who is a Bad Feminist?

[ironymaiden]

i don't love Hillary Clinton.

i think it started with her name.

When she came to me and said she wanted to change, I could see in her eyes that she had made the decision to do it. And I said, “I do not want you resenting me. I would a lot rather lose the election than lose you.” She said, “I’m not going anywhere.” I said, “I know, but I don’t want you to resent this for the rest of your life. You made this decision when you were a child. I like it. I approve of the decision. I don’t care about it.” And she said, “Look, Bill, we cannot—this is stupid! We shouldn’t lose the election over this issue. We shouldn’t run this risk. What if it’s one per cent of the vote? What if it’s two per cent? You might win or lose the election by two per cent.”

i remembered this as being something that happened when Bill was running for president. it actually happened when i was in elementary school.

1. in 1992 she was getting picked at for something she had done ten years before, and that something was in response to some loser who couldn't find something more substantial on her husband.


2. she was willing to give up her identity for a lousy 2%.

item 1 is part of the treatment she gets as an uppity woman.
item 2 is how her political brain works.

i don't like how her political brain works.

i'm aware that the media is ridiculously hard on her. i know that there are shitheads in both parties that openly use gendered slurs in addition to the dogwhistles. that's all wrong, and i call people on it whenever i can.

i've spent a lot of time checking myself about this. i'm aware of my internalized misogyny and the various ways that it manifests.

so i've done the work. i've compared the actual votes and i've read policy statements and i've taken the various platform tests where statements aren't attributed until the end and there are several places where i genuinely don't agree with her.

i can tell that many women in my life are Disappointed With Me. i'm sorry. i'm not rejecting you. i'm rejecting the Patriot Act and the Iraq War and doing anything to win.

***

no one on the Republican side this time is remotely acceptable. of course i'll vote for her if she's the nominee.

Comments

[peartreealley.livejournal.com]

Basically, yes. Everything you said.

[varina8.livejournal.com]

Thank you for posting this. I've taken flak from some of my contemporaries, including those in my family. They want to see a woman in the White House within their lifetime. I get it. But gender is not enough. Like you, I'll vote for her if she's the Dems' nominee, still she is not my candidate, because of the Patriot Act, Iraq and her close relationship with Wall Street.

[ironymaiden]

that's the worst thing. i feel like support for her among women is intensely personal, and the closer one is to her age, the more personal the rejection becomes.

i try to keep her candidacy separate from her husband's presidency. but i do wonder: i know there are a lot of people who remember the Clinton years as an awesome time to be a Democrat. in the 90s i was into the 3rd party movement - i missed the '92 election age cutoff by a few weeks, and in '96 i voted Reform as part of an effort to cross the threshold to get government elections funding. so i never voted for Bill and never felt any ownership there.

[varina8.livejournal.com]

I voted for Bill twice. The first time passionately, the second time more as a vote against the sea change in Congress than anything else.

Absolutely on your comment about the personal nature of the rejection for older women. I've seen some surprisingly hot discussion break out among women I never thought of as emotionally invested in any of it.

[ivy]

Yeah, I go back and forth on this... I think I voted for Bill as well, but I'm not sure I didn't go Green. (I was too young in '92, but was eligible in '96.) Still disappointed that there aren't more viable third parties, I pick them for local elections when I like their candidates. But I'm cautiously optimistic about Bernie Sanders... he does a lot of things that I like, and if he walks his talk I think I'd really like a President Sanders. (It's only cautiously optimistic because I was wildly enthusiastic about first-term President Obama, voted for him with a resounding "Yes We Can!", and then was crushed when he continued a lot of the Bush era foreign policy/surveillance state/use of executive orders that he had campaigned on ending. Harder to take when you feel someone does know better and understands, and then does the thing you don't want despite it. So I'm not sure that getting the job doesn't change people, and it would take a lot for me to be that optimistic again.)

My mother is furious with me that I do not intend to vote for Hillary. Mom's volunteering for her campaign.