Women in Power

16     The nutcracker, absurd as it is, manages to sum up the ways in which both Rodham Clinton's supporters and detractors view her. In an interview with the New York Post Gibson Carothers, one of the product developers, said that the device bridges political divides. The appeal, he said, is that the nutcracker highlights the candidate's dual public persona, asking "does it represent the pushy, polarizing Hillary or the tough Hillary that [sic] can handle a right-wing nut?" (Venezia 003). It is a fascinating representation, one that has served to sum up Rodham Clinton for years, and one that has been applied to all overtly ambitious women. One the one hand, the nutcracker represents the ambitious, modern woman who is not afraid to "crack a few nuts" — behavior practiced by men for ages — in order to get what she wants and/or deserves. On the other hand, women who are this openly ambitious are seen as dangerous to men in particular and threatening to the patriarchy in general. They are viewed as "ball breakers" who manage to at once elicit respect from women (why does Hillary get to have all the fun?), fear from men (who "feel the squeeze"), and derision from both, for ultimately many feel that such behavior is unseemly ("pushy and polarizing").

17     Of course, Rodham Clinton has always been accused of being too manly, and in this presidential race, her party rivals are utilizing that stereotype in fascinating ways. Amazingly, for the first time in U.S. history, the question being asked is "Who is woman enough to be President?" In an effort to secure female voters, Democratic candidates are seemingly trying to "out-woman" each other. While Rodham Clinton has always tried to soften her image, she still comes across as tougher than her chief rivals Barack Obama and John Edwards, both of whom frequently display their softer sides in public. This particular question came to a head in July 2007, when Joan Walsh of Salon.com interviewed Elizabeth Edwards, wife of candidate John Edwards. Walsh asked Edwards if she ever felt conflicted about supporting her husband against two historical American candidates, an African-American man and a woman. She responded by saying that she is not in the least conflicted and stated further that "I think one of the things that make [sic] me so completely comfortable with [supporting my husband] is that keeping that door open to women is actually more a policy of John's than Hillary's" (Walsh). This quote alone would have been enough to fuel media fires, but Edwards continued on in language that seemed to reinforce the persistent gender stereotypes that have for so long been applied to Rodham Clinton:

Look, I'm sympathetic, because when I worked as a lawyer, I was the only woman in these rooms, too, and you want to reassure them you're as good as a man. And sometimes you feel you have to behave as a man and not talk about women's issues. I'm sympathetic — she wants to be commander in chief. But she's just not as vocal a women's advocate as I want to see. (Walsh)

18     Edwards, in drawing this distinction, managed to cut to the heart of Rodham Clinton's "woman problem," as Anna Quindlen so succinctly puts it (74). In a commentary in Newsweek she summed up the feelings of many female voters when she wrote that

when we imagined a woman president we imagined a new day, a new strategy, a new vision and new tactics [. . .] but with Senator Clinton's candidacy, the brand new is the same old, revolution and throwback simultaneously. She has been part of the political scene for so long that an entire generation of girls have grown up never knowing a world without Hillary, front and center. The fantasy was that the first woman president would be someone who would turn the whole lousy system inside out and upside down. Instead the first significant woman contender is someone who seems to have the system down to a fine art. (74)

Though she currently enjoys the highest percentage of female voter support among the Democratic candidates, many women still either distrust or dislike her. Elisabeth Bumiller noted in a New York Times piece reflecting upon Rodham Clinton's Senate race in 2000 that it is "a truism of Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign that the candidate inspired ambivalence, resentment, and even loathing among women, the very group that should have been her base" (5). As Edwards's comment illustrates, this is still an issue seven years later. Men have always dominated politics and the law. To succeed in such careers, women have had to be tough ("bitchy") to get a seat at the table and to work towards breaking that infamous glass ceiling. The tough tactics that they have to employ to get ahead professionally sometimes seem to define their personal lives as well, causing resentment among other women who feel that they are unable to separate their identities as women from their identities as professionals. The article goes on to quote Gloria Steinem, who famously stated, "I think women can tell the difference between their personal feelings and their political welfare" (qtd. in Bumiller 5). Progressive female voters have used Steinem's comment to justify supporting Rodham Clinton even though they may dislike her persona or disagree with her personal decisions. Edwards's comment to Joan Walsh, though, complicates the matter for conflicted female voters who are torn between voting for the woman who may be the first female president and voting for a candidate they actually support and like. She deftly threw doubt on Steinem's assertion by explicitly stating that Rodham Clinton in fact does not have the interests of female voters at heart. American women, who have embraced Edwards for her warmth, openness, and refined toughness, have new reason to second guess Rodham Clinton, as a woman and as a candidate.

19     The quote naturally garnered immediate attention. ABC News noted that "a striking gender role reversal on the campaign trail has taken place. Clinton is seen by many as the tough one politically and stylistically, while Obama and Edwards are openly emoting, often about the trials of spending time away from family" ("Who's Woman"). Edwards's comment was quickly recast into the favored terms of this particular stereotype, and she was accused by some of calling Rodham Clinton a "man." Salon.com ran an article entitled "Hillary is from Mars, Obama is from Venus" in which Michael Scherer wrote that "on the Democratic campaign trail these days [. . .] gender roles are being swapped [. . .]. Hillary Clinton has run her campaign with all the muscular vision and authority of the macho candidates of yesteryear" ("Hillary"). Scherer went on to quote an Obama supporter who summed up the issue succinctly: "Obama is the female candidate. Obama is the woman [. . .]. He is the warm candidate, self-deprecating, soft, tender, sad eyes, great smile [. . .]. [Rodham Clinton] is the male candidate — in your face, authoritative, know-it-all" (qtd. in "Hillary"). The responses his article received, many of them criticizing him for making gender an issue in the campaign, prompted him to respond in part by issuing the clarification that "Hillary Clinton is not a man" (Scherer, "Dear Readers").

20     In his clarification Scherer went on to raise some interesting questions about gender in the campaign, and about the ways his readers reacted to the discussion of this supposed swapping of gender roles:

Many critics said that discussions of gender roles on the campaign trail are too superficial to warrant space in a serious publication [. . .] [but] gender roles are still enormously important in politics, as I also tried to explain in the piece. No one seems to doubt this. Many of my critics point out that Republicans have had some success in recent years attacking Democrats as unmanly [. . .]. This all raises an interesting question, which I did not discuss in the original article, but which most of my critics raise. Is it possible to describe these gender-bending roles, or the concept of gender in politics at all, without playing into the hands of the Republican attack machine? Do Ann Coulter, who hurls gay slurs at John Edwards, and Rush Limbaugh, who decries daily the wussification of America, have a monopoly on this discussion? ("Dear Readers")