With the primary winding down and many top Hillary Clinton supporters blaming her loss on sexism, the press has turned its collective attention to what Clinton’s campaign will mean for future female candidates. A number of editorial writers – sympathetic to Clinton – have posited that Clinton’s loss has shown that a woman candidate cannot succeed given our media environment. Dahlia Lithwick of Slate uses her usual incisive analysis to shred this line of argument:
They argue that Clinton had a legitimate shot at the presidency only because she represented a once-in-a-lifetime lightening strike of marriage, fame, and experience that is not only unique to her but that will die with her failed nomination. Silva quotes commentators who have argued that “only Clinton, a former first lady in an administration that presided over eight prosperous years and a second-term senator who has established her own credentials, could have achieved the successes she has this year.” Zernike’s experts echo this: “Mrs. Clinton had such an unusual combination of experience and name recognition that she might actually raise the bar for women.” Under this theory, Clinton was never really a strong woman candidate; she was just the lucky one who’d married a future president.
By advancing the argument that no woman will ever win the presidency without the advantages of a Hillary Clinton because only those advantages account for her success, we do more to disrespect her enormous talents than all of the oily misogynists on Fox News. All across the country, in the most unlikely ways and places, Hillary Clinton kicked ass as a woman. Why take that away from her now?
In an amusing coincidence the argument being put forward by Clinton supporters now is based on the same premise that I used as my number four point in my call on Hillary Clinton to withdraw from the race back in January. Kate Stone, among others, called this point “classically sexist“:
According to the writer her success would be based on who she married and what she put up with and how conniving she is. In other words, she is a viper. And it has everything to do with her gender when the writer flatly states that if she wins IT IS A LESSON IN HOW WOMEN GAIN POWER. ((I don’t think Clinton is a viper; and I have never called her conniving, so Kate’s summary of my position is a bit off.))
Now, Clinton’s supporters are saying that her loss proves that our country is too sexist to elect a woman president – and basing this view on how exceptionally positioned Clinton was due to who she married, what she put up with, etcetera.