loudly to my attention that being the good woman now means understanding that being six times as smart as your male opposition is just enough to get in on the ground floor-no higher, mind you, but you're in. I have learned through observation that knowing what you're talking about and being fearless in your knowledge is akin to "being no fun" and "not inspirational at all." And everyone knows being good is all about inspiration. Unless you're a woman named Hillary Rodham Clinton.
For that woman, being good was exactly about knowing her stuff. It was about her knowing her issues and the issues of the common American so well she could debate them in the throes of death. Being good meant she had to have a thick resume and fine record of service. She had that. Her record was comparable to any of those around her and she knew that. She also knew she wasn't nearly so inspirational as the others were capable of being; so she played the wonk instead. She couldn't quite beat a man at his charismatic game, so she beat him on competence. Instead of checking her brain at the door, she brought it to the table. Funnily enough, somewhere along the way she learned how to be inspirational, too. That's not something "good women" do.
In watching her shoot and defend tirelessly day after day, I learned another lesson about women who don't play "good." They engender vitriol from the oddest of sources. You know them, those people who talk for a living, on television and radio, but normally know exactly nothing about which they speak. It's those people who can't stand women like Hillary Rodham Clinton. It's those people-who know so little-- who have the most to say about why it matters not how smart you, or how much you know, or how-in the real world, where people live-how likeable you really are. Because you know, if they have anything to say about you, you've done something right, you've played the good politician and left the "good woman" behind.
Hillary did that this time. She's been doing it for a while actually, most of her life. It started with her making a decision that only she could, a decade ago: she forgave her husband his trespasses against her. Although one would think that her very desire to stand by her man would make her the epitome of the "good woman," the personalities on talk radio and news networks disagreed-and did so loudly, and with sound effects. Apparently, their definition of a good woman was one who allowed the media to determine when her marriage was over and when her family should dissolve. She wouldn't allow that and thus became a "bad woman" and a bad feminist-if a rather shrewd, calculating politician-- in their eyes.
At least twice now, thanks to that female-loving mainstream press, the meme of the "pity politician" has reared its ugly head. That meme states that Hillary Clinton won her Senate seat because New Yorkers pitied her. She won because he cheated. Chris Matthews said it on television and no one worth their salt raised an ounce of hell. She was relegated to the role of the "good woman" then, since, when a woman is slapped down, nobody ever yells.
But she came back, bright and proud, in November 2006 when she won her re-election with 67% of the vote. They may have voted for her the first time because she was wronged, but they voted for her again because she'd done something right. She'd done her job-and a damn sight better than the Democrats she came to run against. She stood tall on that record and they demurred, snarling. Why was she so certain and how dare she ignore me? Oh, she had many reasons to remain above the fray, but one in particular: Hillary Clinton had a promise. It was a promise, a pledge, made by the Democratic Leadership that they would stand behind her. That pledge reached back as far as 2004 when the Democratic field was sparse and uninspiring. They begged, they pleaded for Hillary to run for President in 2004. She refused. She had made a promise as well, this one to her constituents. She hadn't come to the Senate to be President; she had come to be just that, a Senator. And for six years, that's exactly what she was.
2008 finally rolled around and the Democrats found themselves in similar dire straits. There were too many contenders but no sure thing. So, what did they do? They turned to their one sure thing in thirty years, and this one had the name Clinton, too. They begged again, appealing to her sense of Party and Country. She considered it. They promised her everything, a cakewalk, the moon. She weighed her options, convened an exploratory committee, and took them at their word. Like the "good woman," she had trustingly believed their word was any good. That may have been the last time she played the good woman, because she learned pretty quickly that no one was playing the "good man" in return. Most certainly not her competitors and particularly not the leadership that had sworn so very earnestly to support her.
Therefore, she had to play a different part, be a different person than the one who'd been deceived. She played the good pol with the good, hard-working woman underneath and she won the hearts of more voters than any candidate in primary history-but somehow she still "lost" the nomination. Thereafter, calls came left and right for her to be a good sport, for her not to be a sore loser, for her to be gracious in spite of the fact that more people in this country had thrown their lot in with her than had thrown it in with the other guy, but the party leadership had still so brazenly chosen him. The people who had dragged her to the scene turned their backs on her. She was then asked to swallow her pride at her treatment by her opponents, by her party, and by the press in order to put forth the ultimate-united-front. She did it, regardless of having earned the right to do something very different. She was gracious in "defeat."
"Of course," as Bitterpoliticz poster HypeJersey said weeks after Clinton's suspension, "she shouldn't have [had] to be 'gracious.' Women are always expected to be 'gracious' when they win and [when] they lose. Lots of 'gracious' women fill the ranks of assistants to the lackluster men they support."
More and more, as the party moves incontrovertibly towards a fictitious realization of unity, Senator Clinton has become the face of all those 'gracious women,' women smart enough by a dozen measures to do the jobs of the men they bolster-and better. Senator Obama, the man for whom she was passed over, grows more uninspiring and lackluster by the day. He isn't half the man he was expected to be-not a quarter of the 'good man' promised most certainly. Yet, Hillary Clinton, the junior Senator from New York, smiles and stands enthusiastically by, cheering him, playing the "good woman" to a tee.
All it took for her to be the "good woman" was for her to sit down and shut up like they'd always wanted. Accept that no matter infinitely qualified she was that she would never ever be better than any man, even one with only the basest qualifications. All it took was for her to clap at his victory like a trained seal, to allow him to hover over her shoulder as though she needed a ventriloquist to help her speak; to not flinch quite so obviously when the man who was rewarded the position she had earned touched her like he had every right and she had no right to refuse. The "good woman" had to pretend these things didn't bother her to get through this latest injustice. She couldn't accomplish anything by crying, no matter how much she'd earned the breakdown. She couldn't win that way, the politician in her knew. "Good" men had assured that if they had their way, she couldn't win at all, regardless of how she fought.
So, I find that this "good woman" has earned nothing for her fair play and I wonder why I should hope to be similarly rewarded for playing a comparable role. I like to be allowed the victories that I've earned. I like to see my accomplishments noted in historic record when they're worth that much. If I've achieved greatness, I want my greatness; not to be told that I've earned it squarely but that it's being awarded to a lesser being because I was good, just not that good. If being the "good woman," the better woman, means always holding the inadequate man's coat, I don't need the title. I won't carry his coat or his water; I won't do his work and I won't let him take the credit for mine.
Hillary Rodham Clinton is a damned good woman and someday she will make a damned fine president, but I'm not her-I'm not the better woman at all. Even in the unlikely event that she'll feel the sting, I'll continue to say what I want and mean every word.
She may be the better woman, but at least I can speak. |
